The Trouble with Mojitos: A Royal Romance to Remember!

“Didn’t look like much of a celebration. The night manager and barman carried you up here. It was either that or jail.”

“In which case, I thank you. You have a kind heart.”

She didn’t seem to like the compliment. Her eyes spat blue flame. “I didn’t do it for you.”

“Ah yes, I promised you an introduction to the mayor. You didn’t take my advice though. Didn’t the hotel boutique have a dress?”

Although her jeans were a snug fit so they might do the job too. They were certainly making his mouth dry. Or maybe that was just thirst.

“I was a tad preoccupied this morning.” She pursed her lips again, and he found his gaze drawn to her mouth. Against his will, he licked his own lips.

She blushed, her pale skin lighting up as the heat spread. Then she dropped her gaze and rose from the bed. “Now you’re finally awake, take a shower, and I’ll order you some breakfast.”

“I’ll have toast, plain, and I like my coffee black and sweet.”

Kenzie arched an eyebrow. “Anything else you’d like?” He almost heard the sarcastic Your Highness she bit back. He swallowed bitter laughter. She had no idea how close to the truth she was. Or how far.

While she stalked off to call room service, he slipped into the bathroom. The shower’s temperature was set on cold, and by the time he’d managed to crank up the heat, he was well and truly awake. He was also starving.

He didn’t have much experience of hangovers but he was pretty sure this level of alertness was unusual. Weren’t people supposed to throw up after they’d been drunk? He couldn’t remember being sick. The concierge’s grandmother could rest peacefully in her grave. Perhaps he should finance the concierge in a little sideline herbal remedy business.

Rik discarded the idea as quickly as he’d discarded every other Plan B he’d come up with these last few months. There wasn’t a lot that an ex-prince could do without seeming like a loser or just plain desperate. Which he was. There was also only so much paradise one man could take. If he didn’t find something soon to fill his days he was going to go insane.

But at least he still had his dignity – as long as the girl in the other room never got wind of who he was. A sordid night in a woman’s hotel room was exactly the kind of lurid headline he didn’t need.

Like mother, like son. He could picture it already.

He towelled himself dry, dressed in his jeans, and emerged from the bathroom just as the room service waiter rolled in a trolley of pastries and steaming coffee. His stomach turned over, in a good way this time.

Kenzie had her back to him. She signed for the meal, closed the door behind the waiter, and turned.

She coughed.

“Please put your shirt back on.” Her voice sounded strangled.

“Do I offend your modesty?” he asked, feeling an insane urge to grin at her reaction.

She shook her head and swallowed again. “You have tattoos.”

“No, really? How did that happen?” He looked down at himself, eyes wide in mock shock.

She frowned.

“You don’t like tattoos?”

“I love tattoos.” She turned away again, fussing over the trolley and pouring coffee.

This time he grinned. And didn’t bother putting his shirt back on.

“Those tattoos aren’t new,” she said as she handed him a cup of coffee, careful not to look at him.

“No, they’re not.” They’d been his one and only form of rebellion, done right here in the islands on a holiday a couple of years ago. He’d had to be careful after that to always keep his shoulders and upper arms covered. It wouldn’t do for the heir to a European throne to be seen sporting tattoos. Not even his parents had known they existed.

Now that he was free to do as he pleased he still kept them covered. They mocked him. The dragon of Westerwald that snaked across his shoulder blades and down his arms. The emblem of a nation he didn’t belong to. Had never belonged to, it turned out, though it was the only home he’d ever known.

These were tattoos that no person but he and the artist had ever laid eyes on before today. Kenzie had no idea how privileged she was. He could only blame the lapse on last night’s over-indulgence.

He set down his undrunk coffee and pulled his long-sleeved shirt back on over his head. “You can look again now.”

She cast a furtive glance his way, long enough for him to catch the heated flush rising up her cheeks again. Interesting. So she had a serious thing for men with tattoos. And she didn’t want to.

He was sure he could change her mind.

