“I’m not going to apologize for kissing you today. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You’re a beautiful woman. It was one of those incredible summer mornings, and I couldn’t resist.

“That’s no excuse, but it’s the best explanation I can offer. As long as I’m engaged to Isabella, I swear it won’t happen again. That’s what I came to say. I want you to be able to trust me. If we don’t have that, we don’t have anything.”

“I agree.” Her voice caught. “What happened was both our faults. Of course I trust you. I think the situation with Phillip threw us, but no longer.”

Phillip had nothing to do with the chemistry between them, Alex reasoned to himself. But he decided to let her remark pass because he had tangible proof she desired him, too. She could deny it all she wanted, but the fact remained they were both on fire for each other with no help in sight.

“You sound totally recovered.”

“I am,” she assured him. After pausing for breath she asked, “Where’s Phillip now?”

“With mother and the boys. Though she’s not ready to admit it yet, she’s having the time of her life getting to know her grandson. The boys are in shock. The reality of Phillip has already shaken Vito out of his morose state. As for Jules, he’s just plain delighted with his upstart cousin from across the Atlantic.”

Her mouth curved upward, bewitching him. “Upstart is right.”

“Darrell—” he said before she could say anything else. “I know how hard the situation is on you. I don’t expect you to remain in this limbo forever. Just give me until tomorrow. After being with Isabella, I’ll know a lot more.”

She nodded. “It’s all right. I checked with Jack. He told me to use this time for my vacation.”

Alex’s hands curled into fists. No doubt Jack was counting the hours until she flew back. What a fool her boss was to let her out of his sight.

“Is there anything I can do for you before I leave? Anything at all?”

She shook her gilt-blond head without looking at him. “I feel like I’m living in a dream. How could I possibly want anything more?”

How indeed.

“I’ll be in touch with you in the morning and we’ll go from there. Do me a favor and answer the phone so I don’t have to risk my life a second time in order to have a conversation with you?”

She lifted anxious eyes to him. “I’m sorry. I promise to answer it.”

Before he proved that he couldn’t keep a promise to her five minutes, let alone a lifetime, he slipped back over the side of the balcony.

“Alex—”

She sounded terrified for him, but he kept on going, not daring to let her cries stop him or heaven help them both.

When he’d swung himself back inside the music room and had locked the window, he phoned the palace security guard out in the hall. “There’s a rope hanging from the balcony of the Saxony apartment to the outside of the music room. It’s a security risk and needs to be removed ASAP.”

“I thought you didn’t want it cut down.”

“I’ve changed my mind.” I don’t trust myself anymore.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Mom?”

“Hi, sweetheart!”

“Jules and Vito are with me.”

Glad she was showered and dressed in a blouse and skirt, she hurried into the drawing room of their apartment. The tenyear-old Vito looked like the rest of them. With so many similarities, they could all be brothers. It really was remarkable.

“You’re Vito. I’m so happy to meet you.”

“Hello, Ms. Collier.”

“Call her Darrell,” Phillip told him.

While they shook hands his darker blue eyes studied her with interest. “Jules and I have to go to the dentist. We’re going shopping, too. Can Phillip come with us? Mother says it’s okay. We’ll walk him back after dinner.”

She looked at Phillip. “Would you like to go?”

“Since Dad’s not here, sure.”

“Then it’s fine with me.” She looked at the boys. “Tell your mother thank you.”

“I will,” Vito replied, sounding too grown up for his age.

As they started to leave she heard Jules say, “You’re lucky. Nobody ever gets to stay in this apartment.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t know. Mother says it’s a secret,” Jules explained.

“Why don’t you just ask Dad?”

Vito shook his head. “Mother said it wasn’t our business.”

“Then I’ll ask him when he gets back from Italy.”

Darrell thought she heard the word “cool” come from Jules before the outer door closed.

She walked around the room, stopping to smell the gorgeous white roses that gave off a heavenly perfume.

Not even Isabella had slept in here?

Whatever the reason, Alex had taken Phillip to his heart, breaking rules only a king could do if he wanted to.

