Wedding Vows: Say I Do: Matrimony with His Majesty / Invitation to the Prince's Palace / The Prince's Outback Bride

“Yes. That was Melissa. She was a room maid for the summer. Except that she wasn’t in college. She was only seventeen, and had another year of high school ahead of her.”

His lips thinned.

“Don’t worry,” Darrell murmured. “I’m sure she lied about her age. She looked older and couldn’t grow up fast enough. She said you’d both been drinking and got into a sleeping bag under the stars. That’s when you parted with the ring.

“Knowing Melissa, she probably begged you to let her put it on. Especially after you told her you were really a prince.

“I thought the whole story was bogus. But two weeks ago when I consulted a heraldry expert who identified your family’s coat of arms, I had to take it seriously.

“The Internet articles and pictures of you helped me with the rest. Not only was one of your names Phillip, I read that you were the prince of Bris before your coronation six years ago. Suddenly everything fell into place. But like all fairy tales, her glorious interlude with you came to a bitter end.

“When she reported for work the next day, you’d already disappeared without a trace. All she had of you was the ring. Before she died, she begged me to find you. After the funeral, I hid it away.”

His jaw hardened. Darrell could feel the tension emanating from him.

“How you must despise me.” His deep voice throbbed with self-abnegation. “Under the circumstances, why didn’t you tell the police what you’ve just told me? It was the perfect opportunity to expose me.”

Though she didn’t want to feel any compassion for him, there was something innately honorable about him owning up to his past behavior without offering excuses.

She hadn’t expected it of him. She hadn’t expected to have a positive feeling anywhere in her body for this man who’d made her sister pregnant, indirectly bringing on her early death.

Darrell rubbed her eyes with her palms.

“The last thing on my mind was creating a scandal for you. What happened between you and Melissa has happened to millions of couples since time immemorial. The difference is, not every child turns out to be the son of a king.

“Phillip wants his father more than you can imagine. Lately he’s been angry over the fact that you’re out in the cosmos someplace, unaware he’s alive. He’s wishing with all his heart and soul that he had a dad like his friends. He’s become quite inconsolable.

“But now that I’ve found you, I realize it was a mistake. I had no right to disrupt your life even if my son is suffering. He wouldn’t be the only child in the world to grow up without a father.

“The problem is, after raising him from birth I love him too much. The saying about a mother rushing into a burning building to save her child is truer than even I knew until now.”

She lifted her head and stared up at him with glistening eyes. “In this life there are some things that happen which are better left alone. This is one of them.”

“How can you say that?” he asked in a low voice. “I’m responsible for her pregnancy. I wish I’d known of Phillip’s existence from the beginning.”

“It would only have complicated your life. While I was checking out of the Hotel Otter, I overheard the desk clerk telling a tourist that there’s going to be a royal wedding at the end of July. I heard him say you were marrying a princess named Isabella.

“Learning you’ve been betrothed for several years, that news made me glad I hadn’t been able to talk to you. Please be assured neither you nor your intended bride will ever see or hear from me again.”

Alex moved as if to speak but Darrell rushed on, not giving him the chance to interrupt her. “If you’ll wait before flying back to Bris, I’ll drive home and ask one of the agents to bring the ring to you.”

She jumped to her feet, “Forgive me for forcing you to fly all this way. I’m so sorry—” she whispered before rushing out of the cabin and down the stairs of the jet.

“Please take me to my car, then follow me home. I have something of the king’s you need to return to him before he leaves the airport.”

The agent looked surprised, but he helped her in the car and instructed the man at the wheel to go back to the main airport’s parking lot.

A half hour later Darrell was still trembling as she pulled into the driveway of her small, two-bedroom condo. The agent’s car pulled in behind her.

She dashed in the house and hurried up the stairs to her closet. The ring was inside a little velvet pouch she kept in the pocket of an ancient winter coat she’d never thrown out.

Within seconds she’d run back outside and handed it to him through the car window. He nodded to her before they drove off, taking all incriminating evidence with them. Only then did she realize the king still had the pictures of Melissa and Phillip.

