Romancing The Crown: Lorenzo and Anna: The Man Who Would Be King / The Princess And The Mercenary

Then there was the family. Oh, she supposed Jessica was sympathetic enough, but everyone else had snickered at her dreams of being a famous actress and made fun of her behind her back. And she’d hated them for that. For as long as she could remember, she’d been sick of being poor, sick of trying to get ahead and getting nowhere. She’d left home at eighteen because she couldn’t stand it anymore, because Hollywood was the dream factory of the world, and she wanted the life that Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan had. She could act as well as they could—she knew she could!

But she never got the chance. Her parents had died before she could even land her first part—small though it was. Without an agent, the only steady job open to her was waiting tables. Then she’d met Derek and he’d promised her he would make all her dreams come true. But the only part he ever got her was a bit in a porno flick, and what good was that when she couldn’t even brag about it to anyone, least of all her goody-goody sister?

He’d failed her and so had everyone else, and when she was finally forced to return to Colorado and her hometown of Shady Rock because she didn’t have a dime to her name, she’d been so bitter and disillusioned that she hadn’t come out of her apartment for days. That was weeks ago, and nothing had changed. All she’d been able to see ahead of her were days and weeks and months of blandness and poverty for the rest of her life.

Until now. Now she was going to have the last laugh.

Anticipation glinting in her blue eyes, she whirled around, looking around her messy apartment for her purse. She had to go to Jessica’s, had to see for herself that Joe and the prince were one and the same man. She didn’t understand what the prince was doing hanging around her sister—or why he didn’t seem to want to be found—but she didn’t care. As soon as she verified he was her man, she was calling King Marcus of Montebello. By the time she got through talking to him, she was going to be richer than Cleopatra!

Already spending the money in her mind, she had just found her purse and was in the process of digging for her car keys when there was a knock at her door. “Damn!” she swore. If that was old lady Baker from next door, there to complain because her TV was too loud again, she was going to tell her off. Let her go to the apartment manager—she didn’t care if they threw her out on her ear. She was about to come into money!

Prepared to tell the old goat exactly what she thought of her, she stormed across to the door and jerked it open, only to gasp, “Jessica! What are you doing here? I was just on my way out to the ranch to see you.”

“Oh, Ursula!” her sister sobbed. “I need your help. Joe left me!”

“What?!”

Caught up in her own misery, Jessica didn’t even notice that her sister paled at her words. Her heart hurting and tears flooding her soft, wide blue eyes, she stumbled into the apartment like a wounded animal and fell into Ursula’s arms. “I don’t know what happened,” she sobbed. “One second, everything was fine, and the next, we were arguing and he walked out.”

“What do you mean he walked out?” she demanded, awkwardly patting her. “He’ll be back, of course. He just needs some time to cool off. You’ll see. Leave him alone tonight, and by morning, he’ll be ready to kiss and make up.”

“No, he won’t,” she sniffed, pulling back to wipe her eyes. “He’s gone to find himself.”

Her heart breaking, Jessica knew she shouldn’t have said any more. Joe was entitled to his privacy, and even though he’d only met Ursula once, he hadn’t trusted her from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. He’d asked Jessica to keep his secret to herself, and she should have done that. But she dissolved in tears just at the thought of never seeing him again, and she had to talk to someone. And even if they weren’t all that close, Ursula was her sister, and the only family she had left now that her parents were gone.

“What do you mean he’s gone to find himself? Where?” she asked sharply. “What do you know about Joe, Jess? And don’t start crying again, dammit! This is important. Has he gone home?”

“I don’t know,” she sniffed. “He doesn’t know where home is.”

Ursula had never had much patience with emotional displays, and when Jessica saw her start to scowl, she cried, “It’s true! He has amnesia. That’s why he jumped at the chance to work for me when he came to the ranch all those months ago. He had nowhere else to go!”

Ursula had heard her fair share of tall tales, but this one was over the top. The man was a prince, for heaven’s sake! His family was rolling in dough, and as King Marcus’s only son, he stood to inherit a lion’s share of that. A man didn’t just forget that. Not unless he was crazy or something, and from what she’d seen of Joe the only time they’d met, he was a far cry from crazy. So what kind of scam was he trying to pull? Whatever it was, he had to know he wasn’t going to get away with it. She’d make sure of it, she vowed grimly.

“Let me get this straight,” she said with a frown. “He doesn’t know who he is, but he’s gone to find himself. How the hell is he going to do that, Jess, if he doesn’t know who he is?”

Tears still streaming down her face, she couldn’t answer that one. “I don’t know!” she cried. “I just know he’s gone, and I don’t know where. And I never got to tell him—”

When she broke off abruptly, Ursula pinned her with a hard look that would brook no opposition. “You never told him what? Tell me, Jess. You might as well. You know I’m going to find out anyway.”

