Royally Claimed

Not daring to breathe, she turned slowly, almost hoping she was just imagining it. She looked across the tables and saw him. The apple fell from her hand and clunked into the bin.

Frank stood across from her. She put her hand to her throat in shock. His raw masculinity at age twenty had matured into solid manhood, his shoulders broader, his arms thicker. His dark hair curled over his ears, one wave falling over his forehead. His face had hardened but his dark eyes crinkled with amusement.

Frank was leaning on a vegetable stand, listening to an older man who was obviously telling a funny story, thanks to the amused faces of the surrounding shoppers. Frank clapped the older man on the back and turned away, a smile on his face.

He saw her. The smile vanished, leaving a stunned expression to match hers. Instead of freezing, he moved. Toward her.

She panicked. What could she say to him? What would he say to her? She took a step backward, automatically searching for an escape.

But Frank was coming, cutting around the customers and tables with the grace she remembered. He stopped next to her. “Julia?” he asked, his voice full of disbelief. Good, so she wasn’t the only one.

“Frank, well, my goodness! How in the world are you?” Her tone had enough sugar to frost a wedding cake. Light and friendly, light and friendly, she decided.

He didn’t cooperate with her game plan and reply in an equally frothy manner, saying, What brings you back to the Azores? Or Gee, Julia, how many years has it been? Instead, he stood silently staring at her. Almost as if she were a ghost popping up through the floor.

“Frank?” She touched his forearm and he jumped as if she’d shocked him. She was shocked too and jerked her hand back.

Oh, no. Why that futile spark of attraction, after all these years? She looked away desperately.

“Julia. Your husband is here with you?” He casually scanned the crowd but his question was far from casual.

“My husband?” She wasn’t thinking clearly, all the warning bells in her head distracting her, telling her to run away before she got hurt again. “No.”

“No, he is not here, or no, you have no husband?”

“Oh, Franco,” she whispered. He no longer fit his boyish nickname.

“Tell me, Julia. Which is it?”

“I have no husband.”

Triumph flared in his eyes, quickly banked into a neutral expression. She resented it. As if she were a prize horse unexpectedly put up for auction.

“What about you? Any wife?” She meant it for turnabout, but he took it for interest, his mouth curling into a victorious smile.

Maybe it was interest. Oh, of course it was. She was dying to know if there was a Duchess Mrs. Franco Duarte, or whatever they were called in Portugal these days. She’d never quite picked up the naming system that could leave a person with four last names.

“No wife. Yet. I am here on business with Benedito.” As if summoned by his name like Rumpelstiltskin, the wizened old man popped up at Frank’s elbow.

“Bom dia, senhorina.” He bowed at the waist, his eyes sparkling with unabashed curiosity. Julia could well imagine why. She was probably pale as a ghost and Frank looked like the cat who’d swallowed the canary.

“Hello.” Someone had to act with normalcy, so she extended her hand to the elderly Portuguese, who bowed over it almost as if she were a princess.

“Senhorina.”

“Senhorina Julia Cooper, may I present Senhor Benedito Henriques Oliveira. Benedito, this is Senhorina Julia Cooper, whom I met here a long time ago.”

The old man’s eyes sharpened as he gazed between them. “A long time ago?”

“When we were younger,” Frank answered evasively.

“Then you must talk!” Benedito practically shoved Frank at her. “Go to lunch! Don Franco, I will pick out those paint colors you wanted and have them mixed.” He ducked away into the crowd as Frank let out a yelp of dismay.

“Paint colors?” Julia asked.

Frank gave up trying to spot his assistant and sighed. “We are here to fix up the villa.”

“The villa.” She was swept back in time again, to the stone building overlooking the sea on Frank’s private island. “Why?” She immediately regretted showing any interest. It was his own business, even if he were setting it up for a bachelor pad.

“A honeymoon.” He watched her closely.

“Ah.” Of course Frank would have moved on. It wasn’t as if he’d pined for her all these years. “And when is the happy event?”

“Two months, roughly. The wedding is in June.”

Oh, the bitter irony. Over ten years since their separation and then she arrived two months before his wedding. “Well. May I congratulate you and the future duchess?”

