by Sandra Hyatt
“I can’t stand by while you search for the perfect royal wife. I’m strong, Adam, but I’m not that strong. Or that much of a masochist.”
He jerked as though she’d slapped him. His hand clenched into a fist on the table. “And I’m not that much of a bastard. How could I look at another woman after you?”
“You have to.”
He sat up straighter. The silence stretched and stretched, till finally he spoke quietly. “I’m stopping my search for the perfect wife.”
The bottom dropped out of Danni’s world.
No. She wouldn’t be responsible for her country’s prince postponing his search. She’d be reviled throughout the principality.
She stood, her legs far from steady. “Then you definitely don’t need me.”
Ten
The drive back to the palace lasted an eternity. Adam sat as silent and inscrutable as a sphinx next to her. She just wanted the trip to be over. She needed to get away from him, because being this close when she could no longer have him was torture.
She would drop him off and aides would come running with crises for him to negotiate. He would move on.
But when she finally saw the longed-for towering sandstone building, it was loss rather than relief that swamped her.
This was it. This was their goodbye.
She drove to the entrance to his wing. He turned to her as she pulled to a stop. “Have dinner with me tonight?”
“No. I’m going to spend this evening with Dad.” She took a deep breath. “Adam, don’t do this.”
“So when I kiss you now you’ll be kissing me goodbye?” His dark beautiful eyes were steady on her, drawing her inexorably toward him. Desperation for this one last kiss. It was the desperation that told her she couldn’t allow even this kiss. Especially this kiss.
“No. Yes. I mean, I can’t kiss you, but if I did I would be kissing you goodbye.”
Rational thought disintegrated as he leaned closer. She caught his scent, saw his lips—lips she knew so well. Every cell in her body yearned for his touch. One kiss. One memory to take away. She wasn’t strong enough to deny herself that.
“You want this, too,” he said softly.
“No, I don’t.” She was inches from him and she knew everything about her contradicted his words.
He laughed, the sound low and rich. And more than anything she wanted those laughing lips on hers. She pulled back and looked straight ahead, anywhere rather than at Adam. Adam, whom she could never have again. “You should get out now. We both have things to do. Lives to get back to.”
“I’m not getting out. Not until you kiss me.”
“That’s blackmail.” She couldn’t let him win. If he was going to be stubborn then she could be, too. She got out, striding round the car to open his door and hold it wide.
As he got out, she walked quickly to the rear of the car and removed his suitcase. She carried it to the recessed entrance to the palace. She turned and found him right there. He lifted his hands to frame her face.
Just that touch of his palms along her jaw rendered her immobile, stole her breath. Made her ache. Her lips parted with need for him. She felt the familiar insistent tugging low within her.
“Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you, every bit as badly as I want to kiss you. If you tell me that, then I won’t.”
She fought for long seconds over her answer, drowning in his eyes, aching with the need to touch him. “I don’t want you to kiss me.”
He lowered his head and brushed his lips across hers.
“You said you wouldn’t.” The feebleness of her protest echoed the weakness of her willpower.
“You lied when you said you didn’t want me to. So that made my lie okay, too. Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you again.”
His breath mingled with hers in the cool air. She swayed toward him, her body betraying her mind. “I don’t.”
“Liar.” He kissed her again, this time the way she needed him to, his lips slanting over hers, tasting her deeply, and filling her with the taste of him. Her arms slid around him, pulling his body closer, holding him to her, and any last scraps of reason fled. She was lost to him, lost to the sensations. His warmth, his scent, the exquisite pressure of his lips on hers, the way his tongue teased.
Finally, at a nearby sound, they broke apart and he rested his forehead against hers. His thumbs stroked her jaw. “This is wrong.” His words whispered across her lips.
She knew he had to see and admit it sooner or later. But still the admission, when she was blinded with the need stirred by his kiss, hurt. “I told you.”
“I should be dropping you at your door, not the other way around.”
“That’s not how it works. I was the driver.”
“No, you weren’t. I fired you, remember. I was only letting you drive as a favor. I know how you like it. So get back in the car and I’ll drive you to the gatehouse.”
“No.”
“Yes. Or we go inside.” He glanced at the palace. “I have a big bed in there, Danni. And I can’t stop thinking about having you in it. This is your last chance before I pick you up and carry you inside. Maybe then I’ll have you worked out of my system and can let this be over.”
Danni saw the calculation in his gaze and knew she had only seconds before he acted on his threat. She strode from him and got into the passenger seat, shutting the door behind her. If this was how he wanted to play it… If it made him feel better, gave him the illusion of control, she would do it.
He drove her to the gatehouse and cut the engine so that all was silent before he turned to her, his eyes darkening, soulful and sinful. “Kiss me again.”
She wanted to do so very much more than just kiss him. He was some kind of sorcerer making her forget what was good for her, what was right. And she had to break his spell without giving him the chance to weave a new one.
She leaped out of the car, shut the door with hasty, choked words of thanks and goodbye and ran into the house.
“You’re sure everything is all right?” Her father asked for the second time that evening as she looked into the fridge trying to decide what to cook for their dinner.
