The Prince Next Door. Sue Civil-Brown

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      “My mother is the only close relative I have left.” His mouth twisted wryly. “She is, however, the world’s biggest schemer, highly manipulative, and highly volatile. And I love her dearly.”

      Serena didn’t know how to reply to that. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if she had utterly misheard that weasel’s words. “Do you…see her often?”

      “Whenever I’m in Europe, which is quite often. It can be something of a trial, though. She’s forever plotting to find a way to turn me into something I’m not.”

      “Which is?”

      “Well, it used to be James Bond. Right now it’s something else.” He waved a hand, as if to brush away the thoughts. “What about you ladies? Your families?”

      “Well,” said Ariel, “I have none.”

      That was a question Serena had never asked her, and now, hearing the answer, she felt her throat tighten. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

      “Oh, it’s okay,” Ariel said brightly. “It’s been a long time. And I’m well-off. Luckier than most, don’t you think?”

      “You’re such a positive thinker.”

      Ariel laughed. “Of course. Is there any other way to be?”

      “Well, you can share my family from now on.”

      Ariel looked impishly at her. “Are they all like you?”

      A helpless laugh bubbled out of Serena, rising from deep within her. “Touché,” she managed to say between giggles.

      Ariel laughed with her, and Darius looked from one to the other, amused, even though he must surely feel left out.

      “Serena,” Ariel confided, “is a would-be adventuress. She gets into all kinds of trouble when she’s on vacation.”

      “Hey,” Serena said, “I haven’t been arrested yet.”

      “She came awfully close last Christmas,” Ariel explained to Darius. “She was playing Mrs. Claus at the mall, and one too many little brats mouthed off at her and kicked her in the shin. So she told the parents, all the parents, what they could do with their little monsters.”

      Darius laughed heartily. “Good for you,” he told Serena.

      “She was supposed to go on a naked cruise this time,” Ariel continued, “but the IRS seized the ship.”

      “Ariel!”

      The young woman shrugged. “It’s the truth. I know you keep saying ‘clothing optional,’ but I don’t know what the difference is.”

      Darius’s gaze settled on Serena again. He was smiling, but his eyes seemed to hold some deeper message, something that made her squirm in her chair. Something that felt too pleasurable for her own good. She gripped the armrests tightly and forced herself to be still.

      At that moment an errant gust hit her, blowing her hair across her face and somehow managing to blow her skirt up to the top of her thighs.

      “Oh!” Embarrassment filled her and she blindly reached to pull her skirt down and tuck it tightly around her legs.

      “Better than Marilyn’s,” Darius said, a laugh trembling in his voice.

      Serena glared at him through strands of blond hair. “Don’t be a cad.”

      “Odd. That’s one thing my mother has always hoped I’d become.”

      Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she asked, “Why?”

      “My father was a very stolid Swiss banker. She spent most of his life trying to turn him into D’Artagnan.”

      “Poor man.”

      “They were very much in love.” Darius’s gaze strayed back out over the water, his face growing pensive, almost sad. “Anyway, now she’s decided to reform me.”

      Serena’s heart slammed. “How so?”

      “She’s staged her own kidnapping.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      “SHE WHAT?” Serena asked, words tumbling out of her mouth. “I can’t believe…who…why…I don’t understand.”

      Darius looked at her and smiled. That smile again. “I don’t think you’d understand my mother if you lived to be a hundred. I certainly don’t. But yes, that’s what she’s done.”

      “So that guy outside your apartment, he’s the kidnapper?” Ariel asked.

      Darius chuckled. “He thinks so. I suspect it’s more a case of her holding them captive than vice versa. Truth is, I pity the poor man. But yes, such as it stands, he’s the kidnapper.”

      “But…why?”

      “Oh, that’s the easy part,” Darius said with a wave of his hand. “She thinks I’m a prince.”

      If he’d said he had six ears, Serena couldn’t have been more floored. He said it so off-handedly, as if there were no great mystery involved in a mother staging her own kidnapping because her son was, or might be, a prince.

      “Ummm…” Serena said.

      “Exactly,” Darius replied. “Ummm…”

      “I take it you don’t think you’re a prince?” Ariel asked.

      He laughed. “No, I don’t. And what’s more, even if I were, I wouldn’t want the job. I mean, who in his right mind would want to be the crown prince of Masolimia?”

      “That place in the Pyrenees, with the awful sheep?” Ariel asked. Both Serena and Darius looked at her in stunned silence. “Well, I read something about it in a science magazine.”

      “Yes,” Darius said. “The place with the awful sheep. And the awful weather. And the awful…everything.”

      “But that place is going to be rich!” Ariel countered.

      Serena felt as if she had slipped into a reality warp. She’d never heard of Masolimia, but that was no surprise. There were probably hundreds of little places in the world she’d never heard of. The surprise was that Ariel had heard of Masolimia. And not only had heard of it, but seemed to be something of an expert on the place. That girl seemed to know entirely too much for Serena’s comfort. It was almost as if she’d been…set up.

      Darius nodded to Ariel. “That’s what they tell me. Something about genetic research, I gather.”

      “Yes!” Ariel said. She turned to Serena. “It’s like this. Geneticists are trying to figure out which parts of the human gene structure do what things. How much of what happens to us is inherited, how much is environmental. The old debate of nature versus nurture.”

      “Right,” СКАЧАТЬ