by Cara Colter
“You and I have no future, Owen,” she said, forcing her tone to be uncompromising. “I know that. Why can’t you see it?”
The problem was he didn’t look like he was going to give up and just wish her a nice life. His face had a stubborn cast to it.
“I find myself asking why you’ve been brought here to Penwyck. Someone with a great deal of power has a piece of this puzzle that I don’t have.”
Was he saying he might be given permission to marry her? She would not even allow herself to contemplate it.
“Owen, I am not a chess piece in the royal manipulations. I have no desire to be. The sad truth is that you and I had a passionate summer that we cannot revisit. We barely knew each other then, and we barely know each other now. There is a possibility that it is only the most amazing of coincidences that I wound up here to help cook your stupid dinner.
“You should be relieved to know I’ve decided to refrain from venting five years of rage at you by putting Ex-Lax in your portion of the Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy.
“On Sunday morning, I am going to pack my bags and I am going to take my daughter and go home and back to my very ordinary life.”
He was watching her closely. Much too closely.
“She’s my daughter, too,” he said quietly.
“Don’t you even think of threatening me, Owen.”
“I’m not. I’m simply stating a fact.”
“Well, it’s a good thing for me she’s a girl, since that puts her out of the lineup for the throne. Or would her illegitimacy have done that anyway?” She was saying hurtful things to him, but they seemed to be backfiring on her. Every time he winced as one of her barbs found its way home, she found herself feeling sorry she had said it.
“You aren’t listening to me,” he said quietly. “You are trying to turn everything into a fight. I seem to remember that, too. You were a formidable debate partner. But I don’t want this to be a debate. I want to be Whitney’s father.”
“Nothing can change the fact that you are Whitney’s father.”
“I don’t mean as a function of biology. I want to be her father. A person of importance in her life.”
“Look, Owen, money is obviously not a problem. You will have to do what the other weekend dads do, fly over and visit, buy her a pony, take her to Disneyland once a year.”
It occurred to her that meant he would always be part of her life. At least until Whitney was grown-up. She could be strong for four or five more days, but fourteen years?
“Give me until Saturday,” he said.
“To what?”
“To change your mind. About the man. And about me.”
“No!”
“Jordan, something is wrong here. You talk about getting married without an ounce of excitement, talk about going back to an ordinary life. My experience with love is that nothing is ordinary once it finds you. Everything is extraordinary.”
“I’m glad love was so extraordinary for you! My experience with love is that it hurts!”
“Are you telling me you are going to marry a man you don’t love?”
Oh, God, that was the problem with lies. They started out so simply, and the next thing you knew they were tangled around you as if you had inadvertently dropped in on a nest of snakes.
“I am not discussing my personal life with you!”
“Give me until Saturday.”
“No!”
“If it was possible to change your mind,” he said slowly, “that’s something you should know.”
“Don’t you dare wreck my life and then turn around and say it was for my own good.”
“I just want your happiness.”
“You are no expert on my happiness,” she told him.
“And if it isn’t possible to change your mind, you have nothing to worry about. You can go back to your ordinary life and live happily ever after. I can live with that. If you give me until Saturday to change your mind. Give me a chance to get to know you all over again.”
“You can’t change my mind.”
“Then we have a deal?” he said smoothly.
Oh, this was insanity. It was like making a deal with the devil. But her pride would not allow him to think she was afraid of the power he had over her, even if she was.
“Deal,” she said. It was safe enough. Saturday was only a few days away. She would be in the kitchen most of that time. Besides, now was the time to prove, forever, that she was immune to him. To take back her life, and her power, to leave those summer days of five years ago behind her for eternity.
He was right, though she damned him for it. If she could not leave that summer love behind, there was no hope for her ever finding happiness.
“Let’s begin like this,” he said. He got up from his chair and came around to her. She watched him warily. In the last second, she knew what he was going to do. She had time to push back her chair and run.
But she didn’t.
She watched him lower his head to hers, helpless. She sat as frozen as if she was carved from ice when his lips, familiar, touched her forehead, trailed to her cheek.
The ice melted, and when his lips sought hers, her body did the ultimate betrayal. She responded. She did not want to. She ordered herself not to.
But when his lips touched hers it was as if the color stripped from the world washed back into it. It was as if winter dissolved into spring. Something within her, in chains, released, and she answered his lips.
Came home to them.
She realized she had been alive only in her dreams, when these lips touched hers.
“Mommy!”
Dazedly, she pulled away. Her daughter was standing at the foot of the table, regarding them wide-eyed.
Owen straightened and smiled.
Whitney stared at her mother. “You smooching with Pwince Owen?”
“Um, sort of, I guess.”
Owen raised a wicked eyebrow at her. “Yes or no question,” he said.
Whitney pondered this for a moment, and then climbed onto a chair, studied each of the clown cupcakes in turn, and then chose one. She took a big bite.
“Will you be a pwincess, then Mommy?”
