Waking Up in Vegas (7 page)

Max nodded. The cell phone was in the side pocket of his laptop bag. It took precious minutes to switch on. With agitated fingers he dialled Phoenix’s number.

It went straight to voice mail. Damn. Of course it would. Her boss didn’t allow the staff to keep their cell phones on at work. He listened to her voice, until the beep sounded.

What should he say?

There was a lot he needed to say, but none of it could be left in a voice message.

“Call me the moment you get this message.” He cut off the call. Not nearly enough.

He glanced at the wall clock. She’d be at work for another three hours. They could drive past the casino where she worked…but that would take time. Time they didn’t have.

He’d have to leave a note. He pulled the memo pad and pen from beside the phone.

“We don’t have time for this,” Albert snapped impatiently. “The car is waiting, and we’re already behind schedule.”

“Pack my bag while I write.”

It was a measure of how serious the situation was that the most senior cabinet minister of a European nation accepted the order without hesitation. Max was sure the British prime minister would never have packed the Queen’s suitcase. He swallowed his laughter. Not the time, nor the place.

He concentrated on the note.

I have a family crisis I have to attend to, but I’ll call as soon as I can. Whatever you do, please don’t file those papers. I’ll explain everything soon. I love you.

He signed it Max. That would have to do for now.

From his laptop case he removed an envelope with the Mandarin Oriental’s embossed logo. He folded the note and slipped it inside, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his signet ring. The antique Westerwald heirloom his father had given him on his eighteenth birthday, one of only three ever made.

He sealed the ring into the envelope, set the key Phoenix had given him on top of it, packed up his laptop, and did a quick sweep of the rooms to make sure Albert hadn’t missed anything. Then he crossed to the door, flipped the latch, and pulled the door shut behind him.

The click of the latch as it locked had a resoundingly final ring to it.

Phoenix hopped off the bus and hurried down the street towards the motel. She hummed as she walked. She had only known Max for a week and he’d turned her life upside down and inside out, and she was
humming
.

Tonight she would tell him her decision to go to Napa with him. After all, what was keeping her in Vegas? A dead-end job with a boss who had no sense of humour whatsoever?

She’d already handed in her notice and she was free as a bird.

At the apartment door, she fished her cell phone out of her bag as well as the keys. Still no response from Max. She’d called as soon as she got off shift and picked up his message, but his phone was switched off as usual. In her world, most people needed to be surgically detached from their phones. It was yet another indication of how far apart their lives were. Max never seemed to switch his on.

She slid the key into the lock and smiled as she turned it. But perhaps after all there was a strong enough connection between their worlds that they could overcome their differences. Max was right. This was more than just lust between them. Lust alone wouldn’t have kept her smiling like a loon all day. She wasn’t yet ready to use the other L word, but maybe…

The apartment was empty. No fancy dinner or candle-lit baths tonight, clearly. Perhaps he planned to take her out for dinner instead.

“Max?” she called, throwing her purse down on the sofa and moving to the bedroom. Also empty. It was only when she reached the bathroom that the fear began to bubble in the pit of her stomach.

His toothbrush was gone.

She strode back into the bedroom and flung open his cupboard. Empty.

Fear lanced through her, pain sharp and familiar, and so dizzying she had to steady herself against the door.

She hurried back to the living room, moving so quickly she stubbed her toe on the edge of the sofa. But the pain was nothing to the stabbing pain in her heart as she spotted the key.

She couldn’t breathe.

Sucking in gulps of air, she sank onto the sofa.

Max was gone. Like everyone else in her life, he was gone.

The tide engulfed her and she fought against it. She wasn’t going to let herself go down. No-one was going to pull her down to that dark place again.

She raised her head. So what? So what that Max had failed her? She’d always known it was going to end eventually – that either he would leave or she would. This was what she’d wanted, right? To end things before they got complicated.

Except that it was already complicated.

She picked up the envelope beneath the key. It lay thick and heavy in her hand. With fingers that were steadier than they had any right to be, she slit open the envelope and gasped.

Hundred dollar bills. Lots of them. And a note.

She unfolded the note, laughing hollowly as she read Max’s large, neat handwriting.

I love you
. Yeah, right.

He loved her enough to pay her off like some harlot. One abrupt voice message, and then he’d switched off his bloody phone.

