Not Fit for a King? (3 page)

“Everything has been wonderful.”

Her answer baffled him even more. “No special requests? You’ve my ear now. I’m happy to oblige.”

She shook her head.

“You’re happy to be here then?”

Her full mouth curved into a tremulous smile. “Of course.”

He didn’t know if it was the inexplicable shimmer of tears in her eyes, or that uncertain smile, but suddenly Europe’s most beautiful princess looked so very alone and vulnerable that Zale reached for her, putting his hand low on her back and finding bare skin.

Her head tipped back, her blue gaze finding his. Zale’s hand slipped lower, his palm sliding down warm satin skin.

He heard her soft intake of breath as he drew her closer, holding her against him, her full, soft breasts crushed to his chest. He dropped his head, covering her mouth with his.

It was to have been a brief kiss, a good-night kiss, but when her lips trembled beneath his he felt a rush of hunger. Desire.

Power.

He drew her closer still, molding her to him with pressure in the small of her back.

She shivered against him and his pulse quickened, blood pounding in his veins, making his body hot, and hard.

The need to possess her filled him, consuming him, and ruthlessly he deepened the kiss, taking her as if she already belonged to him.

The insistent pressure of his lips parted hers, and the tip of his tongue flicked the softness of her inner lip making her squirm. The urgent press of her hips against his made blood roar in his ears and he nipped at her mouth, small bites that made her shudder with pleasure.

God, she was sensitive. Responsive. Her body trembled against him, and he slid his hand from the small of her spine down, lower, over the pert curve of her backside, which made
her gasp, her nipples hardening, pebbling against his chest through the thin silk of her gown.

Blood coursed through him.

Desire pounded through his veins.

She was deliciously smooth, deliciously curved and he wanted more of her, all of her. His body throbbed.

God, she was hot and tasted sweet. He wanted to rip her gown off her, strip her voluptuous body bare and explore her curves and hollows—like the dip of her spine, the space behind her knee, the softness between her thighs.

He wanted between her thighs. Wanted to part her knees as wide as he could—

Reality returned. What the hell was he doing? They were in the hall. In full view of the hidden cameras broadcasting images to his security detail.

His hand stilled on her hip. He removed the other from beneath her breast.

Slowly he lifted his head to look into her eyes. They were dark and cloudy, her lips swollen, her expression dazed.

“I’m afraid we’ve given my security a show,” he said, voice pitched low and rough.

Color rushed into her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

He brushed a blond tendril from her flushed cheek, finding her nearly irresistible. “I’m not. Good night, Your Highness.”

She looked at him for an endless moment. “Goodbye.” Then she slipped into her room and closed the door.

E
NTERING
her suite Hannah gently closed and locked the door, heart racing, body shaking.

For a long moment she leaned against the locked door, a hand pressed to her mouth.

She’d kissed him. Kissed him madly, passionately, kissed him as if she were drowning, dying, and maybe she was.

How could she go tomorrow? How could she leave and never see him again?

But there was no way she could stay. He didn’t want her, Hannah, he wanted Emmeline.

And even that hurt. How could he want Emmeline when the princess didn’t care for him, would never care, while Hannah already cared too much …?

That was the part that confused her, infuriated her, most. How could she care already? She’d only met Zale today. She’d spent what—five hours with him? Six? Barely enough time to be infatuated. So why did she feel sick? Panicked?

Desperate?

Why did she think when she left here she’d never forget him?

Hannah choked back a frustrated cry and pressed her hand harder to her mouth to stifle the sound.

Her eyes burned and her throat ached and she hated herself for wanting something—someone—she couldn’t have.

She wasn’t the type of woman to set herself up for failure.

“Your Highness,” Celine, Hannah’s maid, said breathlessly, emerging from the dressing room, with Hannah’s nightgown and robe. “I didn’t hear you return. Have I kept you waiting?”

Hannah blinked back tears and pushed away from the door. “I just returned,” she said, mustering a watery smile. “But I’d love your help getting out of this gown.”

Leaving Emmeline, Zale forced himself to put her from his mind and focus now on other things—like Tinny.

He headed toward his own wing of the palace but first stopped at his younger brother’s room. He never went to bed without a last check on Tinny.

Opening the door to Tinny’s sitting room he saw that all the lights were out except for the small lamp on the top of the bookshelf on the far wall.

Tinny’s night-light. He couldn’t sleep without it.

Zale felt a rush of affection for his twenty-eight-year-old special-needs brother, a brother who’d needed him even more after their parents’ death.

Constantine—or Tinny, as he’d always been called within the family—was to have been on the plane with his parents on that ill-fated flight, but at the last minute he’d begged his parents to let him fly to St. Philippe, their private Caribbean island, with Zale the next day instead.

Even five years later, Zale gave daily thanks that Tinny hadn’t been onboard. Tinny was everything to him, and all the family he had left, but Tinny still missed his parents dreadfully, still asked for them, hoping that maybe today his beloved mama and papa would come home.

