The Virgin's Proposition

The minute he slipped his arms around Anny to dance with her, the moment he felt her body fit itself to his, Demetrios knew he was done for.

He would have laughed bitterly at his own foolishness if the desire for her hadn’t been so intense, if the longing hadn’t been so real. Anger and desperation he could fight.

He couldn’t fight this.

It was like having his dreams come true. It was like being offered a taste of all he’d ever longed for. A single spoonful that would have to last him for the rest of his life.

“To remember,” Anny had said, as if it was a good thing.

How could it be good to have a hollow, aching reminder of the joy he’d once believed was his due? It wasn’t. He didn’t believe in promises any more. Yet, as much as he tried not to give in, he couldn’t resist.

It was like trying to resist gravity. Like agreeing to step off a cliff—then refusing to let himself fall.

Impossible.

Award-winning author ANNE MCALLISTER was once given a blueprint for happiness that included a nice, literate husband, a ramshackle Victorian house, a horde of mischievous children, a bunch of big, friendly dogs, and a life spent writing stories about tall, dark and handsome heroes. ‘Where do I sign up?’ she asked, and promptly did. Lots of years later, she’s happy to report the blueprint was a success. She’s always happy to share the latest news with readers at her website, www.annemcallister.com, and welcomes their letters there, or at PO Box 3904, Bozeman, Montana 59772, USA (SASE appreciated).

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CHAPTER ONE

SOMEDAY HER PRINCE would come.

But apparently not anytime soon, Anny thought as she glanced down to check her watch discreetly once again.

She shifted in the upholstered armchair where she’d been waiting for the past forty minutes, then sat up even straighter, and craned her neck to look down the length of the Ritz-Carlton lobby for any sign of Gerard.

There were hundreds of other people milling about. In fact, the place was a madhouse.

It always was, of course, during Film Festival week in Cannes. The French seacoast town began overflowing with industry moguls, aspiring thespians, and avid filmgoers toward the end of the first week in May.

By now—three days into the festival—the normally serene elegant area near the hotel bar, where small genteel groups usually met for cocktails or apertifs, was now a sea of babbling people. The usual polite hushed voices of guests had been replaced by raucous cracks of masculine laughter and high-pitched flirty feminine giggles.

All around her, Anny heard rapid intense conversations rumbling and spiking as producers talked deals, directors flogged films, and journalists and photographers cornered the world’s most sought-after actors and actresses. Everywhere she looked curious fans and onlookers, not to mention the hopeful groupies, milled about trying to look as if they belonged.

A prince would barely have been noticed.

But unless he was masquerading as a movie fan, which of course was ridiculous, there was no sign of tall distinguished Prince Gerard of Val de Comesque anywhere.

Anny was tempted to tap her impatient toes. She didn’t. She smiled serenely instead.

“In public, you are serene, you are calm, you are happy,” His Royal Highness, King Leopold Olivier Narcisse Bertrand of Mont Chamion—otherwise known as “Papa”—had drummed into her head from the cradle. “Always serene, my dear,” he had repeated. “It is your duty.”

Of course it was. Princesses were serene. And dutiful. And, of course, they were generally happy, too.

Privately Anny had always thought it would be the worst ingratitude if they weren’t.

Being a princess certainly wasn’t all fun and games as she knew from twenty-six years of personal experience. But princesses, by their mere birthright, were entitled to so much that none of them had a right to be anything but grateful.

So Her Royal Highness, Princess Adriana Anastasia Maria Christina Sophia of Mont Chamion, aka Anny, was serene, dutiful, determinedly happy. And grateful. Always.

Well, almost always.

At the moment, she was also stressed. She was impatient, annoyed and, if she were honest—with herself at least—a little bit apprehensive.

Not scared exactly. Certainly not panic-stricken.

Just vaguely sick to her stomach. Edgy. Filled with a sort of creeping dread that seemed to sneak up on her when she was least expecting it.

Except she had felt the dread so frequently over the past month that now she was expecting it. Regularly.

It was nerves, she told herself. Prewedding jitters. Never mind that the wedding was over a year away. Never mind that the date hadn’t even been set yet. Never mind that Prince Gerard, sophisticated, handsome, elegant, and worldly, was everything a woman could ask for.

Except here.

She stood up so that she could scan the busy lobby once more. She’d had to dash to get to the hotel by five. Her father had called her this morning and said that Gerard would be expecting her, that he had something to discuss.

“But it’s Thursday. I’ll be at the clinic then,” she had protested.

The clinic Alfonse de Jacques was a private establishment dedicated to children and teens with paralysis and spinal injuries, a place between hospital and home. Anny volunteered there every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. She had done it since she’d come to Cannes to work on her doctoral dissertation right after Christmas five months ago.

At first she’d gone simply to be useful and to do something besides write about prehistoric cave painting all day. It got her out of the flat. And it was public service—something princesses did.

