American Prince: A Royal Romance (Sand & Fog Series Book 9)

by Susan Ward

  “Half?” He sounded stunned.

  “Yes.” I nodded then crinkled my nose. “Now for the not-so-happy part.”

  His arms tightened around me. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. We’ve beat the odds before. We’ll beat this.”

  “I know.” His determination shored up my flaying emotions, but my fingers clutched his shirt anyway. “No more treatments of any kind. It’s too hard on my body. We’re now playing beat the clock with the transplant list.”

  He crushed me to him, burying his face in my hair. “We’ll beat the clock, Khloe. You can’t let yourself believe otherwise.”

  “We’ll beat the clock,” I replied in a ragged voice.

  He kissed my forehead. “Do you want to go straight home, or would you like to take a long drive first?”

  That he was asking meant he needed to text his partner, Gideon, that he’d be a while if I decided I needed to take a drive before facing what waited for me at chez Manzone.

  “Drive,” I answered softly. “I need to work through this a bit before I talk to my folks.”

  Cody eased back, and we stared at each other for a few moments, silent. But in that span of time, it was Damon who filled my mind. I could feel him standing politely, waiting for me, and I remembered the look on his face as we left the doctor’s office.

  I hadn’t prepared him well for what this would be like, not at all. And I felt a bite of guilt that I needed a moment and used Cody as a diversion to delay fully facing my results with Damon.

  “I’ll go get the car and bring it around to the door,” Cody murmured quietly, and I nodded.

  The clinic door closed behind Cody, and slowly I turned to Damon. The handsome lines of his face were tenser than I’d ever seen, his bearing not as regal, and his hands shoved deep in his pockets were balled into fists.

  He looked overwhelmed, though I couldn’t pinpoint anything on his face that suggested he was. He remained Damon, perfect and urbane, but my senses could feel he was reeling.

  “I probably should have asked if it was all right with you to take a drive along the beach with Cody before we go home. I figured it would be all right since people can’t see inside the car with how darkly the windows are tinted. Maybe even a nice change after being stuck for a week on my parents’ estate. Our drive after the clinic: it’s sort of a ritual for when I get”—my voice caught because his expression didn’t alter through my rambling—“not the best news from Dr. Hern.”

  I clamped my mouth shut.

  We were only a few feet apart, but it felt like miles.

  His gaze broke with mine first.

  My stomach flipped.

  He glanced around the empty waiting room. At last he spoke. “Remarkable clinic. I’ve never been in one quite like this.”

  “Empty or cancer?”

  He frowned. “Empty or cancer what?”

  “The clinic.” My brows hitched. “I’m trying to figure out why this clinic is remarkable to you.”

  As he exhaled, he shook his head—a sign that Damon was annoyed with himself. He scrubbed back his chestnut hair from his brow. “Everything I’ve seen appears state of the art and there are no people here,” he explained.

  I smiled. “It is state of the art. All the latest and greatest to beat cancer, from the world of right-to-try. I don’t know how big my dad’s endowment to Dr. Hern is, but it must be a whopper. Other patients aren’t even allowed on the schedule when I’m here. My parents are diligent at protecting my privacy, and the last thing any of us wanted was the tabloids learning we came here as a family from time to time for my cancer.”

  “Oh, so that’s why it’s empty? I thought it had to do with…” He broke off, impatient with himself.

  “You?” I finished for him. “Sorry to disappoint you.” As my voice faded, his eyes shot to mine, and my heart jumped into my throat.

  I’m not sure who moved first, me or him, but we collided, and I was brought up against Damon’s chest by his strong, trembling arms. “It’s going to be all right, Khloe,” he murmured in an anguished voice.

  “I can understand if this changes things for you, Damon. If you want to bow out now before—”

  He silenced me with a fierce kiss. Against my mouth he said, “Stop it. Stop it now. I love you. Get used to the idea of me being here with you through this. I didn’t hear a single thing in there that could change my wanting to be with you.”

  “It can get a lot worse from where we are today, Damon.”