Now where had that thought come from? He’d never been a seducer of women. In his old life he’d had a girlfriend for over a year and barely tried for more than a polite goodnight kiss. Teresa hadn’t made his blood boil, and that’s exactly why he’d liked her. She’d been cool, calm and rational. She’d have made the perfect Archduchess. She would never have done anything sordid, would never have created a scandal.

She probably wouldn’t have approved of his tattoos either.

Kenzie was everything Teresa wasn’t. She wasn’t cool and collected. She wasn’t a style icon. And her emotions were far too easy to read. In spite of the vulnerable eyes and heart-shaped face, sensuality smouldered beneath the surface. Emotional, sexy, complicated … she was everything he’d avoided in his old life.

She was everything he no longer needed to avoid.

He found himself grinning again. It felt good to smile. Strange, but good.

“Are you going to stand there all day, or are you going to drink your coffee so we can get moving?” she asked impatiently, perching on the edge of the sofa.

Was she always this bossy or was it just his charm that brought out her better side?

“Yes ma’am.” He gulped down the coffee, grabbed a slice of toast, and sat beside her on the sofa. Since he’d woken in the bed, she must have slept here last night, judging by the blankets and pillows piled at one end. She could have made him sleep on the sofa. However much she chose to deny it, Kenzie had a kind heart.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” he asked.

“I did. While you were still snoring.”

“I don’t snore.”

She smiled, and it was an impish look. Forget smouldering sensuality. He’d guess she could be a downright bad girl if she wanted to be.

He set down his empty coffee cup, grabbed a cheese croissant from the basket and stood. “Where are my car keys? Let’s roll.”

She shook her head. “You’re not driving. I don’t trust you.”

It wasn’t just his driving. There was something in the rapid shuttering of her expression that told him exactly what she thought: it was him she didn’t trust.

It was a moment before he realised his mouth had dropped open. No one, ever, had thought him untrustworthy. And no one had ever looked at him the way Kenzie just had – as if he were a bug squashed beneath her shoe. Nope, no matter how attractive she found him, she didn’t like him.

He closed his mouth and followed her out into the corridor. The sickening feeling of disorientation was back in full force, and the unusual urge to grin deserted him.

***

The magical potion had definitely worn off. Rik clutched his head as Kenzie’s compact rental car bumped over the potholed road into town. “Could you possibly try not to hit every single one?” he groaned.

The look Kenzie cast him was beyond withering. “Are all the roads on the island like this one?”

“No. Most are worse.”

Only one tarred road circled the island, connecting the tourist resorts with the main town. Inland, where only the most adventurous visitors ventured, the roads were nothing but dirt.

She swerved to avoid the next major pothole, which was even worse than bumping through it. Rik hung onto the car door, feeling more than a little green. And she hadn’t trusted him to drive?

“You’re not booked into the hotel,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road. “Do you live here on Los Pajaros?”

“Something like that.”

He didn’t need to see her to know she had rolled her eyes. “You’re not good with small talk, are you?”

He was a master at small talk, had been trained in the art from the time he learned to talk. Along with many other skills that were all but useless now.

He shrugged and looked back out the window. On their right the sea flashed silver and inviting through the dense foliage that separated the road from the beach.

The undergrowth grew thinner, and the simple wooden dwellings clustered along the road grew more numerous. Then they crested the final rise and Fredrikshafen lay below them, a small town of broad avenues and colourful buildings.

Beyond the jumble of buildings lay the wide harbour. A vast passenger liner, winking white in the sunlight, dominated the largest of the piers that jutted out into the bay. Colour and vibrancy and light dazzled their eyes.

Kenzie sucked in a breath.

“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?” he asked, managing a grin now that the ordeal of the drive was behind them.

She nodded. “It’s growing on me.”

The place was growing on him too. He’d come to Los Pajaros because he had nowhere else to go. There could be worse places to lose oneself.

The mayor’s office was housed in a white colonial building on an esplanade lined with scraggy palms that overlooked the harbour. Kenzie circled the block until she found a parking space and finally turned to Rik. “You sure you’re up for this?”

She wasn’t just asking how his hangover was doing. She wanted to know if he could really help her. This was his last chance to back out.