That was all right. Whatever he did with them, it didn’t matter. She had duplicates.

So…it was over. Phillip’s father would remain Phil from New York. End of story.

The pilot buzzed Alex. “Your Majesty? We’re ready for takeoff at anytime.”

Alex’s hand closed around the ring the agent had brought to him moments ago. “Thank you. I’ll get back to you in a minute.”

He’d laid out Darrell Collier’s photos on the desk in front of him. As he studied each one, his father’s voice seemed to call out from the grave. “Always remember that one day you’ll be King.”

One wild night thirteen years ago he’d rebelled against the rules governing his royal life with this the result.

He actually had a son from his own body named Phillip.

Alex was a father!

Dear Lord—how could he just fly back to Switzerland as if nothing had happened, his secret safely hidden forever?

Maybe an ambitious king with no soul, or an unscrupulous man with no moral conscience, was capable of it. Ms. Collier had made a promise he would never hear from her again, that Phillip would never learn his father’s identity. Alex believed her.

But he knew himself too well. There was no way he could turn his back on his own flesh and blood no matter how the reality would impact his personal or political life. The knowledge that he had a son living in Denver, Colorado, would eat him alive.

Phillip hadn’t asked to be born.

He was the innocent product of an irresponsible twenty-year-old and an underage teen! By some miracle Darrell Collier had been there to mother Phillip and do the job Alex should have been doing all along.

Twelve years without a father.

Alex couldn’t imagine it, not when his own father had been such a dominant force in his life.

Without hesitation he buzzed his pilot. “I’m not leaving Denver yet. Stand by. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know my plans.”

He then rang the agent who’d brought him the ring. “Get everyone ready. I have a visit to make to Ms. Collier’s home.”

After a strange silence, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

CHAPTER TWO

DARRELL got in her car and drove over to the Holbrooks’s to pick up Phillip. En route she phoned to tell him she was on her way.

It was ten to six in the evening when she pulled up in front and honked. Phillip was waiting for her, and came out the door with his sleeping and duffel bags.

Hugs from him had been on short ration over the last year, but he actually gave her one after getting in the car. It melted her heart.

She’d been away three days, the longest separation they’d ever had. Over the years the two of them had enjoyed her airline perks. They’d gone on many vacations to fun places around the U.S. and Hawaii. But the trip to Bris had been for her eyes only, which meant Phillip had to stay with his best friend. Many weekends she’d let Ryan sleep over at her condo while his parents were out of town.

“How did it go while I was away?”

“Okay.”

“Tell me about the swim meet.”

“I didn’t place.”

Then he didn’t try hard enough because he usually took more firsts than the other guys on the team!

“Oh well, There’s always next time.”

“How come you didn’t take me to Chicago with you?”

She drew in a deep breath. “I couldn’t. It was an exhausting business trip. But I have an idea. After we get back to the condo and I freshen up, how would you like to go somewhere for dinner? You name the place.”

“Why do we have to go out? Can’t we just stay home?”

To her disappointment, he was more truculent than usual. She reached out to squeeze his arm. “Sure we can. I’ll fix us some tacos and we’ll just hang out.”

When he didn’t respond she said, “I don’t know if I told you Danice was transferred to Washington D.C. She’s invited us to spend the Fourth of July with her. That’s the day after tomorrow. We’ll watch the fireworks from a boat on the Potomac. It’ll be fabulous. What do you say?”

“I’d rather not go.”

Darrell moaned inwardly. “How come?”

“Danice treats me like a little kid. I hate it.”

Danice was her good friend, but right now Phillip didn’t care how he sounded. She started to feel panicky. His depression was definitely worse.

“Here we are,” she said unnecessarily as she pulled into the garage of their condo. “Take your clothes into the laundry room and we’ll get a wash started.”

“Mrs. Holbrook already did mine.”

“That was nice of her.”

When Darrell reached for her suitcase and saw the Zurich tag on the handle, she tore it off and stuffed it in her purse before entering the hallway.