She loved children, and spending a few hours with ones whose lives were often severely limited seemed like time well-spent. But what had started out as a distraction and a good deed quickly turned into the time she looked forward to most each week.

At the clinic she wasn’t a princess. The children had no idea who she was. And when she came to see them it wasn’t a duty. It was a joy. She was simply Anny—their friend.

She played catch with Paul and video games with Madeleine and Charles. She watched football with Philippe and Gabriel and sewed tiny dolls’ clothes with Marie-Claire. She talked movies and movie stars with eager starry-eyed Elise and argued—about everything—with “cranky Franck,” the resident fifteen-year-old cynic who challenged her at every turn. She looked forward to it.

“I’m always at the clinic until five at least,” she’d protested to her father this morning. “Gerard can meet me there.”

“Gerard will not visit hospitals.”

“It’s a clinic,” Anny protested.

“Even so. He will not,” her father said firmly, but there was a sympathetic note in his voice. “You know that. Not since Ofelia…”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.

Ofelia was Gerard’s wife.

Had been Gerard’s wife, Anny had corrected herself. Until her death four years ago. Now beautiful, charming, elegant Ofelia was the woman Anny was supposed to replace.

“Of course,” she’d said quietly. “I forgot.”

“We must understand,” her father said gently. “It is hard for him, Adriana.”

“I do understand.”

She understood that there was every likelihood she’d never replace Ofelia in Gerard’s affections. She only knew she was supposed to try. And that was at least part of the reason she was feeling apprehensive.

“He’ll meet you in the lobby at five. You will have an early dinner and discuss,” her father went on. “Then he must leave for Paris. He has a flight in the morning to Montreal. Business meetings.”

Gerard was a prince, yes, but he owned a multinational corporation—several of them, in fact—on the side.

“What does he want to discuss?” Anny asked.

“I’m sure he will tell you tonight,” her father said. “You mustn’t keep him waiting, my dear.”

“No.”

She hadn’t kept him waiting. It was Gerard who wasn’t here.

Now Anny did tap her foot. Just once. Well, maybe twice. And she shot another surreptitious glance at her watch, while in her head her father’s voice murmured, “Princesses are not impatient.”

Maybe not, but it was already almost quarter til six. She could have stayed at the clinic and finished her argument with Franck about the relative merits of realism in television action hero series after all.

Instead, when she’d had to leave early, he’d accused her of “running away.”

“I am not ‘running away’!” Anny told him. “I have to meet my fiancé this afternoon.”

“Fiancé?” Franck had frowned at her from beneath his mop of untidy brown hair. “You’re getting married? When?”

“In a year. Maybe two. I’m not sure.” Sometime in the foreseeable future no doubt. Gerard needed an heir and he wasn’t prepared to wait forever.

He had agreed to wait until she had finished her dissertation. Barring disaster, that would be sometime next year. Not long.

Not long enough.

She shoved the thought away. It wasn’t as if Gerard was some horrible ogre her father was forcing her to marry. Well, yes, he’d arranged it, but there was nothing wrong with Gerard. He was kind, he was thoughtful. He was a prince—in more than one sense of the word.

It was just—Anny shook off her uneasiness and reminded herself that she was simply relieved he understood that finishing her dissertation was important to her and that he hadn’t minded waiting until she had finished.

Apparently Franck did mind. He scowled, his dark eyes narrowed on her. “A year? Two? Years? What on earth are you waiting for?”

His question jolted her. She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

He flung out a hand, a sweeping gesture that took in the four walls, the clean but spartan clinic room, his own paralyzed legs. He stared at her, then at them, then his gaze lifted again to bore into hers.

“You never know what’s going to happen, do you?” he demanded.

He had been playing soccer—going up to head a ball at the same time another boy had done the same. The next day the other boy’s head was a little sore. Franck was paralyzed from the waist down. He had a bit of tingling now and then, but he hadn’t walked in nearly three years.

“You shouldn’t wait,” he said firmly. His eyes never left hers.

It was the sort of pronouncement Franck was inclined to make, an edict handed down from on high, one designed to get her to argue with him.

That was what they did: argued. Not just about action heroes. About soccer teams. The immutable laws of science. The best desserts. In short, everything.

It was his recreation, one of the nurses had said to Anny back in January, and she’d only been marginally joking.

“So what are you saying? That you think I should run off and elope?” Anny had challenged him with a smile.

But Franck’s eyes didn’t light with the challenge of battle the way they usually did. They glittered, but it was a fierce glitter as he shook his head. “I just don’t see why you’re waiting.”

“A year’s not long,” Anny protested. “Even two. I have to finish my doctorate. And when we do set a date there will be lots to do. Preparations.” Protocol. Tradition. She didn’t explain about royal weddings. Ordinary everyday weddings were demanding enough.