He gave her a slow smile. “The wedding isn’t mine.”

FRANK DIDN’T FEEL THE slightest bit guilty about taking advantage of Julia’s state of confusion to guide her into a cozy back table at a local café. She’d tried to hide her shock and then relief at finding out he wasn’t the lucky groom, but Frank could still read her emotions, even after all these years.

“Would you like some wine?” He held the bottle over her glass, ready to pour. It was a variety they used to drink together.

She held up a hand. “Just water, please.”

“All right.” He ordered a bottle for her and filled her glass when it arrived. She drank eagerly, as if her throat were dry, then twirled the stem between her fingers. She looked all around the café—anywhere but at him.

“Julia,” he began, not sure what to say. Why did you leave me when we were college students? sounded more than a bit whiny and pathetic. “How have you been?”

“Fine.” She gave him a polite smile.

He tried again. “You finished your nursing degree?”

“Yes, and after a couple years, I went back to graduate school. I’m a nurse practitioner now and have taken some classes toward my doctoral degree.”

“Good for you.” Pride for her, misplaced or no, swelled his chest. “You always were the smartest woman I ever met.”

The compliment broke through her polite shell and she snorted in disbelief. Now that was more like the old Julia he remembered. Or was it the young Julia he remembered? This woozy sense of past and present was mixing him up. “Why do you make that noise?”

“What?”

“You don’t believe me.” He shook his head. “Do you remember me as a liar?”

She pursed her lips. “Surely you’ve met smarter women than I.”

“No, and just to prove it, all of them would have said ‘smarter women than me.’”

“Good grammar doesn’t make you smart.”

He shook his head. “You always were terrible at accepting compliments.” Like how her dark hair shone in the sun, her hazel eyes sparkling like his estate’s premium sherry.

“I was not!”

“Argumentative, too.”

“I am not—” She stopped arguing when he started to laugh. “Frank, that is not fair. You know I can’t say anything to that without arguing.”

“Then you’ll just have to agree with me.”

“Hmmph.”

“Ah, Julia, no need to fuss. We are just old friends who have met again for lunch. What would you like to eat?”

She pressed her pretty pink lips together. Oh, how could he have forgotten how her dimples appeared when she did that. He had to hide a delighted smile before she really lost her temper and walked out on him. Again.

Well. Remembering that wiped the smile off his face.

“Frank?” She gave him a questioning look.

“Lunch, oh, yes.”

“Where is the menu?”

He pointed to the chalkboard outside. “Whatever they feel like cooking today. Chicken with rice, salt cod stew and chouriço de carne—sausage with fava beans.”

“Mmm. I haven’t had chouriço in years,” she said wistfully.

“You can’t get Portuguese sausage in Boston?” There was not only a huge Portuguese-American community there, but a large portion of that was specifically of Azorean heritage.

She shrugged. “I live in a different part of town.”

That wasn’t much of an answer. How long could it take her to drive to a Portuguese deli? He’d driven to Massachusetts and Rhode Island Portuguese restaurants from New York when he’d had a craving for sausage or the sweet, eggy desserts that were an Azorean specialty. “Well, you must have it here.” He waved to the waiter and ordered the sausage and fava beans for her and the salt cod stew for him. “Sure you don’t want any wine?”

She shook her head, so he ordered another bottle of water and switched to that, as well. Julia alone was making him light-headed enough.

He acknowledged she had become even more beautiful in the eleven years since they’d parted. “How is it that you aren’t married yet?” he blurted, then winced. Smooth move, dummy. If she were married, she would either not be here at all or else her husband would be sitting across from him shooting daggers with his eyes at Frank. Maybe they’d have a few small kids, too, who would wonder in embarrassingly loud voices how this foreign guy used to know their mom.

“I’m not married yet because nobody ever asked me.” Now her lips were really tight, her dimples even deeper.

“I did.”

“Out of some misguided sense of obligation. That doesn’t count.”

He’d taken her virginity and changed her life forever—why wouldn’t he feel obligated toward her? And it wasn’t misguided, but he knew she would run away from him forever rather than discuss that now.

