Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection - Мишель Смарт, Kate Hardy - Страница 112
ОглавлениеZARA WOKE UP feeling different. It took her a moment to figure out exactly why. Mostly because though she woke up in Andres’s room, she woke up in an empty bed. The sheets were cold, and it was clear that Andres hadn’t been between them for hours.
She sat up, holding the blankets to her chest. She looked out the small window that was behind the bed, and saw that the sun was high in the clear December sky. She got up, leaving the blankets behind, gazing outside at the landscape. It was covered in snow, the light glittering over the pristine blanket. It was late. She had no idea how late.
They had left the lunch yesterday, and then...all of that had happened. They had come back to the room. There had been the bath. Then the rest. Then more. And eventually, she had fallen asleep. Somewhere in there, she was pretty certain she had agreed to marry him. She looked down at her left hand and saw that she was still wearing his ring. Yes, she had definitely agreed.
And apparently she had also been in bed for nearly twelve hours.
She groaned and turned back to the bed, flopping down over the top of it. Right then the doors to the room burst open. She scrambled for the blankets, pulling them over her naked body.
“Oh, good,” Andres said, closing the doors behind him. “You’re awake.”
“Barely,” she said.
“We have somewhere to be.”
“What?” She sat up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know until recently. And because you have been asleep.”
“I would have thought your schedule would be more fixed.”
He shook his head. “Regrettably, no. I don’t normally live here at the palace.”
The statement took her by surprise. She had assumed that Andres lived here. Then she realized she had not been here very long, and they had never discussed it. “You don’t?”
“No. I have penthouses in a few of the major cities in the world. I try to avoid being under my brother’s roof when possible. Sadly, of late, it has not been possible.”
“So we... We won’t live here?”
“No. Unless it is very important to you.”
She shook her head. “No. I... Which cities?”
“Paris. New York. London.”
“I should like to live in those. All of them.”
“Sometimes we will.”
For the first time she felt wholly pleased with the idea of marrying him.
“I see that you like that.” A smile curved the corner of his lips. He seemed pleased that she was pleased. And that made her feel...pleased. She had the feeling that sex made people slightly crazy and she was suffering the aftereffects of that. She had spoken very boldly of all she knew about it. Because she had of course been aware that it happened around her in the camp. Caravans, tents, were not soundproof.
Still, she had never had these kinds of feelings about anyone. So the entire concept might as well be foreign.
“I have never been anywhere. Never, not in my life. Coming here to Petras was the first time I had ever been outside Tirimia. And since coming here...I haven’t left the palace.”
“Well, you will be leaving today.”
“I see you have everything all planned out. It would be nice if you would share those plans with me.”
“We are going to a Christmas play.”
Zara sputtered. That was about the last thing she had expected for him to say. “I didn’t expect that.”
“Several of the local schools are putting on a program. Kairos and Tabitha were unavailable and someone from the royal family needs to be there.”
“So we are going.” She was a part of the royal family now. She was a part of the family. The thought made a warm sensation bloom in her chest and start to spread outward, making her fingertips, her legs, her toes feel warm too. She hadn’t realized until that moment just how cold she had been.
“Yes. Your clothes have already been selected and are being sent up.”
“If you aren’t careful I could fall into the habit of letting you take care of things for me.” She took a deep breath. “It’s sort of nice not to have to worry about details.”
“I’m not worrying about your details. Untold legions of palace staff are. I prefer for them to worry about mine, as well.”
“It is quite a luxury.”
“I’m surprised to see that you aren’t hissing and spitting. I should have used sex to quiet you down from the first moment.”
She glared at him, completely annoyed with herself as she felt her face heat. She was certain she was not looking angry so much as flushed and eager. How irritating that being with him had in fact stolen some of her thunder.
“I did not fight with you for no reason. I’m hardly going to do it just for the sake of it.”
“Yes, I know, it was all about your freedom.”
The warmth in her chest only grew in intensity. She felt...understood. She could not remember the last time, if ever, she had felt that. A knock on the door to the bedchamber broke the tension between them.
“Those would be your clothes. I will leave you to that.”
“I’m wrapped in a blanket!”
“Yes, but the stylist is going to dress you anyway. Probably for the best that you are starting out undressed. Saves time.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Okay.”
“I will meet you downstairs.”
Without another word he turned and walked toward the door, opening it for the stylist and leaving her alone with the woman holding a garment bag.
