The Reluctant Prince

by Candice Gilmer

  It didn’t take long, either.

  Hadrian left Sydney in bed upstairs, her Kindle in hand, and she was downloading at her leisure. Even though she was lying down, she sounded like a kid in a candy store.

  He could still hear her oohs and ahhs over the toy.

  He, however, was a bit wobbly from her morning wake-up. Even after his shower.

  Maybe he needed coffee.

  Taking a deep breath, he appreciated the quiet in the house. Right now, it was the three of them. Robert had taken a room on the main floor, and if all went well, he’d hardly notice the man was in the house.

  The house he’d bought years ago had seven bedrooms in it. His master suite, along with four other small bedrooms and a couple bathrooms were all on the upper floor. The ground floor held the living areas and a couple more small bedrooms. The rooms were intended for other uses, but he’d made them all bedrooms. Though one of the bedrooms doubled as a den, where the computer was hooked up.

  It was a good thing, too, because when full security, or if any of the family used it with their entourage, the place was packed.

  He rarely came out here to the lake. Usually when he saw his mom, she came out to California. That was the treat for her. Here, though, he was anonymous. He doubted the locals even knew who he was. They didn’t care who he was, just that his money was green.

  A good thing.

  Robert came out of one of the ground floor bedrooms. “I have four more guards on the way.”

  Hadrian wasn’t crazy about the idea of more guards, but somewhere out there was Alicia. Either she’d been completely set up by someone else, or she was a part of it. He didn’t want to think she was the orchestrator of the attack. He couldn’t let himself think that yet.

  But evidence was evidence. And if Alicia was unstable enough to orchestrate, or even agree to a plot against the family, who knows what she’d do now that the plan had failed.

  “And Alicia’s computer?”

  “They managed to retrieve enough to clear you.”

  Hadrian’s shoulders relaxed. “Good.”

  “She might not have been working alone. They’re still sorting it out.”

  “We should be safe here,” Hadrian said. While Alicia knew where the property was, the land was fairly secluded, and there was really only one way in—down the dirt road, and they’d see anyone coming.

  “The king wants you to remain in full protection until she’s found.” Robert crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I understand.” While the intrusion of the guard wasn’t his most favorite thing, he was willing to deal with it. Their presence will probably censor Sydney a bit, but hopefully she will get used to it.

  There was so much left to be said between them.

  Like convincing her that his marriage proposal was sincere. Whatever they decided, though, it needed to be done soon. At the very least, the media would be getting wind of his arrival in Missouri soon.

  Which reminded him, he needed to call his mother and let her know he’d arrived. She’d be fit to be tied if she found out through the media that he was here.

  And if the media got wind, then so would Alicia.

  He walked into the kitchen to start a grocery list. “Alicia’s not going to hurt me.” Or so I hope.

  “You don’t know that. Has she ever shown any signs of bizarre behavior?”

  “Not that I can recall,” he muttered. His mind started running backwards, trying to think if there was anything that he’d missed—some sign that she had been up to something, or forced into something.

  “She was pretty pissed off that I went to Vegas. I mean, even more angered than usual.” His mind flashed back to his messages. One of them was very late at night. She’d sounded drunk at the time. Could she have been celebrating? Cheering on the plot?

  Robert didn’t say anything, he merely nodded at him.

  Hadrian didn’t want to think about what Alicia might have done. “I don’t get why.”

  “Money. Power. Esteem. Maybe she thought this was what you wanted.”

  “It’s not even close to what I want.” He glanced upstairs. Sydney liked him for who he was, not because of his titles or his money.

  Hell, did she even know how much money he had?

  She probably guessed by now. Or assumed his means were related to the royal family.

  A thought came to mind. “I should probably call my producers and update them.”

  “You still have a job?”

  “Yes, I still have a job.” He knew, though, that if he did contact his producers he’d better have some good news to report.

  Maybe he ought to wait, and see about coming up with some menu ideas for the show before he contacted them. That might appease them. At least they’d know he was working while he was gone.

  Kind of.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself. He was so used to Alicia being around, her doing simple things like making grocery lists, calling people for him, that kind of thing, he wasn’t sure where to start.

  Opening a drawer, he found a notepad and pen and sat at the kitchen table. He started figuring up a menu for the next week.

  “Tomorrow, there will be four more guards, that’ll be seven, plus, probably Mom. So dinner for eight.” He scribbled a few meal ideas that could be made easily for eight. Stuff he’d made on his show before, recipes that could be enlarged for a group.

  Plus he’d need snacks—what did pregnant women want to eat? Did Sydney have any special meals she liked, or certain foods she should avoid while pregnant? He had no idea.

  “Why are you feeding eight?” Sydney’s voice jarred him from his thoughts.

  He glanced up at her. “I thought you were resting. The doctor said you needed to keep your feet up.”

  She sat in the chair across from him and set her legs on his lap. “I am keeping my feet up. Again, I ask, why are you feeding eight? Having a party?”

  He reached down and rubbed the top of her feet.

  Sydney moaned. “Keep that up, and I’ll have to make sure you do it daily.”

