by Romy Sommer
“Look at that!”
“I wonder what they’re advertising?”
The voices filtered through the fug in her brain and she twisted around to see what the commotion was about. But all she could see was the backs of heads.
The carriage doors swooshed open, and the sound of the violins grew louder. She bit her lip. It was the same song she and Rik had danced the rumba to last night. It was surreal. Like she’d stepped into a film and could hear the soundtrack playing.
Long moments passed before the queue of eager beavers had thinned enough for her to see through the windows to the platform.
Her heart did a little jump. Frangipanis in London in October? Short-lived as those flowers were, these had to be plastic. They were mounted on a trellis, forming letters at least four feet high. From where she stood she could make out the word ‘LOVE’.
Wasn’t this just great? As if her life wasn’t already sucky enough, the universe had decided to mock her too. She averted her eyes and headed for the carriage doors.
She bumped her suitcase down to the platform, and turned to join the bottleneck to leave the platform. The sweet frangipani scent was real. Someone had spent a lot of money on this promotion. She breathed it in and tears pricked her eyes as memories flooded her.
Now the full wording of the floral letters was visible: I love you.
Three words she never expected to hear from the person she loved more than any other. The man who made every other man who’d passed through her life nothing more than a shadow.
The reason for the bottleneck became clear as she reached the escalators heading down to the arcade. Her fellow passengers trickled past a band at the bottom of the escalator. No, not a band. A small orchestra.
It was past nine o’clock. Surely the station wasn’t busy enough to warrant such a big advertising promotion this late on a weeknight?
She stepped onto the escalator. She didn’t feel up to fighting the tube system with a big suitcase in tow. What were the chances the production office would allow her to claim the cost of a taxi on her expenses?
As the escalator descended, her eyes widened. Between the obligatory station patisserie and the exit to the taxi rank a dance had broken out. There had to be at least a dozen couples dancing the rumba.
“It’s a flash mob,” the woman in front of her said.
A super organised flash mob to provide its own orchestra, Kenzie thought. Or perhaps she was still asleep on the train and dreaming. She squeezed her eyes shut. But when she opened her eyes, the dream hadn’t changed.
And that was when she noticed the man standing at the bottom of the escalator.
Rik.
He hadn’t even taken time to change. He still wore that preppy sweater over the high-collared shirt. He grinned as he spotted her. And he pulled the sweater off over his head.
She’d reached the bottom of the escalator and stepped off. And there she stayed, her heart in her throat, torn between laughing and crying.
Rik began to undo the buttons of his shirt. Kenzie couldn’t move a muscle. “What on earth are you doing?”
“This morning you said you’d do anything to see me shirtless in public. Your wish is granted.”
He’d reached the last button.
People stopped trying to push past her. She couldn’t blame them for stopping to gawk, but it was enough to galvanise her. Before he could go any further, she pulled him away from the grinning spectators.
“What are you doing here?” she managed.
“You said we needed to talk this morning and I agreed. Since you decided to leave before we could, I thought I’d catch you here.”
“You arranged all of this?” She blinked. For me? Why? Then she remembered the flowers. I love you.
Oh my God.
“Where did you find the flowers?”
“I didn’t. Your friend Lee recommended a props buyer who had a contact who … I’ve just chased you halfway across Europe and you want to talk about flowers?”
He stooped to pick up his discarded sweater. “We can’t talk here.” Handing her suitcase to a uniformed man who looked remarkably like the chauffeur who’d driven them to the airport yesterday, he led her away from the band and the dancers.
She followed, too dumbstruck to resist. He shouldn’t be here. This was a public place – what if anyone saw them together? What if he was photographed with her?
She would never forgive herself if she tainted his reputation.
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, struggling to keep up with him.
“Why – is it too much?”
He knew that wasn’t what she meant.
He led her back upstairs to the champagne bar. Not to the public bar, the world’s longest champagne bar, but to a private lounge, she noted with relief. A private lounge that smelled of frangipani. Two glasses of champagne sat ready and waiting for them. Kenzie resisted the urge to grab a glass and gulp it down.
