by Annie O'Neil
She smiled and nodded, shook the odd hand, gradually feeling more and more isolated as she approached the head table where she guessed Nate wanted her—still no Nate!—and stood behind her chair.
Why did being in a crowd always feel like the loneliest place in the world?
She held back the inevitable grimace, weighted with bad memories. There were a thousand reasons why and all of them had to do with growing up in her family. One that could’ve been happy if only—
She forced her thoughts to screech to a halt.
If only nothing. What was done was done. If she wanted to carry on being happy here on St Vic, she’d have to find a way to re-establish how she dealt with people. Just because her parents were divorced, and her mother had been ostracised, and Lia had been sent off to moulder away in a remarkably unpleasant convent school for the entirety of her childhood, didn’t mean her adulthood had to be miserable. Just as she had the power to change someone’s life in the operating theatre, she also had the power to change her own.
Having told herself off, she scanned the vast room and forced herself to think of all of these people as potential friends. Or... Her eyes skipped from one male face to another. Potential boyfriends? It was an area of her life she was particularly gun-shy about. The last few had wanted to live the life they’d thought royals led, only to discover it wasn’t quite the way the society papers would have had them believe. Suffice it to say being dumped by text when you were a princess was a double blow.
There had been one name—well, a face, really—that had stood out from the crowd earlier. A paediatrician from the UK whose name she hadn’t been able to catch, because before he’d got to her in the greeting queue he’d spotted a little boy who’d been treated at the clinic. He’d left the queue and shared a jolly greeting with the lad and his parents before the pair of them had completed a very intricate handshake only the two of them seemed to know.
She’d liked that. Honouring a child she presumed had been his patient over kowtowing to ‘royalty’.
Well. Royalty. Without the quotes.
She was genuinely royal, whether she liked it or not.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a rather lovely male hand take hold of the back of the chair next to hers. It looked strong, capable, and oddly callused for someone she presumed was a doctor.
‘Is this seat taken?’
She was about to say yes, that they were all assigned seats, when she realised the very man she’d been thinking of was standing next to her. Tall. Athletically lean. Short caramel-blond hair. And piercing blue eyes that sparkled in the twilight hues of the ballroom lighting.
Unlike a lot of the guests who didn’t seem able to look her directly in the eye—because of the princess thing—this man didn’t seem the slightest bit intimidated. He had an aura of strength about him that spoke of a deep-seated kindness, an inner peace that didn’t necessitate any shows of bravura or machismo.
She glanced down at the name card.
Oliver Bainbridge.
She surprised herself by fixing him with a cheeky grin. Something about him made her feel comfortable. And, even more surprisingly, sexy. An internal glittery sensation she hadn’t felt in ages lit inside her, making her feel as effervescent as the champagne everyone was drinking.
‘It is taken, but I suppose we could switch the name cards to make it yours. So long as you promise to be more entertaining than the real Oliver Bainbridge. He sounds a bit of a bore, don’t you think?’
His eyebrows quirked at the challenge.
She pressed her lips forward in a Go on, I’m waiting moue. Was she flirting? Crumbs. She was flirting!
‘Oliver’s not exactly a name that soars up the sexy charts, is it? Would it help if I told you my middle name was Casanova?’
She hooted with laughter, and through a giggle managed to say, ‘I think that would be worse.’
‘Well, then...’ He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. ‘Would you be satisfied if I were to stay plain old Oliver?’
He pressed the softest of kisses to the back of her hand, sending a spray of heat through her body, highlighting the more...ahem...erogenous zones.
This Oliver Bainbridge could be rather dangerous. Dangerous and yummy. The problem being, Princess Amelia Margit Sigrid Embla Trelleburg of Karolinska didn’t find men ‘yummy’. She found them suitable. Or appropriate. Or, in the case of her last boyfriend, well-vetted.
But Lia, for the very first time in her life, fancied a bit of yummy.
Her eyebrows arrowed up into what Jonas called her ‘imperious Empress’ expression. ‘I suppose the name will have to do until we come up with a better one. Now, then, as we’re seated next to one another, do you think you’ll be able to keep me entertained all night? I have very high standards, you know.’
Who was she—and where had plain old Lia gone?
‘I shall endeavour to do my very best.’ His lips twitched as if they’d just shared a private joke of a much more carnal nature. ‘If you’ll allow a humble paediatrician the pleasure of trying?’
‘Oh, the pleasure is all mine,’ she said grandly, knowing as she did so that never before had truer words been spoken.
CHAPTER TWO
SO THIS WAS Princess Amelia of Karolinska—AKA Dr Trelleburg.
She was far more beautiful than the handful of staff photos he’d seen on his weekly visits to The Island Clinic. And...dared he say it?...she was funnier than he would’ve thought. If this had been a blind date, he’d have wanted another. And very likely another after that.
But it wasn’t. It was a formal charity event. And, whilst their banter was fun and light-hearted, at times crackling with a few unexpected frissons, no doubt the haughty humour would turn out to have an edge...an icier hue...
He pulled out her chair, which she accepted with thanks and, if he wasn’t mistaken, her cheeks pinkened with a hint of shyness.