She’d always had a way of getting secrets out of her little sister, and they both knew it. It only took another chiding look for Jessica to cave in like a stack of dominoes. Hugging herself, she blurted out, “I’m pregnant! And Joe doesn’t know.”

Stunned, Ursula just looked at her. Then her condition—and its repercussions—registered, and with a shriek, she swept Jessica into her arms. “Honey, that’s wonderful!” If they didn’t have the prince, they had his heir! And that sweet, adorable baby that was destined to be king would be her nephew! “When did you find out? Why haven’t you told me? Here, sit down. We have to make plans!”

Hustling Jessica over to the nearest chair, she plopped her down in it, then grabbed a footstool for her to rest her feet on. “Can I get you something? Are you drinking plenty of milk? We want the baby to have strong bones. When’s he due?”

“I don’t even know if he is a he,” her sister replied. Frowning in confusion, she looked at Ursula like she’d suddenly grown two heads. “This wasn’t the reaction I expected from you. I thought you’d be upset with me…especially now that Joe’s taken off. How am I going to run the ranch and have a baby? There’s so much to do around there already. I can’t do everything by myself.”

Far from concerned, Ursula only laughed. “Don’t you worry about that, honey. Trust me, you’re going to be well taken care of—Joe’s family will see to that.”

“His family? What are you talking about? I told you he has amnesia. He doesn’t even know what his real name is, let alone who his family is.”

“He may not,” her sister retorted slyly, “but I do.” Snatching up the morning newspaper, she opened it to the front page and wasn’t surprised to find Prince Lucas’s picture there for all the world to see. “Look,” she said, pushing the paper at her. “You fell in love with the prince, Cinderella! His real name is Prince Lucas Sebastiani of Montebello.”

Not even looking at the picture, Jessica laughed. “Right! And I’m Queen Elizabeth. Stop fooling around, Ursula.”

“I’m not joking. Look!”

With the picture shoved right under her nose, she had no choice but to look at it. Humoring her, she said, “Okay, so he’s a prince—”

Her gaze dropped to the smiling man in the picture, and between one heartbeat and the next, her world turned upside down. Though the beard was gone and the face younger and less care-and weatherworn, she couldn’t deny the resemblance. Stunned, she gasped, “Oh, my God, that’s Joe! How—”

“No,” her sister corrected her, “that’s Prince Lucas. Read the article, Jess.”

Her blood roaring in her ears, Jessica tried to read the article that accompanied the bold headlines, but all she saw was the prince’s name before her gaze was tugged back to the man in the picture. Joe. It had to be him. There couldn’t be another man in the world who had that same engaging smile and twinkle in his eye. But he wasn’t a prince. How could he be? He was just a drifter who’d showed up at the ranch one day looking for work.

“I don’t understand,” she said huskily, glancing back up at Ursula in confusion. “How can this be?”

“He crashed his plane into the side of a mountain somewhere outside of Boulder last year, and he’s been missing ever since. He must have hit his head, sweetie.”

“And all this time, he’s been wandering around, trying to find out who he is. My God, that’s so sad! I’ve got to find him!”

She would have struggled up from her chair and hurried out to her truck to begin immediately looking for him, but Ursula moved lightning quick to stop her. “Oh, no you don’t! The prince can take care of himself. You’ve got other more important things to do—like taking care of yourself and the baby. I think you need to go to Montebello.”

“What?!”

“It’s the only logical thing to do,” she retorted, already picturing where she would live in the royal palace. She might even find herself a royal husband! “The king needs to know that he’s about to become a grandfather. I’ll go with you to tell him. He can see that you’re taken care of—after all, you’re the mother of his grandson. Then when his son is found, he’ll make sure he does the right thing and marries you.”

“Oh, no! I would never use the baby to force a proposal out of Joe,” she said, horrified. “He doesn’t even know I’m pregnant.”

“He’ll know soon enough when we find him.”

“No! If he loves me, he’ll come back to me without knowing about the baby.”

“But the baby could one day be king of Montebello,” she pointed out. “You have to tell the king!”

Her heart bruised and aching, Jessica didn’t care two cents about that. It was Joe she cared about, Joe she loved. She desperately needed him to return that love, and for the last few months, she’d convinced herself that he did. She’d seen the emotion in his eyes, felt it in his touch, tasted it in his kiss. But he’d left without ever saying the words, and that hurt.

“The only thing I care about is Joe,” she cried as tears once again welled in her eyes. “What if he never comes back?”

But even as she cried out in pain, memories stirred, and suddenly, she had a vague recollection of Joe talking about his duty to himself and others. And just that easily, she knew Ursula was right. He had left her to go back to his real life! And he hadn’t said a word about who he was. Why? Because he was afraid she would want something from him or his family.

Hurt, her pride stung, she wiped away the last of her tears and squared her shoulders. He didn’t have to worry about her trying to contact him, she thought grimly. It wasn’t going to happen.

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