The Royal House Of Karedes: Two Kingdoms
She could see nothing wonderful about it tonight.
As they stepped off the curb a uniformed driver sprang from behind the wheel of the big limo, touched a finger to his cap and clicked his heels.
Maria snorted.
Alex ignored her.
“Hans,” he said.
Hans clicked his heels again. Alex thought about telling him to stop doing that but he’d already told him the same thing at least a dozen times. Apparently, Hans was one of those people who dreamed of the grandeur that was royalty.
Maria, clearly, was not.
Hans reached for the bags. “I’ll put them in the trunk,” Alex said sharply. “You see to Ms. Santos.”
Another click. Maria rolled her eyes. Hans swept open the rear passenger door, gave her a little bow as she stepped inside the car. The door shut with the sort of solid ‘thunk’ she figured you expected when a car cost as much as a house. A swirl of warm air, perfumed with the scent of expensive leather, swallowed her up as she fell back into the soft seat.
The only thing that spoiled it was Alex, who opened the other rear door and got in beside her.
“The airport,” he said.
The car moved gracefully from the curb. Maria’s gut moved, too, but not gracefully. What in the world was she doing? She had to phone Joaquin to say she was leaving, and she certainly had to say goodbye to her mother.
“Wait!”
The car stopped. Alex turned toward her. “Whatever you forgot,” he said coldly, “can stay right where it is.”
“No. I mean, it can’t. I mean …” She took a deep breath. “I can’t go with you.”
Alex folded his arms. “We’ve been through all this.”
“I can’t just leave. I mean… I have to let people know. I have to say goodbye.”
“People,” he said coldly. “You mean, your ‘friend’, Joaquin.”
She thought of correcting him, but what for? He could believe what he liked.
“And will you tell him the intimate details of our arrangement, glyka mou?” he said with a sly smile.
Her head came up. “I will never tell anyone about that.”
He stared at her for a long minute. For some insane reason, he wanted to take her in his arms and tell her he would not hurt her, that he would do all he could to bring her pleasure…
To hell with that.
“What’s his address?”
“Why?”
“Hans is an excellent driver,” Alex said with a tight smile, “but he has one flaw. He can’t find a place unless I give him its address.”
“Oh,” she said quickly, “no, that isn’t necessary. Just—Driver? Driver, there’s a subway stop two blocks up. If you’d drop me off there—and then I can, ah, I can meet you somewhere later …”
“The address,” Alex said quietly, but in a tone so filled with authority that Maria knew she’d lost.
She sank back in her seat.
“One seven four oh Grandview Avenue,” she said in a small voice. “That’s in the Bronx.”
“The Bronx?” the driver said.
“The Bronx,” Alex repeated firmly, and the big car started up again.
Alex watched Maria’s face as the limo made its way along the snow-laden streets.
She sat huddled in the corner, as far from him as she could get, staring straight ahead, her face pale in the glaring headlights of the few cars coming toward them. The snow had all but emptied the city streets.
She was trembling.
He frowned. Was she cold? Impossible. The sole virtue of that ugly jacket had to be its warmth. Besides, the car’s interior was warm.
She was nervous, then. Or anxious. About agreeing to go with him? Not that she’d actually agreed. He’d forced her into it.
Never mind.
Was she nervous about telling her lover she was going away with another man? Alex’s jaw tightened. A week from now, hell, a couple of hours from now, her lover would be history. Once they boarded his private plane, he’d take her to the big bedroom in the rear of the cabin, strip her out of that foolish outfit and touch her in ways that would make her forget any man but him.
That was how it had been that night.
Maria, blind with passion. Her skin, silken to the touch. Her mouth drinking from his, her fingers cool against his body, her hands trembling when he clasped them, brought them to his chest, his belly, his erection.
Touch me this way, he’d murmured. Yes. Like that. Like that.
She’s never done this before, he’d thought in amazement. And then he’d simply stopped thinking, lost in the heat that consumed them.
What a lie!
She’d done everything before. He’d known it as soon as he heard her on the telephone that morning. Until then, she’d had him fooled. And that wasn’t easy. He’d been with a lot of women. Too many, he sometimes thought; their faces and names and bodies had become blurred over the years.