He’d risked causing what could be an insurmountable problem in his coming marriage to the princess in order to claim him and make up for the last twelve years.

A man like that didn’t come along very often in life. Isabella could have no conception of how lucky she was.

Before Darrell fell apart over her feelings for Alex, she phoned Rudy and asked him to have a car waiting for her. There was a famous art gallery in the center of the main shopping district she wanted to visit. Anything to get her mind off of Alex, who would be spending tonight with Isabella. The images of the two of them entwined together while he convinced her their marriage would work made Darrell writhe in pain.

She grabbed her purse and flew out of the apartment. If her bodyguard thought she was having some kind of nervous breakdown, he’d be right!

Alex had just finished shaving when his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID and clicked on. “Mother?”

“I’m on my way to your apartment. You can’t leave for San Ravino until we’ve talked.” The line went dead.

He rushed to get dressed. By the time he’d shrugged into his suit jacket, she was at the door. The dogs preceded her into his living room. After shutting the door he leaned against it, waiting…

“Oh, Alex—he’s so much like you when you were that age, I can hardly believe it!” There were tears in her voice as well as her eyes.

Gratified by her response, he drew in a deep breath and walked toward her. “I see you and father in him, too. And Chaz…”

She nodded. “Yes. He has a way of expressing himself like your cousin. He and the boys could be brothers.”

“So now you know why I had to bring him with me.”

“I understand it,” she whispered, “but your uncle won’t.”

He tautened. “We can thank God Uncle Vittorio and Aunt Renate are away on a trip. I agree he would go into a black rage knowing what happened on that vacation in Colorado years ago.

“Perhaps now you understand why it was imperative I announced paternity before their return from the cruise.”

His mother stared at him while streams of unspoken thoughts passed between them. “Yes,” she eventually agreed in an unsteady voice. Her wet eyes gazed at him for a long time. “But you might have done it to the peril of the monarchy.”

Lines darkened his face. “I love Phillip.”

She let out a weary sigh. “How could you not? But you can’t expect Isabella to take him to her heart.”

He grasped her hands. “She’s making a gallant effort.”

His mother shuddered. “I can’t imagine how she’s going to get past this, Alex. It’s not just the reality of Phillip. You brought his mother with you. How painful for Isabella to have to live with the fact that you were intimate with the woman staying under our roof.”

He let go of her hands to rub his chin where he’d nicked himself with the razor. “It’s asking a lot of Isabella, but so far she’s handling it. I’ll find out how well when I see her tonight.” After checking his watch he said, “I have to go.”

“Wait—”

His gaze swung back to hers. “What is it?”

“Since Ms. Collier is Phillip’s mother and has worked her way into the castle, how do you know she won’t make trouble for you and Isabella?”

Alex had been waiting for that salvo. “If that had been her intention, she would have surfaced years ago instead of this week. Even then she couldn’t go through with telling me I had a son. I had to fly to Colorado in order to pry it out of her.

“At that point she still begged me not to act on the knowledge. When I brought her and Phillip back with me, she asked me again to turn the plane around because she knew what would happen if I didn’t.

“Darrell is still suffering over it. If you knew her as I already do, she’s frightened of hurting Isabella, so you don’t have to worry about her causing problems.”

“Listen to you defend her!” Her voice shook. “She’s gotten to you the way she did once before. You were obviously so taken with her, you gave her the ring your cousin had made specially for you. Now that she’s found you, she has decided to enamor you all over again.”

Darrell didn’t have to try. Whatever had driven them into each other’s arms today, it hadn’t been planned, not on either of their parts. His heart almost failed him remembering the lushness of her avid mouth opening to the pressure of his.

“By claiming Phillip so readily, you’ve allowed her to believe anything’s possible!” his mother exclaimed. “The more I hear about this woman, the more I don’t trust her.”

He moved to the door, then looked back at her. “If I didn’t know something you still don’t know, I wouldn’t trust her, either.”

“What more could there be?”