  He smirked and continued to rub her foot while he looked over his menu ideas.

  “Between us and the guards that will be here soon, and probably my mother, there will be eight here for meals every day after tomorrow.”

  “That’s a lot of pizza.” Sydney pulled her feet away, but put them up on another chair. “Is there a sub place around here that could make a party sub? That might be easier.”

  “We’re not eating pizza every night…” He glanced down at his sheet. “Though a night of homemade pizza might be fun.” He glanced up at her. “Everyone make their own little pizza?”

  She smiled. “That would be a lot of baking going on. Would take forever for everyone to get his own pizza. You’d need three or four ovens.”

  Hadrian tipped his head to the side, glancing at the kitchen. Evidently, Sydney had yet to inspect his gourmet kitchen—the one feature he’d had modified on the house when he bought it.

  Sydney followed his gaze. “Oh my God! Do I count four ovens?”

  “You do. Two are traditional, two are convection ovens.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  Hadrian shrugged. “The convection ovens tend to be a bit hotter than a traditional oven.”

  She nodded. “And there’s, what, eight burners? Good God, are all your kitchens like this?”

  “No, this is a little smaller than the one at my home in LA.”

  Her eyes went wide, and she stared at him for a minute. “You are serious about your cooking.”

  “I’m the host of a cooking show. What did you expect?”

  “Camera trickery?”

  He laughed. “You hungry? I could probably whip you up something really quick.”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. Though I’d love something to drink.”

  He hopped up and grabbed a glass out of the cabinet. Opening the fridge, he blinked at the gleaming white. “Wow.” The fridge was b
are—not even any condiments were left in it. He yanked open the freezer. It was pretty bare too.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Before I can make anything, I need to go to the store.” He closed the fridge up and got Sydney a glass of water. “I hope water’s okay for now.”

  “Fine,” she said, taking a sip. She made a sour face.

  “What?”

  “Just not home water.”

  “This is Ozark water. Fresh, clear water. It’s great. You’ll get used to it.”

  “I miss my over-fluorided water.”

  Off the kitchen was a pantry, and he stepped inside, preparing to see bare shelves as well. However, the pantry wasn’t so bad. There were plenty of canned goods, pastas, rice and other non-perishable stuff. Evidently, his mom had gotten that much for him.

  In his brain, he started adding more to his list. He checked for dried spices. While he’d rather work with fresh ones, having some dried spices on hand were better than nothing. The spice rack remained tucked inside the door of the pantry. All the jars as he’d last left them—alphabetized.

  “Okay, I got a lot of shopping to do,” he muttered as he went back out to the table.

  Sydney was looking over his menu. “Anything on there you can’t eat?”

  She ran down the food. “Not sure, actually. I don’t have any food allergies anyway.”

  “What about being pregnant? Are you supposed to avoid any particular food?”

  “Shellfish I think,” she said.

  A smile filled his face. “I can avoid that in my menu. What about cravings? Anything you’re desperate for?”

  She stretched her arms over her head. “A cigarette.”

  “You said you quit.”

  “I did. Just when I’m bored I tend to want one.”

  He could understand that. “I still have to figure out the rest of the shopping list.” He ran his finger down each day, sketching out what he’d need to feed eight at every meal, and his grocery list grew longer and longer.

  He hoped the local store would have what he needed. He hated the thought of having to go into town to get everything. Not that it was far, less than an hour, but still, he didn’t like driving that far away.

  Not with the present circumstances.

  “Can I help?”

  “Not much you can do, unless you plan on cooking anything.”

  “I can’t make anything.” He could practically hear the “but” at the end of her words.

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “Except?”

  “Bread.”

  Hadrian blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Bread. Grandma taught me how to make her homemade bread when I was twelve. I’ve been making it for almost twenty years.”

  “I thought you didn’t cook.”

  “I don’t. This is baking. And I don’t do it often anymore because it makes so much.”

  He smiled at her. “We’re going to have a lot of people here. By all means, tell me what you need, and I’ll buy it at the store.”

  She smiled. “Well, for one batch, I need, um…” she closed her eyes and held up her fingers. “One five-pound bag of flour, two packets of yeast, milk, sugar, butter—unsalted and eggs. This is all for one batch. Um…if you buy me a small bag of wheat flour I can make wheat bread one night.”

  “Okay. Do you use all the flour?” He wrote it down, marking everything that he’d probably needed to double, so she could make more than one batch.

  “Not all, but there’s not quite enough for two batches in one bag of flour.”

  He made a few more notes. “Okay. Anything else?”

  “Cinnamon.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “For?”

  “Cinnamon rolls.”

  “You can make a lot with this bread recipe.”

  “Yes I can.” She grinned at him. “I might teach you how to do it, if you’re nice to me.”

  Hadrian laughed. “I’m always nice.”

  Hadrian and Robert headed for the grocery store, and I was given free reign of the house. It was a lot bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside.

  I messed around in it, and realized it had a full basement, dug down into the rock. A lot of the basement was unfinished but there were a couple of small rooms and a laundry down there.

