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Would her soon-to-be husband find her attractive now? She hated to think he’d be put off by her, especially given how incredibly drawn she was to him.
Sally had been one hundred percent right that Prince Thierry was hot. And all through the broadcast she saw evidence of that special brand of charisma that he unconsciously exuded. Mila watched the way people in the background stopped and stared at the prince—drawn to him as if he was a particularly strong magnet and they were nothing but metal filings inexorably pulled into his field. She knew how they felt. It was the same sensation that had struck her on the day of their betrothal—not to mention since, whenever she’d seen pictures of him or caught a news bulletin on television when she was home on vacation back in Erminia.
She’d return there in just a few weeks. It was time to retrieve the mantle of responsibility she’d so eagerly, even if only temporarily, shrugged off and reassume her position.
She should be looking forward to it. Not only because of the draw she felt toward the prince, but because of what the marriage would mean to both of their countries. The tentative peace between her native Erminia and Sylvain had been shattered many years ago when Prince Thierry’s mother had been caught, in flagrante delicto, with an Erminian diplomat. When both she and her lover had died in a fiery car crash fingers had pointed to both governments in accusation. Military posturing along the borders of their countries ever since had created its own brand of unrest within the populations. She’d understood that her eventual marriage to Prince Thierry would, hopefully, bring all that turmoil to an end—but she wanted something more than a convenient marriage. Was it too much to hope that she could make the prince love her, too?
Mila reached for the remote and muted the sound, ready to turn her attention back to her work, but Sally wasn’t finished on the subject yet.
“You should go to New York and meet him. Turn up at the door to his hotel suite and introduce yourself,” Sally urged.
Mila laughed, but the sound lacked any humor. “Even if I could get away from Boston unchaperoned, I wouldn’t get past his security, trust me. He’s the Crown Prince of Sylvain, the sole heir to the throne. He’s important.”
Sally rolled her eyes. “So are you. You’re his fiancée, for goodness’ sake. Surely he’d make time for you. And, as to Bernadette and the bruiser boys,” Sally said, referring to Mila’s chaperone and round-the-clock bodyguards, “I think I could come up with a way to dodge them—if you were willing to commit to this, that is.”
“I couldn’t. Besides, what if my brother found out?”
Sally didn’t know that Mila’s brother was also the reigning king of Erminia, but she was aware that Rocco had been her guardian since they lost their parents many years ago.
“What could he do? Ground you?” Sally snorted. “C’mon, you’re almost twenty-five years old and you’ve spent the last seven years in another country gaining valuable qualifications you’ll probably never be allowed to use. You have a lifetime of incredibly boring state dinners and stuff like that to look forward to. I think you’re entitled to a bit of fun, don’t you?”
“You make a good point,” Mila answered with a wry grin. As much as Sally’s words pricked at her, her friend was right. “What do you suggest?”
“It’s easy. Professor Winslow said that if we wanted he could get us tickets to the sustainability lecture stream during the summit. Why don’t we take him up on it? The summit starts tomorrow and there’s a lecture we could attend,” she said the latter word with her fingers in the air, mimicking quotation marks, “the next day.”
“Accommodation will be impossible to find at this short notice.”
“My family keeps a suite close to where they said the prince is staying. We could fly to New York by late afternoon tomorrow—Daddy will let me use his jet, I’m sure, especially if I tell him it’s for my studies. Then we check into the hotel and you could suddenly feel ill.” Sally hooked her fingers into mimed quotation marks again. “Bernie and the boys wouldn’t need to be with you if you were tucked up in bed with a migraine, would they? We’ll take a blond wig so you can look more like me. After a couple of hours, I’ll pretend I’m going out but instead I’ll go to your room and go to bed and pull the covers right up so if she checks on you she’ll think you’re out for the count. We’ll swap clothes and you, looking like me, can just slip out for the evening. What do you say?”
“They’ll never fall for it.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to try, though, would it? Otherwise when are you going to get a chance to see the prince again? At your wedding? C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen?”
What was the worst that could happen? They’d get caught. And then what? More reminders of her station and her duty to her country. Growing up in Erminia constant lectures about her duty and reputation had been all she’d known, after all. But after living and attending college in the States for the past few years, Mila had enjoyed a taste—albeit a severely curtailed one—of the kind of freedom she hadn’t even known she craved.