An hour, some makeup and some hair products later, Zara was in the back of a limousine with Andres, driving away from the palace. The roads were clear, but there was snow on either side of them, covering the ground and the pine trees beyond. Little bits of green velvet showing through the pristine blanket of white.
It wasn’t so different from the landscape in Tirimia, and yet, as they wound away from the private drive that led to the palace, it started to appear more and more foreign to her. They had driven over the Tirimian border at night when she was brought here to Petras, so she hadn’t had a chance to get a sense for the city. Added to that, she had been terrified.
But she was seeing it now. Old churches stood alongside modern high-rises, Georgian-era homes placed near trendy boutiques and bakeries. She was transfixed by the movement. The cars on the road, the people on the sidewalks. It was anything but lonely. Every piece of stone was part of something, touching something else.
She turned to face Andres, suddenly conscious of just how quiet he had been the entire drive. His eyes were on her, assessing. “What are you doing?”
“Watching you.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“That isn’t true. You’re looking at the scenery. Quite prettily, I might add.”
A rush of adrenaline and satisfaction filled her. “I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of doing anything prettily before.”
“You’re very pretty. Everything you do is done prettily as a result.”
“Even when I hiss and spit and gnaw on chicken bones?”
“You didn’t gnaw the bones.”
“I would have. If you hadn’t dumped my dinner in a potted plant.”
He surprised her then by laughing. Not a carefully controlled laugh. Not one designed to mock. But one filled with humor. “I did dump your dinner in a potted plant, didn’t I?”
“Yes. You owe me chicken.”
“I will keep that under advisement.”
As stunning as the scenery was, she found that she suddenly wanted to keep her eyes on him. He was beautiful when he smiled. His dark eyes glittered in a way they didn’t usually, his teeth white against his golden skin. He had a slight dimple on one side of his mouth. One she hadn’t noticed before. She had seen him naked, and still, she noticed something new about him. She wondered how long it would take for her to discover every mystery he contained.
Suddenly, she felt panicked, because she was afraid a lifetime might not be sufficient. She was so behind in her learnings on this sort of thing. When it came to the mysteries that passed between men and women, she had to learn to be a princess and a wife, and she had no idea how she would ever accomplish both.
She didn’t have time to worry, as just then the limousine pulled up to a large, ornately carved building. “The oldest church in Petras,” Andres said, anticipating her question before she spoke it.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, getting out of the car when the driver opened the door for her.
Andres got out and looped his arm through hers, leading her up the steps. She looked at the expansive doorway, at the saints and angels fashioned into the stone.
The building was even more spectacular inside. There was a large basin filled with water, holy water, she assumed. Beyond that, chairs were set up facing the stage and a large stained-glass window was positioned above, light filtering through and casting colors onto the floor below. There were Christmas trees, large and perfectly dressed, stationed throughout the sanctuary, lit by white lights, wrapped in dark red garlands.
As had happened at the palace, the crowd parted to allow Andres passage.
There was a seat reserved for them in the front, and once they sat, she sensed all the eyes in the room on them. At least, until the play began. Children of all ages stood holding candles, singing songs. The young children didn’t sing beautifully, but they sang loudly. The older children managed harmonies, their voices echoing beautifully in the space, filling it, filling her.
When they began the last song, her eyes began to well up and she grabbed a hold of Andres’s hand, squeezing it tightly, trying to keep tears from falling. She never cried. She had cried for her parents. For her brother. Anything after that hadn’t seemed worthy of her tears. But she had never before cried for beauty. For something so lovely it seemed it had come from another world.
When the program finished, everyone stood, people milling around the stage and going to speak to the children.
“Can we go tell them how wonderful it was?” she asked Andres.
“If you wish.”
“I do.”
Zara had always liked children. The clan had been distant with her, but not the children. By the time Zara was an adult, that was her main source of connection. She would spend time leading the children on expeditions through the woods, reading them stories.
Of all the things she had left behind, she missed the children the most.
When they approached, the children looked more awed than excited. But she couldn’t blame them. Andres had that effect. “It was a very good performance,” Andres said, addressing a small group.
The kids looked down, smiling shyly and scuffing their toes. “Thank you,” they said, in an uneven chorus.
Zara hunched down, trying to get on their level. “I enjoyed it very much. You sang so beautifully it made me cry.”
A little boy with both front teeth missing looked surprised. “We did? How?”