She jumped to her feet. “Look, Frank, it was nice to see you, but I have to go home.”

He jumped up, too. “Julia, please stay. I spoke out of turn. I apologize.” He shifted his body in front of her but the look of panic in her eyes made him move out of her way immediately. “But of course, I will not keep you here if you don’t want to be.” Frank wanted to kick himself. Good God, his prize bull at the estate had more finesse than he did.

She relaxed slightly, but was still wary, and he didn’t blame her. The last time they’d parted, he’d been desperate to keep her and had been too overbearing. But twenty-year-old men in the agonies of first love were often thoughtless, and he’d been no exception. If he’d had a cooler head, he would have backed off, realizing the poor timing. Asking her to forgo the rest of her college education had been a bad idea, to put it mildly. “Come, sit. I promise, no more talk of awkward things. We will just be old friends who are catching up on the past ten years.”

“Eleven,” she corrected him automatically. So she remembered exactly, as well. That was intriguing.

“Eleven, of course.” He took her elbow and guided her back to her seat. The waiter, sensing a juicy story, plied them with a basket full of hearty chunks of bread and fresh whipped butter. Frank practically had to shoo him away.

Julia seemed more amenable once she had a bit of homemade bread and butter in her, asking, “So who is getting married?”

Frank smiled. “Do you remember me telling you about my best friends from the university?”

She nodded. “The Italian guy and the French guy. Both were rich noblemen like you.”

“Basically, yes. Giorgio—George—is the prince of Vinciguerra, a tiny country in the north of Italy. Jacques, who still goes by Jack, is a count, with his holdings in Provence, the south of France.”

“And you, the Duke of Aguas Santas in Portugal.”

“Yes.” It wasn’t any secret in the Azores who he was considering he owned a small island there. But the islanders were easygoing and not inclined to give him the paparazzi treatment. He was sure they gossiped about him, but friendly gossip was a national Portuguese pastime.

“Is one of them getting married?”

“Not exactly. Jack just got married last summer to an American travel writer named Lily, and Giorgio and his fiancée haven’t set a date yet. It’s for Giorgio’s younger sister, Stefania, who lived with us in New York. She is marrying a German football star.”

“Soccer.” She lifted her chin. “Germans play soccer, not football.”

He remembered Julia had been a star soccer player in high school and college. “No, football,” he teased. “In Europe, we play football. And Stefania is getting married in the cathedral at home. Between the royal-watchers and the football fans, they will have very little privacy in their everyday lives, but Stefania and Dieter would like a private honeymoon. The villa is very private and romantic.” At least that was how he’d remembered it when he and Julia had stayed there.

“Of course,” she murmured, maybe remembering the same thing? “And that’s why your assistant went off to pick paint colors.”

Frank grimaced. “Benedito isn’t exactly an interior designer. We’ll have to see.”

The waiter arrived with their entrees. Julia leaned over her bowl and eagerly inhaled the steam rising from the chouriço. She found a piece of the sausage with her fork and picked it up, waiting in anticipation before she moved it to her mouth. As she chewed, her expression was delighted and wistful in turns, as if she had been deprived of something important for so long, that the acquiring of it was almost bittersweet.

What else had Julia deprived herself of?

Frank watched her as long as he dared, then busied himself with his salt cod stew when she turned her attention back to him. Bacalhoada, or salt cod stew, was a Portuguese staple. The basics were the same everywhere, but it always tasted a bit different. Salt cod was dried and preserved with salt. To prepare it, you had to soak it overnight to rehydrate it, and then cook like any other fish. This dish was more of a casserole, with chunks of cod and chouriço, olive oil, potatoes and sliced tomatoes cooked along with them. Topping the dish were wedges of hardboiled eggs and black olives.

If Julia hadn’t gone to any Portuguese places, it was unlikely she’d had bacalhoada either. He broke off a chunk of potato and salt cod with his fork, swirling it through the olive oil. “Here, try this.” He offered her a taste, wondering if she’d accept.

She looked at him cautiously with her big sherry-colored eyes. He smiled as meekly as he could manage, when all he wanted to do was toss their bowls aside and drag her into his arms.