But he didn’t ever back out. No matter how much he wanted to run away and hide. We never back down from unpleasant tasks, his father had often said. We face them with our heads high and our hearts strong. He flinched.

“My headache’s back. Thanks for asking.” He unclicked the seatbelt and ignored her frown.

Head high. He hadn’t been doing a lot of that lately.

Kenzie followed him through the doors that stood open into a double volume courtyard fringed by potted palms. A military guard, sweating in his uniform, waved them past the security desk with nothing more than a curious look. Everything in the space was white, or had once been, and streaked with strips of light that fell through the high windows over the majestic staircase rising up before them.

The ground floor offices seemed deserted, though he could hear the distant murmur of voices.

Rik took the stairs two at a time, not waiting for Kenzie to follow. The sooner he got her in to see the mayor, the sooner he could leave. He’d take a taxi back to the resort to fetch his car, then … that was as far as his thoughts could take him. What then?

The stairs diverged. To the right lay the main reception and the airless waiting room. He took the left flight, rising to a corridor that overlooked the courtyard. The first office at the top of the stairs was spacious and air-conditioned. The middle-aged secretary within barely glanced up from her computer screen as Rik tapped on the door and pushed it all the way open. “How may I help you, Mr … ?”

“You can call me Rik.”

She looked up at him over the top of her tortoiseshell spectacles and her eyes widened. He had her full attention now. This was the one place in the islands where his face was instantly recognised. She blushed and smoothed back her thick swathe of dark hair. “Oh, I’m so sorry … ”

“Is the mayor in?”

“Yes, of course he is.” Then she caught sight of Kenzie and her voice faltered. “That is … ” She dropped her eyes. Meaning he was in for Rik, but not for anyone else. Now that was the kind of reaction he was more used to getting.

For the first time he wondered how it might feel to be the one forced to wait in the airless waiting room. At least he hadn’t yet fallen so far.

“My friend here would like a few minutes with the mayor, if that’s at all possible?”

The secretary hesitated, casting another glance past his shoulder to Kenzie. Rik had spent enough time on Los Pajaros to interpret that look. The only women with any authority in these islands – the only women who’d have any business with the mayor – were mature and respected. They weren’t pretty young things.

He arched an eyebrow.

“I’ll check.” The secretary slid out of her chair and hurried to the connecting door, eager to shift the decision of whether to let the foreign girl into the inner sanctum to someone else.

She reappeared scarcely a moment later, smoothing her hair once again. “You may go in.”

Rik held the door to the mayor’s office open for Kenzie.

“Bravo,” she whispered as she brushed past.

He didn’t respond. The swift contact between their bodies, the whiff of feminine perfume, her low husky whisper, and the sudden, electrifying heat that flashed between them left him momentarily dazzled. Last night’s bender was having some interesting side effects.

The mayor’s office was of colonial proportions, dwarfing the massive mahogany desk he sat behind. The purr of the air-con was subtle, but its effect was not.

The mayor’s tense smile suggested impatience beneath the politeness as he rose to his full height. “How may I assist you, Your … ”

Behind Kenzie’s back, Rik furiously shook his head as he cut him off. “Thank you for seeing us, sir. This is Kenzie Cole and she has a request to make of you.”

“More of a business proposition.” She turned on the same megawatt smile she’d used on him the night before, to pretty much the same effect. The mayor’s smile looked a little less forced as he waved them to sit.

Not one to tempt fate, Rik stepped back. When Kenzie turned to look for him, he shrugged as if to say, the floor’s all yours, and leaned back against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest.

She turned her back on him, focussing all her attention on the mayor, and Rik breathed an internal sigh of relief.

Kenzie was pretty impressive when she turned on the charm. Just flirtatious enough to catch the mayor’s interest, just professional enough to be taken seriously. She pulled out a folder from the small rucksack she carried, presenting facts and figures. The mayor leaned closer at the words ‘jobs for your laid off ship builders.’

Even Rik stood straighter. Kenzie had done her homework.

