“So now murder is associated with Helena’s name—and your name—instead of suicide.”
“I don’t give a damn what people think—only what you think.”
That was the kind of thing handsome men with neon-blue eyes only said to Katherine in her wildest dreams.
Dreams.
Oh, dear. “Trey, Stacy had a nightmare tonight, and…She was there. When Helena died. Stacy found her in the bathroom, probably before you even got there.”
“What?”
As Katherine quickly reported all that his daughter had told her, Trey was clearly shaken. “Oh, God. I had no idea.”
“She described it to me exactly. The bathroom floor, the blood. I think she even must have watched as you tried to revive her.”
“I was…upset.” He corrected himself. “I was beyond upset, but still I can’t believe I missed seeing Stacy there.” His eyes were a very sober shade of blue. “She doesn’t think…” He tried again. “Does she think I was somehow responsible for…?”
“I don’t know what she thinks. But I do know you’ve got to talk to her first thing in the morning,” she said absolutely. “You’ve got to tell her the entire truth. She’s old enough now to know.”
Trey nodded. “I will. Absolutely.” He smiled at her crookedly. “You know, I really love it when you talk to me in your nanny voice when you’re naked.”
Katherine laughed to cover her confusion. I really love…Her heart had leapt foolishly at those three words, thinking that the fourth would be you. I really love you.
“I don’t know how I managed without you,” he told her. “What can I do to convince you to stay?”
Katherine just shook her head. As much as she wanted to stay, she couldn’t. Not without a really, really good excuse. And embracing a career as a full-time nanny would not be considered a good excuse.
The Royal Court in Wynborough awaited her. As Princess Katherine, she had duties and appearances and all manner of business to attend. She was already, no doubt, sorely missed.
As Katherine sat there, she almost told him who she was, why she was there, why she couldn’t stay. But Trey pulled her toward him and kissed her, and she let herself be selfish. She would let herself be daring, sexy Kathy Wind who had captured the attention of Trey Sutherland just a little bit longer.
After all, come January, she had an entire lifetime ahead of her as the very lonely, very staid Princess Katherine.
Chapter 17
“Trey, have you seen Stacy?”
Kathy’s voice made Trey look up from the English muffin he was cutting open for Dougie’s breakfast. He slipped the two halves into the toaster and pushed the button down.
“You got it from here?” he asked his son, who nodded as he clicked together the ends of large wooden toaster tongs. “Great.” He turned to Kathy, who was standing just inside the kitchen door. “Good morning.”
He knew his smile was bordering on foolish grin territory, but he couldn’t help himself. Just seeing her again made him want to break into song. And it had only been about two hours since she’d crept from his room.
God, he had it bad for her. He was even looking forward to the party at his mother’s house later this afternoon—simply because Kathy was going to be there.
And she…
She was frowning slightly, her gray eyes filled with concern.
He stopped grinning at her. “What’s up? No, I haven’t seen Stacy yet this morning.”
“Doug, have you?” Kathy asked.
“Nope.”
“Trey, may I please talk to you out in the hallway?”
“You in control of that toaster?” Trey asked Doug again.
“I said yes. Jeez.”
It still felt so good to hear Doug talk, he didn’t even mind indignation from the kid—as long as it was expressed in English rather than barks and woofs.
Trey followed Kathy into the hall. “Problem?”
“I think maybe yes,” she said. “I was on the phone and the call waiting beeped. It was the dispatcher from Western Limousine. She was calling about a piece of personal luggage that was found in one of their cars after a seven a.m. pickup of a passenger from this address.”
“What?”
“Trey, I think Stacy’s run away. The dispatcher told me the young woman who was picked up from the Sutherland estate was taken to the airport.”
Katherine couldn’t figure it out. Los Angeles. Why would Stacy just leave the house without telling anyone and try to hop a flight to L.A.?
Trey had leapt into action immediately, calling the airport, calling the police, calling Anita to rush over and stay with Doug.
Within seconds, Anita was on her way.
Within minutes, Trey and Katherine were hurrying to the airport.
And before they’d even reached the airport turnoff, Trey’s cell phone had rung. Sure enough, Airport security had found Stacy. Waiting to board a nine o’clock American Airlines flight to Los Angeles.
Katherine had never seen Trey so upset. He was furious and frighteningly grim.
And as they approached the airline office where Stacy was being held, she stopped him. “If you go in there like this, she’s just going to get defensive, and it’ll be days before we get an explanation from her.”
“What am I supposed to do? Think of something nice to say to her when I first see her? ‘Good choice of airlines, kid. Way to get those frequent flyer miles?’”
Katherine laughed. She couldn’t help herself. And to her relief, Trey managed a crooked smile.
He pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly. “Thank you for being here with me. I’m so not cut out to be a father.”
“You can’t mean that.” Katherine looked up at him. “You’re one of the best fathers I’ve ever known.”