“Fine, Dad,” she said as brightly as she could manage. But she was far from all right. Adam had said he was stopping his search and it was her fault. “I’m just a little tired. I’m looking forward to a quiet and early night.” Her first night of getting used to not being with Adam. Given that they’d only had one night in each other’s arms it shouldn’t be that difficult. What was one night out of a lifetime? Even if that night had been blissful perfection. There was no reason for this awful weight pressing on her heart.
“Oh.”
She didn’t like the sound of that “oh” and looked at her father. “What’s up?”
“I must have misheard him.”
“Misheard who?”
“Adam.”
A knock sounded at the front door.
“Dad? What’s going on?”
“Adam called earlier. He said he was going to come around to see you.”
Danni strode to the door, her father’s voice catching up to her as she reached for the handle. “Is there something going on between you and Adam?”
Her fingers stilled and she turned back. “No, Dad. There’s not.” Not anymore. On one hand he’d think she was breaking ancient unwritten rules if there was something between them; on the other, there was probably nothing in the world her father would like better. It would be a dream come true for him.
But this was her life and she had to live it to best suit herself, not her father.
Danni pulled open the door and came face to face with the man she didn’t want to see. And all the memories of what they’d shared and being with him came flooding back, swamping her. The oppressive weight lifted from her heart and it soared like a bird unexpectedly freed from captivity. She stared at his face and it reflected some of the same hunger she felt.
She’d missed him. Damn it.
S
he’d only been away from him for a couple hours and she’d missed him. It was so good just to look at him. And despite the fact that he was forcing her hand in coming here, there was a trace of uncertainty and need in his eyes as he watched and waited. She should have capitalized on it; instead, that uncertainty and need undid her.
“Adam.” She meant to say his name without feeling. Instead her voice was filled with yearning.
She drank in the sight of him. A sight she had to deprive herself of. Soon. But not yet. She needed just a couple more seconds first. Time to imprint in her memory just how he looked—his eyes, his nose with that bump, his lips, his jaw. She had to clench her hands at her sides to keep from reaching for him.
From behind his back, he produced a bouquet of flowers.
“You shouldn’t have.” The gesture was romantic.
“You don’t like them?”
She lifted the bouquet to her face and inhaled the fragrance. “They’re beautiful. Nobody’s ever given me flowers before.”
He reached for her shoulders and pulled her toward him. His eyes searched her face.
She tried to be strong. Difficult when desire swept through her, overwhelming good sense, overwhelming everything.
He pulled her closer still and waited. Leaving her anticipating. Wanting.
Finally it was she who gave in and closed the distance, needing the touch of his lips on hers.
He released her too soon from the kiss that should never have happened. His hands had traveled to loop around her waist and he kept them there, kept that bond between them.
She should pull away.
She stayed where she was.
On a soft sigh Adam kissed her again. This kiss was full of the promise of delight and pleasure. It was long blissful seconds before he lifted his head.
“I spent the entire meeting with the Spanish ambassador thinking of doing that.”
“But we agreed,” she protested. Too little, too late.
“We didn’t agree to anything.”
Danni laughed. A mix of exasperation and despair. Why did it have to be Adam? The one man above all others she could never have. The one whose whole existence was so far removed from hers. He needed a woman who was her opposite, cultured and sophisticated, diplomatic and beautiful. Someone who would make a good princess.
And she needed to forget about him.
But at this instant, cradled in his arms, she could only be grateful that he was making a liar out of her and taking what he—and she—wanted rather than what was right for him.
“Come out with me tonight. We need to talk.”
“No. I have work in the morning. A press conference to prepare for later this week.”
“Don’t leave him standing out there, Danni. Ask him in.” Her father’s voice came from within the house.
“No.” There was no strength, only panic, in her voice. She couldn’t let him do this.
“Come and watch this, you two,” her father called. “They’ve got coverage of the Brazil race.”
Adam lifted an eyebrow. “Watching Formula One with your father, what harm could there be in that?”
“All sorts of harm.”
A hint of a smile touched his lips. “Frightened of me, Danni?”
“No.” Liar. She was terrified of what he’d done to her heart, of the havoc he could wreak.
“Good, then you won’t mind.”
“Why won’t you take no for an answer?”
“It’s a failing. Weren’t you supposed to cure me of my flaws?” He looked over her shoulder. “Evening St. Claire.”
Danni’s heart sank. If her father was here, there would be no getting rid of Adam. “Evening, Adam. Are you two coming in or are you going to stand out there in the cold all night?”
Adam watched her and waited, appearing to leave the decision—now when it was too late—up to her.
“We’re coming in,” Danni said on a sigh. She had no strength to resist. Her earlier attempt had been a bluff—and he’d known it. There would be time enough for strength tomorrow. After just this one evening, in the company of her father. What harm could there be in it? A little voice in the recesses of her mind echoed her earlier answer—all sorts of harm. Because she wanted so desperately just to be with Adam—near him, able to watch and hear him, to laugh with him for one more evening.
