by Abby Green
“Well, of course you needed to tell her.”
“Then I don’t understand what—”
“Is she alone now?”
“I have no idea. Solange Moltano answered the door to me. I’m assuming she’s still there, in Lili’s apartment.”
“The Moltano woman will never do. Lili will need someone to talk with, someone to comfort her.”
It was exactly what Sydney had said. And that made him angrier than ever. He gritted his teeth and apologized, though he was sick to death of saying how sorry he was. “It’s all my fault. I can see now I’ve handled everything wrong.”
His mother put her cool hand against his cheek. “No, darling. You did what you had to do—except for not telling me the moment you left her. Lili will need me now. I’ll go to her right away.” And with that, she swept from the room.
Into the echoing silence after her departure, Rule said, “I think I would like to hit someone.”
His father nodded. “I know the feeling.”
“I’ve broken Lili’s heart. And my wife is furious at me.”
“Lili will get over this, Rule. Leave it to your mother. She loves Lili like one of our own and she will know just what to say to comfort her—and why is your bride angry with you?” His father frowned. “You’ve told her already, about the boy?”
Rule swore. “No. Not yet. And I won’t. Not … for a while, in any case. Sydney’s upset about Lili. She sympathizes with Lili. She says I used Lili as my ‘ace in the hole,’ as a way to hedge my bet in case I didn’t find someone I really wanted to marry before Montedoran law took my title and my fortune.”
“She sounds like a rare person, your new wife. Not many brides have sympathy for the ‘other’ woman.”
“Sydney is like no one I’ve ever known,” he said miserably.
“That’s good, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what to think. She has me spinning in circles. I don’t know which end is up.”
“A good woman will do that, turn your world upside down.”
“I’ve mucked everything up.” Rule sank to the sofa again, shaking his head. “Sydney believes absolutely in honesty and truth and integrity. She’s disappointed in me because I wasn’t honest with Lili, because I didn’t make my true feelings—or lack of them—clear to Lili long ago. I keep thinking, if Sydney can hardly forgive me for not being totally honest with Lili, how can I ever tell her the truth about Trevor?”
His father sat down beside him. He said gently, “You have a real problem.”
“I used to see myself as a good man, a man who did what was right….”
“Do you want my advice?”
“You’ll only tell me to tell her, and to tell her now.”
His father’s lips curved in a wry smile. “So that would be a no, then. You don’t want my advice?”
“I can’t tell her. Honesty is everything for her. If I was going to tell her, I should have done it at the beginning, that first day I met her, before I pushed for marriage …”
“Why didn’t you?”
“She confided in me concerning her past romantic relationships. I knew she had very good reasons not to put her trust in men. If I’d told her before I married her, she might never have allowed me to get close to her. Certainly she wouldn’t have let me near her in the time allotted before the twenty-fourth of June. It’s as I said to you on the phone. There was no good choice. I made the choice that gave me a fighting chance. Or at least, so I thought at the time.”
“What do you have on your calendar?”
Rule arched a brow. “And what has my schedule got to do with my complete failure to behave as a decent human being?”
“I think you should clear it.”
“My calendar?”
“Yes. Fulfill whatever obligations you can’t put off here and do it as quickly as possible. Reschedule everything else. And then return to Texas. Make it up with Sydney, get through this rough patch, spend time with Trevor, strengthen your bonds with both of them. And return to Montedoro when your wife is ready to come with you.”
That morning, Sydney actually had two reporters lurking on her front lawn. When she backed out of her garage on the way to the office, she stopped in the driveway, rolled her window down and let them snap away with their cameras for a good sixty seconds.
They fired questions at her while they took the pictures.
She told them that yes, she had married her prince and she was very happy, thank you. No, she wasn’t willing to share any of their plans with the press.
One asked snidely if she’d met the Alagonian princess yet. She said no, but she was looking forward to making Princess Liliana’s acquaintance—and in case they hadn’t noticed, hers was a gated community. She would be calling neighborhood security the next time she found them on her property. That said, she drove away.
At the firm, she met with three of her partners. They already knew about her marriage.
And they weren’t surprised when she told them she would be leaving Teale, Gayle and Prosser. They weren’t happy with her, either. She was a valued and very much counted-on member of the team, after all. And they were going to be scrambling to fill the void that would be created by her absence.
When she told them she hoped to leave for her new home within the month, an icy silence descended. After which there was talk of her obligations, of the contract she had with the firm.
Then she told them about the potential clients she would be bringing in before she left. She named the ones Rule had mentioned the night before their wedding. And she explained that His Highness, her husband, had excellent business connections worldwide—connections he was willing to share with Teale, Gayle and Prosser.
By the time the meeting was over, her partners were smiling again. Of course, they would be waiting to see if she delivered on her promises. But at least she had a chance of getting out quickly with her reputation intact and zero bridges burned.
She went to work with a vengeance, getting her office and workload in order.