Not hers.
Maria’s name, her heart-shaped face and its delicate features, her body that was softly curved and not a fashionable arrangement of hard bones and flesh, even her voice…
He had forgotten nothing. She came to him in his dreams, telling him she wanted him.
Turning yourself on again, you idiot? he thought angrily as he shifted in the deep leather seat.
Well, there’d be no more of that.
He knew what this was all about, if he was honest. Ego? Maybe a little. Anger? Okay, that, too. Payback? Absolutely. But the real reason he wanted her was much more basic.
The hair of the dog that bit you. Driving out demons. Whatever you wanted to call it. Have enough sex with Maria Santos and he’d wipe her name, her face, everything about her from his mind.
A month from now, he’d be happy to see the last of her. Whether she was clever in bed or not, he’d never come across a woman who could hold his interest for much longer than that. This one would be no exception, not even if she went from waif to temptress, fire to ice…
“It’s the building right over there.”
Her voice was low. Alex blinked and realized the car had slowed to a crawl. He looked out the window and saw a nondescript street, cars packed tightly along the curb, and a looming wall of apartment buildings.
“This one, miss?” Hans asked.
“Sí. Yes.”
It was the first time she’d lapsed into Spanish since the phone call—and since she’d cursed him. She sounded breathless. Stressed. His jaw tightened. Was she nervous about visiting her lover and telling him her plans?
If he’d been her lover, she’d have had the right to be terrified. He could not imagine agreeing to her going off with another man for a month. Not for a day. Not if she belonged to him.
The limo eased into the space beside a fire hydrant. The driver turned off the engine and reached for the door handle.
“Thank you,” Maria said quickly, “but that isn’t necessary. I can open the door my—”
“Stay in the car, Hans.” Alex’s voice was cold. “I’ll take care of Ms. Santos.”
A blast of frigid air swept in as he opened the door. Maria’s heart skipped a beat. Did the Prince of Arrogance think he was going inside with her? Not in a million years.
“Thank you,” she said, forcing a polite smile, “but I can manage.”
“Don’t be silly, glyka mou. It’s late, the street is nearly deserted. What kind of gentleman would permit a woman to be alone under such conditions?”
His tone had gone from harsh to silken. A spider’s web was silken, too. She didn’t want him with her, not only because then he would know she hadn’t come to see Joaquin but because he would know too much.
“Maria. I’m waiting.”
He was leaning into the car, his patrician face rigid. Anger swept through her. Did he think he could take over every aspect of her life?
“Keep waiting, then. I don’t require your assistance. And let me assure you, Your Highness, if you think you are a gentleman—”
She gasped as he caught her shoulders and pulled her from the car.
“You will not talk to me that way,” he growled. “I don’t give a damn what you do or do not require. What matters is what I require. For the next month, you’ll do things my way or not at all. Is that clear?”
“Yessir,” she said, and touched her stiff fingers to her forehead. “Of course, sir,” she added, and clicked her heels. Then she jerked her chin up, stepped around him and marched over the snowy sidewalk to the building’s entry.
Alex could feel his face burning.
He shot a furious glare at Hans, sitting straight as a ramrod behind the wheel. He gave no sign that he’d seen or heard what had just happened.
Alex took a deep breath. Then he trudged after Maria through the snow. Her feet, in those hideous boots, moved up and down without interference but he was wearing leather mocs—handmade leather mocs, he thought grimly, and they were already cold and sodden.
Great. He was about to come face to face with the man who’d been her lover and his damned shoes would probably fall off his feet when he…
Panagia mou!
What kind of place was this for a love nest? The entrance door had a broken lock. The lobby smelled of mice and mildew. What remained of a mural clung pathetically to a graffiti-scarred wall. There was an elevator but Maria ignored it and headed for the stairs.
“Four flights,” she said briskly, without looking back at him. “Are you up to that, Your Highness?”
He didn’t bother replying, he simply climbed the steps behind her. One flight. Two. Three. At last, they reached the fifth-floor landing.
“This is where he lives?”
Alex sounded incredulous. She hated him for that, and for forcing himself into this part of her life.
“Answer me!” He clasped her wrist and spun her toward him. “Your lover expects you to come to him in a dump like this?”
