Princess in the Making. Michelle Celmer

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СКАЧАТЬ he wasn’t in the mood for another lecture. “I’m sure I’ll sleep like a baby when she is gone.”

      “She’s that bad?”

      He sat on the edge of her desk. “She’s awful.”

      “And you know this after what, thirty minutes with her?”

      “I knew after five. I knew the second she stepped off the plane.”

      She leaned forward in her chair, elbows on her desk, her white hair draped around a face that was young for her years, and with no help at all from a surgeon’s knife. “Based on what?”

      “She only wants his money.”

      Her brows rose. “She told you that?”

      “She didn’t have to. She’s young, and beautiful, and a single mother. What else would she want from a man my father’s age?”

      “For the record, your highness, fifty-six is not that old.”

      “For her it is.”

      “Your father is an attractive and charming man. Who’s to say that she didn’t fall head over heels in love with him.”

      “In a few weeks?”

      “I fell in love with my husband after our first date. Never underestimate the powers of physical attraction.”

      He cringed. The idea of his father and that woman … he didn’t even want to think about it. Though he didn’t doubt she had seduced him. That was the way her kind operated. He knew from experience, having been burned before. And his father, despite his staunch moral integrity, was vulnerable enough to fall under her spell.

      “So, she’s really that attractive?” Cleo asked.

      Much as he wished he could say otherwise, there was no denying her beauty. “She is. But she had a child out of wedlock.”

      She gasped and slapped a hand to her chest. “Off with her head!”

      He glared at her.

      “You do remember what century this is? Women’s rights and equality and all that.”

      “Yes, but my father? A man who lives by tradition. It’s beneath him. He’s lonely, missing my mother and not thinking straight.”

      “You don’t give him much credit, do you? The king is a very intelligent man.”

      Yes, he was, and clearly not thinking with his brain. No one could convince Marcus that this situation was anything but temporary. And until she left, he would simply stay out of her way.

      Vanessa bolted up in bed, heart racing, disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the dark and the room came into focus, she remembered where she was.

      At first she thought that she’d slept late into the night, then realized that someone had shut the curtains. She grabbed her cell phone and checked the time, relieved to see that she had only slept for an hour and a half, and there were no missed calls from Gabriel.

      She dialed his cell number, but like before it went straight to voice mail. She hung up and grabbed her laptop from her bag, hoping that maybe he’d sent her an email, but the network was password protected and she couldn’t log on. She would have to ask someone for the password.

      She closed the laptop and sighed. Since she hadn’t heard a word from Karin, she could only assume Mia was still asleep, and without her daughter to take care of, Vanessa felt at a loss for what to do. Then she remembered all the bags in the closet waiting to be unpacked—basically her entire summer wardrobe—and figured she could kill time doing that.

      She pushed herself up out of bed, her body still heavy with fatigue, and walked to the closet. But instead of finding packed suitcases, she discovered that her clothes had all been unpacked and put away. The maid must have been in while she was asleep, which was probably a regular thing around here, but she couldn’t deny that it creeped her out a little. She didn’t like the idea of someone else handling her things, but it was something she would just have to get used to, as she probably wouldn’t be doing her own laundry.

      She stripped out of her rumpled slacks and blouse and changed into yoga pants and a soft cotton top, wondering, when her stomach rumbled, what time she would be called for dinner. She grabbed her phone off the bed and walked out to the living room, where late afternoon sunshine flooded the windows and cut paths across the creamy carpet. She crossed the room and pulled open the French doors. A wall of heat sucked the breath from her lungs as she stepped out onto a balcony with wrought iron railings and exotic plants. It overlooked acres of rolling green grass and colorful flower beds, and directly below was the Olympic-size pool and cabana Gabriel had told her about. He put the pool in, he’d bragged, because Marcus had been a champion swimmer in high school and college, and to this day still swam regularly. Which would account for the impressively toned upper body.

      But she definitely shouldn’t be thinking about Marcus’s upper body, or any other part of him.

      Her cell phone rang and Gabriel’s number flashed on the screen. Oh, thank God. Her heart lifted so swiftly it left her feeling dizzy.

      She answered, and the sound of his voice was like a salve on her raw nerves. She conjured up a mental image of his face. His dark, gentle eyes, the curve of his smile, and realized just then how much she missed him.

      “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there to greet you,” he told her, speaking in his native language of Variean, which was so similar to Italian they were practically interchangeable. And since she was fluent in the latter, learning the subtle differences had been simple for her.

      “I miss you,” she told him.

      “I know, I’m sorry. How was your flight? How is Mia?”

      “It was long, and Mia didn’t sleep much, but she’s napping now. I just slept for a while too.”

      “My plane left not twenty minutes before you were due to arrive.”

      “Your son said it was a family matter. I hope everything is okay.”

      “I wish I could say it was. It’s my wife’s half sister, Trina, in Italy. She was rushed to the hospital with an infection.”

      “Oh, Gabriel, I’m so sorry.” He’d spoken often of his sister-in-law, and how she had stayed with him and his son for several weeks before and after the queen died. “I know you two are very close. I hope it’s nothing too serious.”

      “She’s being treated, but she’s not out of danger. I hope you understand, but I just can’t leave her. She’s a widow, and childless. She has no one else. She was there for me and Marcus when we needed her. I feel obligated to stay.”

      “Of course you do. Family always comes first.”

      She heard him breathe a sigh of relief. “I knew you would understand. You’re an extraordinary woman, Vanessa.”

      “Is there anything I can do? Any way I can help?”

      “Just be patient with me. I wish I could invite you to stay СКАЧАТЬ