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As they started to leave she heard Jules say, “You’re lucky. Nobody ever gets to stay in this apartment.”
“Why not?”
“We don’t know. Mother says it’s a secret,” Jules explained.
“Why don’t you just ask Dad?”
Vito shook his head. “Mother said it wasn’t our business.”
“Then I’ll ask him when he gets back from Italy.”
Darrell thought she heard the word “cool” come from Jules before the outer door closed.
She walked around the room, stopping to smell the gorgeous white roses that gave off a heavenly perfume.
Not even Isabella had slept in here?
Whatever the reason, Alex had taken Phillip to his heart, breaking rules only a king could do if he wanted to.
He’d risked causing what could be an insurmountable problem in his coming marriage to the princess in order to claim him and make up for the last twelve years.
A man like that didn’t come along very often in life. Isabella could have no conception of how lucky she was.
Before Darrell fell apart over her feelings for Alex, she phoned Rudy and asked him to have a car waiting for her. There was a famous art gallery in the center of the main shopping district she wanted to visit. Anything to get her mind off of Alex, who would be spending tonight with Isabella. The images of the two of them entwined together while he convinced her their marriage would work made Darrell writhe in pain.
She grabbed her purse and flew out of the apartment. If her bodyguard thought she was having some kind of nervous breakdown, he’d be right!
Alex had just finished shaving when his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID and clicked on. “Mother?”
“I’m on my way to your apartment. You can’t leave for San Ravino until we’ve talked.” The line went dead.
He rushed to get dressed. By the time he’d shrugged into his suit jacket, she was at the door. The dogs preceded her into his living room. After shutting the door he leaned against it, waiting…
“Oh, Alex—he’s so much like you when you were that age, I can hardly believe it!” There were tears in her voice as well as her eyes.
Gratified by her response, he drew in a deep breath and walked toward her. “I see you and father in him, too. And Chaz…”
She nodded. “Yes. He has a way of expressing himself like your cousin. He and the boys could be brothers.”
“So now you know why I had to bring him with me.”
“I understand it,” she whispered, “but your uncle won’t.”
He tautened. “We can thank God Uncle Vittorio and Aunt Renate are away on a trip. I agree he would go into a black rage knowing what happened on that vacation in Colorado years ago.
“Perhaps now you understand why it was imperative I announced paternity before their return from the cruise.”
His mother stared at him while streams of unspoken thoughts passed between them. “Yes,” she eventually agreed in an unsteady voice. Her wet eyes gazed at him for a long time. “But you might have done it to the peril of the monarchy.”
Lines darkened his face. “I love Phillip.”
She let out a weary sigh. “How could you not? But you can’t expect Isabella to take him to her heart.”
He grasped her hands. “She’s making a gallant effort.”
His mother shuddered. “I can’t imagine how she’s going to get past this, Alex. It’s not just the reality of Phillip. You brought his mother with you. How painful for Isabella to have to live with the fact that you were intimate with the woman staying under our roof.”
He let go of her hands to rub his chin where he’d nicked himself with the razor. “It’s asking a lot of Isabella, but so far she’s handling it. I’ll find out how well when I see her tonight.” After checking his watch he said, “I have to go.”
“Wait—”
His gaze swung back to hers. “What is it?”
“Since Ms. Collier is Phillip’s mother and has worked her way into the castle, how do you know she won’t make trouble for you and Isabella?”
Alex had been waiting for that salvo. “If that had been her intention, she would have surfaced years ago instead of this week. Even then she couldn’t go through with telling me I had a son. I had to fly to Colorado in order to pry it out of her.
“At that point she still begged me not to act on the knowledge. When I brought her and Phillip back with me, she asked me again to turn the plane around because she knew what would happen if I didn’t.
“Darrell is still suffering over it. If you knew her as I already do, she’s frightened of hurting Isabella, so you don’t have to worry about her causing problems.”
“Listen to you defend her!” Her voice shook. “She’s gotten to you the way she did once before. You were obviously so taken with her, you gave her the ring your cousin had made specially for you. Now that she’s found you, she has decided to enamor you all over again.”
Darrell didn’t have to try. Whatever had driven them into each other’s arms today, it hadn’t been planned, not on either of their parts. His heart almost failed him remembering the lushness of her avid mouth opening to the pressure of his.
“By claiming Phillip so readily, you’ve allowed her to believe anything’s possible!” his mother exclaimed. “The more I hear about this woman, the more I don’t trust her.”
He moved to the door, then looked back at her. “If I didn’t know something you still don’t know, I wouldn’t trust her, either.”
“What more could there be?”
It was time for the whole truth.
“Phillip’s birth mother was named Melissa Collier.”
That caught his mother’s attention in a hurry.
“She died of an aneurism after giving birth to Phillip. Her sister, Darrell, adopted him. The only reason Darrell came looking for me was to help her unhappy son and honor her sister’s dying wish that he get to know his father.
“In point of fact, Darrell had no prior knowledge of my existence until two weeks ago when she had the ring traced and saw a picture of me on the Internet. She noticed the strong resemblance to Phillip and jumped to the only conclusion she could.
“Therefore you’re going to have to reassess your thinking about her. She has no designs on the man who impregnated her sister.” In fact she had every reason to despise him, which made what happened up in the mountains even more remarkable.
If ever anyone looked shell-shocked, it was his mother. “This is unbelievable.”