  He used his fingers to lift my chin. “Love, it can get a lot better. Impossible though that seems—because the life we share is wonderful—it can get better.”

  I made a snort that was half tears, half laugh. “Wonderful, huh? We’re trapped living at my parents’ house, the only option left for me is the transplant list, and we can’t even figure out a way to get married without having the world descend upon us.”

  “Infinite possibilities, Khloe. That’s what the list is to me.” Damon’s lush, magnetic smile rose on his lips. “In every piece of jargon Dr. Hern spoke, I only heard infinite possibilities.”

  “Were we listening to the same medical report?” I teased. It was an automatic reaction; my emotions were twirling.

  Instead of calling me out for the joke, Damon settled me more protectively against his chest and kissed my brow. “The very same one. Do you remember what you said to me at Christmas?”

  I peeked up at him, surprised. “Which thing?”

  “After I proposed and you said yes,” he explained, his eyes shining from the memory as he lightly caressed my back. “You said you wanted to live your dreams, but you wanted me to live mine as well.”

  I melted into him. “Yes. Where are you going with this, Damon?”

  “Your prognosis is our cue it’s time to go. Even better, our only course left is to wait on the transplant list, and that is our opportunity to reach for the stars, love. We can wait for a heart anywhere. We don’t have to stay in Pacific Palisades for your treatments. We can leave whenever we want for Wyoming now. Start our life together. That’s my most important dream, and I hope it’s yours, too, KK.”

  Oh God.

  Damon was right.

  I stared up at him, dazed. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he could take this dismal day and turn it on a dime into a day of wonder. He’d stared into an empty box and slayed my heart on Christmas Day, after all.

  There were no words to describe how much I loved Damon or how lucky I was to have found him. Damon wasn’t like other men. He was the one who was unique and irreplaceable. He was never going to disappoint me as my other boyfriends had. I’d been foolish to be so apprehensive about sharing all of me with him, because he most certainly was a man who could give a girl a lifetime of infinite possibilities no matter what happened to her.

  Chapter Five

  Khloe

  The Past

  WE DROVE THE SUN-BRIGHT Southern California surface streets for hours. The miles mostly passed in silence. Words weren’t needed with Damon’s arm strong around me and me curled into him. When he held me, it felt as if nothing could ever hurt me and that there was no reason to be afraid.

  Having him beside me during my pull-my-shit-together ritual drive, my emotions settled quicker than ever, in just the way I needed before talking about my ever-changing prognosis with my parents. Even when there was good news to go with the bad, it was so hard to share the disappointments with them. It’d been a long nine years of disappointments for all of us.

  Disappointments…no, not anymore. Now there was Damon, and even my bad days were better than my best days before him. It would stay that way if I could keep myself living my dreams and not my fears. That’s how I’d lived without him: inside my glamorous, globe-trotting life with my friends, I’d been a frightened girl letting cancer rule my existence.

  I glanced through the windshield and saw we were in Malibu. In another mile or so we’d reach the beach beyond the ci
ty line. It was where Cody always turned around and took me home. He didn’t like going farther up PCH. The coastal highway passed a naval base, and he said just seeing it triggered his PTSD.

  On the beach side of the highway, a house came into view: a stunning concrete and glass structure hugging the sand behind a ten-foot wall.

  An idea flashed through my head.

  The drive had helped, but what I really needed was time alone with Damon. We’d left Dr. Hern’s clinic in a good place, but there was still a bit of nagging uncertainty about whether we’d made the right call about leaving for Wyoming. Even the happy things, the things you want most, could be scary, and I couldn’t think of a better way to chase off my small doubts than by being utterly and completely alone with Damon. At least for a little while, until we made the giant next step into the unknown together. Or what he called living our dreams.

  My pulse went faster and faster.

  Why hadn’t I thought of this before?

  It was somewhere we could be alone, where I could breathe and feel nothing but what Damon was to me.

  I leaned forward and settled my arms on the seat in front of me. “Cody, pull into my dad’s driveway and into the garage.”

