Osrik was watching him. The king shook his proud gray head. “You would be wiser to take her and be done with it. In the end, you’ll have to do it, anyway.”
Finn said nothing. He’d already made his intention crystal clear.
Medwyn spoke then, from behind Finn. “Remember, my lord, how this situation came about. Two nights ago, Princess Liv did surrender. She can be seduced, and Prince Finn is the man to do it.”
Osrik’s expression turned thoughtful. He was nodding, but then he frowned. “We mustn’t forget that was Midsummer’s Eve. A night when all the rules are broken. Also, there were large quantities of ale involved—is that your plan, then, Finn? To get her drunk and keep her that way?”
“No, my lord. My plan is to marry her. By her choice. When she makes that choice, she’ll have all her wits about her, else the game would not be fairly played.”
“Hmm,” said the king.
“I believe,” said Medwyn, “that if any man has a chance at this impossible task, it would have to be Finn.”
Osrik looked right at Finn again. “You’re absolutely determined to try to win her—on her ground?”
“Sire. I am.”
“You will allow me to aid you in one small way?”
“No force,” Finn insisted.
The king smiled and crooked a finger. “Approach.” Finn strode to his side and bent close. His liege whispered of the aid he offered.
Finn stood back.
The king said, “I can’t guarantee it. But I shall make the call. Deaf ears sometimes hear again, when blind eyes begin to see there is no other way but to learn to be flexible. And the news of the baby will help. If I succeed, you will have not only an important ally in your quest, you’ll also be positioned properly, in a place where Liv will find it difficult to ignore you. What do you say?”
Finn nodded, “Yes, my lord, if you would. Such aid would be greatly appreciated.”
Brit came breezing into the suite at a little after four that afternoon, a flush on her cheeks and her arms full of packages. She dropped them all by the door when she saw that Liv was still there. “Okay, what’s happened?”
Liv didn’t bother with the TV or the radio. If her father was listening in while she told Brit what a rat he was, so be it.
Besides, she’d had several hours to ponder Finn Danelaw’s cleverness in hinting that the suite might be bugged. It had given him a perfect reason to sit next to her, to whisper in her ear and capture her hand over and over again—to remind her with his closeness of the forbidden night they had shared, to put those incredible powers of seduction to work on her.
And then, she had no doubt at all, not long after he left her rooms her father would have summoned him and commanded him to repeat everything she’d said. So Osrik knew already where she stood and what she intended to do.
Bottom line: this was not espionage. And Liv was through speaking in whispers and sneaking around.
She pulled Brit down onto a long, padded bench near the door. “I couldn’t leave until I talked to you.” Quickly she told everything—of the meeting in her father’s private audience chambers and the one right after it with Finn. When she’d finished, she commanded, “I want you to come home with me. Get packed and we’re out of here.”
But Brit wasn’t moving. “I’m not ready to go yet.”
“Are you out of your mind? He’s probably got this room bugged and can hear everything we’re saying. If he’s capable of that, think what else he might be willing to—”
“Liv. Listen. I’m staying. Our father…is who he is. And I don’t care if he has spies on me. He’s not going to learn anything I’m not willing for him to know, especially not now that I’m aware he’s doing it.”
“But he might do anything. You don’t know what might happen to you here.”
“He’s not going to hurt me. I’m his daughter, and so are you.”
“Argh. Don’t remind me.”
“In his own overbearing way, he loves us both very much.”
Liv had to admit she didn’t really believe Osrik would hurt Brit. And Brit seemed so firm about staying.
“Oh, Brit…”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Are you certain?”
“I am.”
Liv gave up and called for a car, half expecting to be told one wasn’t available and that the royal jet would not be at her disposal, after all.
She was gearing up for another confrontation with her father when an attendant appeared to carry her bags down.
Liv hugged her sister good and hard. “You be careful. I will kill you if you get yourself hurt.”
“I promise. I’m going to be fine. Have a safe trip.”
