“Brad? He wouldn’t care. As far as he’s concerned I’m Princess Josephine-Augusta, and he’s done with me.”
“Katie, you’re a marvel in a lot of ways. But not in this. That guy? He’d care.”
****
Brad watched C.J. look at Carolyn, then turn back to him, searching, assessing his face for the accuracy of her words.
“You think Katie doesn’t want you? Are you nuts? Have you been blind all these years? The first time she saw you, it was like someone turned on the light inside her. And the more buttoned-up and professional she is, the more it leaks around the edges.”
Carolyn chuckled. “My poetic husband.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled, but C.J. didn’t relent in his eyes-pinning-to-the-wall routine. “That’s why I waved you off, Brad. She was—”
“Just a kid.”
“Yeah, and you weren’t. But that was years ago. You think I’d have sent her to Chicago with you if I’d still thought she couldn’t handle you? And these past months is been pretty damned clear you’d gotten into that light-turned-on-inside-of-you mode, too. Yet, here you sit instead of going after her. Why”
“You know the fairy tale stories with princesses in them?”
“What has that got to do with—?”
“Give him time, C.J.,” Carolyn said. “What about fairy tale stories with princesses in them, Brad?”
C.J. sat on the edge of the other bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, like he often did when he was taking in something difficult or complex. But this wasn’t that complex.
“They have a princess who’s been locked up, or put into a coma, or sent off to the woods with dwarves. One way or another, she’s been denied what’s hers by right. Forced to live a different life from what she should be living. That’s what happened with Katie.” His mouth quirked a little. “Only in Katie’s case, she was sent off to Ashton’s athletic department and surrounded by basketball players. And— Carolyn?”
She waved a hand, a gesture that said the tears in her eyes didn’t matter and he should keep on.
“Well, that was about it. Katie was in exile before. Now she’s where she was always meant to be. She has the life that’s rightfully hers.” He dug his hands into his pockets. “All I could offer her is a return to exile.”
C.J. leaned across from the other bed and clapped a hand on his shin. “I see what you’re saying, Brad. That’s tough. Damn.”
Carolyn threw up her hands. “Oh, for heavens’ sake.” She jerked Brad’s suit coat from the back of a chair and threw it at him. “Then you still don’t know Katie. Either one of you. Andy said you were brooding and I—”
“Andy?”
“—stuck up for you and said you needed to sort some things out. But now— Quit sitting there gaping at me. Get up right now, Bradford Spencer, get changed, and go find Katie. Talk to her. Tell her how you feel. Find out what she really wants. Not what you think she wants. Because if you don’t, I will get Andrea Colecchi Spencer on the next plane over here to kick your butt.”
****
“We should be getting back,” Karl said.
Katie sighed as she gazed at the little arched bridge again.
Poor man. She’d rambled so disjointedly — about Brad, the king, the visit today to Annika’s sister, and Brad again — he couldn’t possibly make sense of it. Yet, she felt better.
She sighed again
It was a blissfully romantic spot. And Karl was such a wonderful person.
“I’m comfortable with you.” Her words sounded like a complaint, and in a way it was – against the fates or Cupid or whatever lunatic was in charge of this heart stuff. “It feels like I’ve known you forever.”
“Yep. Same to you. Maybe because we’re the only two around who know what it feels like to be pitched into this stuff. Trouble is, we’re so comfortable because there’s not a shred of heat between us. It’s like you’re my sister.” He considered that as he guided her. “Only we never fought about you taking too long in the bathroom.”
They were laughing as they stepped back onto the path where it rose to cross the little bridge … and looked up to find Brad at the crest of the bridge, looming over them.
“Brad.”
She was aware of Karl looking toward her and thought she sensed amusement, but her focus was on Brad.
“Evening, Coach Spencer,” Karl said easily.
Brad gave a curt nod, then said, “I’d like to talk to Katie. Alone.”
“Sure thing,” Karl said. “If that’s what Katie wants.”
She blinked, abruptly recognizing the subtext. “Oh, yes, that’s fine. Thank you, Karl.”
He squeezed her elbow before releasing it. “See you later, then.”
He reached the crest in two strides. For a breath it seemed Brad might–but, no, he turned and let Karl pass, continuing the motion to come down to where she stood.
“What were you doing?” he asked.
“Walking with Prince Karl. I wanted to see the bridge from down beside the stream and he kindly escorted me. It’s amazing how well everything is maintained and the lighting—”
“You kissed him.”
It was no question, and that made her look up at him.
He swiped the side of his thumb beyond the corner of her mouth and displayed a smudge he’d come away with. “Lipstick.”
“Oh.” She put the tips of two fingers to the tingle where he’d touched. Then a thought occurred. “Oh, dear. Karl might have lipstick—”
She’d automatically started after the prince, but Brad grasped her arm above the elbow. “He’ll have to deal with that emergency on his own. I want to talk to you. I need to talk to you.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” he said with unconvincing grimness. He guided her off the path, back to the spot where she’d stood with Karl. He dropped his hand and drove it through his hair. “Are you and that prince, I don’t know, engaged or something?”