She was convinced he was suffering more than usual because he’d just come from Ryan’s, whose father was known as Mr. Dad.

Phillip only had a mom. Life was unfair.

It was unfair.

Darrell no longer had a sibling. With her grandmother already passed away, Darrell had been virtually alone when she’d taken on the role of mother to raise Phillip.

Over the years she’d dated off and on. She’d even come close to marrying her boss earlier this year. But he was too soft on Phillip who needed a strong hand. Darrell had feared her son would always be in the driver’s seat after they married, so she’d stopped seeing him except in connection with her work.

Since then she hadn’t dated anyone.

“Phillip?” she called to him. “I’ll be upstairs changing, then I’ll come down and fix us a meal.”

“Okay.”

The condo felt like an oven. On the way up to the bathroom she turned on the air-conditioning to cool off the house.

Once beneath the spray, she quickly lathered her hair, then used the blow dryer until the strands swished soft and silky against her shoulders.

Afraid to keep him waiting too long, she applied a fresh coat of coral frost lipstick, then slipped on white shorts and a sleeveless navy top. Dispensing with shoes she hurried downstairs. He needed to talk.

She knew the drill. They would discuss all sorts of things, but inevitably he’d bring the conversation around to the father he was growing to hate for not being there for him.

It was so sad he’d reached the age where he understood about a man sowing his wild oats without compunction, and one had taken root in the Rocky Mountains.

Heartsick for Phillip who was acting out with increased frequency, she walked in the family room off the kitchen to find him. He was playing a video game. In her opinion they were a curse. No communication could go on with his hands on the controls, and his eyes glued to the screen. Luckily he enjoyed sports, which kept him busy a lot of the time now that it was summer.

“Want to grate the cheese and cut up the tomatoes?”

Without saying anything he got up and followed her to the fridge. Athletically inclined, he looked good in his old cutoffs and T-shirt. One day he would look…fantastic, just like his father, whose arresting features and physique eclipsed those of any man she’d ever known.

She could still picture him standing in the doorway of the jet, staring at her with those hauntingly beautiful green-gray eyes. They seemed to follow her into the kitchen where she fried the tortillas and ground beef. Then she and Phillip sat down to eat.

She was glad to see his dark mood hadn’t affected his appetite. She waited until he’d finished off his third taco before venturing into uncharted waters.

“Sweetheart?” she began. “I love you more than you’ll ever know, and it hurts me that you’re so unhappy. There’s an old adage that says something like, ‘Give me the wisdom to accept the things I can’t change, and help me to change the things I need to do something about.’ It’s a good rule to live by.

“No matter how much you want things to be different, your father didn’t stay in Colorado, so he didn’t know you were born. That’s the painful fact of the matter.

“Now the ball is in your court. You can either make up your mind it’s not going to ruin your life, or you can grow up an angry man so fixated on your own hurt, you’ll never live up to your full potential.

“I know I’m just your dumb mom, but between us, we’re all we’ve got. I promised your mother I’d love you and take care of you forever. So I think the time has come for you to go to a counselor you can talk to. Someone impartial who will listen to whatever you feel like saying and won’t judge you.”

“No way—” He flung himself out of the chair. His blue-gray eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I’m not crazy!”

“Of course not, but you are in pain and a counselor might be able to help you where I can’t.”

His expression stiffened. “I won’t go to a shrink and you can’t make me!”

The next thing she knew, the front door slammed.

Darrell sat there in shock. Just before he’d bolted, he’d looked and sounded exactly like Melissa.

With her heart aching, she ran over to the sink to look out the window. He was already halfway down the street on his dirt bike. He’d never exploded like this before. She had to go after him. Grabbing her purse, she hurried into the garage and backed the car out.

She doubted he had a destination in mind. All she could do was drive in the direction he’d gone. But after ten minutes of searching the neighborhood for him, she realized he intended to stay lost for a while.

Defeated, she drove back to the condo and made a call to a couple of his friends. Eventually she found out from Steve’s stepmom he’d gone swimming. They’d probably be back in an hour.