“Sometimes things can make you cry because they fill you with so much joy you can’t hold it all in. So it leaks out your eyes.” At least, she assumed that was why. She didn’t have a lot of experience with it.
The boy laughed. “You’re funny.”
“I know.”
She spent the next few minutes talking to the children, while Andres hung back. It was easy for her. Children didn’t judge in the same way adults did. Neither did they observe protocol. They didn’t keep that reserve to distance that was given to royalty out of respect, because children did not understand respect in the same way adults did. For that she was grateful.
Andres put his hand on her shoulder and she straightened. “It is time for us to leave soon.”
“Okay.”
As they turned to go, one of the teachers rushed to them. “Prince Andres,” she said. “I just wanted to thank you for coming. And this is Princess Zara?”
Zara was astonished that this woman knew her name. But then, she supposed her name might have been mentioned in the media since the luncheon yesterday.
“Yes,” Andres said, wrapping his arm around her waist, “my fiancée.”
“You are so good with the children, Princess,” the woman said.
“I like children,” Zara returned.
“Well, if you ever find yourself in need of ways to fill your time, we could always use volunteers in the classroom. People to come and read books, or help with choir.”
“I would love to,” Zara said. How long had it been since anyone needed her? Since anyone thought she was good at something and wanted to put those skills to use?
It had always been blood. Always been title. This was different, and it was exhilarating. This was being where she belonged, the pieces of herself, scattered on the wind for so many years, finally coming to rest.
Like coming to the end of a long walk in the wilderness, making it to the summit and finally seeing what she’d been traveling toward all her life. Her destiny, laid out before her.
A princess in a palace, with her prince at her side.
“We will put Zara’s assistant in touch with you,” Andres said.
“I’m Julia Shuler,” the woman offered. “If you need to get hold of me.”
“Thank you, Julia. I’m looking forward to coordinating something.”
“We must go, Princess. We have a reservation.”
Zara looked up at Andres. “For what?”
“For that dinner I owe you.”
* * *
The restaurant was beautiful, situated at the top of a hill overlooking the glittering city below. Zara had never been to such a fine place, the palace in Tirimia excluded. She had been spoiled by lovely food since coming here, but somehow this felt different. Perhaps because they were making a public showing, together. Perhaps because she had been fashioned into a woman who looked as though she belonged on Andres’s arm.
Perhaps just because she was excited. She was out to dinner with Andres. It was, for all intents and purposes, her first date.
She could scarcely think back to the woman she had been yesterday. The one who had tried to sabotage their arrangement by making a spectacle during the luncheon. She felt different now. Being with him had changed something. It had changed her.
She lifted the glass of wine to her lips, trying to orient herself to what was happening. To the fact that she was here. Sitting across from the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life, sipping on the most marvelous drink she’d ever had. She was warm. She was wearing beautiful clothes. There was a teacher who wanted to use her skills.
She was part of the royal family.
“You don’t have to volunteer for the schools if you don’t want to,” Andres said, taking a sip of his own wine.
“But I want to,” she said. “I told you, I want to find out what I’m good at. What I want to do. I was a younger daughter and I imagine that even if I had stayed in Tirimia, this is the sort of thing I would have done. And maybe I can figure out some of the specific needs of the people here if I’m working with them on such a close level. There might be some other things I could arrange. Charities.” She smiled. “I enjoyed the kids back in the encampment I lived in. They didn’t put so much distance between themselves and me. I really do love children.”
“That’s good.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Why is that good?”
“Because we will have children. We may yet have one on the way already, as careless as we’ve been.”
Her heart stalled, then slammed into her chest. “Oh.” Of course. They had taken no precautions against pregnancy. She had not thought of that until now. She waited to feel angry. To feel sad. She didn’t. The thought of a baby—Andres’s baby—only filled her with more of that same warmth from earlier.
They really would be a family. She had been alone for so long, and now she felt she was spoiled with company. A man who would be her husband, who would share her bed. A child. Just for a moment she allowed herself to be nothing more than completely happy. Filled with joy, filled with anticipation.
“I hope you aren’t upset,” he said, breaking her out of her reverie.
“Upset? Why would I be upset? I’m...happy.”
Andres looked completely shocked by that statement, but there was no way he could have been more surprised than Zara herself. But, surprising as it was, it was true. Today, he had shown her something other than the palace. Today, he had shown her what she could mean, not just to her country, not just to him, but to others. And what others could mean to her. She was beginning to feel that she was part of something. A part of the people here in this country, of the royal family.