Owen chuckled at Jordan’s discomfort. “Doesn’t Mr. Justin ever kiss your mother?” he asked.
Jordan felt a desire to kill him. It struck her it had always been like this with him—a roller-coaster ride. Exhilarating. Full of twists and turns and plunges and climbs.
“Who?” Whitney asked, puzzled.
Owen looked smug.
“Jay-Jay,” she told her daughter, taking a risk.
“Oh, Mommy kisses with him all the time.”
It was Jordan’s turn to look smug, but she knew she had to change the topic, fast, before Whitney added that she also liked to scratch his tummy and behind his ears!
Too late. Owen looked distinctly suspicious. “Your daughter hardly knows who your fiancé is,” he said.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. That’s why we got a C-minus on our final paper. You jumped to conclusions, based most of that paper on unsubstantiated fact. As it happens, I don’t think it’s a good idea to expose young children to their parents’ romantic interests.”
“We got a C-minus on that paper because we were occupied with far more important things.” Still he had stopped laughing. “Have there been many? Romantic interests?”
“Dozens,” she said, and steeled herself to his eyes on her, searching.
“Remember the time you tried to convince me you knew how to drive the stick shift in that convertible I rented to go down the coast?”
“No,” she lied.
“You were always a terrible liar,” he said.
“Unlike you, who was remarkably good at it,” she reminded him.
His face clouded and again she felt no pleasure in landing the jab. She was relieved when he turned his attention to Whitney, but only briefly.
The man and the child had instant rapport. When he excused himself, an hour later, he had won over
Whitney as his greatest fan. Or had he become Whitney’s greatest fan?
Jordan left the garden feeling confused. How could she just leave him, and go back to her life as if nothing had happened? Could she really deprive Whitney of a rich relationship with her real father?
This, she realized, was just as Owen wanted it. He wanted her to start questioning everything. He wanted to weaken her. He was winning already!
Jordan discovered her competitive spirit was alive and well.
She wasn’t letting him win.
The stakes were just too high. They were playing for her heart, and she wasn’t letting him win that again. She would have to see his relationship with Whitney as completely separate from his relationship with her, or she would end up hopelessly entangled in his web.
She arrived back at the kitchen just in time to supervise the arrival of the nasturtiums and keep one of the helpers from pouring the yogurt culture down the drain.
She found he haunted her thoughts, despite how busy she was. Every time someone came into the kitchen, she braced herself, thinking it might be him, but it never was. She told herself she was thankful for that, but late that night when she finally was free of her duties, she thought for a man who was going to try and win her, he was doing a poor job of it. She had expected to see him again today. Was there the smallest little finger of disappointment that she had not? Had she actually been looking forward to locking horns with him again?
She went into Whitney’s room beside hers, and kissed the sleeping child good-night. She opened her room holding her breath.
What was she expecting? The grand gesture. A room full of flowers that she could have scorned. But her room was empty.
Somehow, he had the power to hurt her all over again.
Remember that, she told herself. She was still repeating like a mantra, as she went into the kitchen very early the next morning, Owen Penwyck has the power to hurt you. Beware.
The kitchen was full of welcoming chaos, comforting noise and activity around her. And suddenly something that never happened in a kitchen happened.
It went deathly silent.
Jordan knew he was here, and turned from the pot of chocolate she was stirring. She looked her worst, a dribble of chocolate down her front, her oldest whites on because she had known she would be working with chocolate today.
She turned to face him, and was reminded he had the power to hurt. Because he was not there.
“Ms. Jordan Ashbury?”
She saw what had caused the silence in the kitchen. The man standing there was wearing a white wig, and an outfit straight from history: long navy blue jacket, white breeches, high black boots.
“I’m Jordan, yes.”
“I have orders. I am to escort you to the carriage.”
“Go away.” She turned around swiftly, feeling the blood rise in her face, as if Owen had announced publicly to the world one of her most secret thoughts. She loved history.
A collective gasp went up from the kitchen staff who were watching the drama unfold with avid interest.
“You don’t seem to understand,” the man said quietly, “if I go away, without delivering you, I could be fired. I have a wife at home, a new baby.”
“Did he tell you to say that?”
“No, madam.”
“Tell him I have to work. Some of us have to work for a living.”
“I understood you had been relieved of your duties,” the man said.
“Aunt Meg!” That screech could not be her voice. She modulated her tone when her aunt came across the kitchen nervously wiping her hands on her apron. “Have I been relieved of my duties?” she demanded.
“Of course not,” Meg assured her, but before she could draw one breath of relief, her aunt added, “just temporarily replaced.”
“What!? You need me!”
“The assistant they brought in to help me out trained at Cordon Bleu. Can you believe that?”
“Unfortunately,” Jordan said.
“She has a gift with yogurt culture,” her aunt said reverently. “And she’s always wanted to work with botanicals. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Amazing,” Jordan said woodenly.
“Have a wonderful day, my dear. I do believe the prince is sweet on you. Now that’s exciting.” Her aunt began singing, enthusiastically, “Some Day My Prince Will Come,” the theme from Sleeping Beauty.