“Your Majesty,” a voice whispered from the dark, and Mrs. Sivka, Tinny’s evening nurse, emerged from the shadows in a dressing gown. “He’s doing well. Sleeping like a lamb.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to say good-night earlier.”

“He knew you wouldn’t be coming. When you were here at tea this afternoon you told him tonight was a very important
night.” Mrs. Sivka smiled. “How did it go, Your Majesty? Is she as beautiful as they say?”

Zale felt a strange tightness in his chest. “Yes.”

“Tinny can’t wait to meet her. It’s all he talked about today.”

“He shall meet her as soon as possible.”

“Tomorrow?”

Zale pictured Emmeline and then his brother, and knew that innocent, idealistic Tinny would immediately place her on a pedestal. He’d adore her, worship her and give her the power to break his heart. “Not tomorrow, but soon, I promise.”

“He’ll be disappointed it’s not tomorrow.”

“I know, but there are a few wrinkles to still iron out.”

“I understand and Prince Constantine will meet your bride when the time is right.” Mrs. Sivka smiled. “I’m proud of you. Your parents would be proud, too. You deserve every good thing coming, you do.”

“But you have to say that, Mrs. Sivka,” he said, teasing her gently, forever grateful she’d come out of retirement to help with Tinny after his parents’ accident. “You were my nanny, too.”

“That I was. And now look at you.”

He smiled crookedly. “Good night, Mrs. Sivka.”

“Good night, Your Majesty.”

Zale left his brother’s suite of rooms and headed to his own, feeling tightness and tension return to his chest.

He felt like he’d ridden a roller coaster of emotions tonight. He didn’t like it.

He rarely let his emotions get the better of him. Little ruffled Zale. Virtually nothing got under his skin. But tonight everything about Emmeline had gotten to him. She wasn’t the one he’d remembered. She was nothing like the cool ice princess of the past. And tonight she’d managed to turn him inside out.

Not good, he told himself, walking to his own suite of rooms in the next wing.

He wasn’t supposed to be emotionally involved with Emmeline. As they both knew, their union wasn’t a love match
but a carefully orchestrated arrangement with significant financial incentives. Every step of their relationship had been outlined and detailed in the final draft of the seventy-page document they’d sign in the morning.

He could want her, desire her and enjoy her but he couldn’t ever forget that their relationship was first, and foremost, business.

Business, he reminded himself sternly, which meant he couldn’t allow himself to get distracted, not even by a beautiful face and lush body.

Fortunately Zale was famous for his discipline. That same discipline ensured success in school, in sport and then as Raguva’s sovereign.

Growing up the second of three sons, no one placed pressure on him. No one had particularly high expectations for him. But Zale had high expectations for himself. From a young age he was determined to find his own place in the world, would carve a niche that was uniquely his. And so while his older brother, Stephen VII, Raguva’s Crown Prince, had learned the fundamentals of ruling a monarchy, Zale had learned the fundamentals of football.

His older brother would be king one day and Zale would play professional sport.

Zale had been sixteen and attending boarding school in England when nineteen-year-old Stephen, in his second year at Trinity College, had been diagnosed with leukemia. His parents and Tinny had relocated to London to be with Stephen during the grueling chemo and radiation treatments.

For three years Stephen fought hard. For three years he endured horrific pain in hopes that the debilitating treatments would knock the leukemia into remission.

Zale had felt helpless. There was nothing he could do. Not for Stephen. Or his parents. And so he poured himself into his sport, needing a focus, a fight of his own. His self-imposed training regime had been grueling—three, four hours a day—running, weight training, sit-ups, push-ups, sprints, drills. He
pushed himself to breaking point each day. He worked to muscle failure. It was the least he could do. Stephen was fighting for his life. Zale should struggle, too.

After passing his exams, Zale made the decision to follow his brother to Oxford, where in his first year he made the university’s football club’s first team, the Blues.

In his second year he carried the Blues to Oxford’s newly created Premier League where they finished top.

Stephen was there for the last big game of their season. He’d insisted on attending and their father, Raguva’s king, pushed frail Stephen into the stadium in a wheelchair and no one cheered louder than Stephen during the game.

A week after the game, Stephen had died. Zale blamed himself. The day at the stadium had been too much for Stephen. He shouldn’t have gone.

Zale remembered nothing of his final year at Oxford. It was a blur shaped by grief. The only time he felt present in his skin was on the pitch. By the time he graduated, four different football clubs competed to sign him to their team.

He’d signed with a top Spanish club despite his parents disapproval. They had wanted him to return to Raguva—he was the Crown Prince now—but Zale didn’t want to be king. He had a love, a passion, a dream. It was football.

Football, Zale silently repeated, entering his suite of four rooms, which had served every Raguvian king for the past five hundred years.

His valet was waiting for him in his dressing room, the King’s Dressing Room, where the sumptuous curtains had been drawn across the wall of leaded windows, shutting out the night.

“Was it a good evening, Your Majesty?” his valet asked, assisting Zale out of his formal jacket.