“Of course not.” How could she be when she was married to him? Only technically and only because he was looking out for her, of course, but still that was one heck of a technicality. True, she’d kissed another man. But that was because she and Brad weren’t really married. Well, they were, but– Her head throbbed, not because of the tiara this time.
“Because if you are and he’s what you want—”
“No.”
“Okay, then. I have something to say. Should’ve when you came to the gym yesterday, I guess. But after the way you left and then seeing you here… But they think – not that I’m blaming them. “
Her breathing stopped. She thought her heart stopped for a moment, too. Was he going to say he truly cared about her? That he wanted —
“There’s no way in hell this can work.”
The crash of her hastily erected dreams deafened her. She could see he was still talking but it took long, painful moments before words started coming through.
“…no getting around you’re Princess Josephine-Augusta and nothing’s going to change that. And that’s good. You’ve found your grandfather and who you are. You deserve every good bit of being a princess. Nobody’s going to take that away from you. Nobody. It’s the last thing I’d want to do. The very last thing.”
He looked up to the sky, expelled a breath, sucked in a longer one, then tipped his head down.
“I had that all thought out. Almost from the beginning. Maybe it was seeing you with the king at the Monroes’ house that first day, but I knew down in my bones– And then after you left, I thought it through again. Looked at it cold and rational, and it was all clear.”
Brooding. She heard the word in her head like a chorus of Andy and Carolyn’s voices.
“The trouble is when I look at you.”
Her heart clenched tight inside her, then released with a joyous leap.
He brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek. And the leap became acrobatic.
“Because when I look at you, I se
e my Katie. My Katie Davis.”
The clench in her chest was different this time. An instinctive reaction she didn’t understand.
“Yours. But—” She was shaking her head, trying to make the jumble come together.
“You are Katie Davis. You are my Katie Davis. Do you understand?”
“I am not anybody’s Katie Davis. That’s— I—”
“The hell you’re not.” He grasped her shoulders and tugged her to him sharply. He brought his mouth down on hers.
It wasn’t like the other times. Oh, there’d been other kisses between them that also were demanding and hot. But those had seemed only to come when he forgot himself, was caught unaware.
Not this time. He intended this.
That thought as much as the kiss sucked the oxygen out of her brain, leaving no room for thoughts. Or doubts. Only for the sensation of Brad kissing Katie. This was him and her. It startled her. It rattled her.
And then the demand of the kiss became such a rush of heated giving that her knees buckled.
His hold kept her up, but her head dropped back under the physical press of his kiss – and the desire. His and hers.
She held onto his shoulders. His arms around her waist pulled her flush against him, the contact announcing the changes in his body. Instinctively, she arched, pressing deeply against him. It dropped her head back even more. His tongue was in her mouth. She was meeting it.
A meeting so sweet and hot that she abruptly felt completely lightheaded. Spinning and sailing.
Lightheaded … Like a weight had been removed… A weight… Gone. Oh, my God, oh, my God…
Horrified, she reached back with one hand. Hair. Only hair.
She used both hands, feeling. Nothing. Gone. Oh, my God, oh, my God … It was gone.
“Katie–?”
She spun around, trying to reach toward the ground behind where she’d been standing. His arms still held her around her waist, leaving her like a folded over rag doll. If a folded over rag doll was desperately trying to explore the ground with hands that were a good foot above it.
“What’re you doing? Katie—”
“The tiara. The tiara. Five centuries. Tradition. Magda. My great-grandmother,” she gabbled.
“That crown thing?”
“Tiara. Let me get down. I have to find it.”
“Your dress— The stream—”
“Oh, God!” What if it had fallen in the stream? She bundled the fabric of the dress to her, preparing to wade.
“You stay still. I’ll find it.”
“But your suit—”
She was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the bridge. Then a light flashed over her, before quickly and discreetly moving aside.
Two things happened simultaneously.
A deep, official voice said, “Princess?”
And Brad called out, “Got it!”
The deep, official voice had the final say. “King Jozef requires your attendance.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The searchers had suggested Brad wasn’t wanted. He’d ignored them, speaking only to her when he said, “You’re not going alone.”
King Jozef was less oblique when Katie and Brad, joined by Madame who apparently had also been summoned, entered his study. “Leave,” he commanded Brad immediately.
“Not until Katie wants me to.”
Without looking at her, King Jozef said, “Tell him.”
“No.” Now he looked at her. “I—” She swallowed, not from nerves about King Jozef’s reaction, but Brad’s. “—want him to stay.”
The king’s eyes’ narrowed, his jaw clamped. But he dropped the subject.
When he next spoke, with cold precision she had not heard from him before, she decided he’d dropped the issue of Brad’s status because he would not be distracted from the main cause of his anger.
“It has come to my attention that you visited a private home this afternoon without security.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You have been told to have security at all times. You are never – never –” He slammed his palm on the desk. Katie jerked. Brad took a half step forward. Without breaking eye-contact with her grandfather she lifted a hand and Brad stilled “—to go to that house or to see those people. For any reason. That is a command.”