But none of that must have shown on his face because she delicately took the bite from his fork, chewing thoughtfully. “Um, very fishy.”

He had to laugh. “Preserving the cod with salt concentrates its flavor.”

“No, it’s good. You know I like seafood.”

“Yes, you do.” They were both children of the ocean. She had made her mother’s New England clam chowder for him once, and he had practically finished the stockpot in one sitting.

Julia ate steadily for a few minutes before speaking. “The villa doesn’t need much work, does it? I mean, you probably use it several times a year.”

“My mother and my sisters do. My nieces and nephews love fishing and exploring the island.” Frank speared an egg wedge. Probably laid fresh this morning in the family henhouse.

“But you don’t stay there.”

“Once in a while.” He’d tried to vacation there a few times, but seeing Julia’s shadow in every room had made his visits short and far between. “There are a couple rooms that need to be painted, some garden work done and a thorough cleaning and airing. Oh, and I bought a beautiful new outdoor whirlpool tub that was just installed yesterday.”

She smiled. “Sounds like a wonderful place for your friend’s sister and her husband.”

“Stefania is a real sweetheart. Hard to believe she’s already twenty-four when I remember how little she was when she came to New York. Poor girl, losing both her parents at once.” Stefania had been inconsolable. Her grandmother, fearing for her granddaughter’s mental health, had sent Stefania to live with George, Jack and Frank. After hiring a housekeeper, the three nineteen-year-old guys raised Stefania through her preteen and teenage years. Frank shuddered at some of those memories.

“What was that shiver for?” Julia was eating heartily now, wiping her bowl with some bread. He was glad to see that since she looked a bit thin.

“Stefania always has been a handful. She once chained herself and her electronic bullhorn to a lamppost outside a certain foreign consulate whose country was not particularly kind to its women and children.”

Julia burst out laughing.

“She called every media outlet in New York, drew a crowd of several hundred enthusiastic supporters and wound up on the national nightly news. When one reporter tried to take her to task for being the product of an outdated patriarchal monarchy, she told her how her own country had granted women the vote twenty years before America and how her outdated patriarchal monarchy had a female literacy rate of one hundred percent compared to that consulate’s country’s dismal rate of fourteen percent.”

“Good for Stefania. Blasted them with facts. And what does she do now?”

“She’s finishing her master’s degree in international politics and will probably stay in New York since George is running their own country very well. She’d let him know if he weren’t.”

“You have to keep politicians on their toes.”

“She also will be selling a commemorative perfume made from lavender at Jack’s French estate. Proceeds go to her women’s and children’s charity.”

“What an accomplished young woman. Give her my best wishes if you get the chance.” Julia sipped her water and pushed her bowl away. “That is so filling. I can’t believe I ate all of that.”

“Our food is comfort food. Nothing low carb or low fat about it.” Frank finished his own helping. “And now for dessert.”

“No, Frank,” she groaned. “I may pop.”

He didn’t want her to go yet, but forcefeeding her was probably not the way to spend more time with her. Maybe bribing her with food? “How about we take a couple pastries with us? We can go for a walk, pick up some coffee and then you can try one.”

She hesitated. “Okay. That way I don’t have to cook dinner for myself.”

He signaled the waiter to order before she changed her mind. The waiter brought him a box of pastries and Frank paid the tab, despite Julia’s protest that she wanted to pitch in. Frank and the waiter gave her such an incredulous glance that she subsided.

Frank hid a smile. He may have been educated in the United States, a more modern version of his ducal ancestors, but there was no way in hell a woman would pay for her own meal on a date with him.

And whether Julia realized it or not, liked it or not, it was a date.

3

JULIA FOUGHT THE BUTTERFLIES in her stomach as she walked next to Frank. Their lunch had felt suspiciously like a date—not that she and Frank had bothered to date very long the first time they’d met.

Her teenage self had wanted to blow off steam after her first stressful year in college, and sexy Frank had been more than willing to help. But it had quickly turned to more.

She sneaked a look at his profile. He’d lost his eager openness of earlier years, but what did she expect? She wasn’t exactly a fresh-faced innocent any longer, either.

Frank caught her looking at him. She thought he’d make something of that, but all he asked was how she’d decided to come to the Azores again.