Next to tourism, the yacht building business had been Los Pajaros’ biggest employer until the recession slashed the demand for such luxuries. Kenzie proposed using the workers who’d lost their jobs to build the pirate ships needed for the film. “It would only be a few months’ work, of course, but that’s better than nothing, isn’t it?”

She sent the mayor another winning smile and he melted. Rik nearly did too. Or he would have, if his entire body hadn’t been hard.

The mayor beamed. “You have my full support. I will email the harbour master and ask him to provide you with a boat and an escort. Where do you want to take your photographs?”

Kenzie pulled aerial maps from her folder. “These are the islands I’d like to visit, especially these two – Corona and Tortuga.”

Rik stiffened.

The mayor leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Not possible.”

Kenzie’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Why not? You just told me I had your full support.”

The mayor cast a beseeching look at Rik.

He pushed away from the doorframe. “Corona is private property.”

Her brow furrowed. He didn’t need to be a mind reader to know she was wondering why Corona was marked on every map as government property if it was private. “And Tortuga?”

Rik and the mayor exchanged a look, and it was Rik who answered again. “Tortuga is a breeding ground for sea turtles.”

“It’s not a nature sanctuary – I checked. Besides, the hatching season will be well over by the time we shoot.”

The mayor’s mouth set in a grim line. “No one from these islands has set foot on Isla Tortuga in over three centuries.”

The disbelief on Kenzie’s face turned to incredulity. “Why ever not?”

The mayor squirmed. “It’s haunted.”

Rik gave her credit for not laughing.

“I’m not superstitious. If our film crew aren’t from these islands and don’t mind working there, would you give us permission to film on Tortuga?”

He gave her credit for not giving up either.

Again, the mayor glanced at Rik, this time for approval. The poor man’s dilemma was clear. The local economy could do with an injection of capital and a higher international profile. But Tortuga …

Rik nodded.

“I will,” the mayor answered Kenzie.

“Thank you. Is there anyone who isn’t from these islands who could take me there to photograph the place?”

The mayor paused only a fraction of a second before he looked at Rik. “You have a boat. Could you take her?”

Oh no. That wasn’t part of his plan for the rest of the day. Or ever.

Not to mention the mere thought of being on a boat was making him feel green again. He shook his head. “Not today.”

“Do you have anything better to do tomorrow, then?”

Of course the mayor knew he had nothing better to do. The mayor knew everything that went on around these islands.

Kenzie also turned to look at him, expectant. But where the mayor’s eyes held hope, hers held an entirely different expression. Reluctance.

She’d felt the attraction too. And she didn’t want to.

Rik shut his eyes, blocking out both their faces.

He knew exactly what tomorrow held. It would be the same as every other day. The sun would shine. He’d wake late, and go for a swim to clear the fuzziness in his head. By the time his arms and legs were too tired to swim any further, he’d wash up on the beach. And that’s when the emptiness would hit.

He would spend the rest of his day trying to fill that emptiness. He would run on the beach, or take Adam’s boat out, or he’d drink. And he’d already done enough of all these things to last a lifetime.

Even if it was just a boat ride to Tortuga, it beat spending another day in Adam’s guesthouse while the walls pressed in on him. But he was done with helping people, unless there was something in it for him. And there was only one thing Kenzie had that he wanted…

Now that was an interesting idea.

He shrugged. “Okay.”

Relief crossed the mayor’s face. He turned back to Kenzie. “If your director likes the island, then you build your boats on Los Pajaros and you accommodate your crew on Los Pajaros, and you film on Tortuga.” Translation: you spend your money here on Los Pajaros. “But you must promise me that no islanders will have to go to Tortuga.”

“Agreed. Do we have a deal?” Kenzie offered the mayor a courteous handshake.

“Deal.” The mayor took Kenzie’s hand, but instead of the expected shake, he bowed over their joined hands in the local custom.

Rik held the door open for her, but this time she was careful to avoid contact as she passed. Her scent still slammed into him, though.

