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“He’s banged up, but he’ll recover.”
“Is that why you had to break our date? To come here?”
He nodded. “Weird, huh?”
“Very weird. If we knew we were both coming here we could have carpooled,” she joked.
He grinned. “Except I was already here when I called you.”
“He must be a special friend for you to stay here all day with him.”
“We’ve known each other most of our lives.” He knew he should probably tell her the truth, but he just didn’t feel like explaining. With any luck Ian would heal, then be out of Garrett’s life forever, and the royal family would never be the wiser. “Is Melissa all right?”
“They managed to stop her labor, but she’s on strict bed rest for at least four weeks, and they’re keeping her in the hospital just to be safe.”
“Please send her and Chris my best.”
“She’s having some tests right now, but I’m sure she would love a visit from you later. She’s only been here a few hours and already she’s crawling out of her skin.”
Normally he wouldn’t visit a stranger, but under the circumstances, it couldn’t hurt. Besides, he’d liked Melissa from the moment he met her. She wasn’t a typical royal. Of course neither was Liv, or Louisa for that matter. Maybe there was nothing unusual about any of them. Maybe it was his preconceived notion that was way off.
“I’d like that,” he said. “As long as it’s not an imposition.”
“Of course not. Chris and Melissa really like you. In fact, Chris told me …” She paused and pressed her fingers to her lips.
“Chris told you what?”
Her cheeks flushed to match the pink of her pants. “Forget it.”
He smiled. “You’re blushing, Your Highness.”
“I’m not sure if I should have said anything.”
He folded his arms over his chest. She was usually so poised and self-confident. He liked that she had a vulnerable side. “Maybe you shouldn’t have, but now you’ve piqued my curiosity. It wouldn’t be fair to leave me hanging with no explanation, would it?”
“I suppose not.” She glanced over at the busy nurses’ station, then whispered, “Not here.”
Whatever she had to say, it was apparently private in nature. All the more reason for him to know what was said. “Where?”
“I was on my way back to our private waiting room,” she told him. “You could join me.”
“I’d like that,” he told her, realizing it was true, and not just for the information. Meeting like this in the hospital hallway could have been awkward, but instead he felt totally at ease with her. In fact, the moment he saw her standing there, some of the stress from the last few days seemed to melt away.
He held out his arm and she slipped hers through it. Thankfully the guards didn’t knock him to the ground and cuff him. “Lead the way, Your Highness.”
Louisa led Garrett into the royal family’s private waiting room. She was relieved to find it empty. If this was the only time they could be alone, she could think of worse places.
“This is nice,” Garrett said, gazing around. “More like a hotel suite than a hospital.”
“It didn’t used to be so modern, but the last few years, with my father’s condition, we’ve spent a lot of time here so it was renovated.”
“I expected Chris to be here.”
“He’s with Melissa. She’s having a test to determine the development of the babies’ lungs.” She turned to set down her purse and felt Garrett’s hands settle on her shoulders. A warm and delicious feeling poured through her like honey and the purse dropped with a clunk on the table.
“Does that mean we’re alone?” he asked, and something in his tone made her heart skip a beat. Until now, she was the one to instigate the physical contact. It was exciting, and yes, maybe a little scary, that he had taken the upper hand.
“I guess we are.”
His hands slipped off her shoulders and down her arms. His palms were smooth and felt hot to the touch. “Security won’t barge in at any second?”
“Only if I call them.”
“Are you going to call them?”
Now that they finally had some time alone? Not bloody likely. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Even if I do this?” He pulled her hair over one shoulder and brushed a kiss on the back of her neck. Goose bumps broke out across her skin, and her legs suddenly felt limp. Men had kissed her before, but it had been a long time since one made her tingle all over or feel the warm tug of arousal between her thighs and in her breasts.
He kissed her shoulder and she willed him to touch her, to cup her breasts in his palms, to slide his hand down, inside her panties. She almost moaned out loud imagining it, but she knew this wasn’t the time or the place.
“I like your hair this way,” he said, running his fingers through it. “You should wear it down all the time.”
“Maybe I will.”
“You were going to tell me what Chris said,” he reminded her, his breath warm on her nape where he dropped soft kisses.