She weighed the idea in her mind. Sally’s plan was so simple and uncomplicated it might just work. Bernadette was always crazy busy—even more so since she’d begun making plans for Mila’s return to Erminia. A side jaunt to New York would throw her schedule completely out—if she even agreed to allowing it. But Mila still had the email from the professor saying how valuable attending the lecture would be. Mila knew she could put some emotional pressure on the chaperone who’d become more like a mother-figure to her and convince her to let her go.
“What’s it going to be, Mila?” Sally prompted.
Mila reached her decision. “I’ll do it.”
She couldn’t believe she’d said the words even as they came from her mouth, but every cell in her body flooded with a sense of anticipation. She was going to meet Prince Thierry. Or, at least, try to meet him.
“Great,” Sally said, rubbing her hands together like the nefarious co-conspirator she was at heart. “Let’s make some plans. This is going to be fun!”
Two (#u7a4b7c57-f7f6-5967-9709-57393905521e)
Dead.
The king was dead. Long live the king.
Oblivious to the panoramic twilight view of New York City as it sparkled below him, Thierry paced in front of the windows of his hotel suite in a state of disbelief.
He was now the King of Sylvain and all its domains—automatically assuming the crown as soon as his father had breathed his last breath.
A flutter of rage beat at the periphery of his thoughts. Rage that his father had slipped away now, rather than after Thierry had returned to his homeland. But it was typical of the man to make things awkward for his son. After all, hadn’t he made a lifetime hobby of it? Even before this trip, knowing he was dying, his father had sent Thierry away. Perhaps he’d known all along that his only son would not be able to return before his demise. He’d never been a fan of emotional displays.
Not that Thierry would likely become emotional. The king had always been a distant person in Thierry’s life. Their interactions had been peppered with reminders of Thierry’s duty to his country and his people and reprimands for the slightest transgression whether real or imagined. Yet, through the frustration and rage that flickered inside him, Thierry felt a swell of grief. Perhaps more for the relationship he had never had with his father, he realized, than the difficult one they’d shared.
“Sire?”
The form of address struck him anew. Sire—not Your Royal Highness or sir.
His aide continued, “Is there anything—?”
“No.” Thierry cut off his aide before he could ask again what he could do.
Since the news had been delivered, his staff had closed around him—all too wary that they were now responsible for not the Crown Prince any longer, but the King of Sylvain. He could feel the walls closing in around him even as he paced. He had to get out. Get some air. Enjoy some space before the news hit worldwide headlines which, no doubt, it would within the next few hours.
Thierry turned to his aide. “I apologize for my rudeness. The news...even though we were expecting it...”
“Yes, sire, it has come as a shock to everyone. We all hoped he would rally again.”
Thierry nodded abruptly. “I’m going out.”
A look of horror passed across the man’s features. “But, sire!”
“Pasquale, I need tonight. Before it all changes,” Thierry said by way of explanation even though no explanation was necessary.
The reality of his new life was already crushing. He’d been trained for this from the cradle and yet it still felt as though he had suddenly become Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“You will take your security detail with you.”
Thierry nodded. That much, he knew, was non-negotiable, but he also knew they’d be discreet. Aside from the film crew that had caught him arriving at his hotel yesterday, his visit to the United States had largely gone untrumpeted. He was a comparatively small fry compared to the other heads of state from around the world who had converged on the city for the summit. That would all change by morning, of course, when news of his father’s death made headlines. He hoped, by then, to be airborne and on his way home.
Thierry strode to his bedroom and ripped the tie from his neck before it strangled him. His elderly valet, Nico, scurried forward.
“Nico, a pair of jeans and a fresh shirt, please.”
“Certainly, sire.”
There it was again. That word. That one word that had created a gulf of distance between himself and his staff and, no doubt, the rest of the world with it. For the briefest moment, Thierry wished he could rage and snarl at the life he’d been dealt, but, as always, he capped the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. He was nothing if not controlled.
A few moments later, after a brief shower, Thierry was dressed and waiting in his suite’s vestibule for his security detail—all ready to go.
“It’s cool out this evening, sire. You’ll be needing these,” Nico said.