“But true. And you have to admit Darrell’s done an amazing job of raising her sister’s son.”
His mother made a cry like she’d been mortally wounded. “I’ll grant you he’s a fine boy, but what you’ve just told me alarms me even more.”
“Why?”
“Because I can tell this woman means something to you. I can feel it!”
She wasn’t his mother for nothing.
“I admit I admire her.” He wished that was all he felt for her. “Darrell was only in her teens when Melissa died. Since then she has sacrificed her life for Phillip. She could have put him up for adoption instead of adopting him herself. She’s made the perfect home for him. He’s bright, talented.”
A frantic look crossed over his mother’s face. “Does Isabella know he was adopted? Does she realize Ms. Collier isn’t his real mother?”
His lips thinned. “Not yet. If she agrees to marry me, I’ll tell her the truth on our honeymoon. Hopefully the news that Darrell and I were never involved will relieve her fears.
“But for now, no one but you and Phillip know the truth. I don’t want Phillip hurt by this.
“Make no mistake—” His body went rigid. “Darrell’s his real mother. It was her eyes he first saw when he came into the world.”
The most fabulous eyes Alex had ever seen. Like the rare violet hue of the morning sky silhouetting the peaks of the Alps.
“You know what I meant—”
He opened the door. “I don’t have time for this now, Mother. Isabella and her parents are waiting for me.”
The whirr of the helicopter’s rotors sounded overhead. Phillip and the boys ran into Darrell’s room to look at it from the balcony.
“Dad’s back! We’re going to go meet him.’
“Wait, Phillip—” Darrell cautioned.
“Why?”
“Because he always has important things to do first.”
“That’s what mother says,” Jules muttered. Vito nodded. They adored Alex, but they also revered him as king. Phillip had a different problem. To him Alex was his father. Period.
“He said he’d phone you when he could, sweetheart.”
“But it’s already afternoon.”
Darrell was painfully aware he was long overdue. He and Isabella must have managed to work things out, otherwise he would probably have come home a lot sooner.
In order to pass the time without falling apart, she’d talked Phillip into taking a walk on the extensive grounds with her. Then they’d gone swimming with the boys.
The four of them would still be having fun if clouds hadn’t started to gather. At the first sign of lightning she’d insisted they go indoors. A storm was almost upon them. Darrell was thankful the helicopter had landed before Alex got caught in the downpour.
She shivered when she remembered his cousin’s plane had gone down in bad weather, leaving his sons fatherless.
They were so darling, Darrell couldn’t help but love them. She could tell Phillip liked them, too. It was a heady experience to be looked up to by the younger princes who were already enriching his life.
Alex had been worried about Phillip not wanting to hang around waiting to spend time with him. But his fears were groundless. You couldn’t separate Phillip from his father now or ever.
“I’ll get it,” Phillip called out the second the phone rang.
Darrell’s heart raced so hard it was a good thing he picked up instead of her. Since he’d climbed up her balcony, the less she had to interact with Alex the better.
Their conversation didn’t last long. Phillip hung up and turned to her with an excited look on his face.
“Dad wants us to meet him at his office. He says he’s got something special planned and you have to come, too, Mom, because we’re going to have dinner with Aunt Evelyn after.”
Aunt Evelyn…
Darrell hadn’t even met the boys’ mother yet, but Phillip was already calling her aunt.
“Hurrah!” Jules cried enthusiastically.
Under the circumstances Darrell couldn’t refuse. It was a good thing she’d put on her pleated tan pants and fitted purple top. Not too dressy, not too casual for her first meeting with his cousin-in-law.
The boys knew their way around the castle blindfolded. She followed them down the exquisitely sculpted marble staircase to the first floor. They took a right through the magnificent vaulted corridors lined with paintings and tapestries leading to the king’s official workplace.
“See the flag?” Vito spoke up.
“Yes.”
“If the Valleder flag is posted, then you know Uncle Alex is in the city and his ministers can have access to him.”
“That’s very interesting. Thank you for telling me.”
“You’re welcome.”
The boy knew everything and took it all so seriously, Darrell decided he had the makings of a king.
Then she glimpsed the real king. At the first sight of Alex in a black turtleneck and jeans standing in the huge double doorway, her pulse skittered off the charts.
The boys huddled around him while he gave their dark blond heads a gentle roughing.
Yesterday she’d felt those strong hands in her hair and knew how it felt. She almost passed out reliving the sensation until she remembered he’d spent the night with Isabella.
Judging by his laid-back demeanor, he’d won Isabella over and there was going to be a wedding. Then she would always have the right to his affection.
Darrell couldn’t bear it.
“Mom?” Phillip shook her arm, jerking her from a place she’d promised herself never to go again. Her gaze happened to collide with a penetrating pair of eyes that were more gray than green at the moment.
“When a storm rages, there’s a knight whose ghost walks around the castle below the waterline. Chaz and I only saw the back of him one time. I thought we’d all go down and search for him now.”
The boys laughed nervously. Phillip smiled, but his heels moved up and down, indicating his adrenaline had kicked in.
“Think you’re up to it?”
Alex had issued her a direct challenge she couldn’t refuse. In truth she didn’t want to. Who else besides Alex would think up something this entertaining for a bunch of adventurous boys on a dark, dreary afternoon inside a castle of all things?
