No, it couldn’t be… unless he felt the same way, she did? Was that possible? She thought he probably wouldn’t even call her and here she had two voicemails from him within three days. That meant something, didn’t it? If he weren't that interested, he probably wouldn’t have called back when she didn’t call him back right?
Teagan felt the tingling moving through her stomach now turning into butterflies. It was like she wanted to run out of her own skin. She wanted to jump up and shout with the excitement she was feeling right now, but somehow, she found the restraint to stay seated. The bus trip could not possibly be short enough. She wanted to call Cort the first chance she got and talk with him. She had to explain herself and why she hadn’t called him back. Oh, he probably thought she was just messing with him and leading him on. The thought made her sick that she might have blown it again with this amazing man.
But the timing was just wrong. Surely, he would understand that. If she ever got a chance to speak with him that was. What if he didn’t want to talk with her now? Teagan took a deep breath. All she could do was try. She had his number now. If anything, she could track him down that way, right? Unless that would seem psychotic. She surely didn’t want him thinking she was some kind of a stalker.
Oh, why was this all so complicated?
When the bus dropped her off, she decided that she needed a drink to calm herself down before she called Cort. She was a nervous wreck and would have probably come off speaking a mile a minute and sounded like some crazy person. She had to maintain the air of cool the way she did the other night. Of course, she had been drinking the other night.
“Maybe that is the key,” she giggled to herself.
Teagan found a quaint little bar not far from her hotel and ordered a cocktail and a sandwich. She was suddenly starving.
The place was pretty busy for a pub during the midday of a weekday. It was filled mostly with business men and women grabbing a quick lunch and a few drinks before heading back to the office. That was definitely something you didn’t see as much of in the States. Drinking in the middle of the workday was often frowned upon. Teagan quickly wolfed down her sandwich and finished her drink. It was a delicious version of a Manhattan. It had some weird name she couldn’t pronounce, but it was very fruity, and she could hardly taste the alcohol.
But she was starting to feel it almost right away, that relaxing warm feeling, the buzz settling in. She already felt a lot calmer and ready to talk to Cort again, reverting herself back to that sultry vixen he’d first met at the bar the other night.
Teagan pulled up the phone and was about to press send to dial the number when her eyes landed on the television above the bar. Even though the bar was fairly busy it was also pretty quiet, everyone having private conversations in understated hushed tones. It was a very relaxing atmosphere.
On the television, Teagan could hear a news story developing on the television.
“The Parliament has reached a final decision on the appeals of the Prince and his desire to secede his father to the throne in the upcoming month. The Prince must choose a bride before his thirtieth birthday, just three weeks away, or he will have to forfeit the throne to his uncle. So, it would appear that some lucky lady out there is about to become a bride and queen all within the next month. Unless the Prince has other plans… According to his advisors, he is still reluctant to choose a bride, and he is fighting this decision tooth and nail. We will bring you more on this as soon as we have more news.”
Teagan laughed at the idea. That sounded like such an old fashioned and silly rule. But it was going to make some girl pretty happy to marry a bona fide prince and become Queen.
Teagan started to glance away and make her phone call, taking another deep breath to steady her shaky nerves when the image on the screen flashed over to a picture. The image was striking. It appeared in the corner of her eye and garnered her full attention immediately.
On the screen with a big smile and the words “Prince Cort Monreau” was Cort. Her Cort!
He was on the television… Prince Cort Monreau?
Teagan couldn’t breathe.
CHAPTER 12
Cort
“I’m afraid we are out of plays,” Alex Skarg said with defeat in his voice.
Cort glanced up from the book he was trying to read. His head was starting to throb with the nonstop stress and strain of dealing with the Parliament. The council was standing firm by their decision, and they had the law on their side. Changing a law was tricky, and it would certainly have taken more time than Cort had and a lot more hurdles to be deflected before any progress would be really made on this issue. He was sunk. And everyone knew it.
“Keep searching,” Cort said.
Alex sighed heavily. “My Prince, there is nothing else to be done. You will have to find a bride, and do it soon if you hope to accept the throne. There is nothing else to be done. You are trying to cram years of constitutional debate and amendment within the span of a few weeks. It can’t be done. The only ones who can make exceptions to this are the council, and they’ve made it clear that they are not budging.”
Cort threw the book across the room narrowly missing Alex’s head. It slammed into the wall and scattered across the floor. He hadn’t meant to get that close to his trusted advisor’s head, but the frustration was overwhelming. He wanted to scream and tear something up. He wanted to grab every member of the council and beat some good sense into their old heads.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “We tried.”
With that, he left the room.
Cort lay on the couch for several minutes trying to collect his thoughts. His mind was racing, and he felt like he was going to pass out with a full-blown panic attack. Why did it so often feel that the entire world was against him? His moronic uncle was going to be in charge in a few weeks unless he went against every single fiber of his own moral character and made some girl a bride. He would probably have children with her while always resenting the decision he made. Would he even be able to love the kids that were the products of a marriage of convenience? A marriage born out of nothing more than politics? He would, he knew. The children would not be to blame, but he would live out his days ruling with a woman at his side he might not even like in the long run, let alone love.