Oliver dialled back his cynicism. It wasn’t her fault she’d been born to a royal family and defaulted to haughty as a form of humour. Just as it wasn’t his fault that he was—
‘Champagne?’
He waved it away out of habit.
‘On call?’
Princess Amelia nodded at his card which—yes—did say what he did and where he did it. Standard practice for events like this, so that guests of honour didn’t have to be embarrassed by getting the details of would-be donors incorrect.
He shook his head and answered mostly truthfully. ‘You’re not drinking, so I thought decorum dictated that I do the same.’
The last thing he wanted to be around a woman whose presence was tugging at the more primitive parts of his body was drunk.
She pushed her lips into a thoughtful pout, then said, ‘Hmmm... I would’ve thought an Oliver Bainbridge, no matter where he stands on the sexy name scale, would have a bit more backbone than that. A man who sets his own agenda, not someone who would kowtow to the outdated dictates of another country’s aristocracy.’
To mask the vein of truth she’d unearthed, he grabbed his chest and feigned pulling a knife out. ‘Oh, did you, now?’
Oliver laughed—more at himself than anything. She was right. He’d never expect anyone to treat him differently because of who he was. It was nice to see she didn’t expect people to change their behaviour around her just because of her parentage. ‘And here I was thinking I was just being polite. Tell me...’ he met her clear-eyed gaze head-on ‘...what else do you think an Oliver Bainbridge would be like?’
She tipped her head to the side and gave him a scan that felt more physical than it should have.
She wouldn’t know it, of course, but he’d grown up in a world remarkably similar to hers.
‘I think he’d be kind,’ she began, ‘this Oliver Bainbridge character.’
He nodded. If kindness was a religion, he’d be kneeling at the altar.
<
br /> She tapped her chin. ‘Diligent in his line of work. It’s a calling, not a job.’
He smiled at this. Yes. She’d got that right as well.
She smiled back, and another hit of connection flared between them.
‘I think he likes reading stories to his patients when they’re sad.’
He let out a low whistle. She was good. Very good.
‘Sounds like a wish list,’ he said, wondering if he could tap into her psyche the way she’d tapped into his.
‘Hmmm...’ she smiled, non-committal, as she took a sip of sparkling water.
‘When do I get to turn the tables?’ he asked. ‘See what my inner crystal ball reveals about you?’
‘You don’t,’ she quipped lightly.
His smile broadened. They really were similar. Happy to talk endlessly about work and other people, but when the observations turned personal...? Not so much.
‘That’s not exactly fair, is it?’
She gave an untroubled shrug, her shoulders shifting under the light blue fabric that somehow made her skin look like golden sugar.
He caught himself imagining what it would taste like if he were to drop kisses along it, then abruptly stopped the careless fantasy. A princess with a reputation like hers—private, private and even more private—would hardly be up for a bit of canoodling away from the crowd.
It was quite a feat to have kept herself to herself as much as she had on this small island. The Island Clinic was renowned for its ability to keep its clients’ comings and goings out of the public eye as much as for its medical prowess, but she’d been here three years to his two, and they’d never once crossed paths. Granted, most of his time was spent at the St Victoria Hospital, rather than the clinic, but even so... There weren’t that many places to grab a bite to eat.
Was she hiding something?
A twinge of the pot calling the kettle black bounced against his conscience. He met her gaze with a look he hoped said that he got it. He understood what a life weighted with expectations beyond your control was like. Suffocating. Lonely. Painful.
Something flared hot and bright between them as their eyes clicked and cinched.
Kindred spirit... That was the first thing he felt break through their magnetic connection.
Interested... That was the second.
Well, what do you know?
This evening was suddenly looking up in a very different and unexpected way. He’d anticipated a bit of dry chicken. Some uninspired speeches. The inevitable silent auction aimed at increasing donations beyond the breathtakingly high price of buying a table.
Not that raising money for a free medical clinic was a bad thing. Far from it. But an unexpected flirtation definitely improved the prospects of the evening.
He returned her appraising gaze, enjoying the way her hips shifted against the fabric of her dress as if he had actually run his fingertips along them.
She looked as if she could walk straight into one of those ‘destination wedding’ photo shoots that often populated the immaculate coves and beaches of St Victoria. Her skin was barely touched by make-up. A bit of mascara and little else. She had a golden tan that added a healthy glow to her pink cheeks. Her satiny white-blonde hair was all but begging him to run his fingers through it. And her light blue eyes were communicating exactly the same thing he was pretty sure his eyes were telling her.
I fancy you.
Oliver only just managed to restrain himself from leaning in to the soft cloud of scent she left in her wake as she turned away.
Three hours later he was properly captivated.
Lia wasn’t a cardboard cut-out royal, as so many of them were at these events—shuttled in to make sure the money flowed, then shuttled back out through a private exit to a private car or a plane, back to their private residence.
She was cut from different cloth.
Funny. Beautiful. Charming. Passionate about her work and genuinely committed to the charitable work at The Island Clinic—which, if rumour was to be believed, had seen more film stars than some Hollywood studios had.