“Oh, please,” Jordan said, feeling her face turn red hot in front of the assembled staff.
“Say yes to the adventure, Jordan!”
“I’ll say yes to the adventure, all right,” she said, whipping off her apron. “Lead on,” she said imperiously to the coachman.
“We have time for you to go to your quarters and change,” he said tactfully, after they had left the kitchen.
I don’t need to change to tell the prince to go to hell. “That’s all right,” she said sweetly.
“He is a prince,” the man hinted helpfully.
“I don’t care,” she said. “Being a prince has done nothing for him but make him entirely too accustomed to having his way.”
“He’s not like that, Ms. Ashbury,” the footman said frostily. “I think I get my way more often than he gets his, if you want the truth of it.”
“Pardon?”
He hesitated, obviously torn between the discomfort of discussing the prince, and the discomfort of not defending him. “He carries the expectations of many people. It is a heavy weight for one so young. I believe it has made him a strong man, but a lonely one.”
And then he clammed up, saying not another word to her.
He arrived at a door that led outside and hesitated before opening it. He looked gravely at her hair. She resisted the impulse to pat it down. She did not have to do her hair to give Owen a piece of her mind!
The man gave a little shake of his head, bowed and opened the door.
She stepped out and then froze. At the end of a cobblestone pathway was an enclosed white carriage, shimmering with gold trim, harnessed to a team of four white horses.
Absurdly, she would have loved to race back to her room and change clothes, to somehow be worthy of that carriage. Not, she realized, that she had brought one thing appropriate for a ride in a carriage.
She reminded herself she was not going in the carriage. She was marching down the walk, opening the door, and telling Owen to go hang himself.
Still, she had a sensation of this being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that she was going to spoil for herself by being so absurdly stubborn. Hadn’t she always dreamed of riding in a carriage, through dark woods? Something tickled at the back of her mind, but when she tried to look at it, the thought was gone.
She realized she was allowing herself to be charmed by Owen. All ready, and the game had hardly begun.
She deliberately remussed her hair and walked down the path to the waiting carriage. The footman leaped in front of her and opened the door.
She hoped she had an I’m-not-the-least-bit-impressed look on her face. She leaned in the door. “Take your carriage and stuff—”
She stopped. She was speaking to air. The interior of the carriage was empty. And beautiful. It was obviously very old and meticulously maintained. She ordered herself not to get in, but surely it wouldn’t hurt to see if the velvet-covered seats were as comfortable as they looked.
She stepped in and sat down. The door clicked shut behind her, and she heard the slap of the reins the jingle of the harnesses. She felt a tug and a jerk and then they rolled smoothly forward. Now was the time to tell them to stop, she knew. But she didn’t.
The benches inside were burgundy velvet, the roof and walls rich, cream-colored leather. The “windows” had no glass, but she could pull burgundy draperies over them if she desired. There was silver inlay in the door handles.
She leaned out the window to watch the horses. It was the most beautiful morning, a mist clinging to vibrant green hills, dawn splashing dollops of gold and silver on the mist, the wet road un
folding. The steady clop of the horses’ hooves, the creak of the carriage, the lovely smells of leather and horses and morning soothed and delighted her.
She relaxed against the cushions and giggled. It was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful to be a princess. Every now and then they would pass a car or someone on a bicycle and she would lean out the window and wave and enjoy the surprised looks on their faces at her scruffy appearance. One man stopped his car and took out his camera. She waved as he snapped a picture.
The road was beginning to twist through the woods. The light changed. She listened to birds sing. She’d enjoy her carriage ride. It was no crime to enjoy an experience so special. But when she saw Owen her message would be the same. She would tell him, coolly—
The carriage jolted, hard, flinging her back against the seat. She heard a shout, the comforting tattoo of the horses hooves changed to thunder. The carriage was moving way too fast, swaying, rocking, bouncing over rocks.
She had the cynical thought that this could only happen to her, dreams transforming to nightmares.
“Stop the carriage!”
A shout from behind. Bracing herself she managed to lean out the window. They were being chased!
Her heart hammered in her throat. Jordan was not sure she had ever seen such a magnificent sight. A horse as black as night galloped behind the carriage, immense and powerful. But it was the man who controlled him who was arresting, black cape flying out behind him, grace and power in the incredible line of his body.
He was wearing a mask! She ducked back in the carriage, and placed a hand over her wildly beating heart.
There had just been a kidnapping on this island. Had the kidnappers come back? Had they mistaken her for someone of importance?
Her rational mind kicked in. No kidnapper in the twenty-first century would be on a horse! Suddenly, she laughed.
It was part of the adventure. She looked out the window again, at their pursuer, drawing closer. The grace and strength in his body was unmistakable. It was Owen. The outfit should have seemed ridiculous, but somehow that was not the impression it gave. Instead it gave an impression of power unleashed, of breathtaking boldness and daring, of infinite excitement.
