The Marine & The Princess

by Cathie Linz

  He shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “Don’t you like kids?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “It’s just that I remember you saying that the only thing that scared you was the idea of marriage and being committed to only one woman. I figured that meant you weren’t interested in settling down and having kids.”

  “You said that marriage scared you, too,” Mark reminded her.

  “For different reasons. It’s not that I don’t want to get married, but I want to marry for the same reason my mother did. For love.”

  “And? What’s the problem with that?”

  Her eyes became shadowed with unhappy memories. “My father has other plans for me,” she said tightly. “Can we talk about something else, please? I don’t want to think about that now.”

  “Sure.” He’d mastered the art of blocking out thoughts that were too painful to deal with.

  Vanessa was pleased with how quickly Mark regained his earlier good mood. She didn’t want anything ruining their time together. There was so little time. She didn’t want to think about that, either.

  She was wearing her flirty capri jeans again today, teaming them this time with a pink knit designer top. Before going to bed last night, she’d washed the temporary red color from her hair. She was once again wearing the Yankees baseball cap and a pair of dollar sunglasses with cherries on the sides.

  Her father would have a fit if he saw her now. She grinned.

  “What are you smiling about now?” he asked.

  “A woman has to have a few secrets.” Leaning forward, she startled him by quickly kissing him. His lips were warm against hers as she brushed against them in a seductive caress that was there and then gone, much as she was tempted to linger.

  “What was that for?” His voice was low and rough with suppressed emotions.

  “The Reuben sandwich,” she said demurely.

  Mark tried to keep his wits about him, but she was making it hard. She was definitely making certain parts of his anatomy hard. She looked so delectable sitting there in the sunshine, a happy tourist in a sea of people out enjoying the beautiful spring weather.

  But appearances could be deceiving. The two guys playing a game of Frisbee kept getting closer and closer with each toss. Harmless high jinks? Or was it something else? Kidnapping was big business these days. He’d been in Washington long enough to know all about security measures that public figures had to take for their own safety.

  He couldn’t afford to let Vanessa distract him with her sudden kamikaze kisses. He had a job to do here. The Frisbee-tossers were definitely getting too close for his comfort level. He glared at the men, who quickly moved away. Far, far away.

  But that left the man and woman taking pictures of people in the park. What was that about? They must have taken an entire roll of film. Leaning closer to Vanessa, he said, “Don’t make any sudden moves, but I want you to casually look to your right. See those people with the camera? Do you recognize them? Paparazzi maybe?”

  He had to give her credit, she did just as he asked, casually turning her head in a way that wouldn’t tip anyone off that anything might be amiss.

  “I don’t recognize them, but there are so many paparazzi. Do you think they’re taking pictures of us?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t like it.”

  She didn’t like it either. She didn’t want her royal reality intruding on her perfect day. “Should we leave?”

  “Affirmative.” It was the first time today she’d heard him sound like a military man.

  Mark used his training to make sure that anyone trying to follow them wouldn’t have an easy time of it. He took a circuitous route out of the park, hailed a cab and took it to a huge department store.

  “You’re taking me shopping?” Vanessa said. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Don’t believe it.” His voice was curt. “We won’t be here long.” He rushed her out an exit on a different street where he hustled her into another cab before she could catch her breath. He got in so quickly after her that he almost landed on her lap.

  Mark gave that driver another address. They ended up taking two more cab rides before finally going to the brownstone. Throughout it all, Mark refused to tell her anything.

  Vanessa put up with that until they walked into the apartment. Then she wanted some answers. “Do you want to tell me what that was all about?”

  “I was just being cautious.”

  She knew he wasn’t telling her the entire story. Something had been bothering him all afternoon. She wanted to know what it was. “You were cautious by spending a small fortune on cab fares?”

  “I didn’t like the look of that couple taking pictures at the park.”

  She hated it when he avoided telling her the whole story, when he got all closemouthed this way, saying as little as possible in short military sentences. “Which would explain why we left the park, not why we had to take three or four cabs to get home.”

  “Confuse the enemy.”

  “You think someone was following us?”

  “I didn’t want to take any chances.”

  “You don’t like taking chances?”

  “Not where your safety is concerned.”

  “I appreciate that. What about the rest of your life?” she surprised him by asking. “Do you take chances there?”

  “I’m a Marine. I’ve dealt with dangerous situations before. Risk is always a factor.”

  “I was talking about your private life. Do you take chances there? Do you ever do something on the spur of the moment?” She knew he’d used his vacation time to come see her in New York, which hadn’t been planned, but he’d already told her he’d only done that because Prudence had asked him. It hadn’t been an impetuous move on his own.

  “The Marine Corps doesn’t like spur-of-the-moment life-styles.” His voice was clipped. “We work with discipline, rules and regulations.”

  “And you like working within the rules? Always coloring between the lines? At the restaurant the other night I asked you if you never wondered if there wasn’t something more to life.”

  “And I said I didn’t know.”

  “A cautious answer if ever I heard one,” she scoffed.

  “I’m a cautious kind of guy,” he stubbornly maintained.

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  They stood, almost nose to nose, like two combatants in a war of wills.