“Stuff you’d rather do?” Franck asked.

“That’s not the point.”

“Of course it is. ’Cause if it isn’t, you shouldn’t waste time. You should do what you want to do!”

“People can’t always do what they want to do, Franck,” she said gently.

He snorted. “Tell me about it!” he said bitterly. “I wouldn’t be locked up in here if I didn’t have to be!”

Anny felt instantly guilty for her prim preachiness. “I know that.”

Franck’s jaw tightened, and his fingers plucked at the bedclothes. He pressed his lips together and turned his head away to stare out the window. He didn’t say anything, and Anny didn’t know what to say. She shifted from one foot to the other.

Finally he shrugged his shoulders and shifted his gaze back to look at her. “You only get one life,” he said.

His voice had lost its fierceness. It was flat, toneless. His eyes had lost their glitter. His expression was bleak. And seeing it made Anny feel wretched. She wanted desperately to provoke him, to argue with him, to say it wasn’t so.

But it was.

He wasn’t ever going to be running down the street to meet Gerard—or anyone else—again. And how could she argue with that?

So she did the only thing she could do. She’d reached out and gave his hand a quick hard squeeze. She had wished she could bring Gerard back with her. Meeting a prince might take his mind off his misery at least for a while. But her father was right, Gerard wouldn’t come.

“I have to go,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Franck’s mouth had twisted. “Go, then.” It was a curt dismissal. He looked away quickly, his jaw hard, his expression stony. Only the rapid blink of his lashes gave him away.

“I’ll be back,” Anny had promised.

She should have stayed.

Another look at her watch told her that it was ten to six now and there was still no sign of Gerard.

But the moment she glanced down at her watch, a sudden silence fell over the whole room, as if everyone in the entire lobby had stopped to draw in a single collective breath.

Startled, Anny looked up. Had they noticed her prince after all?

Certainly everyone in the room seemed to be staring at something. Anny followed their gaze.

At the sight of the man now standing at the far end of the room, her heart kicked over in her chest. All she could do was stare, too.

It wasn’t Gerard.

Not even close. Gerard was smooth, refined and cosmopolitan, the personfication of continental charm, a blend of 21st century sophistication and nearly as many centuries of royal breeding.

This man was anything but. He was hard-edged, shaggy-haired, and unshaven, wearing a pair of faded jeans and a nondescript open-necked shirt. He might have been nobody. A beach bum, a carpenter, a sailor in from the sea. He seemed to be cultivating the look.

But he was Somebody—with a capital S.

His name was Demetrios Savas. Anny knew it. So did everyone else in the room.

For ten years he’d been the golden boy of Hollywood. A man descended from Greek immigrants to America, Demetrios had started his brilliant career as nothing more than a handsome face. And stunning body.

In his early twenties, he’d modeled underwear, for goodness’ sake!

But from those inauspicious beginnings, he’d worked hard to parlay not only his looks, but also his talent into a notable acting career, a successful television series, half a dozen feature films, and a fledgling but well-respected directing career. Not to mention his brief tragic fairy-tale marriage to the beautiful talented actress Lissa Conroy.

Demetrios and Lissa had been Hollywood’s—and the world’s—sweethearts. One of the film industry’s golden couples—extraordinarily beautiful, talented people who lived charmed lives.

Charmed at least until two years ago when Lissa had contracted some sort of infection while filming overseas and had died scant days thereafter. Demetrios, working on the other side of the globe, had barely reached her side before she was gone.

Anny remembered the news photos that had chronicled his lonely journey home with her body and the shots of the treeless windswept North Dakota cemetery where he’d taken her to be buried. She still recalled how the starkness of it shocked her.

And yet it had made sense when she’d heard his explanation. “This is where she came from. It’s what she’d want. I’m just bringing her home.”

In her mind’s eye she could still see the pain that had etched the features of his beautiful face that day.

She hadn’t seen that face since. In the two years since Lissa Conroy’s death and burial, Demetrios Savas had not made a public appearance.

He’d gone to ground—somewhere. And while the tabloids had reprinted pictures of a hollow-faced grieving Demetrios at first, when he didn’t return to the limelight, when there were no more sightings and no more news, eventually they’d looked elsewhere for stories.

They’d been caught off guard, then, to learn last summer that he had written a screenplay, had found backing to shoot it, had cast it and, taking cast and crew to Brazil, had directed a small independent film—a film that was getting considerable interest and possible Oscar buzz, a film he was bringing to Cannes.

And now here he was.

Anny had never seen him before in person though she had certainly seen plenty of photos—had even, heaven help her, had a very memorable poster of him on the wall of her dorm room at university.

It didn’t hold a candle to the man in the flesh. The stark pain from those post-funeral photos was gone from his face now. He wasn’t smiling. He didn’t have to. He exuded a charisma that simply captured everyone’s gaze.