Relief swept through Darrell. Hopefully he would come home a little less angry and they’d be able to start over.

While she cleaned up the kitchen, she heard the doorbell ring.

He must have come back to get his swimming suit and had forgotten his key.

She hurried to unlock the door.

“Phillip sweetheart?” she cried as she flung it open, prepared to give him a hug whether he wanted one or not.

But instead of a belligerent twelve-year-old boy standing there on the porch, a solidly built male filled the aperture. A man she’d presumed was already in the air on his way back to Switzerland.

Beyond his broad shoulder she glimpsed a bulletproof limo with smoked glass parked in front. She didn’t doubt for a second his security people had surrounded the complex where she lived, providing heavy protection for him.

“Hello again, Darrell Collier. In case you’ve forgotten, my name is Alex.” His deep male voice resonated to her insides.

Speechless and feeling light-headed, she held on to the door for support. “I—I’m sorry, Alex.” She stumbled over her words. “But I never expected to see you again.”

He studied her upturned features for a moment. “You made that abundantly clear when you flew out of my cabin a little while ago.”

Her heart thundered in her chest. “Didn’t you get the ring?”

His eyes glinted with a mysterious light. “It’s in my pocket.”

“Then I don’t understand. If you’re here to give me hush money or some such thing, I wouldn’t take it. I swear before God I could never do that to you or anyone else.”

He said nothing.

She shook her head, causing her hair to swirl a silvery-gold. “You shouldn’t have come,” she said in a shaky voice. “Phillip will be home soon and see the limo. If he finds you here, he’ll ask questions and it won’t take him long to notice certain…similarities.”

Her unexpected visitor straightened to his full, intimidating height. “Then I guess I’ll have to take that chance because you and I still have things to discuss. May I come in?”

She couldn’t sustain his penetrating glance and averted her eyes. “I—I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I happen to disagree with you,” he came back with a strong hint of authority in his voice. “If you prefer, we can sit in the limo.”

“No—” she blurted. With her bare legs showing and no shoes on her feet, the thought of being confined with him sounded far too intimate.

“Are you going to make a grown king beg? It’s a position I don’t recall having been in before.”

Everything he said and did was getting under her skin, confusing and exciting her when she shouldn’t be having any feelings at all!

She moistened her lips nervously. “I didn’t mean to be rude. Please—Come in.”

“Since you put it so nicely, I think I will.”

His male mouth twitched, revealing a charm that was lethal. No wonder Melissa had fallen for him. Of course he’d only been twenty or so at the time, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. Some men were just endowed at an early age with a raw, virile charisma few women could resist.

When Melissa had talked about lying in his arms beneath the stars, Darrell had absorbed the revelation on an intellectual level. To see her sister’s lover in the flesh was like coming too close to a solar flare that scorched the body and filled her with a strange envy.

Melissa may have only been a teenager, but she’d known rapture with this exciting man who ruled a kingdom. She’d carried his son to term. Those joys were something Darrell had yet to experience for herself, if she ever did.

Her front door opened into the small living room with its traditional decor. His presence dwarfed the interior.

“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

She felt his appraising gaze on her legs as she darted up the stairs. By the time she returned wearing a pair of pleated white sailor pants and leather sandals, she felt a little more presentable.

Darrell found him studying some framed family pictures. He appeared deep in thought.

When he heard her enter, he put down the picture of Phillip and turned in her direction. His eyes roved over her trembling figure, silently acknowledging the change in her attire.

“By the way you answered the door just now, I take it you haven’t seen Phillip since you arrived back.”

She smoothed her damp palms against her hips, a gesture he also noted. “Actually I have. But while we were eating dinner, I said something that upset him. He flew out the door and went off on his bike. I was hoping he’d decided to come back.”

He frowned. “You seemed unduly anxious. Does he often blow up like that?’

Already he was sounding like a concerned parent. She hardly knew what to make of this remarkably handsome stranger from another continent.

“I said something that frightened him.”

“What was that?” her guest persisted.

