The Prince's Cinderella Bride Read online

  He said gruffly, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting your mother and father to be proud of you. It gets dangerous only when you let your need for their approval run your life.”

  She managed to muster a little attitude. “Do you have any idea how patronizing you sound?”

  He only smiled. “Hit a nerve, did I? Also, you should know that very few authors can write a decent book before the age of thirty. Good writing requires life experience.”

  “Do you think you’re reassuring me? Because you’re not.”

  “I’m praising you. You’ve written five books and you’re not thirty yet. One is okay, two are quite good and the most recent two are amazing.”

  “Five and a half books.” She was currently stuck in the middle of number six. “And how do you know how good they all are? You’ve only read the last two.” He’d actually offered to read them. And she’d been grateful for his helpful ideas on how to make them better. That was before New Year’s, of course.

  He added, “And you’re published.”

  Yes, she was. In ebook. Just that past December, as a Christmas present to herself, she’d self-published the three women’s fiction novels she’d written before she moved to Montedoro. So far, unfortunately, her e-book sales gave a whole new meaning to the word unimpressive. She was holding off on self-pubbing the new trilogy, hoping to sell them as a package to a traditional publisher.

  And suddenly she got what he was hinting at. “You downloaded the three books I e-pubbed, didn’t you?”

  One big shoulder lifted in a half shrug. “Isn’t that what you put them on sale for—so that people will buy them?”

  Her heart kind of melted about then. How could she help but melt? He not only made her want to rip off her clothes and climb him like a tree, but he was a very good man. He was constantly finding new ways to show her that he really did care about her and the things that mattered to her. It wasn’t his fault that she had trouble trusting her own emotions.

  Her throat burned with all the difficult stuff she didn’t know how to tell him. “Max, I...” She had no idea where to go from there.

  And then it didn’t matter what she might have said. He wiped her mind free of all thought by the simple act of lifting her chin lightly with his free hand and lowering his lips to hers.

  Chapter Three

  Max knew he was out of line to kiss her.

  He’d made a bargain with her to keep his hands to himself, and yet here he was with one hand tipping up her soft chin and the other wrapped firmly around her trembling fingers. It was not playing fair.

  Too bad. He wanted to kiss her, and at the moment she was going to let him do it.

  So he did. Lightly, gently, so as not to startle her or have her jerking away, he settled his mouth on hers.

  Pleasure stole through him. Warm velvet, those lips of hers. They trembled like her hand. He made no attempt to deepen the kiss, only drew in the haunting scent of her perfume: gardenias, vanilla and a hint of oranges all tangled up with that special, indefinable something that belonged only to her skin.

  Lani. Yolanda Ynez. Her name in his mind like a promise. Her warmth and softness so close, calling to him, making him burn as he hadn’t burned in years.

  Making him feel as he’d never thought to feel again.

  She made things difficult when they didn’t have to be.

  And yet, there was, simply, something about her. Some combination of mind and spirit, heart and scent and skin and bone that worked for him, that spoke to him. There was something in the core of her that called to him. Something within her that recognized him in a way he’d despaired long ago of ever being known.

  He’d been asleep for almost four years, walking through his life like a ghost of himself, a dutiful creature, half-alive.

  No more. Now his eyes were open, his mind and body one, whole, fully engaged.

  Whatever it took, whatever he had to do to keep feeling this way, he would do it. He refused to go back to being half-alive again.

  “Max.” She breathed his name against his mouth.

  He wanted to continue kissing her for the next century or two. But she wasn’t ready for a century of kisses. Not yet. He lifted his head. “Not giving up on you,” he vowed.

  For once, she didn’t argue, only stepped away and snatched up her laptop. He got his tablet and ushered her ahead of him out the door.

  * * *

  “Nicholas!” Gerta Bauer called sharply as the eight-year-old aimed his N-Strike Elite Retaliator Blaster Nerf gun at the back of his unsuspecting sister’s head.

