Princess in the Making

In hindsight, confronting him so directly probably hadn’t been her best idea ever. She’d always had strong convictions, but she’d managed, for the most part, to keep them in check. But that smug look he’d flashed her, the arrogance that seemed to ooze from every pore, had raked across her frayed nerves like barbed wire. Before she could think better of it, her mouth was moving and words were spilling out.

She stole a glance at him, but he was still focused on his phone. On a scale of one to ten he was a solid fifteen in the looks department. Too bad he didn’t have the personality to match.

Listen to yourself.

She gave her head a mental shake. She had known the man a total of ten minutes. Was she unfairly jumping to conclusions, judging him without all the facts? And in doing so, was she no better than him?

Yes, he was acting like a jerk, but maybe he had a good reason. If her own father announced his intention to marry a much younger woman whom Vanessa had never even met, she would be wary too. But if he were a filthy rich king to boot, she would definitely question the woman’s motives. Marcus was probably just concerned for his father, as any responsible son should be. And she couldn’t let herself forget that he’d lost his mother less than a year ago. Gabriel had intimated that Marcus had taken her death very hard. He was probably still hurting, and maybe thought she was trying to replace the queen, which could not be further from the truth.

Looking at it that way made her feel a little better.

But what if he disliked her so much that he tried to come between her and Gabriel? Did she want to go through life feeling like an intruder in her own home? Or would it never feel like home to her?

Was this just another huge mistake?

Her heart began to pound and she forced herself to take a deep breath and relax. She was getting way ahead of herself. She didn’t even know for certain that she wanted to marry Gabriel. Wasn’t that the whole point of this trip? She could still go home if things didn’t work out. Six weeks was a long time, and a lot could happen between now and then. For now she wouldn’t let herself worry about it, or let it dash her excitement. She was determined to make the best of this, and if it didn’t work out, she could chalk it up to another interesting experience and valuable life lesson.

She smiled to herself, a feeling of peace settling over her, and gazed out the window as the limo wound its way through the charming coastal village of Bocas, where shops, boutiques and restaurants lined cobblestone streets crowded with tourists. As they pulled up the deep slope to the front gates of the palace, in the distance she could see the packed public beach and harbor where everything from sailboats and yachts to a full-size cruise ship were docked.

She’d read that the coastal tourist season stretched from April through November, and in the colder months the tourist trade moved inland, into the mountains, where snowboarding and skiing were the popular activities. According to Gabriel, much of the nation’s economy relied on tourism, which had taken a financial hit the last couple of years.

The gates swung open as they approached and when the palace came into view, Vanessa’s breath caught. It looked like an oasis with its Roman architecture, sprawling fountains, green rolling lawns and lush gardens.

Things were definitely starting to look up.

She turned to Marcus, who sat across from her looking impatient, as though he couldn’t wait to be out of the car and rid of her.

“Your home is beautiful,” she told him.

He glanced over at her. “Had you expected otherwise?”

Way to be on the defensive, dude. “What I meant was, the photos I’ve seen don’t do it justice. Being here in person is really a thrill.”

“I can only imagine,” he said, with barely masked sarcasm.

Hell, who was she kidding, he didn’t even try to mask it. He really wasn’t going to cut her a break, was he?

She sighed inwardly as they pulled up to the expansive marble front steps bracketed by towering white columns. At eighty thousand square feet the palace was larger than the White House, yet only a fraction of the size of Buckingham Palace.

The instant the door opened, Marcus was out of the car, leaving it to the driver to help Vanessa with her things. She gathered Mia, who was still out cold, into her arms and followed after Marcus, who stood waiting for her just inside the massive, two-story high double doors.

The interior was just as magnificent as the exterior, with a massive, circular foyer decorated in creamy beiges with marble floors polished to a gleaming shine. A ginormous crystal chandelier hung in the center, sparkling like diamonds in the sunshine streaming through windows so tall they met the domed ceiling. Hugging both sides of the curved walls, grand staircases with wrought iron railings branched off to the right and the left and wound up to the second floor. In the center of it all sat a large, intricately carved marble table with an enormous arrangement of fresh cut exotic flowers, whose sweet fragrance scented the air. The impression was a mix of tradition and modern sophistication. Class and a bit of excess.

Only then, as Vanessa gazed around in wonder, did the reality of her situation truly sink in. Her head spun and her heart pounded. This amazing place could be her home. Mia could grow up here, have the best of everything, and even more important than that, a man who would accept her as his own daughter. That alone was like a dream come true.

She wanted to tell Marcus how beautiful his home was, and how honored she felt to be there, but knew it would probably earn her another snotty response, so she kept her mouth shut.

From the hallway that extended past the stairs, a line of nearly a dozen palace employees filed into the foyer and Marcus introduced her. Celia, the head housekeeper, was a tall, stern-looking woman dressed in a starched gray uniform, her silver hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her three charges were similarly dressed, but younger and very plain looking. No makeup, no jewelry, identical bland expressions.

Vanessa smiled and nodded to each one in turn.

“This is Camille,” Celia told her in English, in a flat tone that perfectly matched her dour expression, signaling for the youngest of the three to step forward. “She will be your personal maid for the duration of your stay.”