  The tense moment was interrupted by the sound of his cell phone ringing.

  “It’s Prudence for you,” Mark said, handing the phone over.

  As Vanessa sailed off into the bedroom in a royal huff, Mark realized how close he’d come to losing his objectivity today. Who was he kidding? He had lost his objectivity. And there was no getting it back. Which meant he’d have to deal with it and get on with his mission.

  Mark knew all about the nature of war—the friction, the uncertainty, the fluidity. The nature of sex held many similarities. But he knew diddly-squat about the nature of love.

  He’d always had a plan for his life. He wouldn’t fall in love and marry until he was thirty-five. That way he’d be mature enough not to make a mistake like his brother Justice had when he’d married so young. Mark had seen how devastated the divorce had left his brother, and he didn’t aim on making the same mistakes. Sure, his younger brother Joe was married already, but Joe was much more impetuous than Mark was.

  No, Mark preferred a logical game plan to the blindly following-your-heart school of thought. Give him a clearly defined objective, and he’d design a campaign that would achieve and secure that objective.

  Marine Corps doctrine demanded that officers be men of action and of intellect both. Mark had to be resolute and self-reliant in his decision-making.

  Whatever had hit him when he’d seen Vanessa holding that child at the park, he had to get over it. He had to get real here. What could a Marine like him offer a princess like her? Not much.

  He couldn’t be swayed,
couldn’t let himself be distracted, couldn’t let his loyalty be divided. To do so could prove disastrous—not only for him but for Vanessa as well.

  Chapter Eight

  “Mark is driving me crazy,” Vanessa told Prudence over the phone as she flung herself onto the bed before remembering it would ripple and bob.

  “You’re not falling for him, are you?” Prudence asked.

  Sexy Marines and water beds weren’t made for falling. Picturing one particular sexy Marine on this water bed temporarily rendered her speechless.

  Prudence filled in the silence. “Because when Joe and I were marooned together in that cabin in a snowstorm, he drove me crazy, too.”

  Vanessa looked outside, catching sight of the snow globe Mark had given her as she did so. “There’s no snowstorm here.” She got up and retrieved the snow globe, turning it upside down to watch the white flakes swirl. “Sunny skies all the way.” But inside, Vanessa felt as if a storm was indeed raging, sparked by Mark’s way of getting closer to her only to end up pushing her away. She’d tried to be understanding at first, but her patience was running out.

  “The sun may be shining there, but Mark is one of the sexy Wilder brothers.” Prudence did not sound convinced. “I know first-hand how potent their sex appeal can be.”

  “Oh, please,” Vanessa scoffed. “I’m a princess. I’ve met the sexiest men in the world.”

  “And never been as rattled by one of them as you are right now by Mark.”

  “That’s because he’s…” she sputtered. She actually sputtered. Unsettled by her reaction, she placed the snow globe he’d given her back on the dresser as if it were responsible for her sudden incoherence.

  “At a loss for words?” Prudence teased her. “A sure symptom of imminent attraction.”

  “The man kissed me the first day I met him and then had the nerve to say it was my fault. That I shouldn’t have let him kiss me.” The words were tumbling from her now. “Then ten minutes later, he kisses me again, supposedly to distract Anton, but who knows? Today I kissed Mark, and he just gave me this look.”

  “You do realize you’re not making any sense, don’t you?” Prudence noted.

  “I know,” Vanessa replied forlornly, returning to sit on the bed.

  “Did you like Mark’s kisses?” Prudence bluntly asked.

  “Too much,” Vanessa candidly replied.

  “Yes, well, Mark is the complicated one in the family.”

  “I thought he was the proud one. The smart one.”

  “He’s both those things, which makes him complicated. Mark goes through life with a battle plan laid out in his mind. And he’s enough of a Marine not to tell anyone what that battle plan is. But I don’t think it involves things like falling in love. I suspect he doesn’t want to lose control of a situation enough to have his emotions take over.”

  “Why not? What’s so bad about emotions?”

  “We’re talking about a Marine here,” Prudence reminded her. “Mark was raised in a family of Marines. So was I. Trust me, emotions are not something Marines are proud of. If they could ban them in their procedural handbook, I’m sure they would.”

  Vanessa sighed. “My father has the same mind-set. Emotions are not allowed in a royal family, either.”

  “Which is one of the reasons you and I are such good friends,” Prudence said. “We both grew up in stiff-upper-lip environments, and we both rebelled against that regimented life-style.”

  “You swore you’d never get involved with a military man.”

  Prudence laughed. “Yes, well, now you know first-hand how tempting they can be.”

  “Is that why you sent Mark here?” Vanessa countered. “To show me how tempting he can be?”

  “Hey, if you married him, we’d be sisters-in-law.”

  “The only problem with that is Mark, who probably has his own grand pooh-bah plan for marriage that doesn’t include getting hooked up with a princess. And then there’s my father, who has plans of his own for me.”

  “One of the tabloids is saying that you and Sebastian are on the verge of announcing your engagement,” Prudence said.

  Vanessa closed her eyes and groaned. She had no doubt who had leaked that story. The royal press officer Oscar Mullion was one of her father’s most devoted minions. And one of her sternest critics.