  Nick sent his nanny a rebellious glance. Gerta narrowed her eyes at him and stared him down. Nick glared some more, but he did turn the toy gun away from Connie’s head. He shot the trunk of a rubber tree instead, letting out a “Hoo-rah!” of triumph as the soft dart hit the target, wiggled in place for a moment and then dropped to the ground.

  Connie, totally unaware she’d almost been Nerfed, continued carefully combing the long, straight black-and-white hair of her Frankie Stein doll. Meanwhile, Nick grabbed the fallen dart and forged off into a clump of bushes in search of new prey.

  Trev, armed with his Supergalactic Laser Light Blaster, charged after him. “Nicky! Wait for me!” He pulled the trigger. The gun lit up and a volley of blasting sounds filled the air.

  Gerta chuckled and tipped her head up to the afternoon sun. “Did I tell you that Nicholas is all grown up? He’s too old for his nanny. He told me so this morning before school. ‘Only babies have nannies,’ he said.”

  Lani, on the garden bench beside her with Ellie in her lap, caught the butterfly rattle the toddler had dropped before it hit the ground. “He’s exercising his independence.”

  “Me!” Ellie demanded, exercising a little independence of her own.

  Lani kissed the top of her head and gave her back the rattle, which she gleefully began shaking again. “Is he still throwing fits when it’s time to do his homework?”

  Gerta’s broad, ruddy face wore a self-satisfied expression. “For the past week, he’s been getting right to it and getting it done. I took your advice and had his father talk to him about it.”

  Lani’s pulse accelerated at the mere mention of Max. Honestly, she was hopeless, telling him no over and over—and then kissing him last night.

  She needed a large dose of therapy. Or a backbone. Or both.

  Gerta was watching her. “What’s the matter?”

  “Not a thing,” Lani answered too quickly. Gerta frowned but didn’t press her. And Lani asked, “So the homework is getting done?”

  Gerta turned her head up to the sky again. “Yes, the homework is getting done.”

  Ellie giggled and said, “Uh-oh. Poopy.”

  She definitely had.

  Gerta laughed, waved her freckled hand in front of her face at the smell and offered, “You could change her right here on the bench....”

  But Lani was already shouldering the baby bag and lifting Ellie into her arms as she stood. “No. It’s a little chilly out here.” Ellie dropped the rattle again. Lani caught it as it fell and tucked it in the bag. “Plus I doubt a few baby wipes are going to cut it.”

  Ellie giggled some more and pecked a baby kiss on Lani’s chin. “Nani, Nani...” The weak winter sunlight made her hair shine like polished copper. Even with a loaded diaper, she was the sweetest thing. Lani felt the old familiar ache inside as she gently freed her hair from the perfect, plump little fist. It was an ache of love for this particular child, Syd’s baby girl, all mixed up with a bone-deep sorrow for what might have been, if only she’d been a little wiser and not nearly so selfish way back when.

  Gerta held up a key. “Use our apartment. It’s much closer.” She meant the palace apartment she lived in with Nick and Connie. And Max.

  Lani’s thor
oughly shameless heart thumped faster. Would Max be there?

  Not that it mattered. It didn’t, not at all. No big deal. She knew the apartment’s layout. She and Gerta sometimes filled in for each other, so Lani had been there to help out with Nick and Connie more than once. Once she’d let herself in the door, she would go straight to the children’s bathroom, clean Ellie up and get out. Fast.

  She took the key. “Keep an eye on Trev?”

  “Will do.”

  * * *

  The apartment was quiet when she let herself in. The maids had been and gone for the day, leaving a faint scent of lemon polish detectable when she pushed the door open, but quickly overpowered by what Ellie had in her diaper.

  No sign of Max. Lani breathed a quick sigh of relief.