The door to the apartment directly ahead swung open. Alex looked up, angry at himself, at Maria, at the unwanted intrusion.
“What the hell do you want?” he snarled at the shadowy figure in the doorway.
The figure stepped forward into the dim light of the stairwell landing. It was a woman. Small. Dark-haired. Wrapped in a wool bathrobe.
“Maria?”
Maria took a deep breath. “Sí, Mama. It’s me.”
CHAPTER FIVE
IT’S ME, Mama, Maria said.
And then no one said anything.
For an eternity? For a few seconds? Alex couldn’t be sure. The only certainty was that he’d made one hell of a mistaken assumption.
And he’d mortified Maria. The proof was in the rigidity of her posture, the angle of her head. This place, this depressing setting, this woman making absolutely no move toward her daughter, were not things she’d wanted him to see.
So what? he asked himself coldly. Wasn’t it his intention to humiliate Maria Santos? This was just one more way to do it.
But even as he thought that he found himself moving closer to her, putting his hand lightly on her shoulder in a gesture of unspoken support.
The woman in the doorway spoke first. Her words were not those of a loving mother, delighted to see her child. They were, instead, accusatory.
“Do you have any idea how late it is, Maria? I was on my way to bed.”
He saw the color rise in Maria’s face. His hand tightened on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I should have phoned first—”
“And who is this with you? Why have you brought a man to my home?”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Santos,” Alex said pleasantly. He gave Maria what he hoped was a reassuring smile, then stepped forward. “It’s my fault, entirely. I’m afraid I was in such a hurry to get things done that the lateness of the hour never occurred to me.”
“And you are …?”
“I am Alexandros Karedes. Prince Alexandros Karedes.”
The Santos woman’s eyebrows rose.
“Prince?”
“From the kingdom of Aristo. Perhaps you’ve heard of it,” he said politely, knowing she would have. You could not read a magazine or see a television program about the rich and famous without hearing of places like Dubai, Monaco and Aristo.
“And you know my daughter?”
“Indeed. In fact, Maria and I are going to be spending the next few weeks together.”
Maria gave him a look that should have turned him to stone. “The prince means we’ll be working together.”
“Maria is making my mother’s birthday gift.”
Luz raised her dark eyebrows. “Maria? Is this what you meant when I called you a little while ago?”
Alex looked at Maria. She glared even as color rose in her cheeks. It had been her mother on the phone, not her lover. Why did that please him? Whether she had a lover or not didn’t matter. She would be his for the next four weeks. Who gave a damn if she came home to Joaquin when the month ended?
“Sí, Mama, it was.”
He could almost see Luz mulling that over. Finally, she stepped aside and motioned them forward. “Come inside. I don’t want to bother the neighbors.”
Maria looked like a wild animal who wanted to escape a trap, but she jerked her head in assent and moved past him into the apartment.
The entry foyer was big; it led down two steps into a living room that must have been elegant in its day but now was dimly lit and depressing. Luz made no offer of coffee or tea; she took a chair and when Maria hovered uncertainly, Alex took her elbow. He felt her stiffen, knew she wanted to jerk free but she let him draw her down beside him on a small, sagging, blanket-covered sofa.
“You see,” Alex said pleasantly, “my mother—”
“She is the queen?”
“Queen Tia. Yes. Her sixtieth birthday is next month, and—”
He launched into an explanation of the planned celebration. The state dinner in the palace. The ball that would follow. The presentation of Maria’s necklace to the queen at precisely midnight, followed by fireworks. The fact that Maria was accompanying him to Aristo so she could consult personally with the queen and with him, should questions arise about the design of the piece.
“You mean, my daughter will leave New York?”
“Yes,” Alex said politely, “but I can assure you—”
“Well, if it doesn’t worry her to leave me all alone, who am I to complain? I am not well, Your Highness. Perhaps Maria has mentioned it.”
“You’re fine, Mama. Your doctors say—”
“What do doctors know?” Luz crossed herself. “We can only pray for the best. Besides, I suppose you’re determined to live out this fantasy of yours.”
Alex could see a vein throb in Maria’s temple.