“It was, Armand, thank you.” Zale’s jaw tightened as he began unbuttoning his vest and dress shirt.

No, he’d never wanted to be king, had no desire to rule, but when his parents’ plane had crashed on landing, of course he
came home. And he turned his tremendous discipline and drive to his reign.

He’d be a great king.

He owed it to his people, his parents and most of all, Stephen.

Hannah slept fitfully that night, tossing and turning in her ornate bed in her sumptuous bedroom, dreaming of Zale, dreaming of leaving, dreaming of finding Emmeline only to lose her again.

She woke repeatedly during the night to check the clock, anxious about the time, anxious about getting to the airport in the morning. At three she climbed out of bed to push the heavy drapes open, exposing the window with the night sky and quarter moon.

But finally it was dawn and pink and yellow light pierced the horizon. For a moment Hannah lay in bed watching the sun slowly rise, the yellow and pink sky deepening to gold and coral.

It would be a beautiful morning. Not a cloud in sight. There was nothing but soaring green mountains behind the walled city and the Adriatic Sea stretching before.

Hannah left the bed to stand at the window wanting to remember everything.

The rugged mountains. The pale stone houses and walls. The red tile roofs. Church spires and castle turrets. The sparkle of the sun on the water.

This morning Raguva’s capital looked magical, as if it had been plucked from a fairy tale.

She felt a tug on her heart and that tug was enough to make her turn away.

She wasn’t going to think today. Wasn’t going to feel, either. There would be no remembering last night, not even guilt over that kiss in the corridor.

She was going home. Back to her work and world. Back to a life where she excelled and could make a difference.

But first she’d need to shower, and then she’d dress and pack the few personal things she’d brought with her into an elegant shopping bag she’d found a few days ago.

The shopping bag was part of her “escape” plan. It was really quite a simple plan, too.

She’d make arrangements to go out shopping this morning. A driver could take her to an upscale fashion boutique where she’d window-shop and wait for Emmeline’s call. Once Emmeline phoned, Hannah would head to the airport where she and Emmeline would meet in the ladies’ room, change into each other’s clothes and swap places. Easy.

Once bathed, Hannah searched for a dress in Emmeline’s wardrobe that would fit both she and Emmeline. Hannah settled on a plum dress with a jewel neckline and cutout cap sleeves that could be worn with an optional gold belt. Hannah would leave the belt off but take it in her purse so that Emmeline, who was at least ten pounds lighter, could cinch the belt around her waist to keep the dress from looking baggy on her more slender frame.

Hannah pinned her hair up in a casually chic French twist, and added classic gold earrings as her only other accessory. The less she had to put on and off the better.

Once dressed and packed, the only thing Hannah could do was wait. She called for coffee and a footman arrived with coffee and croissants.

Hannah nibbled on a croissant while waiting for Emmeline to call.

A half hour became an hour, and then two and soon it was nine o’clock and Lady Andrea arrived to cover the day’s schedule with her.

“It’s going to be a very busy day,” Lady Andrea said, taking a seat in the suite’s sitting room and pulling out her leather calendar to flip to the proper page. “At ten this morning you have an appointment with His Majesty, and the lawyers in His Majesty’s chamber, and then at eleven you’ll have your hair and makeup done for the first sitting for your official portrait.
Later, if there’s time after tea, Mr. Krek, the Head Butler, will take you on a tour of the palace. Tonight you’ll have a private dinner with His Majesty and a few guests.”

Lady Andrea drew a breath and looked up at Hannah. “Any questions?”

A half dozen questions came to mind, but nothing as pressing as the meeting with Zale in just under an hour. “What is the purpose for the meeting with His Majesty and the lawyers?”

Lady Andrea closed the leather appointment book. “You’re meeting to sign paperwork, I believe.”

Hannah felt an icy rush of panic. “What paperwork?”

“The prenuptial agreement, Your Highness, spelling out division of assets, as well as custodial arrangements, in the event of the dissolution of the marriage.”

Hannah’s mouth opened and closed. Of course Zale and Emmeline would have a prenup, but Hannah couldn’t, wouldn’t sign a legal document in Emmeline’s name.

Thank God Emmeline was on her way. Only problem was, Hannah didn’t know when the princess would arrive.

Hannah stole a quick glance at her watch. Nine-fifteen. The meeting with Zale and the lawyers was only forty minutes from now and even if Emmeline landed right now, it would still be impossible for Emmeline and Hannah to switch places by then.

She’d have to stall. Have to get the meeting postponed until later.

“Could you please send word to His Majesty that I’d like to push back this morning’s meeting to this afternoon, or even tomorrow morning?” Hannah said. “I’d like time to review the documents before I sign anything.”

Lady Andrea hesitated, then nodded. “Of course, Your Highness, I’ll send word to His Majesty’s secretary and see if we can’t get this morning’s meeting rescheduled. I’ll also request copies of the documents be sent to you immediately.”

As soon as Lady Andrea left, Hannah checked her phone to see if she’d missed a call or text. Nothing.