Gathering her in my arms, I stood up. Carefully, I deposited her on the other end of the sofa where she immediately tucked her legs underneath that luscious body and looked at me reproachfully.
I moved to the fire, trying to get control of myself. I had to do the right thing here. Not for me, for Cara. She deserved so much more than I could give her.
When I had my libido in check, I turned back to her injured eyes. “I want to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For kissing you like that.” Among other things.
She was silent for a moment. “You don’t get to apologize for doing something I wanted, too.”
“Nevertheless, I’m sorry.”
“If you want to apologize for something, apologize for stopping,” she snapped. Then she froze and closed her eyes briefly. When she continued, it was in a quieter voice. “Actually, I don’t want an apology for that, either. I just want an explanation.”
I’d calmed down enough to sit back on the sofa, careful to leave several feet of space between us. “It isn’t right.”
“Why?”
“Because it can’t go anywhere. That part of my life is over.”
Cara hugged her legs to her chest, and I tried not to think about how it had felt to have those thighs straddling me before. “You can’t—you shouldn’t analyze the entire future during a first kiss. By definition, no one knows what will happen after a first kiss.”
“Had a lot of experience with first kisses, have you?” My voice was gruff at the thought.
“I’ve had a few. None were like that.” Her simple and sincere words hit me like a blow to the stomach. “A few led nowhere. One lead to a relationship. My point is, you can’t know.”
“But I do know. I know our situations. You’re leaving in August. I’m tied down here. There’s no possible future.”
“But I’m here now. Can’t we just… can’t we enjoy each other’s company?”
“Like friends with benefits?”
“Well—”
“Like fuck-buddies?” I was being deliberately crude, but I needed to be harsh, to convince her that what I knew in my gut was the right thing to do. And maybe also to convince myself. “Is that really what you want?”
She sighed. “No. But if we just tried, maybe we could… I mean, no one can truly know the future.”
“I can. I’m not in the same position as you, Cara. My path in life was assigned the day I was born. My place is here.”
“But I’m here, too.” She leaned forward, and I turned away. If she touched me now, all my resolve would be lost. “I’m here for months. Can’t we just see what happens?”
“I know what will happen.”
Cara let out a frustrated huff of air. “I don’t see why you’re willing to sacrifice being happy in the present for something that might happen in the future.”
“There’s no might. We can’t be together, so this would just be casual sex. Can you honestly tell me that’s what you want?”
“Maybe, if that’s all I can get—”
“No.” The word came out more sharply than I intended. “It’s not enough. Not enough for me, and it definitely shouldn’t be enough for you. Good god, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Don’t waste time on someone who can’t give you what you deserve.”
“This is ridiculous.” My anger seemed to have made her more determined. “You can’t know, with one hundred percent certainty, what the future holds. Maybe I could delay graduate school until January.”
“Cara—” There was no way I'd let her put her life on hold for something that could never be.
“Or I’ll go home and then come back during breaks. And when you visit Blake and Penny, you can come see me. I bet I’d be the only student whose boyfriend showed up with bodyguards.”
“No!” My word came in a rush. I had to make her understand. “None of that’s going to happen. My life is here. This palace, my business, my duty to the state, and my kids… they’re all I’ve got. There’s nothing in the US for me now.”
“But you lived there nearly half your life,” Cara said, puzzled.
“And the day my wife died, I vowed never to return. It’s your home. Your sister’s there. You’ll go to school and get a job there. Your whole life is in a country I’ll never set foot in again.”
Shock spread across Cara’s face making my guilt increase. Every word I’d said to her was true, but I hadn’t wanted to tell her that. I shouldn’t have let it get this far.
When I spoke, I tried to sound gentle. “So you see… there couldn’t be anything between us because there’s no future for us.”
Cara looked so small, gripping her knees tightly, practically curled up into a ball. “There may be no future, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be a present.”
She had no idea how tempting that thought was to me, but I had to hold firm. “We shouldn’t start something that can’t go anywhere. You deserve more.”
“Why don’t you let me decide what I need?”
“Because I won’t be the man who keeps you from what you could be. From the kind of amazing relationship you could have.”
“That’s it then, isn’t it?”
I didn’t know what she meant, so I just watched her as she unfolded her legs and sat up straight. “That’s the magic word. You say we can’t and I can argue with you. You say we shouldn’t and it’s the same thing. But when you say I won’t… well, what the hell am I supposed to do about that? I can’t make you do something you don’t want to. And I certainly can't convince you that there’s always hope, no matter how small.”
She stood up, and I did as well. “Cara—”
“No, don’t.” She held up a hand to silence me. “You’ve made your choice, and apparently I don’t get one. So I guess all that’s left to say is thank you for the Scotch.” She walked to the door on shaky legs.
“Cara, wait—”
“Good night, Nico.”
I waited until the door closed behind her before I picked up my glass and hurled it against the wall.
Fuck.
The last thing I’d wanted to do was to hurt her.