“I’d hoped you’d forgotten about that.” She let her head fall to the side, giving him more area to explore, and he didn’t disappoint. “Chris might be upset that I told you.”
“We’ll keep it between you and me.”
“You promise?”
He turned her to face him and brushed his lips across hers. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Even if she’d wanted to tell him no, there was no way she could. He could ask her the royal family’s most intimate secrets right now and they would spill willingly from the lips he so skillfully nibbled. “I was talking to Chris the other day and he mentioned that if … well, if you and I were to get married, you would be a good choice to replace Aaron when he goes back to school.”
He stopped kissing her. “He said that?”
“Just the other day.”
“Well, I’m … I’m a bit speechless, actually. I’m flattered that he would even consider me.”
“Nothing is set in stone, of course, which is why I never should have said anything in the first place. Me and my big mouth.”
He smiled and made a growling sound deep in his throat. He cradled her face in his hand and brushed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. “Hmm, I love your mouth.”
She loved the way it felt when he touched it. Especially when he used his lips.
“Chris also insinuated that we shouldn’t ‘rush’ things,” she said.
“Are we rushing?”
She grinned up at him. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re not moving fast enough. In fact, would you find it totally inappropriate to make out on the sofa in a hospital waiting room?”
“If it were only kissing, maybe not, but I’m having a tough time keeping my hands off of you.”
She sighed and laid her head against his chest, heard the steady thump of his heart. “There has to be someplace we can go to be completely alone.”
“I have a place in Cabo,” he offered. “Maybe with enough advance warning, your family would let you go.”
“I would love that! I’ll talk to Chris about it.”
“Unless security issues aren’t his only concern.”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “I’m twenty-seven. My sex life is none of my family’s business. And believe me when I say that they’re in no position whatsoever to pass judgment. I hate that we have to even talk about this, that we can’t just be a normal couple, let things happen naturally.”
He led her to the sofa, pulling her close beside him as they sat. “All couples have issues, Louisa.”
She drew her legs up over his thighs and curled against his chest. “Sometimes I wish I could lead a normal life. I’d like to shop in a store without a team of security parked outside, or eat dinner in a restaurant without a thorough background check of every employee.” She looked up at him. “Have you ever considered what it would be like to be in a relationship with someone like me? The freedoms you would have to sacrifice? You’d be a fool not to run screaming in the opposite direction.”
“Those things don’t matter to me, Louisa.” He cradled her chin in his hand and gazed into her eyes. They were so dark and compassionate and earnest it made her want to cry. “The way I feel about you, I’d be a fool not to stay.”
He brushed his lips against hers, so tenderly. So sweet. But she didn’t want tender and sweet. She was tired of that. She wanted fire and passion. She wanted to feel sexy and desired.
She slid her hands around Garrett’s neck, pulled him down and kissed him. A kiss that was anything but tender. At first he resisted a little, until she drew herself up on her knees and straddled his lap.
“I can’t seem to control myself when I’m with you,” he mumbled against her lips.
“Good, because neither can I.” She rocked her hips and rubbed against him. Garrett growled deep in his throat and tunneled his fingers through her hair, feeding off her mouth. She could feel his erection growing between them and she wanted so badly to touch him. She was so far gone, she didn’t care that Chris could walk through the door at any second.
Which incidentally, he did.
Somewhere in the back of her hormone-drenched brain she heard the door open, then the exaggerated rumble of a throat clearing. She peeled herself away from Garrett and looked over to find Chris in the waiting room doorway, one brow lifted. She knew exactly what he was thinking. This was her idea of discretion?
She heard Garrett mumble a particularly colorful curse under his breath—one most men wouldn’t dare speak in front of a princess—as he lifted her from his lap and dropped her onto the sofa beside him.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Chris said, “but Melissa is back in her room and eager for visitors.”
Louisa should have asked how Melissa was doing, or if the babies were okay, but to her surprise, and apparently her brother’s surprise as well, the first thing out of her mouth was, “I’m going to Cabo with Garrett and you can’t stop me.”
Demanding she be allowed to leave the country with Garrett probably hadn’t been the wisest course of action for Louisa to win a little freedom. Especially when Chris had just walked in on them making out like two lust-driven youths. Garrett was quite sure, considering her brother’s look of exasperation, she wouldn’t be leaving the country anytime soon. With Garrett or anyone else.