It was time for the whole truth.

“Phillip’s birth mother was named Melissa Collier.”

That caught his mother’s attention in a hurry.

“She died of an aneurism after giving birth to Phillip. Her sister, Darrell, adopted him. The only reason Darrell came looking for me was to help her unhappy son and honor her sister’s dying wish that he get to know his father.

“In point of fact, Darrell had no prior knowledge of my existence until two weeks ago when she had the ring traced and saw a picture of me on the Internet. She noticed the strong resemblance to Phillip and jumped to the only conclusion she could.

“Therefore you’re going to have to reassess your thinking about her. She has no designs on the man who impregnated her sister.” In fact she had every reason to despise him, which made what happened up in the mountains even more remarkable.

If ever anyone looked shell-shocked, it was his mother. “This is unbelievable.”

“But true. And you have to admit Darrell’s done an amazing job of raising her sister’s son.”

His mother made a cry like she’d been mortally wounded. “I’ll grant you he’s a fine boy, but what you’ve just told me alarms me even more.”

“Why?”

“Because I can tell this woman means something to you. I can feel it!”

She wasn’t his mother for nothing.

“I admit I admire her.” He wished that was all he felt for her. “Darrell was only in her teens when Melissa died. Since then she has sacrificed her life for Phillip. She could have put him up for adoption instead of adopting him herself. She’s made the perfect home for him. He’s bright, talented.”

A frantic look crossed over his mother’s face. “Does Isabella know he was adopted? Does she realize Ms. Collier isn’t his real mother?”

His lips thinned. “Not yet. If she agrees to marry me, I’ll tell her the truth on our honeymoon. Hopefully the news that Darrell and I were never involved will relieve her fears.

“But for now, no one but you and Phillip know the truth. I don’t want Phillip hurt by this.

“Make no mistake—” His body went rigid. “Darrell’s his real mother. It was her eyes he first saw when he came into the world.”

The most fabulous eyes Alex had ever seen. Like the rare violet hue of the morning sky silhouetting the peaks of the Alps.

“You know what I meant—”

He opened the door. “I don’t have time for this now, Mother. Isabella and her parents are waiting for me.”

The whirr of the helicopter’s rotors sounded overhead. Phillip and the boys ran into Darrell’s room to look at it from the balcony.

“Dad’s back! We’re going to go meet him.’

“Wait, Phillip—” Darrell cautioned.

“Why?”

“Because he always has important things to do first.”

“That’s what mother says,” Jules muttered. Vito nodded. They adored Alex, but they also revered him as king. Phillip had a different problem. To him Alex was his father. Period.

“He said he’d phone you when he could, sweetheart.”

“But it’s already afternoon.”

Darrell was painfully aware he was long overdue. He and Isabella must have managed to work things out, otherwise he would probably have come home a lot sooner.

In order to pass the time without falling apart, she’d talked Phillip into taking a walk on the extensive grounds with her. Then they’d gone swimming with the boys.

The four of them would still be having fun if clouds hadn’t started to gather. At the first sign of lightning she’d insisted they go indoors. A storm was almost upon them. Darrell was thankful the helicopter had landed before Alex got caught in the downpour.

She shivered when she remembered his cousin’s plane had gone down in bad weather, leaving his sons fatherless.

They were so darling, Darrell couldn’t help but love them. She could tell Phillip liked them, too. It was a heady experience to be looked up to by the younger princes who were already enriching his life.

Alex had been worried about Phillip not wanting to hang around waiting to spend time with him. But his fears were groundless. You couldn’t separate Phillip from his father now or ever.

“I’ll get it,” Phillip called out the second the phone rang.

Darrell’s heart raced so hard it was a good thing he picked up instead of her. Since he’d climbed up her balcony, the less she had to interact with Alex the better.

Their conversation didn’t last long. Phillip hung up and turned to her with an excited look on his face.

“Dad wants us to meet him at his office. He says he’s got something special planned and you have to come, too, Mom, because we’re going to have dinner with Aunt Evelyn after.”