The drive to the small airport was uneventful. And the royal jet—a Gulfstream capable of flying straight through to California without a stop—was waiting, ready to go as soon as Her Highness could board and the flight plans could be cleared.
Her driver opened her door for her and ushered her from the car, detouring next to the trunk, where he hauled out her bags and turned them over to the porter who would load them in the luggage compartment.
The air was clear and the wind was up. Liv could smell the ocean on it. Overhead, a few gulls dipped and soared. She smoothed her blowing hair off her face and ran for the steps that led up to the passenger door.
The pretty attendant—the same one who’d taken care of Liv and Brit on the flight over—greeted her at the top. “Welcome, Your Highness. So lovely to have you flying with us again.”
Liv gave the woman a big smile and ducked into the cabin to find that there was one other passenger traveling with her: Finn Danelaw.
Chapter Six
Liv hovered in the galley area, the flight attendant at her back, glaring at the man waiting for her in the cabin.
“Liv. Welcome.” Finn rose from the plush leather seat and held out a fine long-fingered hand as if inviting her to dance.
Liv swept through the narrow doorway into the cabin, then stopped short and turned back to the flight attendant. “Excuse us for a moment.” She shut the door in the attendant’s pretty, bewildered face and whirled on Finn. “I’ll ask the obvious. What are you doing here?”
He gave her one of his oh-so-elegant shrugs. “You wouldn’t come to my home. I thought I might visit you in yours.”
“What we had to say to each other has been said. It’s done, finished, through. I will never again have anything to do with you. Thus, it’s impossible for you to ‘visit’ me.”
“I hope to convince you to reconsider my suit.”
“I absolutely will not. I meant what I said. I won’t marry you. No matter what…happens.”
“You won’t marry me. I understand. You’ve said it repeatedly. There’s no need to say it again.”
“Oh, why can’t I get through to you?”
“But Liv darling, you have gotten through to me.”
“I am not your darling.”
“Ah. Yes. I believe you’ve mentioned that, too.”
“Then don’t call me that.”
He dropped into the chair again, rested an elbow on the wide, padded arm and looked up at her, an absolutely infuriating expression of charmed bemusement on his gorgeous face. “He who fights shadows only squanders his strength.”
She really, sincerely, wanted to bop him on the head with her Balenciaga lariat bag. “What is that? One of those obscure Gullandrian sayings of yours?”
“Hardly of mine. And I do think the meaning is clear.”
“There is no point to this. This will get you exactly nowhere.”
“So you’ve explained to me. I find, though, that I have an unrelenting yearning to see Sacramento.”
“Oh, right.” She was truly furious. She felt as if, any second now, steam would start hissing out of her ears. “Prime vacation destination in the Golden State. No doubt about it. What’s Monterey, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, when you can be in Sacramento?”
One corner of his mouth lifted
. Lazily. Seductively. “A visit of…two or three weeks, I would say…”
Oh, there was absolutely no point in talking with him. It got her nowhere and seemed to provide him an endless source of amusement.
Should she deplane?
To what purpose? She’d just have to find some other way to get home. And Finn would still be there when she arrived.
She turned from him abruptly and yanked open the door to the galley area. The attendant stood on the other side, looking sheepish.
“Come in, come in,” Liv said with heavy irony. “Prince Danelaw and I have nothing more to say to each other.”
Liv put the man on permanent ignore. For the entire flight, she did not say one word to him.
They were served an excellent meal of veal medallions with pasta salad and artichokes. Liv savored hers in silence, careful never to let her gaze stray in the direction of the prince, shaking her head when the attendant offered her a glass of wine. It would be a long time before she let anything with alcohol in it cross her lips again.
After she’d eaten, she moved to the bedroom half of the cabin, pulled the accordion doors shut and didn’t emerge for the several hours left in the flight.
It worked out fine. She had a bed to stretch out in and a rest room all to herself if she needed it. She watched a movie, read the new Sandra Day O’Connor memoir and told herself she was hardly giving a thought to the patient, gorgeous, relentless man on the other side of the flimsy doors.