  It was like I was at Girl Scout camp or something.

  I knew I was supposed to be sitting and taking it easy, but really, I felt fine, no cramps, and no more blood. And I had to move around a little bit. It was too boring to sit in bed all the time for the next few days. Even with the books I downloaded, I’d still go stark raving mad if I did nothing but read.

  Hadrian’s house’s décor was modern guy house. As in, it was matching, but it wasn’t the most inviting looking place. Though there wasn’t a great deal of wood beams and rafters showing and only a couple of walls had cedar on them, it still screamed un-homey. Even a huge deer head on the wall would be something.

  This place was blank, except for the tricked out kitchen.

  Granted, a lot of the appeal was the view. The entire back wall opened up to the lake, and I could stand for hours watching the boats travel around. Even this early in the year, boats cruised the lake.

  I ventured closer to the edge of the deck, and could see a little more in the light of the dock, and it did look like there was something tied up underneath it. As soon as I was cleared by country “Doc” bumpkin doctor, I’d be begging for a ride on the lake.

  My mouth salivated at the thought of riding around the lake, looking at the land. I’d love to figure out the relationship of where we were on the lake to the big bridge, where the Pizza Hut dock rested. Pizza Hut, in their infinite wisdom, had put a restaurant at the edge of the big bridge at Shell Knob. It sat about thirty or forty feet over the lake. The restaurant put a boat dock with two stalls and a big red roof over the top, so people on the lake could pull in and walk up the stairs to the store and get their pizza while camping.

  I’d never really decided if that was total brilliance on their part, or totally hokey, backwater thinking. Maybe a little bit of both. Regardless, I had to say, I had ordered and picked up pizza from there on occasion. There’s nothing quite like a piece of pizza on the lake.

  I walked back and forth on the deck, noticing it had the same blandness to it as the rest of the house.

  Well, except for the little pots in the center of each of the two tables, filled with sand for smokers.

  God, I missed smoking.

  Hadrian had been pretty cool in the car, and he only smoked a couple of times on the way down. Whether he was being super nice, or he wasn’t a huge smoker, I didn’t know.

  God, yet another thing I don’t know about him.

  I made myself take a few deep breaths while I stood on the deck, breathing in and letting it out slowly, almost like I would if I were smoking.

  Didn’t help kill the stress like smoking did.

  Dammit.

  My cell phone started to ring.

  I yanked it out of my pocket. “Wow, I get service out here?” I muttered before answering it.

  “So, are you married yet?” Bella asked. Her voice did crackle a bit on the phone, but not too bad. That might have been the wind.

  “We just got here.” I didn’t want to mention the falling down the stairs thing—it was an accident, I know it was. Hadrian was being a dumb guy. I wasn’t the smartest girl in the world for trying to outrun him on the stairs either.

  “Too bad. How’s the location?”

  “It’s nice. Very beautiful. I’m familiar with the area.”

  “That’s cool. Is the house nice?”

  “Yeah. Secluded. I wouldn’t have even seen the turn off if he hadn’t pulled down it. Should be very private.”

  “Have you two been able to talk?”

  “Not really.” At least not without me getting mad. There was a lot to discuss. So much, I couldn’t even begin to catalog it. And I had a suspicion that there was more to the story ab
out what was going on in his homeland than he was admitting.

  A shiver ran down my back.

  Could I be nuts? Could I be interested not in Hadrian, but the image of him I painted for myself in my mind? Maybe he is an asshole. An insensitive prick who doesn’t know not to grab someone when they’re going down the stairs.

  Is that someone I want in my life? My child’s life?

  My head was swimming.

  “You two need to talk.”

  “Oh, we will.” The list in my head of things I needed to talk to him about grew by the minute.

  I heard a car door slam, and I started around the side of the house. “He’s back from the store. I’m going to let you go.”

  “Okay, bye, babe.”

  I realized as I hung up the phone that I hadn’t gotten an update about Jim. Had she seen him around, or worse, had any trouble with him?

  I like to believe that she would have said something right away, and not gotten off on a tangent, but anything is possible.

  “Maybe I oughta call her back,” I muttered to myself as I headed to the front.

  I came around the corner and came face-to-face with not Hadrian but his assistant Alicia.

  She looked a little less put-together since the last time I saw her. Her snazzy curls were a bit frizzy, and her mascara was flaking all over her face.

  “What are you doing here?” The mascara had flicked into crevasses in her face, making the wrinkles she normally kept hidden look extra deep and harsh.

  “Living here.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Where’s Hadrian?”

  “Not here.” No reason to be nice to her.

  “When is he coming back?”

  “In an hour,” I said, shifting from side to side. “Maybe next month. I don’t know. He wasn’t specific.” And I was telling the truth…pretty much. She could take it however she wanted.

  “So now you’re his whore?”

  “That’s what they’re calling an engagement?” I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself, instead pulling herself up to her full height and giving me the evil eye seemed to satisfy her.

  I didn’t let it bother me.

  And whether I married him or not, well, that’s not any of her business, is it?