Aunt Evelyn…

Darrell hadn’t even met the boys’ mother yet, but Phillip was already calling her aunt.

“Hurrah!” Jules cried enthusiastically.

Under the circumstances Darrell couldn’t refuse. It was a good thing she’d put on her pleated tan pants and fitted purple top. Not too dressy, not too casual for her first meeting with his cousin-in-law.

The boys knew their way around the castle blindfolded. She followed them down the exquisitely sculpted marble staircase to the first floor. They took a right through the magnificent vaulted corridors lined with paintings and tapestries leading to the king’s official workplace.

“See the flag?” Vito spoke up.

“Yes.”

“If the Valleder flag is posted, then you know Uncle Alex is in the city and his ministers can have access to him.”

“That’s very interesting. Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re welcome.”

The boy knew everything and took it all so seriously, Darrell decided he had the makings of a king.

Then she glimpsed the real king. At the first sight of Alex in a black turtleneck and jeans standing in the huge double doorway, her pulse skittered off the charts.

The boys huddled around him while he gave their dark blond heads a gentle roughing.

Yesterday she’d felt those strong hands in her hair and knew how it felt. She almost passed out reliving the sensation until she remembered he’d spent the night with Isabella.

Judging by his laid-back demeanor, he’d won Isabella over and there was going to be a wedding. Then she would always have the right to his affection.

Darrell couldn’t bear it.

“Mom?” Phillip shook her arm, jerking her from a place she’d promised herself never to go again. Her gaze happened to collide with a penetrating pair of eyes that were more gray than green at the moment.

“When a storm rages, there’s a knight whose ghost walks around the castle below the waterline. Chaz and I only saw the back of him one time. I thought we’d all go down and search for him now.”

The boys laughed nervously. Phillip smiled, but his heels moved up and down, indicating his adrenaline had kicked in.

“Think you’re up to it?”

Alex had issued her a direct challenge she couldn’t refuse. In truth she didn’t want to. Who else besides Alex would think up something this entertaining for a bunch of adventurous boys on a dark, dreary afternoon inside a castle of all things?

“I wouldn’t miss snooping around this place for anything in the world.”

Another smile of satisfaction curved his lips. “Then let’s go.”

With a heavy-duty flashlight in hand, Alex strode down the hall forcing everyone to run after him.

“Admit you’re a little freaked, Mom.”

She was, but not for the reason her son was suggesting.

Alex led them down another hall and through a heavy wooden door to the ancient part of the castle. A circular stone staircase over a thousand years old seemed to go down, down forever. The only light came from the slit windows spaced every so often. Rain beat against the panes.

Without the flashlight they would have been entombed in total darkness once they reached the bottom.

Alex flashed the beam around the vast cavern with its labyrinths and pillars. Water dripped from the dank walls where moss was growing. Above them she could hear the waves on the lake crashing against the castle walls. It caused her to shiver.

“Whoa—” Phillip whispered. Vito stood manfully by himself, but Jules stuck close to his uncle.

“Stay with me everybody,” Alex warned them. They advanced a few feet.

“What are those chains for?” Jules asked.

Darrell could see them lying on the stone floor at the base of one of the pillars.

“When it’s good weather, the knight is the castle’s prisoner.”

“No, he’s not, Dad—”

“Shh. I think I can hear him,” Alex whispered. He handed Phillip the flashlight. “Go ahead with the boys. See what you can find.”

“Come on you guys. Dad’s only teasing us.”

Strange how the darkness made Alex stand out to Darrell as if it were full daylight. She could feel the warmth from his body though they weren’t touching. She knew he was smiling.

“I take it you and your cousin used to come down here to play.”

“All the time.”

“Did your parents know?”

“Not if we could help it. Security wasn’t as tight back then, so we got away with a lot.”

“Your son appears to be fearless. You couldn’t have planned anything more thrilling than this. He’s going to want to bring his friends down here when they come to visit.”

The second the words left her mouth, she realized her mistake. “I shouldn’t have said that. I apologize.”