“Are you mad?” she asked, turning to him. “You shouldn’t even be here.”
He took her face in his hands. “There is no place else in the world I want to be except where you are. Come back to Los Pajaros with me.
She couldn’t look away.
“I love you, Kenzie.”
She shook her head. “But Adam told you … ”
His eyes narrowed. “So that’s why you ran?” he released her face and pushed his hands through his hair. “We all have a past. And you know what I’ve learned? We can’t go back there. We have to move forward.”
“But you have to know … ”
He laid a finger across his lips. “I don’t have to know anything. You can keep your secrets and we can still be happy together. My parents managed as much. I’ll still love you, no matter what happened in the past.”
Tears blinded her. “But I want to tell you. I don’t want to keep any secrets from you.”
He sat on a plush suede sofa and pulled her down into his lap.
She blinked away the tears. She’d never felt as safe as she did now, in his arms. And she was tired of keeping this to herself, tired of running, tired of carrying this alone. His shoulders had been big enough to carry the weight of a nation. He was strong enough to share just a little of her burden. “Charlie was the most fun person I ever met, so adventurous and full of life, but I always knew he was broken inside. I was still naïve enough then to think I could fix him. I thought giving him the love and the family he’d never known would make everything okay. But I couldn’t fix him, and it’s my fault he’s dead. The day I told him I was pregnant with his child, he snapped. He killed himself. Do you know why he did it?”
Rik said nothing.
Her throat was so choked she could barely speak. “He said he wanted a better life for his child. He didn’t want his child growing up with a father like him.” She brushed her sleeves across her eyes. “I destroyed his note. I didn’t want anyone else to know.”
At least Rik hadn’t let her go. She looked up into his eyes. He was doing his mask thing again.
“You had his child?”
She shook her head. “With all the stress of the inquest and the civil trial and the press … I lost the baby at just over four months. It was a girl.”
He continued to hold her, his hand stroking down her back. “You wanted that baby?”
“So much it hurt.” She looked away.
“You have a kind heart, Kenzie, and you didn’t deserve the pain Charlie caused you. But if it’s any consolation, the Charlie I knew didn’t think of anyone but himself. Troubled as he was, he must have really loved you to feel so deeply.”
He wiped a tear away from her cheek. “You have that effect on me too. I’m starting to understand how it feels to want something so badly it hurts. Because there’s something I want desperately. Passionately.”
She looked up at him. His fingers traced down her cheek and brushed her lips.
“I love you more than I have ever loved anything in my life. I love you more th
an I love my country. I can breathe without my country, but I can’t breathe without you. You’ve been in love before, so you know how this feels, but for me this is a big deal.”
If anyone had ever told her a broken heart could be made whole with just a few sentences, she’d never have believed it. She did now.
“You’re wrong,” she said.
He stiffened. His brow furrowed and the mask slipped. Incredulity. Fear. He was afraid she was going to tell him she didn’t love him back. As if. “You’re wrong to think that I’ve been in love before. Because all those times I thought I loved someone, was nothing to what I feel right now. Nothing.”
“So you’ll come back to Los Pajaros with me?”
In a heartbeat. Even if it was only one week. But her instincts didn’t think a week would be enough, or a year …
“As long as I’m not just your back up plan.”
He grinned. “No, you’re part of the new, improved, much-better-than-the-original plan.”
She slid off his lap and held out her hands to him. “Okay, I’m sold. Let’s go home.”
“And where is that?”
Her eyes misted over again, but this time they were tears of joy. “Where the sun always shines, and the sea is warm, and where bright tropical birds flit through the trees.”
“What about your career?”
“I’ve been thinking about that five year plan thing of yours. I think I have one.”
“Yes?”
“In five years’ time I’d like to be running a film commission in Los Pajaros. There are so many beautiful, unspoilt locations around the islands, and money to be made for the local economy, but it needs someone with local connections to make it happen.”
“What local connection would that be?”