She even had the foresight to call ahead and arrange for a cab to be waiting at the other end. Her father had sent a limousine to pick her up and take her to the airport for the flight to Gullandria, but she had no illusions he would have made any such arrangement now. She was not going to be stuck without a ride—not with the ever-resourceful Prince Finn around. Of course, he’d have a limousine waiting. And he’d be oh-so-eager to give her a lift.
The flight took ten hours. With the eight-hour time difference, they touched down at Sacramento Executive Airport at a little after eight in the evening—only two hours later than the time it had been when they left Gullandria.
Liv looked out the window and saw a throng of reporters waiting on the tarmac—along with a shiny black limousine and an undistinguished-looking white four-door sedan: her cab.
She scrawled the address and phone number of her summer sublet on the back of a business card and gave it to the flight attendant along with a fifty. “Make certain my bags get to that address tonight.”
“Yes, Your Highness. I’ll see to it. Thank you for flying with us.”
Liv smiled politely and moved on. She got out the door first, ahead of Finn. The cameras started clicking the minute she appeared on the small landing at the top of the steps. And the questions came at her as she descended.
“Princess Liv, how’s your sister, the warrior’s bride?”
“Elli is blissfully happy.”
“Where will they honeymoon?”
“You know, I can’t say for certain….”
“I see Princess Brit isn’t with you. Why?”
“She decided to extend her visit in my father’s country.”
Finn was right behind her. And they noticed. The women in the crowd waved and called to him—by name. “Prince Danelaw!”
“Prince Finn, this way!”
Finn grinned and waved. Click-click-click went the cameras. More than one woman fanned herself and sighed.
“Princess Liv, we understand that you and Prince Finn will be celebrating a wedding of your own very soon.”
She’d been smiling until then. “I beg your pardon, I hardly know Prince Finn.” Well, it was true. Just because she’d slept with him, didn’t mean she knew him. “He’s visiting Sacramento. We merely flew here on the same plane. We are not engaged—I’m not engaged to anyone.”
“But my sources have it that—”
“Your sources have it wrong.” Liv elbowed her way through the jostling crowd as quickly and smoothly as she could manage it, with the questions still flying and the cameras clicking away.
She couldn’t believe it. How could they possibly have any clue about her and Finn? But then she thought of her father and decided this was just like him: to plant false information and put her in the embarrassing position of having to deny it.
Finn stayed right with her, too close for comfort. He was at her side when she reached the cab. The cabby hadn’t thought to get out and open her door for her.
Finn did the honors. He reached for the handle and then stopped to grant her a heart-twisting smile. “Are you sure you won’t ride with me? I’d be happy to take you wherever you’d like to go.”
Oh, I’ll just bet, she thought.
Click-click-click-click. The cameramen kept shooting away.
Live returned his smile, but only because she’d been taught by her mother that one must never let the paparazzi see one sweat. “No, thank you. I’ll be fine. Enjoy your visit to Sacramento.”
His gaze tracked to her mouth, then flicked up to collide with hers again. “Yes. I have a feeling I’m going to be very glad I came.”
Another of those infuriating, purely sexual shivers quivered through her. She went on smiling and spoke very softly. “Open that door or I’ll spit in your eye.”
With a flourish, he pulled the door wide.
Liv gave the cabby her address and turned to look out the rear window as the cab pulled away from the crowd of reporters. She wanted to make certain Finn didn’t follow her.
Still waving at the clicking cameras, he strode over to the long, black limousine. The limo driver jumped out and opened the door. Sable hair shining in the fading light of early evening, the prince ducked inside.
Liv kept watching, until the limo went another way. Apparently, Finn had better sense than to try tailing her home. A wise move on his part. If he had, she’d intended to call the police on him.
