HOW TO MARRY A PRINCESS Page 8

  She grabbed her shoes and her wrap and jumped out before she could weaken. Then she stood there on the walk, barefoot in her gold dress, and watched his car drive away.

  Chapter Five

  Noah slept on the plane, but only fitfully. His car and driver were waiting for him at the Santa Barbara Airport when his flight touched down. He’d have one night in his own bed and then in the morning he’d board another plane to San Francisco for meetings with a media firm seeking investors for a TV-streaming start-up.

  At the estate, Lucy came running out to greet him. She grabbed him and hugged him and said how she’d missed him. It did him good to see her smile. She seemed to have boundless energy lately. He was pleased at how well she was doing.

  They were barely in the front door before she started in on him about college in Manhattan.

  He took her by her thin shoulders and held her still. “Lucy.”

  She looked up at him through those big sweet brown eyes of hers, all innocence. “What?”

  “You need to call that school and tell them you won’t be attending in the spring.”

  Her lips thinned to a hard line. “Of course I won’t call them. I’m going, one way or another, no matter what.”

  “Later,” he coaxed. “In a year or two, after we’re certain you can handle it.”

  “I can handle it. And I’m taking the spring semester. This spring semester. You just see if I don’t.”

  Noah tried not to let out a long, weary sigh. She was so completely out there on this—nothing short of obsessed over it. She couldn’t go if he didn’t write the checks. And he had no intention of allowing her to put her health at risk. “We’ve been through this. It’s too soon.”

  “No, it’s not.” She shrugged off his grip. “It’s been two years since my last surgery. I am fine. I am well. And you know it. It’s not too soon.”

  He wanted a stiff drink and dinner and a little peace and quiet before he had to leave again in the morning. He wanted Alice, a lot. But he wasn’t going to have her for a while yet, and he understood that. “Please, Lucy. We’ll talk more later, all right?”

  “But—”

  He caught her shoulders again and kissed her forehead. “Later.” He said it gently.

  She shrugged him off again. “Later to you really means never.”

  There was no point in arguing anymore over it. Shaking his head, he turned for the stairs.

  * * *

  “I suppose you saw the stories in the Sun and the Daily Mirror.” Alice sipped her sparkling water and poked at her pasta salad.

  It was Saturday, two days since Noah had gone back to America. Rhia had come to Alice’s for lunch. The sisters sat in the sunlit breakfast room that looked out on Alice’s small patio and garden.

  Rhia slathered butter on a croissant. “As tabloid stories go, I thought they were lovely.”

  “Tabloid stories are never lovely.”

  “In this case, I beg to differ. The pictures were so romantic. Noah looked so handsome and you looked fabulous. Two gorgeous people out enjoying an evening together at Casino d’Ambre. Totally harmless. Nothing the least tacky. Good press for Montedoro and the casino. And you both seemed to be having such a good time together. I don’t see what you’re so glum about.”

  She was glum because she missed him. A lot. It didn’t make sense, she kept reminding herself, to miss a man she hardly knew. No matter how smoking hot he happened to be. “I sold him Orion. He arranged to have the veterinarian at the stables yesterday for the prepurchase exam and he’s already sent the money.” He’d wired the whole amount after the exam, before he got the papers to sign. So very, very Noah.

  Rhia swallowed more pasta. “You’ve changed your mind about parting with the stallion, then, and want to back out of the sale?”

  Alice scowled. “Of course not. I’m a horse breeder. I can’t keep them all.”

  “Then what is the matter?”

  “Everything. Nothing. Did you see the flowers in the big Murano glass vase in the foyer?”

  “I did. The vase is fabulous. And the lilies... Your favorite.”

  “Noah sent them—both the flowers and the vase. He also sent a ridiculously expensive hammered-gold necklace studded with rubies.”

  “You know, I get the distinct impression that he fancies you.” Rhia ate more pasta and chuckled to herself.

  “What is so funny?”

  “Grumpy, grumpy.” Rhia was still chuckling.

  “He wants me to come and visit him in California.”

  “Will you?”

  “I haven’t decided. He also wants to marry me.”

  Rhia blinked and swallowed the big bite of croissant she’d just shoved into her mouth. Since she hadn’t chewed, she choked a little and had to wash it down with sparkling water. “Well,” she said when she could talk again. “That was fast.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Rhia set down her glass and sat back in her chair. “I’m listening.”

  “Oh, Rhia...”

  “Just tell me. You’ll feel better.”

  So Alice told her sister about taking Noah to the family beach, about his startling confession that he wanted to marry a princess—Alice, specifically. “Is that insane or what?”

  Rhia shrugged. “He’s very bold. Just like you. And you’ve admitted there is real attraction between you.”

  “But don’t you think it’s wildly arrogant and more than a little strange to decide to marry a princess out of thin air like that?”

  “I’m not going to judge him. Please don’t ask me to. What I think is that you really like him and lately you’re not trusting your own instincts, so you think you shouldn’t like him.”