The only woman he’d ever felt truly close to was Teagan.
The thought arrived in his mind somehow cutting through the mess of chaos and confusion that surrounded his every synapse of consciousness. Teagan… A woman he’d known for only a few hours before she basically blew him off. A woman who would not answer his phone calls. Who might have even been back in America now, never to be seen by him again.
But she was the one…
Cort rubbed his eyes in anger until his vision was momentarily blurry. How could he be that in love with a woman who was almost a total stranger? The logic of it was absurd. It was like something out of a Shakespeare play, and everyone knew how tragedies played out…
“I feel like I’m living in a tragedy,” Cort muttered to himself.
It was true. He was being forced to marry someone he did not love meanwhile he was pining for a woman who he didn’t even know and really didn’t know how to get in touch with. Of course, he could find her. He had a number, and he now had her name. But what was the point? She’d made it abundantly clear that she did not feel the same way he did. He hated to think that she’d just used him, but it did feel that way. But it wasn’t like that. They were two strangers who’d met in a bar amidst several drinks and a hot, passionate lust that still made him weak in the knees and mind numb with pleasure to think about it.
Oh, if Teagan were there with him right now…
Maybe she would be interested if she knew who he really was? Or would she be angry that he’d lied to her? She would probably laugh in his face if he tracked her down and proposed marriage to her so that she could become Queen of a country she knew very little about. The whole idea was laughable.
But it was possible
…
He could imagine her sweet body on top of him right now riding up and down on his hard member, probing the inside of her deepest, wettest spot of desire. Oh, he wanted to taste her again, to feel that tightness that fit him like the tightest but softest glove, wrapping around his body as if they were designed for each other in some kind of Heavenly factory. Two parts coming together to become one strong, unit.
As he closed his eyes, the fantasy took him over completely. He could literally feel her quivering over top of him, her sweetness manipulating his organ until he was nothing but a rigid, sputtering slave spreading his hot seed as far and wide inside of her temple as he could.
Cort awoke covered in sweat just then, his whole body shaking. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep. The dream was so vivid, so perfect. Tears threatened to sting his shaking eyes, and he fought them back with fiery passion. His world felt as if it were all crumbling down around him.
He knew then what he had to do. It was so obvious. He’d known all along what was going to fix everything. He just had to get out of his own way and do what was required.
Cort knew that he would not be able to rest until he had Teagan right there in his arms. She had to know how he felt about her. He had to be with her.
If it was the last thing he did he was going to talk to her.
CHAPTER 13
Teagan
Teagan splashed some water on her face. She can’t believe what she just saw. Cort was a prince… He lied to her. He’d probably lied to her about everything. Was that some sort of scam that he used to get girls into bed? It was some kind of a game he liked to play to see if he could seduce women without using the title of Prince to his advantage?
Teagan was so angry when she left the bar that she instantly deleted Cort’s number and the voicemails he’d left her. Hell, she’d almost thrown her phone on the concrete and smashed it into a million pieces.
“You bastard!” She yelled when she got back to her room. She threw the phone hard onto the bed and sat down, burying her head in her hands.
It was the worst kind of betrayal. She’d thought about Cort nonstop the past few days, and it turned out that he’d lied to her about almost everything except his name. He was probably calling her just to set up some sort of a booty call, to see if he could nail the American girl a second time. Did he really think she wouldn’t find out about him eventually? Hell, all she had to do was google him, and it pulled up hundreds of hits with his image and who he was all over. She felt so stupid. All she had to do was type his name into a search engine, and she would have found out everything about him.
But why would she do that? He was a guy she’d just met. Everything had happened so fast. She never thought she would see him again.
And she sure didn’t count on falling for him. But she had. That was the most frustrating part of it all. She knew that he’d touched something deep inside of her, something inside her soul. She really cared about him, and the hope was so strong, the hope that he might care for her as well. When she saw that he’d called her twice and she heard how urgent his voice sounded in that last message.
That’s when the thought struck her. Was Cort calling her because he needed a wife? Did he want her to become Queen just so he could be King?
Teagan sat down on the edge of the bed. Her hands were shaking as she clutched at the small flip phone in her hand. It couldn’t be… he was calling her because he wanted to meet up again. There was no way…
She was American. Was that even going to be legal here? Didn’t she have to jump through some sort of crazy hoops to become a citizen or something?
“NO!” Teagan groaned now realizing what a stupid mistake it had been to delete Cort’s info from her phone. What the hell was she thinking?
She knew why she did it. The pain and the anger of being lied to forced her hand in the heat of the moment. She’d been lied to too many times before and she wasn’t about to stand for it again.
But oh, this time it was different. But why? Stupid question. She knew why.
