The Star Princess (21 page)

"Of course it is," she cut him off. She plopped back down in the driver's seat and slammed the door closed. "We're wrong for each other, Ché. Totally wrong, and you know it. Just yesterday you called me a barbarian. What changed? Hypothetically."

"I did."

"Quit it." She pushed at him. "You're scaring me."

He exhaled, becoming more serious. That worried her more than his teasing. "Pure theory only, Ilana. Do you think I would force you to give up your creative endeavors?"

"I haven't thought about it."

"Perhaps you should."

"Ché," she said wamingly.

"I meant, in the spirit of speculative discussion, naturally."

"Naturally." She rolled her eyes.

"I have wondered," he said. "Do you think the Federation could be a market for Earth popular-culture entertainment?"

His interest startled her. "Well, yeah. Actually, I've given it a lot of thought, the Federation as a market for film. The Vash love our jeans, our beer, our coffee. Why not our films? Your society is incredibly high-tech when it comes to entertainment, but you have nothing like Hollywood. What a market, if we could crack it." She tried to keep her speech slow enough for Ché to follow. It wasn't easy. "This subject totally excites me."

Che's eyes glinted. "I could not tell," he teased.

"But we have to face reality. SILF doesn't have the finances to lobby for inclusion." She felt uncomfortable asking her family for money. Then it hit her. Che seemed interested. Heck, he'd even brought the subject up in the first place.

Ilana put on the straightforward, competent air she used whenever she met with potential investors for her films. "If SILF were to try something like that, would you be interested in helping fund the venture? As a service to your people. A new form of entertainment for the masses."

"Altruism— the key to a Vash Nadah's heart. Or rather, his money. You have learned well from Rom B'kah and Ian."

She smiled unapologetically.

"But I would like to do more than help fund your enterprise, Ilana. I can easily fund it all."

She was shocked, thrilled, but she fought not to show it. Overeager producers had turned off more than one investor at the crucial moment. "It would come back to you in spades, Ché. That's slang for I doubt you'd lose on the deal."

"Wealth is not the issue. I have all I could ever want. What I have long craved is intellectual stimulation. Excitement. I have found it here on Earth. I do not want to leave it behind when I depart."

"Now you won't have to."

He nodded. "Since you are my tour guide, I must ask you to bring me to a site where I may view some popular films, so that I can better see what I have agreed to do."

"Movies? No problem. I'll take you. Popcorn, peanut M&Ms, the whole experience." When was the last time she'd got excited about going to the movies?

Again his gaze turned contemplative. His appraising stare made her fidget.

She groaned. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Looking at me like that. What is with you? No one offered you any drugs at Reach, did they?"

"Pharmaceuticals?" He stumbled over the pronunciation.

"Not medications. Illegal mind-altering substances." She hoped not. Ian would kill her.

"I am not drunk or drugged. Nor am I jet-lagged or mentally broken."

"Mentally ill," she corrected. "Unless you meant a mental breakdown. I might agree with either diagnosis."

Smiling, he ran a finger down her arm, shoulder to wrist, pausing there to circle his thumb over the fleshy connector between her thumb and index finger. The movement was confident, sensual, and aroused her instantly. That tiny little spot on her hand was a hotbed of sensation. What other places did he know? Her heart beat harder, faster. "Have you given any more thought to my offer, Ilana?"

"You mean, what we just talked about?"

"No." He drew out the word as if to tease her.

"Oh, that. No. I thought the wedding stuff was hypothetical— "

"It was," he said, quick enough to make her feel better.

"Thank God."

"I meant my offer to teach you to fly."

The flying lessons," she whispered with dawning dread. It had been a very long weekend, maybe the longest in her life. And now it had just gotten longer. But at least the whole marriage discussion had sputtered out. Even Ché recognized the impossible when he saw it.

She fell back in her seat to mope, and caught a glimpse of her face in the rearview mirror. Lips pursed in a frown. Blue eyes, almond-shaped and mascara-smudged, brighter than she ever remembered seeing them. Face it, she thought. With Ché, she came alive. Whether it was with anger or happiness, every nerve ending in her body sang when she was around him. She'd felt it the day she laid eyes on him, that surge of… something.