“The three days away from him let me see how depressed he has become. I told him I was going to take him to a counselor to help him deal with his issues of abandonment. He yelled that he wasn’t crazy before he charged out of here like a torpedo.”

She rubbed her arms with her hands. “On the flight home from Switzerland, I made up my mind I wasn’t going to wait any longer to get help for him. I knew he would fight me on this, but I’m committed. In all honesty, I should have taken him to a doctor long before now. He’s showing the same pattern Melissa did.”

He moved closer, his gaze intent on her face. “Tell me about your family.”

“My parents met at Denver University. Mother would have been a teacher. Dad was studying to become a geologist. Melissa had barely turned two when they were killed in a car accident and my grandmother Alice took on the responsibility of raising us.

“She was a wonderful person. We both adored her, but Melissa had a harder time of it. She yearned for our parents even though she didn’t remember them. As she got older, she felt more and more sorry for herself. In time she grew petulant like Phillip and became too much of a handful for Grandma whose health began to fail.

“When Melissa had an opportunity to work at the dude ranch through a close friend’s family, she didn’t hesitate. She knew a lot of famous VIPs vacationed there. She’d made up her mind she was going to meet an important man who would take her away and give her the kind of life that would make up for her deprivation.”

His eyes studied her intently. “What about you? A teenager burdened with sorrow and a new baby to raise. How did you do it all?”

“Grandma’s house was paid for. I took a night job I could do at home for the airlines making reservations. Eventually I was able to start taking college classes and graduated in communications.

“The company gave me a promotion, so I sold the house and bought this condo, which is closer to my work. Everything seemed fine, but it wasn’t fine to Phillip.”

Darrell’s eyes filled with liquid. “It’s a tragic irony Melissa met you, a real prince. There’s a lesson to be learned here in getting what you wish for…” Her voice trailed.

He trapped her gaze. “I can’t do anything about your sister now, but it’s not too late for Phillip.”

Her thoughts reeled. “It is where you’re concerned,” she said in a dull voice.

She heard his sharp intake of breath. “He’s my son. It’s high time we got to know each other.”

“You don’t really mean that. You couldn’t—” she cried. “It will change your whole life.”

“That’s what children do when they come into the world. He’s a precious gift.”

“But you’re a king! This is going to complicate your life in ways I can’t even begin to imagine, starting with salacious reports from the press.”

“What else is new. I’m a man first, Darrell. When I fathered Phillip, I wasn’t yet a king. I’ve already missed the first twelve years of his life. As my mother keeps telling me, a grandmother needs grandchildren. After she gets over the shock, she’s going to be thrilled.”

Darrell was afraid to believe him. But when she looked deeper into his eyes, she knew instinctively he believed what he was saying.

She swallowed hard. “You haven’t even met him yet. He’s very complex.”

“You mean he’s damned difficult most of the time, but sweet as honey at unexpected moments?”

“That’s exactly how he is,” her voice shook.

He put his hands on his hips in a wholly male stance. “He’s a Valleder all right. Our genes don’t lie. After we meet, he might never grow to like me, but we share the same blood. That makes us family, sight unseen.”

Darrell hugged her arms to her waist. “What about your marriage? Phillip’s existence is going to come as a huge shock to the woman you’ve chosen. It isn’t fair to her.”

His eyes held a faraway look. “The news that I have a son is going to turn the entire canton on its ear. However I’m not particularly concerned about anyone but Phillip. You’ve had the whole responsibility of him all this time. Now it’s my turn.”

She bit her lower lip. “It’ll transform him to know he has a father he can talk to on the phone sometimes.”

His expression sobered. “I hope so, but first we have to get over the biggest hurdle. He has viewed me as a deadbeat dad for a lot of years. I have a feeling this is going to take some time.”

He checked his watch. “It’s starting to get dark. Where do you think he could be?”

“I called some of his friends. They went swimming at the condo pool.”

“Why don’t we drive over in your car and find him. I’ll tell him I’m an old friend of his mother’s and we’ll go from there.”

Her heart raced too fast. “I don’t know, Alex. Maybe you’d better think about this for a while longer. Once the water spills over the dam…”