“My thirteen-year-old just tried to split for California. Don’t hand me the Father of the Year Award yet.” He let all the air out of his lungs in a loud exhale. “I thought we were doing all right. I thought we’d gotten past the worst of it, and…” His voice broke. “Why would she do this? I just don’t get it.”
“That’s what you’ve got to walk in there and say.”
“I don’t understand.”
Trey sat across a cheap plastic table from Stacy. His daughter hadn’t done a whole hell of a lot more than stare at the floor since he and Kathy had come in.
She still didn’t look up. “Can we just go home?”
“No. Not until you tell me why you were going to L.A.”
“What does it matter?”
Trey worked to keep his voice even. “If you don’t tell me, then how can I decide whether or not I’m going to let you go?”
Stacy nearly fell out of her chair as she finally looked up at him. “What?”
“I assume you’ve got a reason for wanting to go there, and unless I know that reason, I can’t possibly let you go. But if it’s a really good reason…” He shrugged.
“There’s no way you’d ever let me go!”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Trey said. “But I got your attention, didn’t I? Do you know why I’d never let you go?”
“Because I’m too young?”
“And…?”
She stared at him.
“Because you’re too young and…” he repeated. “There’s a second part to that. It’s the most important part. Because you’re too young and because I love you.”
Tears sprang into her eyes and she quickly looked away. “I know that,” she said in a very, very small voice.
God, could this be any harder? Trey felt Kathy standing behind him, felt her hand as she touched him lightly, briefly on the shoulder. Please Lord, infuse him with some of her gentle patience. Lord knows he needed it right now, badly.
He took a deep breath. “If you know that,” he said, managing to sound remarkably calm, “how could you even think of packing your things and…” his voice broke “—leaving me and Dougie this way?” He no longer sounded calm. He sounded exactly like wha
t he was—a frightened, frustrated man who was working his butt off to keep from bursting into tears.
But it was Stacy who started to cry—tough, angry Stacy who dissolved into a puddle of emotions.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “Daddy, Kathy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what else to do!”
Trey moved around the table and she actually reached for him. He held her from one side, and Kathy held her from the other as she cried.
“I thought this would be a good time to leave,” Stacy said, gasping for breath, crying just the way she’d cried when she had been only four years old, “because Doggie loves Kathy so much. I thought if I were gone, then Kathy would have to stay, because she wouldn’t want to leave Doggie alone. She wouldn’t want to leave you alone, either.” She looked up at Trey, tears spilling from her eyes and down her cheeks. “I know you love her, too, even though you won’t admit it. You’re so happy when she’s around.”
Trey looked up and directly into Kathy’s gray eyes. She quickly looked away. “But, Stace, I still don’t understand. Were you leaving to try to make Kathy stay?”
“No.” She wiped at her eyes and her running nose. As if by magic, Kathy produced a tissue from her purse. “Thanks.” She blew her nose. “I was leaving because—” her face crumpled again with fresh tears “—because I have what Mommy had.”
Trey was floored. Did she honestly think she had…“Cancer?”
The look Stacy gave him was pure exasperation. Combined with her tears, it was almost funny. Almost. “I know that she didn’t really have cancer. I know that was just the story you told us after she died.”
“Stacy, what—”
“Daddy, I know what happened,” Stacy said fiercely. “I read about depression in a book, and the description about staying in bed all the time and being so tired and crying—It was exactly what Mommy had. I used to hear her crying. I never told you, but I used to sit outside her room and just listen to her cry. And I heard you after you found her in the bathroom. I was hiding under her bed, and I heard you shouting at her. You were so angry at her for killing herself. I know she killed herself.”
Trey was stunned. “Oh, God, Stace—”
“The books I’ve read said that depression can be hereditary. I’ve got it, too. I know I do. I’m so unhappy all the time, and I’m afraid I’m going to do the same thing.”
Fear made him numb and he gripped Stacy’s face, searching her eyes. “Oh, Stace, do you really think about killing yourself?”
“No!” She was vehement. “No, I don’t. Never. I don’t want to do that. But the book said…” She started to cry again. “The book said people who have depression can just suddenly turn suicidal. That’s why I was leaving. So you and Dougie wouldn’t wake up some morning and find me on the bathroom floor.”
Trey pulled his daughter close.
“Oh, sweetie,” Kathy murmured. “Your mother really did die of cancer. She was in a lot of pain, and she had a tumor in her brain. We’ll never know if that affected her judgment, or if it was just the pain that drove her to take those pills. Nobody made up a story about her having cancer. And if she was depressed, it was because she knew she was dying. I can’t pretend to know all that she was thinking or feeling, but I do know without a doubt that she didn’t truly want to leave you and Doug.” She looked up into his eyes. “Or Trey.” She smiled, a sweet, quavering smile. “How could she ever willingly leave you?”
Stacy had been wrong about so much, but she’d been completely right about one thing. He was happy when he was with Kathy. Here he was, emotionally eviscerated from all he’d just learned, skewered once again by Helena’s untimely, unfair death, and yet he felt a sense of contentment, a sense of peace he doubted he’d ever felt before in his life.