The older man’s hands trembled as he helped Thierry into a finely woven casual jacket and passed him a beanie and dark glasses. At the visible sign of his valet’s distress, Thierry once again felt that sense of being crushed by the change to his life. Now, he was faced not only with his own emotions at the news of his father’s death, but with those of his people. So far, his staff had only expressed their condolences to him. It was time he returned that consideration. He turned and allowed his gaze to encompass both Pasquale and Nico.
“Gentlemen, thank you for all your support. I know you, too, have suffered a great loss with the death of my father. You have been in service to my family for longer than I can remember and I am grateful to you. Should you need time to grieve, please know it is yours once we return home.”
Both men spluttered their protestations as they assured him that they would take no leave. That it was their honor to serve him. It was as he’d expected, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t carry a sense of loss deep inside.
“I mean it,” he affirmed. “Nico, will you see to the packing? I believe our plane will be ready by 8 a.m.”
The head of his security, Armaund, entered the suite with three of his team.
“Sire, when you’re ready.”
With a nod of thanks to Pasquale and Nico, Thierry headed for the door. Three security guards fell in formation around him as one went ahead to the private elevator that serviced this floor.
“We thought the side entrance would be best, sire. We can avoid the lobby that way and hotel security have swept for paparazzi already.”
“Thank you, that’s fine.”
He felt like little more than a sheep with a herd of sheep dogs as they exited the elevator downstairs.
“Some space, please, gentlemen,” Thierry said firmly as he picked up his pace and struck out ahead of his team.
He could sense they didn’t like it, but as long as he didn’t look as if he was surrounded by guards, he was relying on the fact that in a big city such as New York he’d soon become just another person on the crowded sidewalk. It was the team who would likely draw attention to him rather than his own position in the world.
Thierry rounded the corner and headed for the exit. Not far now and maybe he could breathe, really breathe for the first time since he’d heard the news.
* * *
“‘Fun,’ she said,” Mila muttered under her breath as she walked the block outside the hotel for the sixth time that evening.
Once she’d overcome the sheer terror that had gripped her as she’d escaped Sally’s family’s hotel suite, anticipation had buoyed her all the way here. But she’d yet to feel that sense of fun that Sally had mentioned. Leaving the suite had been nerve-racking. She’d been sure that Bernadette or one of the guards would have seen past the blond wig she wore and realized that it wasn’t Sally leaving the suite, but they’d only given her a cursory glance.
The walk to the prince’s hotel hadn’t been too bad, but it had given her too much time to think about what on earth she was doing here. And far too much time to begin to regret it—hence the circuits around the block. Any minute now she’d be arrested, she was sure of it. She’d already started getting sideways glances from more than one person.
She took a sip from the coffee she’d bought to steady her nerves and ducked into a doorway at the side of the hotel just as the skies opened with a sudden spring shower of rain. Great, she thought, as she watched the rain fall, making the streets slick and dark and seeming to emphasize just how alone she was at this exact moment, even with the tens of thousands of people who swirled and swelled around her. One of those people jostled her from behind, making her lurch and sending her coffee cup flying to the pavement. She cried out in dismay as some of the scalding liquid splashed on her hand.
“Watch it!” she growled, shaking the residue from her stinging skin and brushing down the front of her—no, she corrected herself, Sally’s—jacket.
So much for making a good impression, she thought. Wet, bewigged and now coffee-stained—she may as well quit and go home. This had been a ridiculous idea from start to finish and there’d be hell to pay if she got caught out.
“My apologies.”
The man’s voice came from behind her. It was rich and deep and sent a tingle thrilling down her spine. She wheeled around, almost bumping into him again as she realized he was closer to her than she’d anticipated.
“I’m sor—” she began and then she looked up.
The man stood in front of her, an apologetic smile curving sinfully beautiful lips. A dark beanie covered the top of his head, hiding the color of his hair, and he wore sunglasses. Odd, given the late hour but, after all, this was New York. But then he hooked his glasses with one long tanned finger and slid them down his nose, exposing thick black brows and eyes the color of slate. Everything—all thought, all logic, all sense—fled her mind.
All she could focus on was him.
Prince Thierry.
Right there.
In the flesh.
Mila had often wondered if people were exaggerating when they talked about the power of immediate physical attraction. She’d convinced herself that her own initial reaction to the prince years ago had been largely due to nerves and a hefty dose of overactive teenage hormones. Now, however, she had her answer. What she’d felt for him then was no exaggeration, since she felt exactly the same way now. Her mouth dried, her heart pounded, her legs trembled and her eyes widened in shock. Even though she had come here with the express purpose of meeting him, the reality was harder to come to terms with than she’d anticipated.