Linda would call it love at first sight.

An indentation between her brows deepened with her frown. She had a lot of feelings building inside her— but love? Lust she knew. Infatuation, too. But when it came to falling in love, she hadn't a clue.

"I've tried drugs, clinics, therapists, hypnosis, acupuncture, just about everything," she said.

"Everything except flying the plane with your own hands," he reminded her.

"Right." She let out a breath. "And you think this will work."

"When you become familiar with a pilot's duties, when you learn what a craft can or cannot do, and what the air can or cannot do, you will hold on to much of the sense of control you lose when you climb into a flying craft. As I said, my goal is not to teach you to be a pilot." He paused and looked at her. "Unless you want to— "

Her hand shot up. "No. No thanks."

"Then I seek only to help you gain power over fear."

She sank down in the buttery-soft leather seat. Her reflection stared back at her, but this time she didn't want to look. She'd inherited her mother's curvy figure, but everything from the neck up she owed to her father: the sandy brown hair, the eyes, the freckles on her nose.

And trust issues that affected her life on every level, from feeling comfortable flying to giving away her heart.

She gripped the steering wheel as if she could drive away from her past.

"I need to think." She opened the car door and got out. Hopping on one foot at a time, she removed her heeled sandals and tossed them onto the driver's seat. "Come on, Mister Bodyguard. I need you."

She didn't wait for an answer. The thud of a car door closing told her that he was on the way.

A summertime moon shining through mist frosted the sand and sea. Plastic cups and wrappers lay here and there on the sand, scarred from a busy summer day's worth of foot traffic. In a few hours, at sunrise, county workers would rake the sand clean.

She was surprised to see anyone else out there. Another couple huddled together in sweats walked a black-and-white dog. It was unleashed. Water sprayed behind skinny pumping canine legs as the dog ran across the shallows.

Ilana waited until they passed, then stood where the waves licked the shore. The water was cold, a shock, and her toes curled in the squishy wet sand. A light breeze flipped her hair up and around her face. Her short dress rippled and fluttered.

Ché stood by her, a silent, stalwart companion. She waited for him to transform into the pushy, arrogant Vash royal she'd expected, waited for him to push her into making a decision about the flying. She waited for him to launch his campaign to change her, to "fix" her. But he didn't. He simply stood next to her, savoring the quiet of the beach at night.

He'd handed the control of her choice to her. That was all it took for a kernel of trust to sprout a tiny root.

"Okay," she blurted. "I'll do it. I'll try flying."

He dipped his head in the universal Vash sign of approval.

Her heart hammered so hard against her chest that she figured Ché had to hear it. "But only with you," she said. "I'm not going to do it with anyone else."

His mouth quirked. "I have no intention of sharing you with another." Then his lips formed a blazingly sexy smile. "Hypothetically, of course."

Her knees had started to weaken before she caught herself melting and snapped back to her senses. "You know what, Vedla? They ought to classify that smile of yours as an assault weapon. It's going to kill a woman one of these days."

Looking amused, he brought his hand to his chest as if to recover some of his noble bearing. Touche, she thought. She hoped someone was keeping score. "As for your innuendos, we have an expression for that on Earth." She crossed her arms. Talk is cheap."

She could tell by his dark gaze that he knew exactly what she meant. Good. He might have his reasons for not wanting to sleep with her, but it didn't mean she couldn't give him a hard time about it. "Now, are you ready for sleep? Real sleep? I am. I've got twenty-four more hours until this weekend is over— some of us have to work for a living, you know— and if I don't make up for lost time, I'll be a witch come Monday." With her windblown hair hiding her grin, she grabbed Che's hand and led him home.

"Ah, at long last— the movies," Ché said on a pleased exhalation, his mirrored sunglasses glinting in the late evening light as he walked with Ilana toward the suburban eighteen-theater multiplex. It was several nights later, and he was as curious about the medium of film and the role of Hollywood as he was her career, though Ilana was sure the latter drove the former. Everything about her was "alien" to him; she embodied a concept of woman he couldn't quite grasp. Grasp? Ha! Since he refused to come to grips with her on the physical level, he damn well would intellectually— she'd make sure of it. One way or the other, Prince Che Vedla was not going home uneducated.