Duration of her stay? Were they anticipating that she wouldn’t be sticking around? Or more to the point, hoping she wouldn’t?

“It’s nice to meet you, Camille,” she said with a smile, offering her hand.

Looking a little nervous, the young woman took it, her eyes turned downward, and with a thick accent said, “Ma’am.”

The butler, George, wore tails and a starched, high collar. He was skin and bones with a slight slouch, and looked as though he was fast approaching the century mark … if he hadn’t hit it already. His staff consisted of two similarly dressed assistants, both young and capable looking, plus a chef and baker, a man and a woman, dressed in white, and each looking as though they frequently tested the cuisine.

Marcus turned to George and gestured to the luggage the driver had set inside the door. Without a word the two younger men jumped into action.

A smartly dressed middle-aged woman stepped forward and introduced herself as Tabitha, the king’s personal secretary.

“If there is anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask,” she said in perfect English, her expression blank. Then she gestured to the young woman standing beside her, who wore a uniform similar to those of the maids. “This is Karin, the nanny. She will take care of your daughter.”

Vanessa was a little uncomfortable with the idea of a total stranger watching her baby, but she knew Gabriel would never expose Mia to someone he didn’t trust implicitly.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Vanessa said, resisting the urge to ask the young woman to list her credentials.

“Ma’am,” she said, nodding politely.

“Please, call me Vanessa. In fact, I’ve never been one to stand on formality. Everyone should feel free to use my first name.”

The request received no reaction whatsoever from the staff. No one even cracked a smile. Were they always so deadpan, or did they simply not like her? Had they decided, as Marcus had, that she wasn’t to be trusted?

That would truly suck. And she would have to work extra hard to prove them wrong.

Marcus turned to her. “I’ll show you to your quarters.”

Without waiting for a reply, he swiveled and headed up the stairs to the left, at a pace so brisk she nearly had to jog to keep up with him.

Unlike the beige theme of the foyer, the second floor incorporated rich hues of red, orange and purple, which personally she never would have chosen, but it managed to look elegant without being too gaudy.

Marcus led her down a long, carpeted hall.

“So, is the staff always so cheerful?” she asked him.

“It’s not enough that they’ll cater to your every whim,” Marcus said over his shoulder. “They have to be happy about it?”

With a boss who clearly didn’t like her, why would they?

At the end of the hallway they turned right and he opened the first door on his left. Gabriel told her that she would be staying in the largest of the guest suites, but she hadn’t anticipated just how large it would be. The presidential suite at the hotel where she worked paled in comparison. The main room was big and spacious with high ceilings and tall windows that bracketed a pair of paned French doors. The color scheme ran to muted shades of green and yellow.

There was a cozy sitting area with overstuffed, comfortable-looking furniture situated around a massive fireplace. There was also a dining alcove, and a functional desk flanked by built-in bookcases whose shelves were packed with hardback books and knickknacks.

“It’s lovely,” she told Marcus. “Yellow is my favorite color.”

“The bedroom is that way.” Marcus gestured toward the door at the far end of the suite.

She crossed the plush carpet to the bedroom and peeked inside, her breath catching. It was pure luxury with its white four-poster king-size bed, another fireplace and a huge, wall-mounted flat screen television. But she didn’t see the crib Gabriel had promised.

The weight of her sleeping daughter was starting to make her arms ache, so she very gently laid Mia down in the center of the bed and stacked fluffy pillows all around her, in case she woke up and rolled over. She didn’t even stir.

On her way back to the living area Vanessa peered inside the walk-in closet where her bags were waiting for her, and found that it was large enough to hold a dozen of her wardrobes. The bathroom, with its soaking tub and glass-enclosed shower, had every modern amenity known to man.

She stepped back into the living space to find Marcus standing by the door, arms crossed, checking his watch impatiently.

“There’s no place for Mia to sleep,” she told him, and at his blank expression added, “Gabriel said there would be a crib for her. She moves around a lot in her sleep, so putting her in a normal bed, especially one so high off the ground, is out of the question.”

“There’s a nursery down the hall.”

There was an unspoken “duh” at the end of that sentence.

“Then I hope there’s a baby monitor I can use. Otherwise, how will I hear her if she wakes in the middle of the night?” Though Mia slept through most nights, Vanessa was still accustomed to the random midnight diaper changes and feedings, and an occasional bad dream.

He looked puzzled. “That would be the responsibility of the nanny.”

Right, the nanny. Vanessa had just assumed the nanny was there for the times when Mia needed a babysitter, not as a full-time caregiver. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Vanessa worked such long hours, and was away from home often. Part of this trip was about spending more time with her daughter.

“And where does the nanny sleep?” she asked Marcus.

“Her bedroom is attached to the nursery,” he said, in a tone that suggested she was asking stupid questions. In his world it was probably perfectly natural for the staff to take full responsibility for the children’s care, but she didn’t live in his world. Not even close. Surely he knew that, didn’t he?