  “They clearly think they can coerce me into marrying Sebastian,” Vanessa muttered angrily, “but it won’t work.”

  “Have you talked to your father lately?”

  “Not since I took off, no.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to check in with him?”

  “Yes, I am.” Vanessa checked her watch, a simple solid gold design from a top Swiss designer. Mark had let her keep her watch, saying that so many cheap knockoffs were sold on the streets of New York that no one would know this one was real. “It’s too late now, I’ll have to do that first thing in the morning. With the time change, it’s already the middle of the night there.”

  “Then let’s get back to the subject of Mark,” Prudence said eagerly.

  “He’s doing this one-step-forward-two-steps-back ritual mating dance with me,” Vanessa griped. “Stop laughing!”

  “I can’t help it,” Prudence gasped. “I’m just picturing Mark in dress blues doing any kind of ritual mating dance.”

  “It was just a phrase. And he’s not wearing any uniform here. Just jeans and a T-shirt, if that much.”

  “Oh-ho, so that means you’ve seen him in less than jeans and a T-shirt.” Prudence’s voice was filled with glee. “You’ve been holding back on me. Tell me more.”

  “He sleeps on the couch in the living room here at his friend’s apartment where we’re staying. And naturally he can’t sleep in his jeans.”

  “Naturally not. So exactly how much of Mark have you seen?”

  “Stop that!” Vanessa scolded her with a laugh. “He’s wearing perfectly respectable military-green boxers to sleep in at night.”

  “Perfectly respectable, huh?” Prudence’s voice was wickedly naughty.

  “Don’t distract me, I was trying to ask you a question earlier. Getting back to my one-step-forward analogy, is that how Mark is with other women?”

  “I don’t think so. He tends not to get very serious about any one of them. I heard him telling Joe once that he had a plan, and that marriage didn’t fit into that plan until he was thirty-five.”

  “How nice to have your life so clearly mapped out like that,” Vanessa said tartly.

  “Your life is practically mapped out until you’re thirty-five,” Prudence pointed out.

  “And I hate it.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Well, I can tell you one thing,” Vanessa replied. “I am definitely not marrying Sebastian, whatever those tabloids say.”

  “The princess cannot be disturbed right now,” Celeste firmly told Anton early the next morning. “As you can see, she has not finished her breakfast yet.” She indicated the tray, where a soft-boiled egg was half eaten, the spoon still in the shell. “She is taking a shower. You can hear the water running in the bathroom.”

  Anton nodded, but said, “I have not seen her in almost a week.”

  “Because she is ill. You know that. The doctor has been here—”

  “I do not trust him,” Anton interrupted her to state. “I have seen the way he makes eyes at you.”

  “Dr. Rosenthal has been very kind.”

  “He has ties to the U.S. military. I checked him out.”

  Celeste glared at Anton. “The princess will be furious with you. You had no right to do that. She chose this doctor personally.”

  Anton did not back down. “The princess should be seeing the royal physician.”

  “He’s back in Volzemburg.”

  “He could fly in to see her.”

  “She’s not that ill that he has to do that.”

  Anton frowned at her. “Something is very suspicious here. I do not like this at all.”


  “It is not your job to pass judgment on what the princess does or the choices she makes.”

  “I am here to protect her.”

  “Then do that, and do not make her illness even more difficult by making trouble.”

  “Is there a problem here?” Dr. Rosenthal asked from the open doorway into the suite.

  “No. Anton was just expressing his concern about the princess. I told him that while she is feeling a bit better, she cannot be disturbed by him at the moment.”

  “She is well enough to see the doctor,” Anton said.

  “If she was all that well, I wouldn’t need to see her,” Dr. Rosenthal pointed out.

  “Tell Her Highness that I wish to speak with her at her earliest convenience,” Anton said forcefully.

  Celeste replied, “I will tell her.”

  Anton angrily returned to his post outside the suite, but not before giving Dr. Rosenthal a hard-edged disapproving look.

  “Are you all right?” Dr. Rosenthal asked Celeste.

  “You have been very kind these past few days, Dr. Rosenthal. I don’t know what I would have done without your support.”

  “Please, call me Abraham.” He smiled at her. “I’ve been glad to be of assistance, Celeste. I’ve come to look forward to our visits.”

  She blushed. “I have as well… Abraham.”

  “When I speak with Mark later today I will tell him that Anton is putting pressure on you.” His kind gaze was filled with empathy, and Celeste was caught up in the moment.

  The phone rang, interrupting them. “Celeste, this is Princess Vanessa calling. How is everything?”

  Celeste quickly filled her in about Anton’s increasing suspicion. She closed by saying, “I fear the king will be calling next and demanding to speak with you, Your Highness.”

  “I’m surprised he hasn’t done so yet. But not to worry, I’m going to call him now. I just wanted to check in with you first to make sure everything was all right, that you were managing things at your end.”

  “I have been managing with Abraham’s assistance. He has been most helpful,” Celeste said.

  “Abraham?”

  “Dr. Rosenthal.”

  “Ah. It sounds like the two of you have been hitting it off.”