“Forgive me for feeling surprised by that, Princess. But just yesterday you tried to get yourself thrown out.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Things change.”
A shadow fell over his expression, and he took another sip of wine. “I suppose sometimes things do change. But people rarely do.”
“Why does that sound ominous?”
“It shouldn’t. Just realistic. I want you to understand that just because what you want has changed, it doesn’t mean that I will.”
“Because you’re so very terrible?” She had yet to see evidence of this legendary playboy and lapsed prince. Andres wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t entirely certain she could characterize him as nice. But she liked him. He was full of passion, fire and intensity. And, though he would deny it, conviction.
Deeper than the conviction was the pain. Pain that she had heard in the cracks of the story he’d told about his mother. In his explanation for why he had slept with his brother’s fiancée. How deeply must a man hate himself to try and make everyone else hate him too? Beneath his words now, she sensed it. That same intent.
“There are quite a few people on this earth who would tell you that I am.”
“Happily for you, I am not one of them. Which is really quite convenient when you think about it. I doubt you want a wife who hates you.”
He laughed, the sound like the edge of a rusty knife’s blade. “It may be inevitable. I’m not entirely certain as I’ve never had a wife before.”
“It’s only inevitable if you make it so. It’s your decision.”
“And yours, I think, Princess,” he said, a strange kind of insincerity coating his words.
“Then I purpose to like you. For a very long time.” She was quite satisfied with the declaration.
“Very kind of you.”
A moment later the waitstaff appeared, putting plates down in front of them. It was chicken, which made her smile because he’d remembered that he owed her chicken. “I like you even more now.”
“You are very cheaply bought.”
“If you recall, I was a gift.” She sliced a small piece off her chicken and took a bite. She chewed thoughtfully, then smiled. “I was quite cheap for you. Free even.”
“Yes. My little fruit basket.”
“On a fruit-basket scale I’m quite large. Impressive.”
“Yes, but on the scale of small, feral women, you are tiny.”
“I have no frame of reference for playboy princes and how large or small they might be. Though I would consider you large.” She felt her face get hot and she took another bite of food.
“Are you trying to engage me in a bit of dirty talk?” His eyes glittered with amusement and she decided that keeping that look on his face would become a goal of hers.
Help children with reading, find useful ways to spend her time, make Andres’s eyes glitter.
She added to her list.
“Perhaps. But I have no experience with that.”
“Tell me.” He shifted in his chair. “What do you have experience with?”
“Well, as you know, I have a great amount of experience wandering the woods alone. As you’ve seen today, I have some experience with children. I have some experience with grief. And now I have a bit of experience with sex.”
The glitter in his eyes turned molten. “Not nearly enough as far as I’m concerned. I will have to expand your education.”
“I feel agreeable to that.”
“Well, I do live for your agreement.”
“In this case, I imagine you might.”
A smile curved the corner of his mouth upward. “Do you think?”
“You have quite a bit of power, Andres, and certainly you have some over me. But I don’t think I’m wrong in imagining that I might have some over you too.”
“Do you not like dessert, Zara?”
“I am fond of cake. Why?”
“You seem intent on ensuring that you never get to have it.”
“I do?”
Just then the waiter came back by and Andres stood. “Send my bill to the palace. And we will take a cake.”
“Are we leaving?”
“We are. And quickly.”
He wrapped his hand around her arm and pulled her up to her feet.
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
“Because,” he said, leaning in, “you have tempted me. And now I must have you.”
A shiver went down Zara’s spine. “You must have me?”
“I need you.”
How long had it been since anyone needed her? Had anyone ever needed her? She wasn’t certain that they had. It felt... It felt good. The ache inside her was changing, shifting. It wasn’t a yawning howl of isolation, not that brittle emptiness. This was something else. It was warm, and it burned like fire, creating a desperate feeling at her center that she couldn’t quite understand. Desperate to do something. To touch him. To be close to him, skin to skin so that there was no distance between them. To make sure he felt the same thing she did.
He said that he needed her. And she desperately needed that to be true.
Desperately needed to feel connected.
Such a strange thing that, on the heels of feeling that she was in the place she belonged, she realized how much more there was. How much more she wanted.
To not just fit in with this place, but with this man.
The waiter appeared a moment later with a large bag, containing a white pastry box. Andres accepted it and whispered to her, “This is, I think, having your cake and eating it too.”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“You’re about to.”