18
Cara
A week had passed since that night in the prince’s study. A very, very long week during which it quickly became clear he was avoiding me. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he seemed willing to jeopardize his relationship with his children to do so.
When Nico was “too busy” to join the children and me for dinner for the third night in a row, my patience wore thin. Something clearly needed to be done. Since he was avoiding me, I decided to leave a note for him on the door to his office. Surprisingly, I found sites online dedicated to the proper way to write a letter to royalty.
After carefully reviewing the examples of respectful correspondence, I sent the following note: For god’s sake, eat dinner with your children!! Though lacking a few key elements of etiquette, I was happy with it.
The next night the prince appeared at the dinner table.
The other person who seemed to be still avoiding me was Elyse. I estimated that she went to the queen’s chambers almost every afternoon. Rationally, I knew that her spending time with her grandmother was a good thing, but I couldn’t quite shake the feeling of unease. Still, at least I knew where she went now. I hadn’t liked the thought of her wandering randomly around the huge palace.
After spending a great deal of time trying to think of a way to reach the little girl, I came up with a new if not very original plan. One afternoon I pulled up a list of websites about birds on my laptop for Derrick, and then I asked Elyse if I could see her room. I took her shrug as a yes.
The little girl’s room was much as I remembered it from my initial tour—exceedingly pink and feminine. I tried to coax a conversation out of her, but it wasn’t easy. After asking her about her favorite doll and favorite toys, I finally just dove in.
“Elyse, how’s your grandmother doing?”
The little princess
was sitting on her bed, running a comb through a doll’s hair. Just when I thought she wasn’t going to answer, she said, “She’s fine.”
Okay, that was a start. “You know, some little girls live many miles—er, kilometers—away from their grandmothers. You’re lucky that yours lives in the same house. Isn’t it nice to go and visit her whenever you like?”
Elyse didn’t say anything, but she tugged the comb roughly when it hit a snarl. It seemed likely that she now realized that I knew about her afternoon visits. I chose my words carefully. “It’s nice to visit family like that. But you know, you can also talk to other people. Did you know that sometimes it’s actually easier to tell things to people who aren’t family?”
She shrugged and picked up a different doll. I tried a few more times to get a conversation going, but in the end, I gave up. There didn’t seem like anything I could do to get her to talk. “I’m going back to the playroom. Do you want to come with me or stay here?”
“Here,” she said quietly, and a few minutes later, I saw her pass by the playroom door in the direction of the queen’s chambers again. Derrick was still engrossed in the websites I’d pulled up for him, leaving me little to do.
To keep my mind occupied, I straightened the shelves full of books and toys in companionable silence with Derrick. But my brain kept returning to the subject of the prince.
That night in his study had been amazing. The most passionate, intimate experience I’d ever had. Though I’d been truthful when I told Nico I’d had a few first kisses, I’d only had one real relationship. It had been my second year of college and hadn’t lasted very long. It probably sounds strange, but there had just been too many other things to do when I was at the university. I performed in plays both at school and in the city. I completed my major, my minor, and earned my teaching certificate a full semester faster than anyone else in my program. It had been an extremely busy time and having a boyfriend wasn’t a top priority.
The one guy I’d dated for a while had been nice. He was in some of my literature classes. We’d gone to movies and restaurants. Though we hadn’t had actual intercourse, we’d done things that had felt good. Touched each other in ways that were pleasurable—but it hadn’t felt anywhere near as incredible as when Nico touched me.
I’d never known it could feel that good. That exciting. When the prince put his hands and lips on me, it was like my body had been asleep my whole life and he kissed it awake. I’d never felt as cherished as I had in his arms. As beautiful. As alive. It had been the most amazing night ever—right until it ended so abruptly.
I sighed. If he didn’t like me that would at least be understandable. It would hurt, but I’d deal with it. But he did like me, I could feel it. And I saw it in the way he looked at me sometimes when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.
But he wasn’t going to act on it. That much was clear.
* * *
A few days later, Von canceled our morning work session after coming down with a cold. Suddenly faced with free time, I hunted up Gretchen and invited her to have tea with me. When I casually mentioned Elyse’s visits with her grandmother, Gretchen was surprised, too. However, she didn’t have any theories as to what the two talked about during their time together.
Afterwards, I headed back to my room, uncertain what to do. Maybe I should give knitting one more try? But that thought left my head when I reached for my door and it opened on its own accord.
“Nico!” I jumped back, my heart pounding. “You scared me.”
“That wasn’t my intention.” His voice was stiff, but not unkind. “I thought this was your morning with the puppeteer?”
“He’s sick.” I couldn’t think of a polite way to say what I wanted to know. “Umm… what are you doing here?”
“Some packages came for you.”
“Both of them? That was quicker than I expected.” I brushed past him trying not to take it personally when he took a quick sidestep to keep from touching me. But I was too excited about the packages to feel irritated about it. Two open boxes sat on my dresser.
“Are they from your sister?” Nico asked.