“Could we please have this discussion another time?” she said, but Luz ignored her.
“Do you have children, Prince Alexandros?”
“I’m not married, Mrs. Santos,” Alex said politely, though being polite was growing difficult.
“Well, when you do, you’ll understand that a mother’s sole concern is for her child’s welfare. Maria’s cousin, Angela—”
“I’m sure the prince isn’t interested in Angela.”
“Angela is a wonderful girl. She has an excellent position with an insurance company. She’s offered many, many times to arrange for Maria to have an interview there. Why, only this evening, I told Maria of Angela’s promotion. She’ll be earning thirty thousand dollars a year!” Luz leaned toward her daughter. “And I didn’t get the chance to tell you the rest. Angela’s engaged. To her supervisor, can you imagine? She has done so well for herself. It’s hard to believe you and she graduated high school at the same time.”
The sofa was small. Maria’s thigh was against his. Alex could feel her trembling. With anger? With despair? Not that it mattered to him…
“We had different goals,” Maria said carefully. “Angela went straight to work. I went to college.”
“And quit.”
“I didn’t quit, I changed schools. I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology.” A touch of pride edged her words. “It was not easy to get in.”
Luz made a face. “Such foolishness! Two years spent studying what? Drawing? Making geegaws? And meanwhile, your cousin, Angela, was—”
The hell with this, Alex thought, and he clasped Maria’s hand. She tried to tug it away but he threaded his fingers through hers.
“Maria,” he said smoothly, “I think it’s time we told your mother the truth.”
Her eyes went dark and wild. “Alex. Alex, please—”
“I admire your modesty, glyka mou,” he said softly, “but surely your mother should know the details—of this commission.”
Maria let out a breath. Luz shrugged her shoulders.
“I know them already, Prince Alexandros. My daughter entered a contest and lost. She’s won it now because the real winner backed out.”
“You make it sound as if Maria entered a sweepstakes, Mrs. Santos,” Alex said with a smile that barely softened the tightly spoken words. “In fact, fifty of the world’s most prestigious jewelry designers submitted sketches for my father’s perusal. He and his ministers narrowed the field to three but the final selection was the king’s.” He paused. “He chose an excellent entry—but from the start, Maria’s design was the queen’s choice.”
Maria’s eyes lit. “Was it?” she said softly.
Alex nodded. What was the harm in telling her the truth?
“The necklace your daughter creates will be photographed by every major magazine. It will be featured on television news on virtually every continent. And when the queen’s birthday celebration ends, it will be displayed alongside the Crowns of Aristo and Adamas, two of the most famous royal crowns in the world.”
Luz seemed to take it all in. Then she nodded and looked at Maria.
“This is a fine opportunity, mia hija.”
“Sí, Mama. I know it is.”
“You must not squander it. Such good fortune may not come your way again.”
Alex glanced at Maria. She had a stiff smile pinned to her lips. He couldn’t blame her. Not that her feelings meant anything to him, but couldn’t her mother work up a little enthusiasm? His own mother had always been loving. Not the way mothers were loving in the books he’d read when he was growing up, or even in the ways he’d observed when he spent an occasional holiday weekend with a friend from boarding school.
Tia had not tousled his hair or kissed his scraped knees; she had not tucked him in at night or sat with him at breakfast in the morning. He’d longed for those things as a kid but he’d understood. She was the queen. His father was the king. His parents had grave responsibilities; from his earliest years on, he’d been groomed to respect that.
But Tia had applauded his every academic achievement and sports trophy. Even Aegeus, who had always treated his children, especially his sons, with cool removal, would have offered a word of praise at news as important as this.
“This was more than good fortune,” he said coolly. Maria looked at him in surprise. Hell, he’d surprised himself. “Your daughter’s talent is the reason she won the commission.”
Maria’s counterfeit smile had given way to one that was soft and sweet. He wanted to cup her face with his hand, taste that sweetness, kiss her not as he had before but gently, tenderly…
A muscle knotted in his jaw.
“It’s time we left,” he said brusquely, and rose to his feet.
It had stopped snowing; the street was clear and a plow truck disappearing just ahead, red lights blinking, was the reason.