So much for convincing her family that he wasn’t compromising her honor.
Garrett assumed Chris would be furious with him, but when he pulled the Prince aside later to apologize for his inappropriate behavior, Chris only laughed.
“I know you’re smarter than that, Garrett. I don’t believe for a second that my sister wasn’t the aggressor. Just, if you could, try to keep her in check, at least when you’re in public. I would appreciate it.”
Garrett had been so stunned, he couldn’t form a coherent reply, which seemed to amuse Chris even more.
“You think I don’t know what my sister is like?”
“She can be … tenacious,” Garrett said.
Chris chuckled. “That’s putting it mildly. I’ve spent the better part of my life keeping her out of trouble. She whines incessantly that we shelter her, yet she refuses to exercise any common sense. If she wants something she goes after it, all pistons firing. Usually with no regard to the rules, or oftentimes her own safety. And if what she gets isn’t what she wanted, watch out.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister to death. She has a heart of gold and you’ll never meet a woman more loyal to her family and friends. I would lay down my life for her. I also believe that she’ll make a fantastic wife and mother. But she is a handful. Let your guard down and she’ll walk all over you.”
In other words, her so-called reputation of being sweet and naive was bollocks. He’d basically figured that out already. He just hadn’t realized the extent of her defiance. Some men might have considered that a negative quality, and maybe he should have, too, but the idea that she wasn’t at all what he expected only intrigued him more.
The question was: what did Chris have to gain by his honesty? Was he trying to scare Garrett away? And why would he after he’d told Louisa that he was considering offering Aaron’s position to Garrett?
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked Chris.
“I think you should know what you’re getting yourself into. Louisa needs a man who’s just as headstrong and determined as she is, and I see those qualities in you. She needs someone who can … rein her in.”
He made it sound as though Louisa needed a babysitter more than a husband. Did the royal family cling to the archaic values that deemed women should be seen but not heard?
He wasn’t sure if he should feel grateful for Chris’s candid advice, or offended on Louisa’s behalf. And since when did Garrett feel the need to defend her? When did he start caring about her feelings?
Probably right around the same time she smiled up at him and said she couldn’t wait to see him naked.
“By the way,” Chris said. “Send me a copy of your itinerary and I’ll see what I can do. It will take at least two weeks to arrange.”
It took a second for Garett to realize he was talking about the trip to Cabo. “I assumed that wasn’t going to happen.”
“If I tell her no, there’s a good chance she’ll go without permission. Besides, maybe some time away would do her good. With our father in fairly stable condition, I think we could all use a vacation.”
Garrett, too, was looking forward to some time away. With his brother around, the less time he spent at home, the better as far as he was concerned. He and Ian had nothing left to say to one another, and all that talk about Ian changing his ways was rubbish. Ian would never change.
After a short visit with Melissa, who was indeed climbing the walls, Garrett said goodbye to Louisa, sealing their departure with another enthusiastic kiss. He made a short trip to the office to get a few documents that needed his attention. Then, because the cook had Sundays off, he picked up dinner on his way home.
Later, as he lounged in front of the television, mindlessly surfing the channels, he thought about calling Louisa to see if Melissa’s tests came back favorable. Only, as usual, she called him first.
He picked up the phone after the first ring and said, “You probably won’t believe this, but I was just about to call you.”
“Were you really?” a sultry voice purred in his ear. “And here I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”
The unfamiliar voice threw him for a moment, then he looked at the caller ID and realized it wasn’t Louisa after all. It was Pamela, a woman he dated on occasion. Although to call what they did “dating” was a gross overstatement. They had sex. Unemotional, uncomplicated, no-strings-attached sex. Just the way he liked it.
“Pamela, sorry, I thought you were someone else,” he said. “How have you been?”
Her voice dripped with the promise of something naughty. “Missing you terribly, love.”
He used to find her sultry drawl warm and sexy. Now he recognized it for what it was: as insincere as her affection for him. She was using him, just as he had used her. Up until today that hadn’t bothered him in the least, in fact he’d preferred it that way, but now it just seemed … sleazy.
“I’ve been busy,” he said, but she totally missed what he’d hoped was a direct brush-off.