“Because I love him…” Teagan admitted quietly to herself, tears beginning to roll down her face.
She loved Cort Monreau. It was insane. It made no sense whatsoever. She was faintly aware she was losing what little common sense she might have had left, but after she combed through all the garbage in her head, all the stupid excuses for not being with someone, she knew that it was true.
“Teagan, you are so stupid!” She moaned.
She felt like she was going to puke. The room was teasing her, swaying left and then right as a full-blown panic set in.
“Easy girl,” Teagan said. “What are you getting your mind into here?”
She grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat back down on the bed. She took a long gulp and tried to relax. There had to be a way to make sense of all this. She had to talk to someone. And she knew exactly who.
“OH, MY GOD!”
Ellie’s voice practically shattered the screen on Teagan’s laptop through the Skype call.
“I know,” Teagan said. “Am I just getting my head messed up over nothing? I feel like I can’t form a real, basic thought.”
“You had sex with a prince! A real, actual prince!”
Teagan laughed. “Stay focused. There are more important things here.”
“What are you talking about? You had sex with an honest to God Prince!”
Ellie screamed again and jumped up and down on her bed.
“Tell me everything!” She squealed.
Teagan rolled her eyes trying not to laugh. She’d had time to think about this fact as well, and it was by far the coolest thing that would ever happen to anyone she knew. She supposed she was entitled to gloat a bit. But what was she going to do? She had to get Ellie back on track here.
“What do you think I should do? Should I call him?”
“Of course, you should call him! What are you even talking about?” Ellie asked.
“But he lied to me. How can I believe that he really likes me or if he just wants me to be some fake wife? He will get rid of me the second he can. Hell, he might even have me killed!”
Ellie rolled her eyes and then started laughing. “Are you serious? You’ve been watching too much television.”
“Hey! Not fair,” Teagan replied. “Well, this is all assuming he is even interested in that. From what the news was saying the big issue is that he doesn’t want to get married. But it is the only way he will be King.”
“Well, find him and convince him to marry you,” Ellie said.
“It’s not that simple,” Teagan replied.
“I thought you said the guy was amazing? Aren’t you having all sorts of gushy feelings for him? That’s what you told me. Which is it?”
Teagan sighed. “Yes. I do have a lot of feelings for him. Ugh, it doesn’t even make sense. I hardly know him. And it turns out what I thought I knew about him was a total fabrication!”
“So? Put yourself in his shoes. Maybe he doesn’t like girls who only want him because he is the Prince. You know it is quite possible that he was trying to hang out like a regular person under the radar and just happened to meet you. I mean he called you, twice didn’t he?”
“Yeah, but I have no idea why.”
“That’s because you are too insane to talk to him. The only way you will know if you talk to him.”
Teagan realized that Ellie was actually right. That was a scary thought indeed, but she was correct. She had to talk to him.
“Ok, what do I do? I deleted his number like the colossal fool that I am,” Teagan said.
“Yeah, that wasn’t one of your brighter ideas, girl,” Ellie said.
“Thanks,” Teagan said. “You are quite the cheerleader.”
“Wait,” Ellie said.
“What?”
“I just had a thought,” Ellie replied. “With the whole country talking about this on the news he has to figure you’ve seen this, right?”
“I guess… for all he knows
I’m back home now. I gave him nothing to go on.”
“True, but I have a better idea. Why don’t you just go to the palace and meet him in person?”
Teagan wasn’t sure she heard Ellie correctly.
“What? Are you crazy?”
“Come on,” she said. “Think about it. You show up there and tell them who you are. Maybe not tell them everything, I mean you got to hold some of your naughtier moments together back, but tell them to give Cort your name. It’s that simple.”
“That does not sound simple,” Teagan said. “You are saying that I should just waltz up there and say hey? That is ridiculous.”
“He knows you. I’m sure he will remember you. I mean he called you twice, right?”
Teagan groaned. “I can’t just go there and say that. Do you have any idea how many girls are probably camped out in front of the palace just trying to plead for the Prince’s hand in marriage?”
“Ok, well let me think,” Ellie said.
She grabbed her phone and began to search for something.
“What are you doing?” Teagan asked.
“Just give me a minute,” Ellie replied.
Teagan finished her beer and tossed it in the trash.
“Here! Oh, this is perfect!”
“What?”
“In an interview a while back Cort told someone he stays in shape by fencing, riding horses, weight lifting, surfing, but he is always looking for other physical things to learn and get into that might challenge him.”
“Ok,” Teagan said. “I’m not really seeing where you’re going with this…”
“You teach yoga dummy,” Ellie said.
“You want me to offer to teach him yoga?”
“Of course!”
“I don’t know…”
“All you do is show up and tell them that you are a yoga teacher and want to offer the prince your services. Tell them your name. You told him that your name is Teagan and you teach yoga… he has to make that connection!”
Talon (The Road Rebels MC Book 2) Page 35