  “Oh, Rhia. I don’t know what to do....”

  Her sister gave her a tender, understanding smile. “I think you do. You just haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.”

  * * *

  Noah arrived home again from the Bay Area on Saturday afternoon.

  Lucy did not run out to greet him. Still sulking over that damn school she wouldn’t be going to, no doubt. Fine. Let her sulk. Eventually, she would see reason and accept that she needed more time at home, where he and Hannah, her former foster mom, who managed the estate now, could take care of her. Maybe at dinner that night, if she wasn’t too hostile, he could suggest a few online classes. He needed to get her to slow down a little. There was too much stress and responsibility involved in going to college full-time and living on her own. She needed to ease into all that by degrees.

  He thought about Alice. On the plane, he’d read the tabloid stories of their night together at Casino d’Ambre. Just looking at the pictures of her in that amazing gold dress made him want to hop another flight back to Montedoro, where he could kiss her and touch her and take off all her clothes.

  She should have come home with him. But she hadn’t. He had to be patient; he knew it. He was playing the long game with her. And the prize was a lifetime, the two of them, together.

  Unfortunately, being patient about Alice wasn’t easy. It made him edgy, made him want to pick a fight with someone like he used to do when he was young and stupid—pick a fight and kick some serious ass.

  A ride might lift his spirits a little, get his mind off Alice in that gold dress. He put on old jeans and boots and a knit shirt and went out to the stables, where he greeted the staff and chose the Thoroughbred gelding Solitairio to ride.

  He took a series of trails that wound over his thirty-acre estate and on and off neighboring properties. His neighbors owned horses, too. They shared an agreement, giving each other riding access.

  An hour after he left the stables, he was feeling better about everything. The meetings with the streaming start-up had gone well. Lucy would see the light eventually
and agree to take things more slowly. And in time Alice would be his wife.

  * * *

  Sunday, Alice went to breakfast at the palace with the family. She was a little nervous that her mother might not approve of all the press from her night out with Noah.

  But Adrienne only greeted Alice with a hug—and congratulated her on getting such a fine price for Orion. Alice was just breathing a sigh of relief when Damien took the chair next to her at the breakfast table.

  He leaned close. “So you sold Noah the horse he wanted.”

  “I did.” Alice sipped her coffee.

  “Well.” Dami spread his napkin on his knee. “Good enough. And now he’s gone back to California where he belongs.” She promised herself she was not going to become annoyed with her brother, that he only wanted the best for her. Dami added, “And you won’t be seeing him again.”

  That did it. She turned a blinding smile his way. “Actually, he invited me to come and visit him in California.”

  Her brother didn’t miss a beat. “And, of course, you told him no.”

  “I told him I would think about it. And that is exactly what I’m doing.”

  Dami gave her a look. His expression remained absolutely calm. But his eyes shot sparks. “Are you trying to get hurt?”

  She longed to blurt out the rest of it—that Noah wanted to marry her and she just might be considering that, too. But telling Dami was not the same as confiding in Rhia. Rhia didn’t judge. Dami had decided he knew what was best for her. “There’s no good way to answer that question, and you know it.”

  Dami only sat there, still wearing that look.

  She laid it out for him clear as glass. “Mind your own business. Please.”

  “But, Allie, it is my business.” He kept his voice carefully low, just between the two of them. “I invited him here.”

  “What is the matter with you?” She spoke very quietly, too. But she wrapped her whisper in a core of steel. “You’d think I was some wide-eyed little baby, unable to take care of myself. You’re way out of line about this. You’ve already told me what you think I need to know. Now you can back off and stay out of it. Please.”

  “I think I should talk to him. I should have spoken to him earlier.”

  “Dami. Hear me. Don’t you dare.”

  Something in the way she said that must have finally gotten through to him. Because he shook his head and muttered, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you....”

  “Stay out of it. Are we clear?”

  “Fine. We’re clear.” He was the one who looked away.

  * * *

  The next day, Alice received another vase—Chinese that time, decorated with cherry blossoms and filled with pink lilies, green anthuriums, plumeria the color of rainbow sherbet and flowering purple artichokes. That night he called her.

  “I miss you,” he said, his voice low and gruff and way too intimate. “When are you coming to see me?”

  She felt an enormous smile bloom and couldn’t have stopped it if she’d wanted to. “The flowers are so beautiful.”

  “Which ones?”

  “All of them—the lilies especially. Both vases, too. And that necklace. You shouldn’t have sent that necklace.”

  “Come and visit me. You can wear it for me.”

  “Thank you. Now stop sending me things.”

  “I like sending you things. It’s fun. How’s my stallion?”

  “Beautiful. And a gentleman. I hate to part with him.”

  “You won’t have to if you marry me.”

  “A telephone proposal. How very romantic.”