"I'm taking you to Passing Fancies," she informed him. "The reviews have been awesome. Audiences love it, too. I'm pretty sure it'll rack up its share of nominations come Oscar-time. All in all, a good movie." She winked at Che. "Which makes it the perfect end to your virginity."

Che lifted an amused brow. "My virginity ended some time ago."

She had no doubt of that. "Your movie virginity."

"Ah." The end of his sexy mouth turned up slightly. "It is indeed my first time."

"That's right. The first time is special. I want you to remember it."

His gaze turned so intense that she felt its heat through his glasses. "Have no doubt of that, Ilana. I would not forget our… first time."

What was he saying? Or rather, proposing?

Che was the only man who could make her blush. She tried to pretend she wasn't, and pushed her sunglasses higher on her nose. "Two for Passing Fancies— eight o'clock," Ilana told the ticket taker.

Che paid for tickets with his cash card and they pushed past glass doors, trading a soft, warm evening for a rush of noise and cold, air-conditioned air thick with the aroma of hot buttered popcorn. It was a typical summer night at the movies; kids and their parents, teenagers and their dates streamed past.

Che looked to Ilana for guidance. "Now we make our way to the appropriate viewing chamber, yes?"

"We will. But first things first." She took him by the arm and tugged him over to the concession stand.

"There's more to going out to the movies than the movie."

"There is always more to whatever activity you introduce me to than what meets the eye." With that, Ché flashed his killer grin.

Don't react. Keep the upper hand. "Are you complaining or commentating, Ché?"

"Congratulating. Self-congratulating, actually. No one can argue my taste in tour guides." Smug, he used his flattened hand to rub his chest. The thin fabric of his mostly white T-shirt let his bronzed skin show through. It spurred a memory of the feel of his hard body, his clothes transparent from the gushing water in the shower…

"Popcorn, ma'am?" prompted the teenager behind the counter.

Looking Ché up and down, Ilana answered distractedly. "Large… buttered… " She winced. Unfortunate word choice, considering the direction of her thoughts. She shoved her hair off her forehead, pulled her gaze away from Ché. "And two big ice cold Diet Cokes."

She loaded Che's arms with their booty. "To the viewing chamber," she said in imitation of his arrogant Vash accent.

After they found their seats, Ilana sank down deep into the cranberry crushed velvet cushion. And immediately fell under the spell of the theater: the hush of anticipation, the willingness to be entertained, and, if the movie was any good, an escape from reality for the next couple of hours. No matter how long she worked in the industry, the feeling she got every time she stepped into a movie theater was the same.

She bent her head toward Ché, whispering, "Passing Fancies is what you'd consider a high-profile, big-studio production. But the director is one whose work I respect. She started out as an indie filmmaker."

"Like you," he said, nodding.

"She's A-list now. She proved her value over the years with a quality track record."

Ché held the tub of popcorn in his lap, regarding Ilana who poked through it, looking for the yellow-colored kernels. "As will you, Ilana."

She jerked her gaze up to his. He'd spoken with such certainty. "Hey, thanks. I… appreciate the vote of confidence."

He appeared immune to her surprise. Maybe, deep down, he didn't disapprove of her career, exactly; it was simply outside of his experience. It proved just how much outside his envelope of comfort he'd stepped when he'd come to Earth.

It proved just how different he was from her original opinion of him.

She turned her attention to the blank screen. "These are the kinds of movies I hope someday to make. Entertainment. But quality entertainment."

"Fictional stories?" He appeared surprised. "You have made documentaries until this point."

"Because they make us money, and they get us noticed. Believe me— if a fantastic script came our way and we managed to scrape together the financing, we'd be all over it. But that hasn't happened yet. So we do what we can until it does. We inch toward that goal." She wondered if a fabulously wealthy prince could understand the concept of putting aside your dreams until you could afford to make them reality. "I'm actively searching for scripts. But it has to be right. I want a happy ending, like Passing Fancies. My favorite kind of flick."