She would have to carefully consider whether or not she wanted the nanny to take over the nightly duties. She didn’t want to be difficult, or insult Karin, who was probably more than capable, but when it came to Mia, Vanessa didn’t fool around. If necessary, she would ask Marcus to move the crib into her bedroom, and if he had a problem with that, she would just sleep in the nursery until Gabriel returned. Hopefully it wouldn’t be more than a few days.

“If there’s nothing else you need,” Marcus said, edging toward the door. He really couldn’t wait to get away, could he? Well, she wasn’t about to let him off the hook just yet.

“What if I do need something?” she asked. “How do I find someone?”

“There’s a phone on the desk, and a list of extensions.”

“How will I know who to call?”

He didn’t roll his eyes, but she could see that he wanted to. “For a beverage or food, you call the kitchen. If you need clean towels or fresh linens, you would call the laundry … you get the point.”

She did, although she didn’t appreciate the sarcasm. “Suppose I need you. Is your number on there?”

“No, it isn’t, and even if it were, I wouldn’t be available.”

“Never?”

A nerve in his jaw ticked. “In my father’s absence, I have a duty to my country.”

Why did he have to be so defensive? “Marcus,” she said, in a voice that she hoped conveyed sincerity, “I understand how you must be feeling, but—”

“You have no idea how I’m feeling,” he ground out, and the level of animosity in his tone drew her back a step. “My father asked me to get you settled in, and I’ve done that. Now, if there’s nothing else.”

Someone cleared their throat and they both looked over to see the nanny standing in the doorway.

“I’ll leave you two to discuss the child’s care,” Marcus said, making a hasty escape, and any hope she’d had that they might be friends went out the door with him.

“Come in,” she told Karin.

Looking a little nervous, the girl stepped inside. “Shall I take Mia so you can rest?”

She still wasn’t sure about leaving Mia in a stranger’s care, but she was exhausted, and she would have a hard time relaxing with Mia in bed with her. If Vanessa fell too deeply asleep, Mia could roll off and hurt herself. And the last thing she needed was Marcus thinking that not only was she a money-grubbing con artist, but a terrible mother as well.

“I really could use a nap,” she told Karin, “but if she wakes up crying, I’d like you to bring her right to me. She’s bound to be disoriented waking up in a strange place with someone she doesn’t know.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Please, call me Vanessa.”

Karin nodded, but looked uncomfortable with the idea.

“Mia is asleep on the bed. Why don’t I carry her, so I can see where the nursery is, and you can bring her bag?”

Karin nodded again.

Not very talkative, was she?

Vanessa scooped up Mia, who was still sleeping deeply, and rolled her suitcase out to Karin, who led her two doors down and across the hall to the nursery. It was smaller than her own suite, with a play area and a sleeping area, and it was decorated gender-neutral. The walls were pale green, the furniture white and expensive-looking, and in the play area rows of shelves were packed with toys for children of every age. It was clearly a nursery designed for guests, and she supposed that if she did decide to stay, Mia would get her own nursery closer to Gabriel’s bedroom.

The idea of sharing a bedroom with Gabriel, and a bed, made her stomach do a nervous little flip-flop.

Everything will work out.

She laid Mia in the crib and covered her with a light blanket, and the baby didn’t even stir. The poor little thing was exhausted.

“Maybe I should unpack her things,” she told Karin.

“I’ll do it, ma’am.”

Vanessa sighed. So it was still “ma’am”? That was something they would just have to work on. “Thank you.”

She kissed the tips of her fingers, then gently pressed them to Mia’s forehead. “Sleep well, sweet baby.”

After reiterating that Karin was to come get her when Mia woke, she walked back to her suite. She pulled her cell phone out of her bag and checked for calls, but there were none. She dialed Gabriel’s cell number, but it went straight to voice mail.

She glanced over at the sofa, thinking she would sleep there for an hour or so, but the bed, with its creamy silk comforter and big, fluffy pillows, called to her. Setting her phone on the bedside table, she lay back against the pillows, sinking into the softness of the comforter. She let her eyes drift closed, and when she opened them again, the room was dark.

Three

After leaving Miss Reynolds’s suite, Marcus stopped by his office, where his assistant Cleo, short for Cleopatra—her parents were Egyptian and very eccentric—sat at her computer playing her afternoon game of solitaire.

“Any word from my father?” he asked.

Attention on the screen, she shook her head.

“I’m glad to see that you’re using your time productively,” he teased, as he often did when he caught her playing games.

And obviously she didn’t take him seriously, because she didn’t even blink, or look away from the cards on the screen. “Keeps the brain sharp.”

She may have been pushing seventy, but no one could argue that she wasn’t still sharp as a pin. She’d been with the royal family since the 1970s, and used to be his mother’s secretary. Everyone expected she would retire after the queen’s death, and enjoy what would be a very generous pension, but she hadn’t been ready to stop working. She claimed it kept her young. And since her husband passed away two years ago, Marcus suspected she was lonely.

She finished the game and quit out of the software, a group photo of her eight grandchildren flashing on to her computer screen. She turned to Marcus and caught him in the middle of a yawn and frowned. “Tired?”

After a month-long battle with insomnia, he was always tired. And 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.”