  “It wasn’t a proposal. Just a statement of fact. You’ll know when I’m proposing, I promise you that. I want you to send Orion on Friday—can you do that?”

  “Of course. If you have all the arrangements made?”

  “I will. He’ll fly into JFK, be picked up in a quarantine van and taken to a beautiful little farm in Maryland for testing.” The required quarantine for transporting a stallion from Montedoro to the U.S.A. was thirty days, during which time Orion would be tested for contagious equine metritis. “I’ll pay a visit to the farm the day after he arrives to see that he’s managed the trip well. And I’ll arrange to have him put on a hot walker daily for exercise.” During quarantine a stallion couldn’t be allowed out to pasture or to be ridden. A mechanical hot walker was a machine designed to cool a horse down after exercise. In this case, the machine would give the quarantined stallion the exercise he needed while in isolation.

  She said, “By the end of next month, you will have him.”

  “Come and visit. You can be here when he arrives at his new home.”

  “That would be a long visit. I do have a life, you know.”

  He said nothing for a moment. The silence was warm, full of promise. Companionable. “I don’t want to take anything away from you. I only want to give you more. We could live here and there in Montedoro. I know your work with your horses means everything to you. You wouldn’t have to give that up. However you prefer it, that’s how it will be.”

  “Suddenly we’re talking about marriage again—but this isn’t a proposal, right?”

  “Absolutely not. I told you. When I propose, you won’t have to ask if that’s what I’m doing.”

  The next night, Tuesday, he called again. She asked about Lucy.

  “She’s doing well. Feeling great. And still after me to let her move to New York.”

  “Let her? She’s twenty-three, you said.”

  “So? I told you. She hasn’t been well for most of her life.”

  “But, Noah, she’s well now, isn’t she?”

  “She can’t be too careful.” His voice had turned flat. Uncompromising.

  Alice let the subject go. She’d never met Lucy, didn’t really understand the situation. She had no right to nag him in any case. They hardly knew each other. She only felt as though she knew him. She needed to remember that.

  Wednesday, she sent him a text letting him know she’d taken Orion out during her predawn ride.

  Hving 2nd thgts abt selling him. He is 2 fabu.

  He zipped one right back.

  4get it. He’s mine.

  Hold the tude.

  Come 2 C me.

  U R 2 relentless.

  Rite away wd b gud.

  R U NTS?

  They went back and forth like that for at least twenty minutes. She stood on the cobblestones outside the stable door, the sun warm on her back, thumbs flying over her phone. It was so much fun.

  And yes, she was starting to think that a visit to California might be a lovely idea.

  After that day, they texted regularly. He called every night and sent flowers again on Friday, the day Orion boarded a plane in a special stall-like crate for his flight to America.

  Noah flew to Maryland to check on his new stallion and then flew from there to Los Angeles for another series of meetings that would go on over the weekend. They kept up an ongoing conversation in text messages, and he called her each night, which rather impressed her. He always called around eight, a perfect time for her since she was sticking close to home and usually at the villa for the evening by then. With the nine-hour time difference, though, it was eleven in the morning in California when he called. Somehow he always managed to call her anyway.

  It pleased her, the way he made a point to take the time to get in touch with her consistently. It pleased her a lot. Maybe too much, she kept telling herself.

  On Saturday she was expected at a gala charity auction in Cannes. A driver and her favorite bodyguard, Altus, showed up at seven to take her there. It was nice enough as those things went. She bid on several items and visited with people she’d known all her life and had her picture taken with people whose names she couldn’t reca
ll. At the end, she wrote a large check for the decorative mirror and antique side table she’d won.

  On the drive home, she felt a little down somehow. For some reason, that made her want to talk to Noah. She got out her phone to text him—and it buzzed in her hand.

  A text from him.

  Still @ auction?

  That down feeling? Evaporated.

  It’s over. Cn U tk?

  WCU 1 hr.

  She was back at her villa when the phone rang. They talked for two hours. She explained how she’d somehow ended up with a mirror and a side table she didn’t even want and he told her all about the movie people he’d met with to discuss a film project he was considering investing in. They laughed together and she felt...understood somehow. Connected. And she couldn’t help remembering that dream she’d had right after they’d first met, the dream where they rode through a meadow of wildflowers and talked and laughed together like longtime companions.

  Monday, she found pictures of him on the internet. And yes, it was becoming a habit with her, to look him up online. In the pictures, he was having lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel with a famous movie producer and a couple of actors she recognized. She teased him about it when they talked that night.

  He said, “You’re checking up on me.” He didn’t sound the least bothered by the idea. “How am I doing?”

  “So far, so good. Not a single scandal since you left Montedoro. No hot gossip about your newest girlfriend.”

  “You told me I had to be monogamous, remember?”

  She half groaned, half laughed. “If you’re only sleeping alone because I told you to, you’re missing the point.”

  “Spoken like a woman. Not only does a guy have to do it your way, he has to like doing it your way.”