The Royal House Of Karedes: Two Kingdoms

CHAPTER SEVEN

ALEX’S driver deposited Maria’s suitcase beside her, saluted briskly and strode back to the limousine.

Wait, Maria almost said, but what would be the point? There was something intimidating about being delivered to the massive front doors of a mansion where she knew no one, but getting back into the car beside a man who’d just kissed her senseless wasn’t much of an alternative.

She could hear the purr of the big car’s engine as it went down the drive. She took a deep breath, raised a hand toward the bell. The doors swung open before she could touch it and a small woman dressed head to toe in crisp black cotton stood looking at her.

Wonderful. This had to be the housekeeper. Did she bear more than a passing resemblance to the one in that old movie about Young Frankenstein? Then the woman smiled, dipped a knee, and was instantly transformed from wicked witch to a welcoming committee of one.

“Kalimera, Keeria. Onomázome Athenia.”

“I’m afraid I don’t speak Greek—”

“Of course. Forgive me. Good morning, madam, and welcome. I am Athenia. The prince has told me to make sure you are comfortable.”

Did he leave the same orders for all his mistresses?

“Thank you.”

Athenia clapped her hands. A manservant appeared, inclined his head to Maria and scooped up her suitcase.

“Really,” Maria said, with a little laugh, “no one has to bow to me. I’m not a royal or anything like that.”

“You are the prince’s guest and the lady who is to create a beautiful gift for our beloved queen. We are honored by your presence, keeria.” The housekeeper stepped back. “Please, won’t you come in?”

What would happen to Athenia’s warm welcome if she knew that Alex’s esteemed guest had also made a devil’s bargain with him? There was no sense in thinking about it. She was here, and she would do what had to be done.

“Thank you,” Maria said again, and stepped into a cool, slate-floored entryway. One quick glance assured her this house would never be confused with Bluebeard’s castle.

“Would you like something to drink? Something to eat? I know you have had a long journey.”

Just the mention of food and Maria’s belly did a nasty little flip-flop.

“No,” she said quickly, “no, thank you. I’m not hungry.”

“Then, would you like me to show you to your room?” Athenia nodded toward a spiraling staircase that seemed suspended in the air. “Or would you prefer to see your workshop first?”

Her room? What the housekeeper meant was the prince’s room. Unbidden, a tremor of what surely had to be apprehension danced along Maria’s skin.

“Uh, no,” she said, a little breathlessly. “I mean… I mean, my workshop will be here?”

“It will. I hope you will like it. His Highness gave very specific orders but we had so little time …”

The Prince of Arrogance’s specialty, Maria thought grimly. Handing out orders. Giving people little time to obey, much less question. And why would she be working here? What had he done? Put a bench in the basement? Hung a work light over it?

She’d have everything she needed, he’d said.

“If you would please come this way …?”

Maria followed the housekeeper through a series of magnificent, high-ceilinged rooms. Despite her irritation, the artist in her could not help but see the house’s incredible beauty.

The lifestyles of the rich and famous, she thought wryly. Always and forever amazing.

She knew how they lived. She was a New Yorker; her life and those of the fantastically wealthy were completely separate but, in Manhattan, you brushed shoulders all the time even if it was only at the Bobbi Brown counter at Saks. And if you knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who could get you into a promotional party for Vogue or Vanity Fair—and she did—you could even get up-close-and-personal glimpses of that kind of storied existence. An old classmate from FIT, a guy who now designed incredible floral displays, had edged her onto a couple of those guest lists, though attending the parties had never snagged her a client.

Still, nothing she’d seen compared to this.

Maria tried not to stare as she followed Athenia through Alex’s home. The mansion was spectacular but she had to give him grudging credit. It had not been built to impress, though it surely did, but to celebrate the wooded setting, the sapphire bay, the white sand beach. Walls were made of glass. Almost all the rooms had terraces or balconies, and the water from an enormous infinity pool seemed to spill into a sea that stretched to the horizon.

Athenia led her out a pair of glass French doors. Apparently, her workshop was not in the house. Maybe the mighty prince thought she could make his mother’s birthday gift in the garage, Maria thought irritably as they made their way along a flagstone path that wound through a dormant garden.