He knew where she worked. If he’d truly cared he could have told her face-to-face before he left, but no, he’d left a three line note and cash.

She removed the cash and flicked through it. Enough for a plane ticket out of here. She didn’t really care where she was going as long as it was far away from Vegas. There were memories here now that she didn’t want to re-visit.

There was still something stuck inside the envelope. She gave it a shake and Max’s ring fell out onto her palm. A keepsake, how nice. At least the ring made her feel a little less like a whore being paid for services rendered.

She rolled the ring over and over between her fingers. She’d keep it. She’d keep it real close where it could serve as a reminder of what happened when you let people close, when you let them into your heart.

She was never going to be suckered into that again.

Stuffing the cash back into the envelope, she grabbed the key and headed for the door. It was after normal working hours but in this town there was guaranteed to be a travel agent somewhere who could advise her how far away she could get on three thousand dollars.

There was no point in looking back. It was time to move forward.

Max’s gaze drifted out the tall arched windows of the council room. Rain battered against the windows. God, but he missed the clear blue Californian sky.

He refused to think of the other things he missed. He’d only drive himself crazy.

“If that’s all gentlemen, then I’ll see you all at the coronation?” Albert’s dry voice cut through the fog of his thoughts. The other members of the cabinet murmured their assent and the meeting drew to a close. Papers rustled and chairs scraped on the hardwood floors.

Max stretched and rose from his chair, knotted muscles protesting, and turned to Albert, seated on his right. “May I have a private word?”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

He still wasn’t used to being addressed this way. ‘Your Highness’ had been his father. In Napa, even the migrant farm workers had called him Max. ‘Your Highness’ made him feel old. He felt old a lot these days.

“I want to make a slight change to the coronation plans.”

Albert nodded, not quite able to hide his look of resignation. If he’d hoped Max would be a more pliable Arch Duke than Rik, he’d been sorely mistaken. In the two months they’d worked side by side, or more appropriately head to head, he’d had plenty of time to learn that while Max had not been raised to be the ruling Prince, he had strong ideas on what he wanted and a stubborn insistence on getting it.

And what Max wanted right now, he knew Albert wasn’t going to like. “I’ve decided that the coronation should be held in Waldburg.”

Albert choked. “You can’t be serious. Neustadt is our capital. The coronations always take place in the cathedral here.”

“Not always.” Max smothered a smile. No-one knew their country’s history better than he did. They were more than bedtime tales for him. These were the stories of his ancestors. “Waldburg was the seat of Westerwald’s power for a thousand years. Until the nineteenth century, every coronation was held in the castle at Waldburg. I want to return to that tradition.”

“But the church there will never hold all the dignitaries we’ve invited. And what about the public who will want to be there to celebrate the day?”

He’d grown up in the small medieval walled town on the banks of the Wester River. Everyone there knew him and those were the people he wanted around him when he pledged his life away, not a bunch of strangers. “There’ll be TV cameras broadcasting live. And those people who want to can travel to Waldburg. We’ll lay on buses and boats.”

Albert pressed his lips together. “I think this is a very bad idea. Your coronation is mere weeks away and the arrangements have all been made.”

“Then unmake them.” Max drew in a deep breath. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, but that was no excuse for winding up the people’s elected leader. “You are a meticulous planner, with a very capable support staff. I have no doubt you will be able to make the necessary arrangements. But the coronation will take place in the same place where my ancestors were crowned.”

Albert bowed and began to withdraw.

“And one more thing.” Max leached the emotion from his voice. “That matter I asked the secret service to look into…?”

Albert would not look him in the eye. “There has been no news. There’s been no word of her since she landed in Madrid.”

Max’s hands fisted as he fought back the anger. He had no one to blame but himself. He should have found her. He should not have left without talking to her.

But there’d been no time.

As it was, he’d walked into the press conference late. He’d walked straight into turmoil, and it still wasn’t over. Two months was not yet long enough for people to forget the salacious headlines. Rik was lying low somewhere avoiding the press, and their mother had escaped back to her childhood home in California. Max only wished he could do the same. He hadn’t truly appreciated what he’d had in his old life until it was irretrievably gone.

Instead, he was stuck here, fixing everyone else’s problems, alone.

The republicans’ calls to abolish the monarchy were louder than ever, the paparazzi stalked his every move, and no-one called him by his given name any more. And the worst of it was he could see no way out. No way back to the place he wanted to be or the person he wanted to be.