Tomorrow she would leave. Go stay with a friend. Go somewhere Adam wouldn’t follow her. She would force a clean break on herself.
“Have you eaten?” Adam asked as she put the flowers into a vase.
She shook her head.
“Takeout?” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Is Chinese still your father’s favorite?”
She nodded. Her acquiescence complete. She might as well just roll over and present her stomach for him to scratch. Oh, wait. She’d already done that.
He followed her to the living room. Her father sat in the armchair, leaving her and Adam the couch. They sat close, but not touching, which was its own kind of torture. As her father added his commentary to that of the announcers, Adam’s hand, out of her father’s line of sight, found hers and closed around it. And this touch was too much and not enough.
The three of them watched, intent, conversing only occasionally, shouting at the screen at times. And despite knowing that she shouldn’t allow it, Danni found so much pleasure in sharing this with Adam and her father that it hurt, this taste of what could never be.
After they’d eaten, she made coffee, needing an excuse to get away, a chance to regroup, to grow a spine. But in the kitchen she stood at the counter and stared out into the night.
Adam came to stand behind her. His arms wrapped around her. “The times I spent here with you and your father were as close as I got to ordinary growing up and you have no idea how much they meant to me. I knew my father loved me but it was your father who spent time with me, who had no expectations. I’ve always been grateful.”
“I liked how you were when you were here. You were so different from when you were with Rafe or the other kids. You were so serious, so remote, as though even with them you had to remember who you were.”
“I must have been insufferable.”
“We suffered you.” She smiled, remembering those times. She’d seen the barriers he erected, they all had, but she’d seen the chinks and breaks in the invisible armor he cloaked himself with. She’d seen them when he’d been here, or when it had been just the two of them, and he’d thought she was too young to really understand what was going on, and too devoted to him to reveal the secrets he sometimes revealed to her. She’d reveled in her perceived status as his favorite. She wanted it still.
She stepped out from the shelter of his arms.
What if I fall in love with you? She wanted to scream the words, the real reason for her fear. Instead she locked them deep inside her. Because she knew the answer to that question. It would be a terrible, terrible thing.
Eleven
Something was off.
Danni had been coordinating the biannual press briefings since the start of the process of bringing a Grand Prix to San Philippe. The feel in the room today was different. And it wasn’t just her and her confusion over her feelings for Adam and her sorrow over what could never be.
The last official press release two weeks ago, back when her life had been normal, had contained promising developments. But not promising enough to justify the crowd in the small room that usually had more empty chairs than full ones.
She caught an enquiring glance from Michael Lucas, the head of San Philippe motorsport, and gave a small shrug. As well as the usual motor racing commentators, and representatives from tourism, who expected a Grand Prix to have a major influence on visitor numbers, there were reporters and journalists she didn’t recognize. There was also a new sense of energy and excitement in the room.
As she stood to the side of the stage, she reviewed her notes again, including the emails that had come in last night and this morning. Nothing surprising there
. She could only be glad that, after a drop-off in interest over the last few months while proceedings slowed down in talks about safety and scheduling and disruption to residents, awareness appeared to be picking up again nicely.
She tried to keep her thoughts on task, tried not to think about Adam, who she had missed so desperately in her bed this last week. She’d ached for his presence, his scent, the weight of his body next to hers. Missed the way he made love to her.
The first thing she’d done at work the Monday after her ski weekend was to make arrangements to move forward her trips to other Grand Prix host countries. She was getting out of San Philippe. It was the only way.
The sound of Michael clearing his throat recalled her attention. The panel, including drivers, and manufacturers’ representatives were all ready. Michael looked for her nod then began the conference with the latest updates, then opened the floor to questions.
He took a couple of questions about the race course then chose one of the journalists Danni didn’t recognize to ask her question. Danni could see the woman’s press accreditation but from this distance couldn’t tell which publication she was with. But if interest in the Grand Prix was spreading to mainstream media she could only be glad.
“I have a question for Ms. St. Claire.”
All heads turned toward her. Danni hid her surprise, but suddenly she wasn’t quite so glad. As she reached for the microphone the end panelist held out for her, she had a very bad feeling.
“Is it true that you’re romantically involved with Prince Adam?”
Danni clamped shut the jaw that wanted to fall open. Not interest in a Grand Prix. Interest in a grand prize. A grand prince. Gossip about her and Adam.
She’d really thought they’d got away with it, a weekend of anonymity. But it had been naive to hope they might evade speculation and that their time together would be something she could treasure and keep to herself. Just one weekend. Did Adam not deserve that? Whether or not he deserved it, he wasn’t going to get it.
Interest in the room picked up palpably. Journalists, presumably the ones who hadn’t known already, sat up straighter. Initial surprise and disbelief turned quickly to curiosity. Danni glanced at Michael, who was frowning but whose head was tilted inquiringly, waiting for her to deny the accusation. Her breath caught in her throat. She looked back at the reporter. “That’s not something we’re here to talk about,” she said with a brittle smile. She signaled for Michael to take the next question. They needed to divert the reporters’ interest. A distraction like this one was the last thing she wanted.