“One of them. The other’s from my friend in London.” Briefly, I wondered if he’d looked at the contents.
“Did the young puppeteer invite you to a costume party?” Apparently, he had looked at them, or at least the bigger of the two.
“Something like that.” I glanced up from the packages and was shocked by the look on his face. Good god—the look in his eyes. He wanted me. There was no doubt about it. That look couldn’t mean anything else.
It was more than lust. Just because I hadn’t dated much didn’t mean I hadn’t had offers. I’d seen other men look at me with lust—this was different. The prince wanted me as much as I wanted him—yet he truly believed that ignoring that desire was in our best interest.
Which was just plain stupid.
I put my hand on my hip and studied him. “I have a question about Falkenberg.” I waited until he nodded to continue. “Is it a capital offense to tell the crown prince that he’s being a butthead?”
For a moment, Nico looked shocked, but then his lips twitched. “It’s generally frowned upon, but not a cause for imprisonment.”
“Then I’ll refrain… even though you’re being one.”
He knew exactly what I was talking about, and fortunately, he didn’t try to pretend otherwise. “It’s for the best, Cara.”
“Why do you get to make decisions for both of us?”
“I make decisions for the whole damn country.”
“Well, I hope those decisions are better than the one you made to skip dinner with your children so you didn’t have to see me.”
Nico frowned. “That was a mistake, and you called me out on it.” He paused a long moment. “Thank you for doing so.”
The look on his face made me break into a reluctant smile. “That was hard for you to say, wasn’t it?”
“My family’s not known for admitting that they’re wrong.” As if most royal families were?
I leaned against the dresser while Nico stayed by the door as if braced for a quick escape. “My experience with royalty is limited, but it seems like if one was accustomed to making decisions on such a large scale, they might start to think that all of their decisions were guided by divine right.”
Nico rolled his eyes before growing serious again. “Look, Cara, I know you think I’m wrong, but—”
“You are wrong. It doesn’t make any sense. You’re saying we can’t start a relationship because it can’t go anywhere. That’s like saying you shouldn’t plant an apple tree because it might not bear fruit. But you won’t know if it’ll bear fruit until you plant it.”
“No, you’re wrong, because that doesn’t make any sense.” Nico folded his arms across his chest. “Because the tree is doomed either way. If you don’t plant it in the first place, then there’s no tree-slash-relationship. But if you do plant it, and it starts to flourish but has no future, then sooner or later you’d going to have to chop down the cherry tree anyway.”
“Apple tree,” I snapped. “You’re thinking of George Washington.”
Nico looked exasperated. “You’d make a lousy lawyer, Cara. A nanny, a tutor, a playwright, hell, a senator, an astronaut… you could do any of those. But I’d rule out the law as a future career. You’re not making any sense.”
“Okay, so let’s go with logic.” I pulled out my phone and tapped at the screen.
“What are you doing?”
I held up my finger, silencing him. “Let’s see… okay, here we go. Nearly eighteen million people die of heart disease every year.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“And do you know what lowers your risk of hypertension? Sex.”
He looked at me incredulously. “Cara—”
“Here’s another. People who have frequent sex have better memory and word recall. That sounds like a win-win, don’t you think?”
“Wil
l you just—”
“Oh, and here’s one for you. In men, sex is found to lower the risk of prostate cancer.”
Nico leaned heavily against the door. “I never should’ve given you the Wi-Fi password.” He shook his head. “Please, no more sex facts.”
“Just two more,” I said, but I didn’t bother to look at my phone. “I want you… and I’m pretty sure you want me, too.”
“So what if I do? Do you really think it’s that simple?”
“No. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give it a try.”
“Then I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree, then. If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
19
Cara
I was still steaming mad when it was time for lunch. Luckily, Derrick had recently spotted a new kind of bird up on the rooftop and spent at least half the meal filling his sister and me in on information about it. His enthusiasm gave me an idea, however.
Since I needed to speak to Elyse alone, I asked Gretchen if someone could accompany Derrick up to the roof.
As usual, Gretchen came through. Before lunch was even over, she’d found a retired groundskeeper who, in her words, knew more about birds than the author of that book Derrick carried everywhere.
“If he’s retired, why is he here?”
“He lives just outside of town, miss, and still visits occasionally. He says he’d love to see Prince Derrick’s pigeon coops.”
Derrick seemed quite pleased with the arrangement, and after lunch he happily headed up there with the old man with a kind smile. Elyse trailed behind me as I walked to the playroom, however, I didn’t go inside. Instead, I grabbed a bag by the door and asked if we could go to her room. She shrugged, which was about as much of an answer as I usually got.
Once inside, she went to the little table by the window and sat down. I settled on the bed, unsure where to begin. There was a book next to the little girl, but she didn’t pick it up. She seemed to be waiting for me to speak, which surprised me a little. However, it probably shouldn’t have. Just because she didn’t talk much didn’t mean she didn’t pay attention to what was going on around her.
Dashing: A Royal Cinderella Billionaire Story Page 13