  In the children’s bathroom, she hoisted the diaper bag onto one of the long white quartz counters, shifting Ellie onto her hip as she grabbed a few washcloths from the linen shelves by the big tub. Returning to the counter, she pulled the changing pad from its side pocket and opened it up. Ellie giggled and waved her arms, trying to grab Lani’s hair as Lani laid her down.

  “You need a toy.” Lani gave her the butterfly rattle, which she promptly threw on the floor. Lani played stern. “If I give you another toy, you have to promise not to throw it.”

  Ellie imitated her serious face. “K,” she replied with a quick nod of her tiny chin.

  There was an apple-shaped teething ring in the bag. Lani gave her that. She promptly started chewing on it, making happy little cooing sounds.

  Lani flipped the water on and set to work. She had the diaper off and rolled up nice and tight and was busy using up the stack of cloths, wiping and rinsing and wiping some more, when her phone in the diaper bag started playing “Radioactive.” It was the ringtone she’d assigned to her agent, Marie.

  Her heart rate instantly rocketed into high gear.

  Okay, it could be nothing.

  But what if it wasn’t nothing?

  What if this was her moment, the moment every wannabe author dreamed of, the moment she got the call, the one that meant there was an actual publisher out there who wanted to buy her book?

  She let out a moan of frustration and wiped faster. Not a big deal, she promised herself. She could call Marie back in just a few minutes. If there was an offer, it wouldn’t evaporate while she finished mopping Ellie’s bottom.

  “Let me help,” said the wonderful deep voice that haunted her dreams.

  Slowly, her heart galloping faster than ever, she turned her head enough to see him lounging in the doorway wearing gray slacks and a light blue shirt.

  The phone stopped ringing and she scowled at him. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Only a minute or two.” He straightened and came toward her, all confidence and easy male grace. “I was in my study and I heard your voice and Ellie’s laughter....” He stopped beside her at the counter. His niece giggled up at him as she drooled on her teething ring. “Give me the washcloth.”

  “I... What?”

  “The washcloth.” He reached out and took the smelly wet cloth in his long-fingered, elegant hand. “Return your call.”

  “No, really. I’ll do this. It’s fine.” She tried to grab it back.

  He held it away. “I have two children. I know how to diaper a baby.” Ellie uttered a string of nonsense syllables, followed by a goofy little giggle. “See? Ellie knows I can handle it.” On cue, Ellie babbled some more. “Make your call,” he commanded a second time as he stuck the washcloth under the water. He wrung it out and got to work.

  Lani washed her hands, grabbed her phone and called Marie back. She watched Max diaper Ellie while Marie Garabondi, the agent she’d been working with for just over a month now, talked fast in her ear.

  Somewhere in the third or fourth sentence, Marie said the longed-for word: “offer.” And everything spun away. Lani listened from a distance, watching Max, so manly and tender, bending over Ellie, doing a stinky job gently and efficiently.

  And Marie kept on talking. Lani held the phone to her ear, hardly believing, understanding everything Marie was telling her, only somehow feeling detached, not fully present.

  She held up her end, answered, “Yes. All right. Okay, then. Great.” But it all seemed unreal to her, not really happening, some odd little dream she was having in the middle of the day. “Yes. Good. Let’s do it, yes...” Marie talked some more. And then she said goodbye.

  Lani was left standing there in the bathroom holding the phone.

  Max had finished changing Ellie and lifted her onto his shoulder. She promptly pulled on his ear and babbled out more happy sounds that didn’t quite amount to real words.

  “Well?” he asked. Lani blinked and tried to bring herself back to reality. “Lani, what’s happened?” he demanded. He was starting to look a little worried.

  She sucked in a long breath and shared the news. “That was my agent. We have a deal. A very good deal. I just sold three books.”

  Max smiled. It was the biggest, happiest smile she’d ever seen on his wonderful face. And it was for her. “Congratulations,” he said.

  Ellie seemed to pick up on the spirit of the moment. She stopped pulling Max’s ear and clapped her hands.