“Well, there’s this prince I know … ”
He grinned. “I’m not a prince anymore.”
“Okay. There’s this former prince I know who seems to have an ‘in’ with the mayor.”
“Is that all? Or is there more to this five year plan?”
“Oh no. I’ve discovered I’m really quite ambitious. You see, I plan to be a working mum. I think the islands would be the perfect place to raise my children one day.”
“And do these hypothetical children have a father?”
“Of course they do. He’s this amazingly talented photographer who is single handedly saving the sea turtles of the Caribbean.”
He tugged her back into his lap. “And does this paragon have a name?”
She wrapped her legs around his waist.“Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”
“I want to be sure before I propose that I’m not interfering with some other big plan.”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
Rik obliged.
@RikWaldburg: @KenzieCole101 Have I told you yet today how much I love you?
Epilogue
@LeeHill: @KenzieCole101 Look at those buns. I could just eat him up.
@KenzieCole101: @LeeHill Hands off, I saw him first.
Kenzie grinned down at the screen of her mobile.
“What’s so funny?” Rik asked, tucking his arm through hers.
“Nothing. Just a tweet from Lee.” She slid the phone into her tiny sequinned handbag.
“Why are you tweeting him? He’s only across the room.” He looked across the crowded Orangery to the buffet table. Lee waved back, cheeks dimpling as he grinned.
Kenzie laughed, smiling up at him, and Rik suddenly felt like a million bucks. No, he had a few of those, and this felt way better.
He glanced down the length of the sunlit room where the cast and crew mingled. In another two days they’d be filming right here in this room.
“How much longer do we need to hang around?” he asked, pulling her against him.
“The party’s only just started!”
He sighed. “Okay, how about a glass of wine then to pass the time?”
“No thanks.”
He frowned. “I made sure they had your favourite white in stock.”
She grinned, a flash of mischief in her eyes. “Thank you for your consideration, but unless you have some other idea of how to use it other than drinking … ”
The realisation hit him between the eyes. “You’re sure?”
Her grin widened. “Turns out that wasn’t a stomach bug I picked up in Los Pajaros.”
“But there was only that one time we didn’t use protection.”
“Once is all it takes.” She tensed. “You’re not unhappy?”
“How could I be unhappy? I’m ecstatic.” He swept her off her feet and she laughed.
When he bent his head to kiss her, a voice intruded. “This is the film’s meet and greet. Stop making out and come meet someone.” Gerry, the likeable teddy bear of a Unit Production Manager.
Rik repressed the urge to throttle him.
“I want you to meet the star of our film, Christian Taylor. Christian, this is our new location liaison Kenzie Cole, and her fiancé Rik Waldburg.”
Rik turned. And froze. He scarcely saw the face, or the polite hand outstretched to him. His gaze locked on the pendant hanging on a leather thong around the actor’s neck.
“Where did you get that ring?” His body felt as though it had gone into sudden shock, the prickle at the back of his neck electrifying.
Christian looked down, as if he scarcely remembered what he wore. “I found it among my mother’s things. She died recently.”
Kenzie’s grip tightened on his arm. “I’m sorry to hear that. Will you please excuse us?”
She dragged Rik away. His gaze still followed the actor as he turned away to greet someone else.
“What’s wrong with you?” she hissed.
“That’s the third ring, the missing ring.” The odd sensation passed. He looked down at Kenzie. She looked perplexed, clearly not following.
“Some time back in the 1700s, the then Archduke of Westerwald had three rings made for his sons. The Waldburg Rings, they were called. They’re the mark of the heirs of Westerwald. I have one, Max has one. The third disappeared shortly before I was born. So how in all that’s holy did it end up around the neck of an actor from Hollywood?”
The End
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HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2013
Copyright © Romy Sommer
Cover Images © Shutterstock.com
Romy Sommer asserts the moral right
to be identified as the author of this work.
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available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
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Ebook Edition © October 2013
ISBN: 9780007532025
Version 2013-10-09
Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.
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