He grinned. His body was taking over from his brain. That was an interesting first. He knew passion didn’t last and that it burned out far too quickly, but he didn’t care. She was only passing through. For just this once, he wanted to be like every other man and indulge his desires.

So she thought she didn’t want a man like him, a purposeless drifter with tattoos. And she didn’t trust him. Never mind. He could work with that. He’d make her want him, and she wouldn’t be able to resist.

Head high.

Chapter Four

@KenzieCole101: Who knew pirates still ruled the Caribbean?

They stood on the pavement beside her rental car. Kenzie shifted, uncomfortably hot inside her own skin. She’d scarcely been able to concentrate throughout the meeting with the scorching awareness of Rik’s presence behind her, and the effort was starting to take its toll.

Or perhaps it was just the heat. Or last night’s lack of sleep.

It was most certainly not physical attraction making her forget why she was here, or her vow to Lee. And it sure as hell couldn’t be the memory of those inked biceps making her want to indulge her fetish for bad boys.

She wasn’t that weak, was she, after everything she’d already been through?

“So what now?” She looked at the palm trees lining the esplanade, at the sizzling tar at her feet … anywhere but towards Rik.

“Now I take you home.”

At that, her gaze flew to his, horror that he’d read her thoughts tainting her cheeks.

“I need to fetch my car, remember?” That mocking look was back in his eyes.

His car. Of course. She hoped he believed her blush was due to the midday sun burning down.

She moved to the driver’s side but Rik shook his head and held out his hand. “This time I drive.”

She hesitated. While there was something in his tone that demanded obedience, it also made her skin crawl. He might not have any right to a title these days but he still acted like he ruled the world. Bloody Golden Boys.

But she had several ex-boyfriends and a ‘perfect’ big bother who’d helped her develop an immunity to men who believed the world would do their bidding. Just because the rest of the world thought they had it all didn’t mean they weren’t all douches. In her experience, men like Rik could charm the pants off you in one breath then make you feel like a piece of shit with the next.

And she wasn’t going to let anyone make her feel like that again.

She tossed the car keys at him. “Fine.”

He didn’t take them back the way they’d come. Instead, he drove along the edge of the harbour, out the other side of town and onto a rutted tar road that snaked around the steeply peaked mountain that had once been a volcano.

The road climbed higher and higher up the side of the mountain, twisting and turning, until her knuckles were white with a tension that wasn’t entirely induced by the cliff edge a few feet from the car’s tyres.

It may have been centuries since the volcano was last active, but she was sure the atmosphere inside the car would register on the Volcanic Explosivity Index. If she thought she’d been aware of him in the mayor’s office, it was nothing compared to her awareness of him inside the tight confines of the little car.

He slowed the car, shifting gear, the fabric of his jeans pulling taut across his thighs. She swallowed and looked away. “I thought we were going back to the hotel?”

“We are. I’m taking you back via the scenic route.”

He pulled the car into a layby. The vegetation on this side of the mountain was low scrub, allowing unparalleled views. On the wide plain below them were the sugar cane fields that were still the island’s most profitable export.

Rik leaned across her, and her whole body went on high alert. Defcon one. Danger of explosion imminent.

Remember him drunk and passed out, you stupid girl. That ought to calm the hormones.

A chain of small islands curved out from Los Pajaros. The charter boat had taken her to the nearest of those. At the furthest tip of the curve a smudge of green was visible on the distant horizon. “That’s Tortuga.” Rik said, pointing out her window. “Corona isn’t visible from here.” His voice sounded almost wistful.

She blinked to clear the dancing spots before her eyes and the fog in her brain, relieved when Rik returned both his hands to the steering wheel and re-started the car.

Sleep, that’s what she needed. She was an eight hours a night girl and once she’d had an uninterrupted night of sleep, she would stop feeling this raw sexual tension that seemed to be zipping up and down her body. She rubbed her arms.

The road twisted and turned around the dormant volcano, away from the flat plain and the sugar cane fields, gradually descending through a plantation of banana trees to more familiar terrain; dense tropical vegetation, idyllic sandy beaches, and the lush resorts where tourists played in the sunshine.