Simply from looking into Kathy’s eyes.
And the truth had hit him full in the face.
He was in love with her.
He had been so careful not to give away his heart, but he hadn’t counted on her stealing it from him. But she had.
“Let’s go home,” he told the two women who made his life complete. He lifted his daughter’s chin so he could look into her eyes. “I’ll tell you all about your mother’s illness. And we can find someone to talk to. A counselor. I don’t think you’re going to turn suicidal, kid, but that’s not something ever to ignore. We’ll find somebody who maybe knows a little bit more than those books you’ve read, and we’ll deal with this, okay? I’m ready to do whatever it takes.”
Stacy nodded, and Kathy gave him another perfect smile.
He’d deal with Stacy, and then he’d deal with Kathy, too.
He smiled into Kathy’s eyes, definitely ready to do whatever it took.
“Hey,” Trey said. “There you are.”
Katherine looked up from the playroom floor, and the game she was putting away. “Back so soon?” she asked. He’d spent the morning in his office, talking to Stacy. Around lunchtime, they’d both emerged, and Trey had left shortly afterward, saying he had several errands to run in town.
“I found what I was looking for right away,” he told her. He glanced around the room almost nervously. “Where are the kids?”
It was funny, really. She’d seen him businesslike, seen him angry, seen him filled with passion, seen him smile that half sheepish, half embarrassed smile that made her heart swell, but she’d never really seen him nervous. Not like this. What was going on?
“Doug’s in the shower, getting ready for the party at your mother’s. Stacy’s in her room, getting dressed, too. I told her I’d stay home with her, but she seems to want to go,” she reported. She glanced up at him. “If you don’t mind, I thought I’d beg off and stay home tonight.”
“Oh, no,” he said, crouching down on the floor next to her. “Knowing that you were going, too, was the only thing making this bearable. Please, I was counting on you being there.”
She smiled at him. “Stacy and Doug will protect you from Diana St. Vincent just as well as I would have. Actually, I thought it would be good for you and the children to go out together as a family.”
“But you’re part of our family.”
“No, Trey,” she said gently, “I’m not.”
“Maybe I should rephrase that. I want—we want—you to be part of our family.” He was so serious, his eyes a very serious shade of blue. “Permanently.”
Katherine turned back to the game, adjusting the pieces so that they all fit into the box. “Trey, please don’t start with your outrageous salary offers again. I assure you, there’s no amount high enough—”
“How about half of everything I own?”
What? She blinked. “I’m sorry…?”
That was when she realized he was holding something in his hands. Something small and black and…
A jeweler’s ring box.
Trey opened it and held it out to her.
It was the most beautiful diamond she’d ever seen in her entire life. It sparkled and glimmered in a setting that was regal in its simplicity. She knew quite a bit about precious gems, and that stone had to be worth—
But it wasn’t what the diamond was worth that made her breath catch in her throat. It was what it meant. And its simple message was there in Trey’s eyes, as well.
And, just in case she hadn’t yet caught on, he said the words, too. “Marry me.”
Katherine laughed, clutching one hand to her throat, completely surprised. Never, ever, ever in her wildest, craziest dreams had she ever imagined Trey asking her to stay in quite this way.
“I won’t even ask you to sign a prenup—because I know you don’t want the money.”
“Trey, I…” She didn’t know what to say.
He took her hand, took the ring from the box and slid it onto her finger. It fit perfectly.
“We can get married right away,” he said, as if it were already settled, already agreed upon. “Head someplace warm for a honeymoon.” He kissed her. “Someplace where I can keep you naked most of the time.”
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His kiss was so delicious, his touch wonderful, and the ring…It looked as if it had been made specifically for her hand.
“Trey, I don’t know.”
It was his turn to be absolutely surprised. As if he hadn’t doubted for one second that she would immediately and enthusiastically say yes.
But how could she say yes? He’d asked Kathy Wind to marry him, and she wasn’t Kathy Wind.
But what if—what if—she were to tell him who she really was? And what if he didn’t see the fact that she was Princess Katherine of Wynborough as any kind of insurmountable obstacle?
What if?
Hope took flight as she stared at the man who ruled her heart. He wanted to marry her.
What would her father say? He himself had married nonroyalty—a commoner and an American. But would he allow such a thing for one of his daughters? And if he didn’t allow it, would she have the nerve to defy him?
For a lifetime with Trey? No question about it. She loved this man enough to give up everything, everything.
She kissed him, unable to say in words all that she was feeling.
“How could you not know?” he whispered. He kissed her again, harder, longer this time. “I need you—so much that I sometimes feel as if I’m going to rip in half. But this isn’t just about sex. When we’re together, I’m so much better than I am when we’re apart.”
He didn’t say he loved her. She tried not to care about that, but couldn’t. She did care.
“Trey, I have to think about this,” she told him. “I can’t just say yes without really figuring this out. I never expected you to ask me to marry you.”
Undercover Princess Page 21