  Very carefully, Lani set her phone down on the bathroom counter. “I’ll be right back.”

  Max didn’t say anything. He just stood there grinning, holding the baby.

  And Lani took off like a shot. She ran out into the hallway of Max’s apartment, shouting, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” When she got to the kitchen, she turned around and ran back again, shouting “Yes!” all the way.

  Max was waiting, leaning in the bathroom doorway with Ellie in his arms, when she returned to him. “Feel good?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She wanted to grab him and plant one right on him, to take his hand and lead him back to the kitchen where they could sit and talk and...

  She stopped the dangerous thought before it could really get rolling.

  “Nani, Nani...” Ellie swayed toward her.

  She took the little sweetheart in her arms. “I’d, um, better get back. Gerta will wonder.”

  He was still smiling, but there was something somber in his eyes. “All right, then.”

  Neither of them moved.

  “Nani...” Ellie patted her cheek—and then started squirming. “Dow, Nani, dow...”

  Lani broke the tempting hold of his gaze. “I need to get back.” He was blocking the doorway. “The diaper bag?”

  He went and got it for her. “Here you are.”

  She took it from his outstretched hand and carried the wiggling toddler out of there, away from him.

  * * *

  “It’s time and you know it,” Sydney said the next day.

  They were at the villa, just Syd and Lani, sitting at the table in the kitchen, sharing a late lunch while Trev and Ellie napped.

  Everything had changed with that single call from Marie. And the time had come for Lani and Syd to deal with that.

  Lani couldn’t seem to stop herself from arguing against taking the next step. “But I love Trev and Ellie. And I have plenty of time to write and to take care of them.”

  Syd wasn’t buying. “Why do I have to tell you what you already know? You’ll be needing to network, to put together a PR plan. And what about that website you still don’t have? And you keep saying you’re going to establish more of an online presence, see if you can do more to boost the sales of those three e-books you have out.”

  “You’re making me dizzy. You know that, right?”

  “What I’m saying isn’t news. It’s what we always agreed. As soon as you were making enough with your writing to live on for a year, you would put all your work time into building a career. This sale does that for you.” />
  “I know, but...”

  “But what, Lani?”

  Lani let out a low cry. “But it’s all happening so fast. And what about Ellie and Trev? They’re used to my being with them all the time. How will they take it, having some stranger for a nanny?”

  “They will do fine.” Syd reached across the distance between them and ran a fond hand down her hair. “They grow up, anyway. To a degree, in the end, we lose them to their own lives.”

  Lani wrinkled up her nose at her friend. “Okay, I get that you’re trying to make me feel better. But come on. Ellie’s still in diapers and Trev’s four. It’s a long time until they’re on their own. And I know you and Rule are planning to have more children. You need me, you know you do.”

  “And you need to get out there.” Syd set down her fork. “Listen, don’t tempt me, okay? You’re amazing with the kids. They love you so much—almost as much as I do. You’re part of the family and I hate to let you go.”

  “Then why don’t we just keep it like it is for a while?”

  Syd refused to waver. “Uh-uh. No. You need to do this. And it’s not like you’re moving back to Texas or anything. You’ll see them often, every day if you want to.”

  “Of course I want to see them every day. I love them. I love you.”

  “And I love you,” Syd said. “So much. I’m so crazy happy for you.”

  Lani’s throat clutched and her eyes burned.

  “Oh, honey...” Syd grabbed the box of tissues off the windowsill and passed them to her.

  Lani dabbed at her eyes. “Somehow, I didn’t expect it to be like this. To get what I’ve always wanted—and just feel all weepy and lost about it.”

  “It’s all going to work out. Change is a good thing.”

  Lani shot Syd a sideways look. “Keep saying that.”

  “You’d better believe I will—until you stop trying to go backward and move on.”

  Lani pushed her plate away, braced her elbows on the table and rested her chin between her hands. “Unbelievable. Seriously. And yeah. Okay.”