King's Ransom

She tried to drag her concentration back to the script, but it was impossible—the script itself reminded her of Andre. Too much. Finally she gave up. I’ll just have to get up extra early tomorrow morning and memorize, she told herself.

She got out of the tub and dried herself off, then slipped on one of the oversize cotton T-shirts she preferred instead of the silky, slinky, diaphanous gowns the public imagined she wore to bed. This one had a picture of a sleeping pink-and-white kitten curled up on the front, and it came down to her knees. She crawled into the comfy bed, set her little traveling alarm clock and tried to force herself to sleep. Tried to block out the eerie sensation that Andre was calling to her.

Come to me, Juliana. Come to me.

She remembered how she’d woken from a restless sleep hearing him calling to her eleven years ago, and she’d gone to him in secret. They’d shared one luminous night, a night she would remember on her deathbed. But she would never go to him again. Would never sleep with him again. Would never let herself be vulnerable to him again.

Would never let him break her heart again.

* * *

Dirk came over to where Juliana was trying to get into character as she waited for the set to be ready. Both of them were already in costume, their colored contact lenses in place. The makeup artists had done their jobs well, making them look years younger. History had it that Andre Alexei had been twenty and Eleonora had been seventeen when they were wedded. Dirk had needed to erase a few years of living from his face in order to play the twenty-year-old king in this scene. Juliana had no wrinkles, not yet, but camera close-ups could be brutal. Her face still looked like her when the makeup artist was done, but her mirror had given her a pang. She had looked just that innocent, just that eager yet untouched when...

“Are you okay?” Dirk asked her quietly. “You look...haunted. Yeah, I know your character’s about to be kidnapped, but you’re not supposed to know that ahead of time. You’re supposed to be deliriously happy on your wedding night.”

Juliana shot him a quick glance, taking in the bleak expression on his face. “You don’t look much better. What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” But his voice lacked conviction.

“Don’t lie to me,” Juliana insisted, placing a hand on his arm. “And don’t pretend everything’s okay. Something’s wrong, I know it. It’s Bree, isn’t it? Please tell me.”

Dirk hesitated, then took a deep breath. “You’re the first to know—I’m quitting the business.”

“What?” She was shocked.

“At least for the foreseeable future. I almost backed out of this picture, but Bree wouldn’t let me.” He laughed without humor. “She’d heard about the legendary love story, of course. Who hasn’t? She wanted to come here to experience it firsthand, despite...”

“Despite what?” Her voice was small.

“Bree’s sick, Juliana.”

She looked at him sharply, remembering. “The night of the reception...she didn’t look well.”

“Yeah.” His eyes squeezed shut in pain, and when he opened them again she saw her friend’s naked torment. “The doctors won’t say it, but I think she’s dying.”

“No.” Juliana shook her head in denial. “How...? What...?”

“Don’t let on you know. She doesn’t want me to tell anyone yet, but I...I had to tell you. Third-stage ovarian cancer.”

“Oh my God. Cancer? Third stage? Why didn’t she tell me?”

“I don’t think she’d even have told me if I hadn’t forced it out of her.”

“But...can’t they do something? Anything? Surgery? Radiation? Chemotherapy? Cancer’s not the death sentence it used to be. I know there’s no guarantee, but Bree can’t just do noth—”

His mouth was a hard line as he cut her off. “She won’t even consider anything at this point.” His voice was strained and ironic when he said, “She’s pregnant. Just about ten weeks.”

“Oh, Dirk...” Juliana looked at him helplessly, knowing the DeWinters had been trying for a baby almost as long as she’d known them. Very few people knew they’d pursued every avenue no matter how slim, even in vitro fertilization, with no success. Until now.