  “What?”

  “I want to stop at the beach house.”

  He frowned at me from the rearview mirror. “Khloe, it’s late. Avoiding your parents with the news isn’t going to make it easier for them. I know it’s rough on you, but—”

  “This isn’t about avoiding my mom and dad. Damon hasn’t been to our beach house. A couple of hours. It’s not going change what the news is. Have a heart. We haven’t been alone together without someone being on the other side of the wall in a week.”

  He exhaled heavily, annoyed. “Sometimes you forget I’m not just your friend, I’m your bodyguard. I work for your parents. To the clinic and back. Those are my orders.”

  “Silly rules. We always break them.”

  “Your mom’s already texted me four times asking where you are,” he pointed out grimly.

  “She texted me twice. I told her everything is fine, and we’d talk when I get home.”

  “You shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t be dishonest with her.”

  “I wasn’t. Everything is fine. I’m with my fiancé.” I stretched out an arm, fluttering my hand and engagement ring.

  “Khloe, Cody is right. We need to get home,” Damon said, smoothly inserting himself into my quarrel with my friend.

  “Cody, ignore him. Pull into my dad’s garage.” I plopped around on my seat to face Damon. “Our life together starts now. We take what happiness we can when we can. I need this, Damon. I need my resolve strong when we tell my parents we’re moving out.”

  Damon frowned. “I thought we’d agreed. I thought your resolve was strong. If you’re having second thoughts, we should talk about it.”

  “Talk about what?” Cody interrupted in alarm.

  “Khloe and I have decided—”

  I planted a searing kiss on Damon’s lips. I didn’t want Damon spilling the beans of our decision to Cody before I told my parents, and I wasn’t ready to hear my best friend’s opinion on my living in Wyoming. I didn’t want Cody trying to talk me out of it with all the logical reasons of why I should stay in Pacific Palisades, as I was pretty sure that was what my parents’ reaction would be.

  I finished our kiss and fiercely hugged Damon. “I should have said stronger. Not strong. I’m not having second thoughts. I’m taking back control of my life, Damon. And it starts with you going into my dad’s beach house with me. I know this sounds ridiculous to you, but it’s not to me.”

  The second I said those words, I realized they were true. It was even better how Damon’s amber eyes shone at me, like the dots had connected in his head as to why this was something I felt compelled to do and how our minutes alone would pass.

  “To the beach house, Cody,” he ordered firmly. “If Khloe wants to stop, we’re stopping.”

  I smiled and settled back against the seat, curled into Damon’s side. The SUV came to a halt as we waited for the front gate to open, then again while the garage door lifted. Once we were parked in the underground level that housed some of my dad’s pricey, fancy toys, I sprang from the vehicle before Cody could open my door.

  “Come back in two hours,” I told him as I waited for Damon to alight the SUV. “That’ll get me home by sunset. Everyone will be happy.”

  “Except me,” Cody grumbled. “I’m going to get my butt chewed out by your mother for being late getting you home. And what the heck am I supposed to do for two hours, wait in the garage while the two of you run in the house for a quickie?”

  I choked back a laugh. “No. You can leave. Go to REI. Get that winter gear I suggested you buy back when we were in Venice. But get back here in two hours.”

  “Winter gear? Girl, are you crazy? What do I need winter gear for? We’ve got a heatwave going on in LA this winter.”

  Oh no, I shouldn’t have said that. “I’ll explain later.”

  Cody’s gaze locked on mine. “No. Explain now.”

  “Can’t.” I slipped my hand into Damon’s. “I’ve got a date.”

  Laughing, I scurried into the house with Damon close behind me. Once the door clicked closed, I bolted it behind me so Cody couldn’t follow if he felt inclined to do so.

  Damon whirled, using his body to flatten me against the entry, his palms planted on each side of me. “Cody’s right. I’m not sure I should have gone along with this—dragging out the wait for your parents.”

  His breaths were short, rapid spurts, no matter what his words said.