She chewed her lip for a second and decided to tell him a partial truth. “I was hurt at work and needed to take some time off to recover.”

“What?” He stopped in his tracks. “But you should be at home resting.” He took her hand and tucked it into the bend of his elbow.

She automatically tightened her grip on his bicep. “You’re stronger than you used to be.”

He covered her hand with his. “I work with the men on the estate back home. We still have the big vineyard, several orchards, and we raise cattle, horses and sheep. After college in New York, I apprenticed myself to Benedito and learned as many of the jobs as I could.”

“Which is your favorite part?”

He gave her a startled look, as if he’d never considered that. “My favorite part is making sure my people have steady jobs and can provide for their families.” He smiled down at her. “Although I admit I like working with the bulls. Matching my strength and wits against them keeps me on my toes.”

Frank had always reminded her of a bull—strong, stubborn and sexually insatiable. Memories of his stamina and endurance made her catch her breath and stumble on a loose cobblestone. He steadied her instantly, his arm flexing. “Are you all right?”

“Fine, just the uneven street.” And she was tiring. The emotional expense of meeting Frank again and trying to stay on guard with him during lunch had sapped her strength. And thinking about how they’d spent the majority of their time together having the hottest sex of her life was not exactly keeping her mind on difficult things. Like walking.

Did he remember much about their summer together? He was a rich, famous nobleman, so undoubtedly he’d had plenty of hot sex since then. Probably had women throwing themselves at him every other week. Supermodels, princesses, gold-diggers…and probably very nice ladies who would be thrilled to marry a handsome, sexy man like Franco Duarte das Aguas Santas.

“Come on, Julia.” For a second she thought he was reading her mind. “Let’s go sit in the park.” He deposited her at a bench and disappeared into a nearby café, returning with two paper cups of coffee. “Two creams, two sugars.” He handed her one.

At her surprised look, he stopped. “Or do you drink it differently now?”

“No, that’s just fine.” On her night shifts in the E.R., she’d been teased for putting so much cream and sweetener in her coffee. “And you still drink it black?”

“Of course. It is a sign of extreme manliness.” He laughed and opened the pastry box. “Here are some pastéis de nata.”

“Oh, my,” she whispered. “I haven’t had one in…”

“Eleven years?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes.” She stared at the small round egg custard tarts, almost afraid to take a bite. Why had she ever thought coming back to the Azores was a good idea? These tarts were the apple in her Garden of Eden.

Frank closed the box, and she looked into his sad eyes. “Was it really so terrible, Julia?”

“What?” she asked, startled. How did he know about her accident in the hospital? Not an accident, she mentally corrected herself. It hadn’t been an accident.

“You loved Portuguese food and cooked it every day for us, but you haven’t touched it since we parted, did you? Did our time together give you such terrible memories?”

“Never!” she blurted and then sipped her coffee to look away from him.

He didn’t say anything, only opened the pastry box again. “Open your mouth, my sweet Julia.”

She did open her mouth, but only to tell him she wasn’t his sweet Julia anymore, but he took advantage of it to brush a tart across her lips.

A flaky crumb stuck to her bottom lip and she automatically licked it off.

He inhaled sharply. “That’s it. Now take a bite.”

She clamped her mouth tight and he had the nerve to laugh. “Oh, Julia, you wish to see which one of us is more stubborn? Or are you afraid of a little sweetness?”

She snorted in derision. He pulled the tart away from her and bit into it with his straight white teeth that had never required fillings or braces, she remembered. “Mmm. Oh, so good. Imagine how good it would be after such a long, dry spell.”

Julia had the sneaking suspicion they weren’t discussing tarts anymore. Unless it was her. Hell, she was feeling like a tart now, watching his strong lips nibbling at the crispy pastry crust. He darted his tongue out to lick the soft, creamy egg filling and she wanted those lips, that tongue, to devour her with the same intensity. He finished the pastry and she almost groaned with disappointment. After feeling half-alive for so long, the rush of desire hurt, as if she’d fallen asleep on her arm and had to endure its pins-and-needles reawakening. Much more painful when it was your entire mind and body.