The housekeeper turned to her and smiled.

“Your workshop, keeria.”

Maria blinked in surprise.

Ahead, in a grove of firs, stood a perfect miniature of the main house. Wood. Glass. Soaring rooflines, terraces, white sand and blue water a dizzying distance below.

“This is normally a guesthouse but the prince was very specific about your needs. We worked quickly to meet them, but if anything is not to your liking …”

Not to her liking? Maria almost laughed as they stepped inside.

The guesthouse had three rooms. A bedroom. A marble bathroom. And a main room, big and high-ceilinged and brightly lit, a room that had been filled with oak worktables and benches, with shelves that held tools she had dreamed of buying but only in a distant, far more affluent future. A quick glance revealed heated presses, torches, hand tools and protective gear, all of it straight out of a jewelry maker’s dreams.

And there were cabinets.

Cabinets with drawers and cubby-holes and shelves. Cabinets that opened to reveal all the things she could possibly need to create Queen Tia’s necklace. Waxes. Molds. Polishes. Trays of bright gold and platinum and silver.

And one special tray that made her heartbeat quicken.

“Shall I leave you here, miss?” Athenia said.

Maria nodded. And reached for that special tray. Lined in black silk, its small compartments burned with the fire of the brilliant white and pink diamonds she had so carefully described in her proposal as the only ones suitable for the queen’s gift.

The stones glittered with life.

Carefully matched white diamonds from a mine in the Canadian Yukon, where there was no danger of them having been involved in the blood conflicts of the world. And two magnificent pink diamonds, so exquisite they could only be from the fabulous mines of Calista.

Maria lifted the pink stones from their silken compartments. She would only use one as the centerpiece of the necklace. In her proposal, she’d pointed out that pink diamonds, that all diamonds, had slight differences in color.

Obviously, King Aegeus had decided to provide her with two stones so she could choose the one she preferred. The implications of such wealth were almost beyond comprehension.

The pinks were easily forty karats each, just as she had requested. She had determined the size she’d need by estimating that the Stefani diamond, in its original form, was said to have weighed approximately one hundred and ninety carats, meaning it had been even bigger than the fabled Darya-ye Noor, a pale pink diamond that had been mined in India hundreds of years ago and then became part of the Persian crown jewels.

Thus, the half of the Stefani pink diamond now in the Aristan crown would weigh somewhere around eighty carats, since some material would have been lost when the stone was split. The pink diamond that would be the focal point in the queen’s necklace would have to be of a size to complement the one in the crown.

These incredible pink ovals would look the same to the untrained eye, but Maria could see a slight variation in color. The only way to choose the proper stone for the queen’s necklace would be to check both against the pink diamond in the crown. The palace had provided her with photos of it but no photo could capture the soul of a diamond, or the subtleties of its color, especially when it was half of the legendary Stefani stone.

Carefully, she returned the pink diamonds to their tray. Her design couldn’t be changed now, nor did she want to change it, but diamonds, born in the extreme pressure and heat of the earth’s forming crust millions of years ago, all had their own characteristics. Her plans needed simple refining. Nothing anyone but she would notice. A filigree of gold here, a millimeter less in depth there.

First, though, she had to call Joaquin and Sela and let them know she was all right. She hadn’t had the chance to do it last night…

Better not to think about that.

She used her cell phone, left a brief message about the commission on their voice mail, with no mention of the very personal contract terms that involved the prince.

“I’m very happy,” she said. And, at the moment, that was the truth. She had the perfect workshop. The best tools. And the most magnificent diamonds imaginable.

Maria hitched her hip onto a stool, pulled a pad and pencil toward her and began to sketch. Yes, she thought as she lost herself in the work she loved, she could make her design even more pleasing to the eye. And thinking about diamonds was far safer than thinking about the man to whom she’d all but sold herself. The man who would claim her later tonight, who would take her to his bed, make love to her as he had all those weeks ago. She would hold back, hold back… but, in the end, she knew she would sob his name, open her mouth, her body to his. She would be lost in his arms, in his strength and beauty and passion.