She could see the headlines now: Princess Liv And Her Handsome Stalker, The Prince. Royal Engagement A No-Go. His Highness In Jail. It would be ugly. And he would fully deserve whatever embarrassment he suffered.
Where would he go? she found herself wondering, though she knew she shouldn’t spare another thought for him. Some exclusive hotel, no doubt. Wherever. She didn’t care. She was jet-lagged and emotionally exhausted and she needed a good night’s rest. She had to be at work tomorrow.
The cabby let her off in front of the cute, attractively renovated two-story Victorian on T Street. It belonged to a friend of her mother’s—a friend who was visiting Alaska for the summer. Ingrid had wanted Liv to stay in her old room at the Land Park house where Liv and her sisters had grown up. But Liv treasured her independence too much. She wanted to come and go as she pleased and know she wouldn’t be worrying her mother. Plus, the T Street house was downtown, closer to the State Attorney General’s Office and her job.
Inside, she brewed herself a cup of soothing tea and checked in with her message service. There was one from Simon, which brought a fresh twinge of guilt.
He was in town—Simon was spending his summer on the campaign trail with a senatorial candidate they both supported—and he wanted her to call him at his hotel. He reminded her about the rally tomorrow, the one she’d promised him several weeks ago that she’d attend.
She thought of a thousand excuses why she didn’t have to call him right then. None of them added up to anything but the desire to evade an unpleasant duty. She picked up the phone.
In the instant before she punched up his number, the doorbell rang. Her bags.
She had the driver lug them in. He left them in a neat row inside the front door at the foot of the stairs. She tipped him and locked up. Then she grabbed her overnighter—the rest she’d worry about tomorrow—and went on upstairs.
The phone rang as she was pulling on her thick terry bathrobe. She knew it was going to be Simon. She considered not answering.
“Coward,” she muttered, and picked up the receiver.
It was her mother.
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br /> “Liv darling, you’re home.” Her mother always called her darling. She’d never thought a thing about it. But now, the word stood out when Ingrid said it, making Liv think of the infuriating Prince Finn.
“Liv?” Ingrid asked, a note of concern creeping in.
“Sorry, Mom. I’m beat. And yes, I’m home. Safe and sound.”
“Good trip?”
“Can’t complain. Nonstop. The king’s luxury jet.” Liv waited, somewhat grimly, for her mother to start in about Brit staying on in Gullandria and Elli marrying “that big Gullandrian thug.”
But she didn’t. She only said, “It’s a long flight, I know. Take a hot bath and get some rest.”
Liv heaved a grateful sigh. She wanted to be there for Ingrid, to listen to her worries and provide a shoulder to cry on. But tonight, it really would have been one big scene too many. She said warmly, “A bath and a good night’s sleep. My intentions exactly.”
“And how about dinner, tomorrow night? I’ll have Hilda make your favorite stuffed pork chops. Say sevenish?”
“Sounds wonderful. I’ll be there.”
Liv was just about to say good-night when it occurred to her that her mother might hear about her so-called engagement before she could explain the situation tomorrow at dinner. Ingrid hopefully would take such news with a grain of salt. But then again, she might completely freak. Hard to say. “Listen, Mom, I just want to warn you.”
“My. This does sound ominous.” Ingrid’s voice was light. Almost teasing.
And Liv wanted it to stay that way. “It’s not ominous. Not in the least. It’s nothing. I met this, well, this very charming man, in Gullandria. We spent some time together. You know, just casual?” Well, okay, not completely casual. But she was hoping Ingrid would never have to know about that. “We danced. We…talked. We went riding. He gave me a tour of Lysgard. He, um, showed Brit and me around….”
“Darling, what are you getting at?”
“Well, his name is Danelaw. Prince Finn Danelaw. And somehow, the press has gotten hold of it. As usual, they’ve made a big deal out of nothing. They seem to think I’m engaged to Finn. It’s not true. There’s nothing between us. And I, well, I just wanted you to hear it from me first, that’s all.”
Prince and Future... Dad? Page 6