He had a strength and power she recognized immediately. It wasn’t the smooth, controlled power like Gerard’s and her father’s. It was raw and elemental. She could sense it like a force field surrounding him as he moved.

And he was moving again now, though he’d stopped for just a moment to glance back over his shoulder before he continued into the room. He had an easy commanding stride, and though princesses didn’t stare, according to her father, Anny couldn’t look away.

A few people had picked up their conversations again. But most were still watching him. Talking about him, too, no doubt. Some nodded to him, spoke to him, and he spared them a faint smile, a quick nod. But he didn’t stop, and as he moved he scanned the room as if he were looking for someone.

And then his gaze lit on her.

Their eyes locked, and Anny was trapped in the green magic of his eyes.

It seemed to take a lifetime before she could muster her good sense and years of regal breeding and drag her gaze away. Deliberately she consulted her watch, made a point of studying it intently, allowed her impatience full rein. It was better than looking at him—staring like a besotted teenager at his craggy hard compelling face.

Where in heaven’s name was Gerard, anyway?

She looked up desperately—and found herself staring straight into Demetrios Savas’s face.

He was close enough to touch. Close enough that she could see tiny gold flecks in those impossibly green eyes, and pick out a few individual grey whiskers in rough dark stubble on his cheeks and jaw.

She opened her mouth. No sound came out.

“Sorry,” he said to her, a rueful smile touching his lips. “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

Me? she wanted to say, swallowing her serene princess smile. Surely not.

But before she could say a thing, he wrapped an arm around her and drew her into his, then pressed hard warm lips to hers.

Anny’s ears buzzed. Her knees wobbled. Her lips parted. For an instant she thought his tongue touched hers!

Her eyes snapped open to stare, astonished, into his.

“Thanks for waiting.” His voice was the warm rough baritone she’d heard in movies and on television. As she stared in silent amazement, he kept an arm around her waist, tucked her firmly against him and walked her briskly with him toward the shops at the far end of the lobby. “Let’s get out of here.”

Demetrios didn’t know who she was.

He didn’t care. She was obviously waiting for someone—he’d seen her scanning the room almost the moment he’d walked in—and she looked like the sort of woman who wouldn’t make a fuss.

Not fussing was at the top of his list of desirable female attributes at the moment. And amid all the preening peacocks she stood out like a beacon.

Her understated appearance and neat dark upswept hair would have screamed practical, sensible, unflappable, and calm if they had been capable of screaming anything.

As it was, they spoke calmly of a woman of quiet composed sanity. One of the hotel concierge staff, probably. Or a tour guide waiting for her group. Or, hell, for all he knew, a Cub Scout den mother. In other words, she was all the things that people in the movie industry generally were not.

And she was, whether she knew it or not, going to be his salvation. She was going to get him out of the Ritz before he lost his temper or his sanity or did something he would no doubt seriously regret. In her proper dark blue skirt and casual but tailored cream-colored jacket, she looked like exactly the sort of steady unflappable professional woman he needed to pull this off.

He had his arm around her as he walked her straight down the center of the room. It was as if they were parting the seas as they went. Eyes widened. Murmurs began. He ignored them.

In her ear he said, “Do you know how to get out of here?” Even as he spoke, he realized she might not even speak English. This was France, after all.

But she didn’t disappoint him. She didn’t stumble as he steered her along, but kept pace with him easily, turning her head toward him just enough so that he could see a smile on her face. She had just the barest hint of an accent when she said, “Of course.”

He smiled, then, too. It was probably the first real smile he’d managed all day.

“Lead the way,” he murmured and, while to casual observers it would appear that he was directing their movements, he was in fact following her. The murmurs in the room seemed to grow in volume and intensity as they passed.

“Ignore them,” he said.

She did, still smiling as they walked. His savior seemed to know exactly where she was going. Either that or she was used to being picked up by strange men in hotel lobbies and had a designated spot for doing away with them. She led him through a set of doors and down another long corridor. Then they passed some offices, went through a storeroom and a delivery reception area and at last, when she pushed open one more door, came to stand on the pavement outside the back of the hotel.

Demetrios took a deep breath—and heard the door lock with a decisive click behind them.

He grimaced. “And now you can’t get back in. Sorry. Really. But thank you. You saved my life.”

“I doubt that.” But she was smiling as she said it.

“My professional life,” he qualified, giving her a weary smile in return. He raked fingers through his hair. “It’s been a hellish day. And it was just about to get a whole lot worse.”

She gave him a speculatively raised brow, but made no comment other than to say, “Well, then I’m glad to have been of service.”

“Are you?” That surprised him because she actually sounded glad and not annoyed, which she had every right to be. “You were waiting for someone.”

“That’s why you picked me.” She said it matter-of-factly and that surprised him, too.