“Might I make a suggestion, Your Highness?”

He forced the darkness away and turned back to Albert with a brisk nod.

“Forget about her. There will be other women, far more suitable women.”

His eyes narrowed but he said nothing.

“Is there anything else, Your Highness?”

He shook his head. “You may go.”

Left alone in the vast council chamber, with its ornate gilded ceiling and wainscoted walls, Max wandered across to the high windows. The palace gardens lay below, now blurred behind a veil of rain. The formal garden led down in terraces to an artificial lake, which separated the Baroque palace from the equally formal town. Everything here was neat and organised, the streets laid out on a grid pattern, row after row of identical grey buildings.

He hated the city.

But now that the government had broken for the summer he was free at last to go home. To Waldburg, to the rambling castle overlooking the river and the vineyards. Waldburg, where castle and town lay intertwined and people he’d known all his life still called him ‘Max’. Now that his own family were gone, he longed to see even one friendly face.

His heart ached but he pushed the emotion away. He needed to focus on what had to be done. He needed not to feel.

At least in Waldburg, away from the endless meetings and duties and the need to put everyone else first, he hoped to be able to sleep again. He hadn’t slept well in two months, not without waking from tortured dreams to find himself alone in a vast canopied bed in a strange room.

Perhaps in Waldburg he’d be able to make sense of his life. Of the secrets and lies that made a mockery of everything he’d ever believed in.

His mother had been unfaithful to his father and their life together had been built on lies. Phoenix hadn’t cared enough to wait. Overnight, she’d dumped her cell phone and left the country.

Truth, destiny, true love – were they all a sham? He sighed and twisted away from the window. It seemed, increasingly, that every belief he’d held onto was nothing more than an illusion.

Phoenix placed an upturned chair on an empty table and continued to sweep. Her new boss, a young woman not much older than herself, entered the café from the kitchen. “You sure you don’t mind locking up for me tonight?”

Phoenix shook her head. “I’ll be fine. You go out and have some fun.”

Rebekah was newly married but she and her husband hardly had time together since he worked at the castle, and coronation preparations were taking his every spare moment. Phoenix had timed her arrival perfectly. Rebekah had been so desperate for extra help she’d overlooked the fact that Phoenix had no work permit. The job came with a tiny apartment too, which was just as well since the trip through Spain and France had pretty much wiped out her savings and the cash from Max.

Before she arrived in Westerwald, she’d got down to thinking of Max only about a dozen times a day. Was he back in Napa, making wines and rejoicing in his narrow escape from marriage? Or did he miss her?

But here in Westerwald she thought of him all the time. The moment she’d heard of a town with his name, she’d come straight here. She’d loved the rugged mountains of Spain, but here in the town of Waldburg she’d fallen in love with the vineyard-clad green hills on either side of the wide river and the town of half-timbered houses that clustered around the romantic castle. Even the town square with its giant fountain, where Rebekah’s café was situated, had a fairy tale quality to it.

Everywhere she turned here she was reminded of him, of the tales he’d told her.

She swept vigorously, not seeing what she was doing.

Had Max signed and filed the papers she’d sent to the vineyard? She hoped so. She hoped he’d moved on and that he was happy. Really, she did.

Even if, in the darkness and quiet of her room at night, the anger still festered that he’d left her. Or worse, those nights when the anger turned to grief, brutally reminding her that she was alone and that she could rely on no-one – that she had to find her joy in whichever way she could. Those were the nights she found the loudest, liveliest club in town and partied until dawn.

She brushed away the dark mood, and bent down to lift another chair and set it on a table-top. The chain around her neck swung loose of her shirt. She stuffed it back.

“What is that?” Rebekah asked.

“It’s nothing. A souvenir.”

“May I see it?”

Phoenix held up the chain and the ring that dangled from the end of it.

Rebekah stepped close to look, holding the ring reverently. “It’s a very good copy. It almost looks real.”

Whatever did she mean? “It is real, I think.” Phoenix frowned. “Actually, I don’t know much about it. A friend gave it to me.”

Rebekah pressed her lips together, expression thoughtful.

Phoenix slipped the ring back where it belonged, over her heart. “I wear it to remind me not to get too attached to anyone or anything.”