She forced the treacherous thoughts from her mind, put all her energy into her ideas for the necklace and the diamonds. They, at least, would never hurt her.

The sun shifted in the sky. She never noticed. She sketched, erased, sketched… And yawned. Yawned again. She was tired all the time lately. This time, at least there was a reason. It had to be jet lag, catching up to her.

As she had done many times over the last couple of weeks, Maria set her work aside, folded her arms on the table, lowered her head and rested her cheek on them.

Just a few seconds, to clear the cobwebs from her brain, she thought. Just a few seconds…

Jet lag, Alex kept telling himself. That was why he felt so damned irritable.

Besides, it was unreasonable for his father to have demanded a meeting now, but that was Aegeus’s way. What the king wished, others must do. And today, this very afternoon, what Aegeus wished was to meet with his three sons and discuss plans for the construction of another high-rise complex in Ellos.

There was no point to such a discussion.

For one thing, the construction was already underway. For another, Alex was in charge of the project. He had taken over development on Aristo more than eight years ago, with Aegeus’s grudging blessing.

“You might as well get some use out of that MBA of yours,” he’d said, which was as close as he’d ever come to acknowledging that his second son was now more qualified than he to oversee the kingdom’s booming economy.

This meeting was just a not so subtle reminder that Aegeus was still Aegeus, Alex thought as he sat at the conference table in the king’s palace office. As if any of them could ever forget that.

“… twenty stories, Alexandros, but why not thirty?”

Alex looked up from the doodles he’d been making on the yellow notepad before him. Aegeus’s eyes were focused on him. His younger brother, Andreas, seated beside him, nudged Alex’s foot with his under the table. His older brother, Sebastian, seated opposite, raised his eyebrows.

“Didn’t you say the architect agrees that twenty stories for the center building would be right, Alex?” he said smoothly.

“Yes,” Andreas chimed in, “twenty stories so that the view of the harbor would not be blocked from the condominium complex on the heights, right, Alex?”

“That’s correct,” Alex replied. Sebastian grinned. You owe us, big time, that grin said. Well, hell. That was how it had always been, the three brothers bailing each other out of hot water when their father turned a stern eye on any one of them.

Aegeus looked grim, but then he looked that way most of the time. He looked tired, too, Alex noticed, and thinner than usual.

“Are you feeling all right, Father?” he said.

The king’s eyes narrowed. “I’m feeling fine, thank you,” he said brusquely. “Fine enough to ask a few more questions—that is, if you can manage to keep your attention on our discussion a bit longer.”

Alex felt a muscle knot in his jaw. “What else do you want to know, Father?”

“Have you settled the woman in?”

“Excuse me?”

“The woman. Mary Santos. Is she settled in?”

“Her name is Maria,” Alex said carefully. “And I thought we were talking about the Ellos convention center.”

“We were. Now we’re talking about the person who’ll make your mother’s gift. What is she like?”

“She is, ah, she is talented.”

Talented, indeed.

“I assumed that,” his father said impatiently. “But what is she like? I am to meet her tonight, at dinner. Will she be able to carry on a conversation with some intelligence, or is she one of those leftover flower children who walks around barefoot?”

Sebastian coughed. Andreas cleared his throat. Alex shot them both looks that promised trouble when they were alone.

“She’s a designer, Father,” he said carefully. “A New Yorker. I’m sure you’ll find her interesting and able to hold her own at the dinner table.”

And more than able to hold her own everywhere else. In bed, for instance, where he should have been with her, right now.

“I assume you’ve put her in a suite at The Grand Hotel.”

“No.” Alex hesitated. “I, ah, I decided to keep her at my house at Apollonia.”

His father stared at him. So did his brothers. Damn it, Alex thought, and felt heat rise in his face.

“Security,” he said quickly. “She’ll be working with a fortune in diamonds.”

“Have we security problems at The Grand?”

“No, of course not. But there are so many tourists …”

“Tourists who pay a thousand Euros a night for a room are not tourists likely to dabble in theft,” Aegeus said, his words heavy with sarcasm.