Rule hadn’t called since the second time she’d talked to him the night before, when she’d gotten all up in his face. Had she been too hard on him?
Oh, maybe. A little.
But she couldn’t believe he’d just dropped the bomb of his elopement on the poor, lovesick princess and then left her all on her own because she’d asked him to. Sydney hoped her harsh words had put a serious bug up his butt—as her Grandma Ellen might have said—and that he’d found a way to make sure Liliana had the confidant she needed at a time like this.
At five that afternoon, Sydney was called into the main conference room, which was packed with her partners, the associates, the paralegals, the secretarial staff and even the HR people. There was champagne and a pile of wedding gifts and a cake.
Sydney couldn’t believe it. It was really happening. She was getting the office wedding shower she’d been so certain she’d never have.
She thanked them and made a little speech about how much they all meant to her and how she would miss them. And then she ate two pieces of cake, sipped one glass of champagne and did the rounds of the room, her spirits lifted that her colleagues had made a party just for her.
It was nine at night when she left the office. She was seriously dragging by then. Sleep had been in short supply for five days now—since last Friday, when her whole life had changed in an instant, because she’d gone into Macy’s to buy a wedding gift for Calista Dwyer.
At home, Lani helped her carry in the gifts from the party. “You look exhausted,” Lani said. “Just leave everything on the table. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
Sydney dropped the last box on the stack and sank into a chair. “How was your day?”
“Fabulous. Trevor took a three-hour nap and I got ten pages done. And then later, we went to the park. He seems to have slacked off on the endless knock-knock jokes.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I so agree—he asked twice about �
�Roo.’ He wanted to know when Rule was coming to see him again so they could play trucks.”
Sydney was happy that her son was so taken with his stepfather. She only wished she didn’t feel edgy and unsure about everything. But it had all happened so fast between them, and now he was gone. A sense of unreality had set in.
She told Lani, “He said he’d be back in a week.”
“Well, all right. Good to know—and is everything okay with you two?”
Sydney let her shoulders slump. “There are some issues.”
Lani knew her so well. “And you’re too wiped out to talk about them now.” At Sydney’s weary nod, she asked, “Hungry?”
“Naw. I had takeout at the office—and two pieces of cake at the party. I think I’ll go upstairs and kiss my sleeping son and then take a long, hot bath.”
Forty-five minutes later, Sydney climbed into bed. She set the alarm for six-thirty, turned off the light and was sound asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Rule didn’t call that night. Or the next morning.
Apparently, he really was “brassed off” at her. She thought it was rather childish of him, to cut off communication because she’d pissed him off. Then again, nothing was stopping her from picking up the phone and calling him.
She felt reluctant to do that, which probably proved that she was being every bit as childish as he was. And she did wonder how things had worked out with Liliana, if he’d done what she’d asked him to do and found someone for the poor woman to talk to.
And okay, she hadn’t asked. She’d more like commanded. And he hadn’t appreciated her ordering him around.
Maybe she shouldn’t have been so hard on him. Maybe she should have …
Who knew what she should have done? She was totally out of her depth with him. She’d only known him since Friday and now they were married and already he was halfway around the world from her. No wonder they were having “issues.”
She hardly knew him. And how would she get to know him, with him there and her here?
All she knew for certain was that she ached with missing him. The lack of him was like a hole in her heart, a vacancy. She needed him with her, to fill that lack. She wanted him there, with her, touching her. She wanted it so bad. She wanted to grab him in her arms and curl herself into him, to hold on so tight, to press herself so close. She wanted to … somehow be inside his skin.
She wanted the scent of him, the sound of his voice, the sweet, slow laugh, the feel of his hands on her, the touch of his mouth …
She was totally gone on him. And he’d better return to her in a week, as he’d promised, or she would do something totally unconstructive. Track him down and shoot him, maybe. Not fatally, of course. Just wing him.
At the office the next day, she got calls from a couple of oil company executives, representatives of two of the companies Rule had said he could deliver to her firm. The calls eased her mind a little.
Okay, he hadn’t been in touch the way he’d promised that he would. But he was moving ahead with his plans to help her get away from Texas gracefully. That was something. A good sign.
Before the end of the day, she’d set up the first getting-to-know-you meetings between her partners and the reps from the oil companies.
Thursday morning at six-thirty, at the exact moment that her alarm went off, the phone rang. Jarred awake, she groped for the alarm first and hit the switch to shut it off.
Then she grabbed the phone. “Hello, what?” she grumbled.
“I woke you.”
Even half-asleep, gladness filled her. “Hello.”
“Are you still angry with me?”
She rolled over onto her back, and raked her sleep-scrambled hair back off her face. “I could ask you the same question.”
“I know I said I’d call every day …” God. His voice. How could it be better, smoother, deeper, just plain sexier than she remembered?
She corrected him. “You said you would call constantly. That’s more than every day.”
“Will you ever forgive me?”