  “Two hours isn’t going to change my results. Going home now would only prevent us from having this little piece of happiness. That’s all.”

  “We’re behaving like crazy teenagers, love.”

  “Not crazy.” I shook my head. “In love. Crazy in love and unafraid to be. Isn’t this how people should want love to be?”

  “Heart of my heart,” he growled. “You’ve bewitched me. I can’t get enough of you, KK. Do you know that?”

  My core clenched. “You’ve bewitched me, too. Today wasn’t one of my better days at Dr. Hern’s. I should be in one of my scary dark moods, hiding in my bedroom, crying alone, and wanting to break things. That’s what I used to do before you, Damon, when I got bad news from the clinic. Instead, I saw the house and you sitting beside me, and all I wanted to do was love you.”

  He pushed several inches back from me, but not breaking the trap of his body and the wall, and locked me in his burning tigerlike stare. I slowly drank him in. Stunned, I realized I’d barely noticed how he’d dressed today, how the black t-shirt clung to the muscles of his shoulders and biceps and set off the tone of his skin. His jeans accentuated his narrow hips and long legs. A very ordinary, nothing-special kind of outfit, and he looked perfect and regal even in this.

  “It hit me in the car how much I need you,” I said feverishly, looking back into his eyes.

  “It hit me the first time I saw you in Paris how much I needed you.”

  Pleasure waves rippled across my flesh as the memory of how he’d stared at me then mixed with how he looked at me now. “When you showed up at my house the first time”—I swallowed the emotion in my throat—“I was pretty sure we’d be this way.”

  “I was positive,” he replied with sexy amusement. “I was determined to figure out a way to be the thing you thought of every minute of every day.”

  “Umm…you succeeded, Damon.”

  “Then show me, Khloe.”

  I don’t know if he lifted me from the floor or if I jumped into his arms, but I quickly found myself with my legs wrapped around Damon, his hands on my backside, and my mouth devouring his. I savored the surge of pleasure from his body pouring into mine.

  “Make love to me, Damon. I want what I feel for you to be the only thing I’m feeling when I leave this house.”

  I
JERKED AWAKE, though I wasn’t certain what pulled me from deep sleep as I stared into my dark bedroom. Damon was warm and naked beneath me, and we were tangled up in my blankets.

  Jeez, Louise, I couldn’t tell how long we’d slept or what time it was. Moonlight streamed through the slats of the blinds on my windows. Panic replaced my blissful contentment. How could I have been so careless and irresponsible?

  “Damon, get up,” I barked, scrambling off him.

  He sat up, instantly alert. “What’s wrong? Are you OK, Khloe?”

  “I’m fine, but we’re not.” I raced around the bedroom, collecting my clothes.

  “What does that mean?” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, mildly confused. “There are times you sound exactly like your mother and I haven’t a clue what you’re trying to say.”

  I halted to give him the stare. “I’m not like my mom—well, not that way. And that’s a discussion for another time.” He bit back a grin. He enjoyed teasing me over my Chrissie-like moments. But we had serious matters to attend to. “Get up. Haul ass. Get dressed.”

  “Any particular reason we’re having lousy after-sex pillow talk?”

  “Cody didn’t come back for us.”

  His brow hitched up. “Maybe he did, and we just don’t know it. It’s not like he’d come into the bedroom to get us.”

  Good point.

  It wasn’t helping to quell my stress.

  “Check your phone,” I told him as I pulled on my sweatpants. “What time is it?”

  He fished his cell from his jeans, wasting a precious second rubbing his eyes again, then switched it on. “Seven thirty.”

  My eyes widened. “That’s not so bad. Two hours late for sunset, but it’s not late-late. It’s in between. Not good. Not bad. Not late-late.”

  “Late-late?” he repeated, richly amused.

  “Don’t say it,” I warned, yanking my t-shirt on.

  He pretended to lock his mouth and throw away an imaginary key. But I could see in his eyes that he was thinking it: Khloe is babbling in Chrissie-speak again.