“When Bree heard the doctors say surgery can cause a miscarriage, she said surgery was out until the baby is born,” Dirk said, reaching for stoicism. “When she heard chemotherapy isn’t considered safe for the baby until the pregnancy is at least fifteen weeks along, she said chemo wasn’t an option right now. And radiation treatment has to wait until the fetus is ‘viable.’ I asked Bree’s doctors what the hell that meant, and they told me it means when the baby is far enough along to survive outside the womb—at least twenty-one or twenty-two weeks.” His face twisted in agony. “I told her...” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I told her I didn’t care about the baby. All I care about is her. I want my wife, damn it! I would sacrifice our baby in a heartbeat if it meant saving Bree. But she won’t even discuss it with me.”

“She loves you,” Juliana said softly, compassionately, understanding Sabrina’s dilemma, and her choice, in a way that Dirk obviously didn’t. Her own life? Or the life of the child she desperately wanted to give the man she loved? “So what are you going to do?”

“As soon as this picture wraps I’m taking Bree away. I don’t know how much time I have left with her, but I want every minute, every second. She’s mine until God takes her away from me, and I’m not going to waste a moment acting in some meaningless picture. We don’t need the money. Even if we did, no amount of money could make it up to me for the time away from her.” His face hardened. “And the minute she gives birth she’s having surgery and going into chemo. I don’t give a crap about bonding and breastfeeding, and all the other Holy Grail things of motherhood. I’m not giving her up without a fight no matter what. I can’t force her to sacrifice her baby, but—”

Juliana’s administrative assistant came over at that moment. “They’re ready for you on the set, Juliana. And you, too, Mr. DeWinter.”

Maddie cast a shy, adoring look at Dirk, one Juliana knew she had no idea was so obvious. So young, she thought sadly. So vulnerable. Just like I was once upon a time, wearing her heart on her sleeve. At least with Dirk she’ll never think he loves her. Not like I—

She refused to let herself complete that thought. “Thanks, Maddie,” Juliana said kindly. “Come on, Dirk.” She took his hand in hers. “Let’s go make love like there’s no tomorrow.” I think we can both understand what that feels like.

* * *

The man picked up the phone and dialed a number he’d been forced to memorize. “Nothing in writing,” the Russian had insisted. As he listened to the ringing on the other end, he told himself he had no choice. Juliana was no more immune to Andre now than she’d been eleven years ago—her reaction when Andre appeared on the set was a dead giveaway. To him, at least. As was Andre’s reaction to her. So he would not let himself feel regret over what had to be done to safeguard his secrets. Juliana had brought this on herself. As had Andre.

* * *

Andre and his cousin Zax walked alone in the royal garden, watching silently for the most part as the sun set behind the mountains, casting long gray shadows over them both. Although they usually spoke their minds when they were together with a freedom they’d exercised since boyhood, now they guarded their innermost thoughts from each other. And Andre mourned what increasingly seemed to be the loss of the confidant he’d always relied on, especially since becoming king.

There was no man he trusted more than his cousin, but Zax was a traditionalist. The old ways were good enough for him, and he deplored many of the sweeping changes Andre was implementing. No matter what position Zax took in private, though, no matter how much he opposed what Andre proposed, in public he never said a word in criticism of the king. “The king has spoken” was Zax’s usual reply to any reporter who dared to ask Zax’s opinion on a new policy he disagreed with. The equivalent of “No comment,” Andre thought now will a rueful smile.

He cherished Zax’s loyal support in public, just as he cherished his cousin’s friendship. He just wished they didn’t clash so often in private these days. And though at one time he’d confided his hopes and dreams about Juliana to Zax—something he’d recently confided to his sister, Mara, but to no other man—they hadn’t spoken of Juliana since she’d returned to Zakhar to film King’s Ransom other than to discuss the security surrounding her.

Not once had Zax asked Andre if there was any progress in the campaign to win Juliana’s heart. Not once had he expressed empathy for the difficulties he knew Andre faced where she was concerned. And though Zax was not a man to display his emotions—he was too old-school Zakharian for that—not once had he shown by word or deed that he cared one way or the other if Andre was successful.

Not once. And Andre didn’t know what to make of it.

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