Rebekah frowned. “Why?”

“Because the man who gave it to me walked out without even saying goodbye. Because nothing ever lasts.”

“You’re in the wrong place for that, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“This castle, and the town and nation that’s grown around it, is more than a thousand years old, and still ruled by the descendants of the first nobleman who claimed this land for himself. Here, everything lasts.”

She couldn’t even comprehend a family with a thousand year history. She’d never even met her grandparents. Phoenix sighed. “Things, places, but not people.”

“One day you’ll find that someone meant just for you and it will last.”

“Does everyone in this country believe in fairy tales?” Phoenix rolled her eyes.

Rebekah laughed softly. “What is wrong with believing in fairy tales?” She laid her hand on Phoenix’s arm. “I hope for your sake you find that someone soon. It must be very lonely not having someone to love.”

Loneliness was a whole lot easier to deal with than loss.

“Go on, or you’re going to be late for your date with your husband.” She gave Rebekah a gentle shove towards the door. “And I can’t clean the floor with you standing on it.”

Rebekah chuckled and headed out the door with a wave. Phoenix set to work sweeping the floor. The mindless task gave her thoughts chance to roam, back to a motel apartment in Vegas, or even further, to that vineyard in Napa she’d never seen but could picture so perfectly.

She brushed aside the twinge of regret and focussed back on the task at hand. There was no point dwelling on the past. What was done, was done, and she was moving forward.

“It’s so good to have you home again.”

Max clasped his one-time playmate’s hand. “It’s good to be back. I’ve been away far too long.” He looked around the sunlit solar, once the private chamber of the medieval royal household. Lunch had been set ready for him on the long polished wooden table. A place for one.

He was sick and tired of eating alone, and even more tired of servants who eyed him suspiciously if he tried to start a conversation. Claus didn’t drop his gaze or leave a room backwards, and Max wanted to keep him talking with a need bordering on desperation. “You’re in charge here since your father retired?”

“Yeah. Unlike you, I never wanted to leave. I’m more than happy being the third generation steward of the castle.”

“I’ll gladly swap your job for mine. Though I’m sure you’re under a lot of pressure at the moment, what with the arrangements for the coronation. I’m sorry about that, but we had to do it in a hurry.”

“I hear the republican party have called for a referendum.”

Max nodded. “They’d have loved to postpone the coronation until after the vote. Their argument is that it’s a waste of state funds and if Westerwald gets rid of its monarchy, then the tax payers will be saved a great deal of money. They have a point, but Albert was adamant we get the coronation over and done with before the government re-opens after the summer.”

Claus grinned. “I agree. And since I’ll be out of a job if there’s no more monarchy, I’d better get back to work making this the best damned coronation in history. I’ve a meeting scheduled with the TV people to work out how they’re going to place their cameras in a medieval church that wasn’t designed for such things.”

Great. Another responsibility on his shoulders. Max owed it to all those people like Claus who depended on the monarchy for their jobs to make this coronation so spectacular (on a limited budget, of course) that the population would vote to keep him in power.

There were days he wished he could do what Phoenix had done – just up and leave and go exploring. There were even days he couldn’t give a toss what happened to the people of Westerwald.

He could be back in Napa cultivating new wines. Or in Spain, searching for Phoenix.

He shook his head. She’d done such a fantastic disappearing act, that she obviously didn’t want to be found. So much for better or for worse.

He shut down that line of thought. Albert was right. He should forget her. But memory had never been
his
problem.

And thinking of wives and weddings… “I hear congratulations are in order, and that you married recently.”

Claus’ face lit up as he smiled. “I did.”

Max’s heart lurched. He envied his friend’s joy. He’d known that happiness for scarcely a week before he’d lost it. He forced a smile. “Anyone I know?”

“Rebekah. She was in school with us.”

“Pig tails and freckles? Her parents owned the café on the square where we used to get ice creams after school?”

Claus laughed. “The café’s still there but Rebekah runs it now.” Max grinned. “And she doesn’t have pig tails anymore.”

Max had spent the first years of his schooling in a local school right here in Waldburg. His mother had insisted on keeping her children close. That changed when his grandfather died and his father acceded as head of state. They’d moved to the city, and he and Rik transferred to an elite private school. But they’d still spent their summers here in Waldburg and the friendships forged in those halcyon younger days had remained strong.