“For what?” The air sizzled with tension.

“For assuming that everything’s normal when I know it’s anything but. I—I’ve been thinking about you and Isabella. The only way your marriage can work is for us to set up a visitation schedule that will make her happy.

“Phillip knows exactly what’s at stake here. He might not like it, but now that he feels your love he’ll be able to plan his life around the times when he can see you. It’ll work. Maybe next time he can bring his friend Ryan.”

She heard the changed tenor of his breathing. “Of course his friends will always be welcome, but I want him around more than two or three times a year, Darrell. I want you to move to Bris.”

Her heart slammed into her ribs. “You couldn’t mean permanently.”

“Is that so hard to understand? It would solve a lot of problems.”

For you and our son, Alex. Not for me or the princess or the monarchy.

“I couldn’t do that. My life’s in Denver. Yours is with Isabella and the family you’re going to raise. After your wedding is over and things have settled down for you, Phillip can fly here to see you. As long as he can talk to you on the phone between trips, it’ll be fine.”

Sucking in her breath she added, “It’s awfully chilly down here. I think I’ll wait for all of you upstairs.”

Relying on her instincts to guide her, she turned back toward the staircase, needing to get away from him before she found herself considering his wishes.

To her dismay she stumbled into the bottom step. But the cry she emitted came from the feel of Alex’s hands on her hips. At the first touch she longed for him to turn her in his arms and kiss her as if they had the right to lose themselves in each other.

But he belonged to someone else and she needed to get far away and stay there.

“Did you hurt yourself?” He’d asked the question out of concern, but the way his hands slid up her arms before relinquishing her body told her he hadn’t forgotten yesterday’s incident. The one she hadn’t been able to dismiss from her memory no matter how hard she tried.

“No—I’m all right, thank you.”

Frightened by her weakness for him, she began the long circular climb, knowing he couldn’t come after her while the boys were still down there.

By the time she reached the top, to her surprise the rest of them weren’t far behind her. They filed into the lighted hallway.

“Mom? I didn’t think you’d get scared down there.”

“I didn’t, either.” Her voice shook.

But being alone with Alex for any reason was too dangerous now. A few minutes ago she’d been willing to crush him in her arms and be swept away again by the passion that had flared between them on the mountain.

She addressed Jules. “Did you see the ghost?”

“No, but we heard something.”

“It was a rat,” Vito informed him. Darrell cringed.

“Maybe next time,” Alex muttered, taking the flashlight from Phillip. “It looks like the worst of the storm has passed over. Let’s hurry home to your mom. I bet she’s fixed her homemade Wiener schnitzel for us.”

The last thing Darrell felt like doing was meeting the boys’ mother. She was too shaken up by what had happened in the dark.

To have lost control yesterday was one thing. To almost lose control again today was something else. She hadn’t imagined Alex’s low moan once his hands had molded to her body. Desire had engulfed both of them.

Maybe it was because he represented forbidden fruit that she trembled even thinking about him.

Possibly the fact that she was forbidden fruit produced a similar response in him.

This close to the wedding you’d have thought just the opposite would be true.

Maybe this was Alex’s own sort of private bachelor party—a kind of midnight-hour urge to let go before he became a married man.

That explanation made the most sense to Darrell.

It was kind of like his princely lapse with Melissa years ago. Only her sister hadn’t had the sense to run from the fire.

Apparently the Collier women were pushovers, but Darrell was putting an end to it right now.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“DO YOU know going down those steps made me a little dizzy?” Darrell said loud enough for everyone to hear. “I need to rest for a while. Will you please tell Evelyn how sorry I am? We’ll meet another time.”

“It made me kind of dizzy, too,” Jules piped up. Bless his heart.

Alex herded them along the hallway. “Go ahead with the boys, Phillip. I’ll see your mom to the apartment, then I’ll come.”

No!

“Actually, Alex, I’d like Phillip to come with me.”

Maybe it was the tone in her voice. Whatever the explanation, for once Alex didn’t insist and her son didn’t fight her.

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