There was a moment’s silence. Then Sebastian and Andreas spoke at the same time.

“You can never be too sure,” Andreas said.

“Remember that incident in—where was it, Alex? Some hotel in Manhattan?”

His brothers had redeemed themselves. “Exactly,” Alex said. “Security is much better at my place. The gates. The electronics. The guards. I had my guesthouse converted into a workshop for her.”

Aegeus nodded. “Well. Well, yes. Good thinking.”

A compliment. Something rare. Of course, it was a compliment given in response to a lie. He’d placed Maria in his home for reasons that didn’t have a thing to do with anything but lust.

He liked women. He liked sex. He knew what desire was, how anticipation could enhance the moment when a man finally took a woman.

But he’d never behaved like this.

Demanding Maria’s compliance. Damned near forcing her to agree to sleep with him. It had made sense, when he’d planned it. He would use her for his own ends as she had used him—

If that was true, why was his body in this almost constant state of arousal? He’d spent the last hours thinking about her. Imagining her waiting for his arrival. Imagining what he would do when he reached home.

The images, hot and raw, flooded his mind. If he didn’t do something soon, he was going to explode.

“Alex? Are you listening to me? I said—”

“Father.” Alex pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “I’m sorry, but I have to leave.”

Aegeus looked at him in disbelief. “You what?”

“I said I have to—”

“We have not finished discussing the convention center.”

“We finished discussing it three months ago,” Alex said crisply.

His father glared at him. “I don’t like your tone.”

“My apologies, Father. I’m exhausted, that’s all. I’ve flown to New York and back in, what, less than twenty-four hours.”

He forced a smile. “Perhaps we can put off this conversation until tomorrow.”

Aegeus studied his middle son, then nodded.

“Very well.” He rose from his chair. Sebastian and Andreas immediately did the same. “Be prompt for dinner tonight, please. All of you. Alex, tell Ms. Santos your mother and I look forward to meeting her.”

Alex started toward the door. The king called after him.

“Alex? My initial concern about this woman, on reading her proposal, was that she was too young and inexperienced. Now that you’ve spent a bit of time with her, what do you think? How does she strike you?”

Spectacularly beautiful. And spectacularly immoral. And, Thee mou, so desirable he ached to possess her.

“I told you,” Alex said calmly. “She’s very interesting.”

Then he got the hell out of there before his father or, worse, his brothers could ask him any more questions.

The drive home seemed to last an eternity, even though he was at the wheel of his Ferrari and took both the highway and then the winding road to the house at breakneck speed.

Would she be waiting for him? He’d told her to be ready by six; he was an hour early. She might be in the bath. Or undressing, baring her flesh to the waning afternoon light.

Such schoolboy fantasies, and completely demolished when Athenia told him Keeria Santos was in the guesthouse. In the workshop.

The workshop, he thought as he strode down the path to it. Of course. The only allegiance, the only honesty she had was to her work.

It filled him with a rage he knew had no basis in reality.

She should have been in the house. In his bedroom. Dressing for dinner, as he’d told her to. Or waiting for him. For his touch. For the act that would avenge what she had done to him weeks ago.

“Maria,” he barked as he flung open the guesthouse door. “Maria, I told you …”

And he saw her. At the workbench. Her head on her arms. Asleep.

His anger drained away. He felt something new take its place, something he could not name and he swallowed hard, closed the door quietly and stood watching her. Then, slowly, he walked to her.

Her head was turned to the side. Her lashes formed dark crescents against the high arc of her cheekbones; there were purple smudges of exhaustion under her eyes.

My fault, he thought. He had walked into her life… hell, he had bullied his way into her life, then dragged her halfway around the world. Not that he owed her more delicate treatment. It was just that she looked so innocent in her sleep. Her lustrous hair, lying tumbled over one shoulder. Her translucent skin. Her lips, delicately curved.

He could remember their taste.

Not from that last kiss he’d given her hours ago, a kiss given in rage. He remembered her taste from that night in Ellos. How her mouth had trembled beneath his. How her sigh of surrender had mingled with his breath. How he had groaned at the sweetness of her.