Hans popped from the driver’s seat of the big limo and swept the rear door open. Maria stepped in; Alex followed her.
“Where to, sir?”
What was that sound? Was Maria—was she crying?
“Sir? To the airport?”
Alex forced his attention to his driver, then dug his BlackBerry from his pocket. There was one text message. It was from his pilot and it was brief and to the point.
“Runways are open. Flight plan has been filed.”
“The airport,” he said briskly, and settled back in the seat.
The big car moved swiftly through the streets. Maria said nothing; her face was turned to the window. If she’d been weeping, she seemed to have stopped.
Alex cleared his throat.
“I forgot to leave my phone number for your mother. I’ll have my secretary call her with it first thing tomorrow. Is there anyone else you wish to notify?”
She shook her head.
“Not even—” He paused. Don’t, he told himself, but the need to say it was the same as the need to touch an aching tooth, even though you knew it was a mistake. “Not even your friend, Joaquin?”
She swung toward him. “He is my friend,” she said fiercely, “despite what you think. And I have my own cell phone, thank you very much. I don’t need you or your secretary to do it for me.”
“You needn’t bite my head off. I just—I just wondered if, perhaps—”
“Look, you did one decent thing tonight, Your Highness. You—you tried to defend me to my mother. I suppose I owe you my thanks for that. Just don’t—don’t spoil it.”
“I didn’t defend you. I spoke the truth. My mother loved your design.” He hesitated. “Frankly, I agreed with her that it was the best. Why should that be a secret?”
She lifted her chin and looked directly at him. They had just pulled up to a traffic light. The red glow lit her lovely face with color and yes, she had been crying. The delicate skin under her eyes was swollen.
“If it isn’t a secret, why didn’t you tell me right away?”
Alex felt a quick stab of guilt, but why should he? Maria had not been honest with him, and her lie of omission had been far greater than his.
“I told you what you needed to know,” he said coldly. “There was no reason to tell you anything more.”
She gave a little laugh. “Such diplomatic words, Alexandros. Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a—” Her face turned white.
“Maria?”
“Tell the driver to pull over.”
“What is it?”
“I’m going to be—”
Alex lowered the privacy screen and jerked his thumb toward the curb. Hans steered to it and pulled up, Alex threw his door open and Maria shot past him. He was right on her heels; he caught her by the shoulders as she bent over and was viciously ill.
“Go away,” she gasped. “I don’t want you to—”
Another spasm shook her. He could feel the violence of it and his hands clasped her more tightly. When she was done, she stood straight, her back still to him, her body racked with tremors.
“Maria,” he said softly. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I’m fine.”
She wasn’t. Her voice was thready and the trembling had increased. Alex cursed and turned her toward him. She stood with her head down.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Flu, I think. Everyone has it.”
God, she looked so fragile. Not silly, lost in that enormous and ugly jacket, but terribly, heartbreakingly delicate.
He dug a handkerchief from his pocket and held it toward her. She shook her head.
“Not your handkerchief. I’ll soil it.”
“Damn it, Maria,” he said, and put his hand under her chin, lifted her face and dabbed her lips carefully with the snowy-white linen.
She was still shaking.
Alex lifted her in his arms. “No,” she said, but he ignored her, ducked his head, carried her inside the car, settled her close against him and pressed the intercom button.
Hans answered immediately. “Sir?”
“Turn up the heat,” Alex said crisply. “And take us to the nearest hospital.
“No,” Maria said, even more emphatically. “I don’t want to go to a hospital.”
“You need a doctor.”
“For heaven’s sake, I was sick. Sick, that’s all. Flu. Or maybe something I ate.”
“You look like you don’t eat enough,” Alex said, more sharply than he’d intended but it was true. Holding her in his arms, he’d realized she was as light as the proverbial feather.
“I am fine. I don’t need to be coddled.”
Yes, he thought, she did—but he knew that edge in her voice by now, just as he knew the proud angle of her head.
“Okay. Great. No coddling. Hans?”
“Sir?”
“The airport.”
The intercom light blinked off. Maria stared straight ahead, wrapped in mortification. Of all things to happen. To get sick in front of this man. To have him insist on staying with her. To have him wipe her face and now to be sitting within the circle of his arm…