Yes, she was incredibly private, but she was as well-schooled as he was in the fine art of being born to shoulder the burden of your forebears and she knew how to hide it.
She’d managed to extract a bit of background from him. The fact that he’d been born and bred in the UK. A paediatrician by choice, not by family tradition. And the fact that, like her, he was very happy here on St Victoria, where if the sun wasn’t shining the rain was falling, and all of it was beautiful, lush, tropical...and, like tonight, heated. Very heated.
He wanted her. More than he’d wanted a woman in a long time.
As if the heavens were assisting him the meal finished. After a whispered bit of news that the clinic’s founder, Nate Edwards, wasn’t able to kick things off, the dancing was set to begin. Oliver saw that the mayor, seated on Lia’s left, was leaning across to ask for the first dance.
In a move he wouldn’t have expected of himself, he decided to pip him to the post. Pushing his chair back, he held out his hand. Lia’s eyes darted away and then back. Decorum dictated she should dance with the mayor, the more senior of the two in social profile, but as a doctor at St Victoria Hospital, which had a very close relationship with The Island Clinic, it wouldn’t be too unseemly for her to dance with him instead.
As the conductor held the small orchestra in an expectant trill of flute and violin, he felt another flash of connection as she lightly put her palm on top of his. Moments later he was holding her in his arms. Her scent, the softness of her skin, the swish of her hair against his hand... He would be hard pressed to think of another moment in his life when he’d have been perfectly happy for the rest of the world to fade away.
His fingers lightly grazed her bare skin at the deep V in the back of her dress. She shivered.
‘Cold?’
She shook her head, clearly unable—or unwilling—to put a name to what it was that had sent goosebumps skittering along her arms.
He knew what it was. Because he was feeling it, too.
Desire.
They didn’t exchange another word for the duration of the song, but the space between them at the end was definitely much, much smaller than it had been when he’d first slipped his arm round her waist and pulled her to him for the slow, mesmeric dance.
When the music stopped she took a step back, her breath quicker than it should have been after a slow dance. He presumed she was going to excuse herself and accept a dance with the mayor, who was waiting rather expectantly at the side of the dance floor.
But she leant in close and, instead of saying Thank you or That was nice, she whispered in lightly accented English, ‘Do you want to go for a walk on the beach?’
He did. Very much so. But that didn’t mean it could happen.
‘Don’t you need to stay?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, with a smile an outsider might have mistaken for meaning that she thought it was nice he was a children’s doctor.
But everything about the electricity zinging between them was saying something else entirely. It was saying I want you.
A shared, unspoken understanding meant they knew they couldn’t leave together. But that same understanding also made it clear that before the night was over they would be in one another’s arms.
‘Is an hour long enough?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘Which beach?’
The one at the front of the hotel wouldn’t do. Not with the crowds of tourists and locals flowing in and out of the bustling restaurants and hotel bars dotted along the main harbour.
His mind whirred with possibilities. ‘Sugar Cove?’
She arched an eyebrow, then gave an infinitesimal nod.
For the crowds looking on, he gave a courtly bow of thanks. For Lia, he gave the inside of
her palm a light press with his thumb. A touch he hoped indicated that he wouldn’t let her down.
Then he walked away so she could meet some of the other guests.
After a tactical ‘walking to be seen’ stroll through the crowd, he paused in front of a large group of colleagues and pulled out his beeper. He gave his forehead a slightly dramatic run-in with the heel of his hand. He worked with kids. He was used to playing to a crowd.
‘Ah, bad luck, Oli!’ one of them called out, clearly rather jolly after the endlessly flowing champagne. ‘Is that the hospital?’
He gave one of those What can you do? shrugs. ‘Kids, eh?’
‘We’ll see you tomorrow, Ol!’
He gave them a wave and, because he believed in the cause, pulled out his chequebook and a pen. ‘Better do this before I go...’
A chorus of ‘Take cares!’ and ‘Hope everything’s all right, Dr Bainbridge!’ followed in his wake as he threw them a wave and then left the venue.
As he had an hour, he did actually swing by the hospital. His happy place.
He popped his head round the corner of a room that had a little girl in it he knew would far rather be anywhere else but in hospital. Yup. He was right. Élodie was wide awake and looking scared. His heart squeezed tight. He cared for all his patients, but there was something about Élodie that bored straight through to his heart.
‘What are you doing up, love?’
The little girl looked across from her picture book and gave him a tearful smile. ‘Dr Bainbridge!’ Her smile faded. ‘I’m peeyops!’
Oliver hid a smile. The creole word meant ‘going crazy’, and he could certainly relate. His fingertips were still tingling with the memory of holding Princess Amelia in his arms...alive with the anticipation of much more. If, he abruptly cautioned himself, that was why she wanted to meet.
Maybe he’d read it wrong. Perhaps she wanted to talk hospital logistics or... His stomach clenched at this thought. Or she knew who he really was.
Right. Distraction. That was why he was here. For both himself and Élodie. He scooped up a pile of fairy tales someone had donated a couple of weeks back and crossed to her.