Sally had said he was hot. It had been a gross understatement. The man was incendiary.
Mila lowered her eyes to the base of his throat, exposed by an open collar. A pulse beat there and she found herself mesmerized by the proof he was completely and utterly human. A shiver of yearning trembled through her.
“I’ll get you another coffee.”
“N-no, it-it’s okay,” she answered, tripping over her tongue.
Think! she commanded herself. Introduce yourself. Do something. Anything. But then she looked up again and met his gaze, and she was lost.
His eyes were still as she remembered, but what had faded from her memory was that they were no ordinary gray. They reminded her of the color of the mountain faces that were mined for their pale slate in the north west of her country, and the north east of his. She’d always thought the color to be mundane, but how wrong she had been. It was startling, piercing, as if he could see to the depths of her soul when he looked at her. His irises were rimmed with black and lighter striations of silver shone like starlight within them. And his lashes were so dark they created the perfect frame for his eyes.
Mila realized she was staring and dropped her gaze again, but it did little to slow the rapid beat of her heart or to increase her lung capacity when she most needed a deep and filling breath.
“Si—?”
A man loomed beside them and angled his body between the prince and herself. One muttered phrase from the prince in his home language stopped the man midspeech and he slipped back again. Security, obviously, and none too happy about their prince mixing with the natives. Except she wasn’t native, was she? And, she realized with a shock, he didn’t seem to recognize who she was.
The prince turned his attention back to her and spoke again, his voice laced with concern. “Are you sure you’re okay? Look, your hand is burned.”
Mila started as he took her hand in his and held it so he could examine the pinkness left by the hot coffee. Her breathing hitched a little as his thumb softly traced around the edges of the tender skin. His fingers were gentle and even though he held her loosely—so she could tug herself free at any time—they sent a sizzle of awareness across the surface of her skin that had nothing to do with hot coffee and everything to do with this incredibly hot man.
“It’s nothing, really,” she said, knowing she should pull her hand loose but finding herself apparently unable to do so.
Nothing? It was everything. This was the magnetism she’d seen in action on TV earlier today. She was as helpless against it as everyone else had been.
“Please,” he said, letting go of her and gesturing down the sidewalk. “Allow me to buy you another coffee.”
His simple request was her undoing and she searched his face, seeking any sign that he knew who she was, and fighting back the disappointment that rose within her when he didn’t. Of course he wouldn’t expect to find himself face-to-face with a princess on the streets of New York, let alone his princess, she rationalized. But in spite of herself, Mila felt annoyance quickly take disappointment’s place. Was he so disinterested in her and their eventual union that she wasn’t on his mind at all?
But perhaps she could use this to her advantage. The plan she’d made with Sally had been for her to reintroduce herself to the prince, but what if she didn’t? What if she let herself just be another anonymous person on the streets of New York? Without the weight of their betrothal making them formal or awkward with each other, she could use this chance to get to know him better. To see for herself who this man was, while he was emotionally unguarded and not on show, and to gauge for herself what kind of man she would be marrying.
“Thank you,” she said, quelling her irritation and drawing on every gram of serenity and inner strength that had been instilled in her since her birth. “I would like that.”
His lip quirked up at the corner and, just like that, she found herself mesmerized once again. His eyes gleamed in satisfaction, the faintest of lines appearing at their corners. She forced herself to look away, to the street, to the rain, to basically anything but the man who guided her to walk at his side.
Ahead of them, one of his security team had already scoped out the same small coffee shop where she’d bought her cup earlier, and discreetly gestured an all-clear. It was done so subtly that if she hadn’t been so used to looking for it for herself, she wouldn’t even have noticed.
They entered and went to the counter to order. Mila was struck by how surreal this all felt. He was acting as if he did everyday things like walk down the street for coffee all the time, when she knew he certainly did not. His security team were dotted around the premises, two by the door and one near a table to which the prince guided her once they had their orders.
“Friends of yours?” Mila commented, nodding in the direction of his shadow team.
He made a sound that was something between a snort and a laugh. “Something like that,” he acknowledged. “Do they bother you? I can ask them to leave.”