She chuckled, a low, husky sound. She just couldn’t help it. All he had to do was call and her world was rosy again. “I would say forgiveness is a distinct possibility.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.” He said it tenderly. And as if he really, really meant it.
“I miss you, Rule. I miss you so much.”
“I miss you, too.”
“How can I feel this way? I’ve only known you for, what, five days?”
“Four days, nineteen hours and … three minutes—and you’d better miss me. You’re my wife. It’s your job to miss me when we’re apart.”
“Well, I’m doing my job, then.”
“Good.”
“And I’m sorry,” she said, “that we argued.”
“I am, too.”
“Those two oil men called yesterday. I set them up with my partners.”
“Excellent.”
She hesitated to ruin the conciliatory mood by bringing up a certain princess. But she really did want to know what had happened. “Did everything work out then, with Liliana?”
“You were right,” he said quietly. “I should have sent someone to be with her.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”
“When I told my mother that Lili hadn’t seemed to take the news of our marriage well, she rushed off to comfort her. Lili wasn’t in her rooms. Lili’s attendant said that she’d fled in tears.”
“Omigod. She’s missing, then?”
“No. They found her shortly thereafter. She simply turned up, looking somewhat disheveled, or so I was told, and insisting she was perfectly fine.”
“Turned up?”
“One of the servants found her in the hallway between Maximilian’s apartments and Alexander’s. She claimed she’d simply gone for a stroll.”
“A stroll?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Is she friends with your brothers? Did she talk it out with one of them?”
“Not possible.”
“Why not?”
“Max is with his children, at his villa. And Alex and Lili have never gotten on, not since childhood.”
“That doesn’t mean he might not have been kind to her, if he saw that she was upset.”
“Sydney, he’s hardly come out of his rooms since he returned from Afghanistan. But you’re right, of course. Anything is possible. Perhaps she talked to him, though no one told me that she did.”
“But … she’s all right, then?”
“Yes. She did end up confiding in my mother. And in the end, Lili promised my mother that she is perfectly all right and that no one is to worry that her father’s famous temper will be roused. Lili said she had finally realized that she and I were not right for each other, after all. She told my mother to wish me and my bride a lifetime of happiness. My mother believes that Lili was sincere in what she said.”
“Okay. Well. Good news, huh?”
“I believe so, yes. Lili departed yesterday morning for Alagonia. King Leo has not appeared brandishing a sword or insisting on pistols at dawn, so I’m going to venture a guess that renewed animosity between our two countries has been safely averted.”
“I’m so glad. I have to admit, I was worrying—that Liliana might have done something crazy, that her father might have taken offense. And then, when you never called, I only worried more.”
“I’m a complete ass.”
“Do you hear me arguing? Just tell me you’re coming back here to me by Tuesday or Wednesday, as promised.”
“Sorry. I can’t do that.” He said it teasingly.
Still, her heart sank. She tried to think of what to say, how to frame her disappointment in words that wouldn’t get them started fighting all over again.
And then he said, “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
She felt deliciously breathless. “Oh, Rule. Say that again.”
“You do miss me.” The way he said that made her heart be
at faster.
“Oh, yes, I do,” she fervently agreed. “I want to have time with you. I want you near me. Here we are, married. We’re going to spend our lives together, yet in many ways we hardly know each other.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “It’ll be late, around ten at night, by the time I reach your house.”
“Tomorrow. Oh, I can’t believe it—and late is fine. I’m lucky to get home by nine-thirty, anyway. I’ll be here. Waiting.”
“I have work to do there, too, you know. I have to introduce your partners to any number of excellent potential clients, so they’ll realize they owe it to you to let you go right away.”
She beamed, even though he wasn’t there to see it. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re coming back now. It will be so good, to be with you every day—even if I do spend way too much of every day at work. But I’m going to change that. When I’m through at the firm, I’m going to make sure I never again take a job where I hardly see my son, where I’m rarely with my husband.”
“I do like the sound of that.”
“Good—Oh, and I forgot to tell you. Trevor will be so pleased to see you. He’s been asking for you.”
“Tell him I’m on my way.”
Chapter Ten
Sydney was waiting at the picture window in the living room Friday night when the long, black limo pulled in at the curb. The sight of his car had her heart racing and her pulse pounding so hard, it made a roaring sound in her ears.
With a glad cry, she spun on her heel and took off for the door. Flinging it wide, she ran down the front steps and along the walk. He emerged from the car and she threw herself into his arms.
He kissed her, right there beneath the streetlight. A hard, hot kiss, one that started out desperate and ended so sweet and lazy and slow.
When he lifted his head, he said, “I thought I’d never get here.”
She laughed, held so close and safe in his arms. “But you are here. And I may never let you go away from me again.” She took his hand. “Come inside …”
The driver was already unloading Rule’s bags. He followed them up the front walk. Joseph followed, too.
In the house, the driver carried the bags up to the master suite and then, with a tip of his cap, took his leave.