“I have—”
Madame spoke over her. “I took Princess Katie there.”
He whirled toward the woman. “You took her there. You did this?”
“I did.”
“I wanted to go,” Katie said.
He didn’t even look at her, bearing down on Madame. “You who also lost so much to those people—no, those animals.”
“Martila’s family were never rebels. You know they did no wrong. They deserved to know of Annika’s fate. And Katie deserved to meet them, to know more of the woman and man who—”
“Them? Know more of them!”
“Yes.” Katie stepped forward. “And there is no use shouting at Madame. It was my choice. I wanted to understand better. To see—”
“That is irrelevant. Madame knows better than to—”
“It’s entirely relevant,” Brad interrupted. “Katie wanted to go, so she goes. That’s the end of it.”
“End of it? End of it? It is not. I am—”
“The king. I know. We all know. Hard to miss.” Bull’s-eye. The way the king’s swelling wrath deflated was the giveaway. But Brad wasn’t done. “The head of the royal family. But you cannot force that kind of life down Katie’s throat. I won’t let you.”
“Pah. You?” The king’s rage had ebbed, but cold anger remained. “You know nothing of this. You have no standing in this discussion.”
“The hell I don’t. I care about Katie and—”
“She is my granddaughter.”
“She is my wife.”
With that word, the universe seemed to go frozen and silent. Yet with a thrumming certainty rising that the stillness and silence was sure to be broken–
“What?” King Jozef rounded on Brad. Undiminished, despite being so much shorter. “You lie.”
“I am not in the habit of lying.” That cool dignity brought sharp tears to her eyes. “Katie and I are married.”
“She cannot be. To marry you is—” He made an abrupt, jerking motion. “—not possible.”
“She did.”
The king turned to her. “You did this? You did this to me? To throw yourself away?”
“That isn’t fair—”
Brad stepped beside her. “She couldn’t trust you.”
“Brad, that’s—”
“You are insubordinate, young man. I will not allow this—”
“I can’t be insubordinate because I’m not your subordinate or your—”
Katie tried. “Both of you. Stop.”
They talked over her and each other.
“A member of the royal family cannot marry—”
—subject. And neither is Katie.”
“—without my approval. It is not allowed.”
“Allowed,” Katie repeated. Her voice was so soft it shouldn’t have been heard, but the gusts from the two men had abruptly ended, and her words came through perfectly. “Brad, Madame, will you please leave my grandfather and me alone.”
“Katie.”
“Thank you, Brad. I must handle this.” And now in this instant, she saw what Carolyn had been saying about how many times he had protected her. She smiled slightly at him. “This time I have to cut down the trees myself.”
She saw his understanding half a second before he gave a slow nod. He walked to the door and held it for Madame, glancing back to give her another nod. Encouragement.
She took the small silk square from her pocket and extended it to King Jozef. “This was in the attic of my house in Ashton.”
He looked into her eyes for a long moment before shifting to the fabric. He stroked a finger over it lightly. “Sofia. She embroidered … before your birth.”
“A
nnika kept it, hidden away. I found it in my attic.”
“Why did you not show this to me before? This proves – you did not need the DNA. You knew as well as I did. You will explain yourself,” he commanded. “You have known you are Princess Josephine-Augusta. You could not have made this marriage.”
“I did. We did. And I am very grateful to Brad. I was in a precarious position and he provided me a solution.”
“Precarious? How precarious?”
“I had realized that if … since I was smuggled into the United States and I wasn’t the child of a citizen that I was, in fact, there illegally. I was not a citizen.”
He flicked that away. “You are a Bariavakian.”
“I had no legal standing in the country that has been my home.”
“I would not forbid you to visit.”
“I do not want to be prevented from returning to Ashton.”
His chin sank, but she thought it was in contemplation, rather than defeat. “He said you did not trust me.”
“I didn’t know you,” she said carefully.
He looked at her. “You trust me now.” This sounded of command.
“I think as my grandfather you love me, at least who you think I could be. As the king– You said you would not forbid me to visit. But you think you could forbid me and you think you have the right to limit me to visits. You think you have the right to decide my future. I don’t accept that.”
“Instead, you will let this … this basketball player decide it?”
“He is a coach, as you know. But, no, I will decide my future.”
“Your future is to marry Karl.”
“No. Even if I weren’t already married to Brad—”
“I am your king! You are not allowed to marry without my permission.”
“Then it’s a good thing I already did it. I showed you this now, Grandfather, so you understand I married Brad knowing I was born a princess.”
“It shall be annulled.”
“It’s been consummated.”
****
Brad was aware of another presence in the gym the next morning, but didn’t look around as he drove down the empty court. If he let his body express his emotions, he’d deliver a punishing, thunderous dunk. But letting emotions run the bus wasn’t the way to get anywhere. Andy had tried to pound that into the malleable material of his youth. Coach and Carolyn had honed it in college.
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