tale. And he didn’t have long to prepare her for what she was going to face.
Stella silently walked barefoot along the beach and then climbed up to the palace. She showered and shrugged on the silk robe left on her bed, then went to find Eduardo.
‘Is this your favourite room?’ she asked as she explored the trinkets on the shelves in the library.
He nodded. ‘I like the view. The books. My chair.’
She chuckled. ‘Old man.’
‘Let me guess—your favourite room is the gym.’ He rolled his eyes.
‘Oh, no.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I prefer to be outdoors.’
‘So do I—when it’s sunny and warm. So sit here.’ He gestured to a large seat. ‘At least here you can see outside.’
It was a beautiful room. At first glance she’d thought it impersonal and opulent. Now she saw the personal treasures. The old blanket on his favourite chair. It was his nest.
He took the chair beside hers. ‘When we get back to San Felipe...’ He cleared his throat. ‘They’re going to ask questions. They’re going to ask everything.’
‘They?’
‘Everyone. So tell me ten things I don’t know about you.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes.’
She frowned. ‘I thought you knew everything from my personnel file?’
‘That’s like saying you know everything about me from the gossip magazines.’
Amused appreciation sparkled within her. ‘So you’re saying we know nothing about each other?’
‘What I know about you so far is not something I can share with reporters.’ He leaned back, wickedness oozing from his pores. ‘We need to fix that. We’re under no obligation to answer any media questions, but the public will ask and I refuse to ignore them. We need to work on some closed answers.’
‘“Closed answers”?’ she echoed with a half-laugh. ‘You’d be the expert.’
‘I mean it, Stella, we need to talk.’
He was suddenly serious. This was the side of Eduardo she knew least.
‘What do you want me to do?’ she snapped. ‘Fill in an online dating questionnaire or something?’
‘You’ve tried online dating?’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘I was twenty-four and still a virgin. Of course I looked into it.’
‘I thought you were all about the army?’ He cocked his head.
‘It was a weak moment.’
‘You were lonely?’ He sent her an unreadable look. ‘Did you go on any dates? It can be risky, meeting an online acquaintance.’
‘No riskier than having sex on the beach with a stranger,’ she pointed out.
‘You knew who I was.’ He shrugged.
‘But you didn’t know me.’
‘I’m working on it,’ He grinned shamelessly. ‘And now I know you tried online dating.’
‘I didn’t try it.’ She threw up a hand grumpily. ‘I thought about it for two minutes. Dismissed it. Because you can’t get to know someone just by interviewing them. People give you the answers they think you want to hear.’ It was actions that revealed a person. What they did or didn’t do.
‘But this is all we can do in the time we have,’ he argued. ‘They’re going to ask lots of questions.’
‘Fine. Then I’ll ask the questions they’re going to ask and you answer them. I’ll remember the answers and repeat them as necessary,’ she said practically. ‘How would we have met?’
‘On a beach,’ he answered promptly. ‘Always the truth, where possible. But it will have to be more than a few months ago. Then we met in private, at the palace. When you were supposedly meeting your father.’
Well, there was a flaw in that story already. ‘I didn’t come to the palace that often.’ About twice since her return to San Felipe.
‘That’s because Antonio was opposed to us dating. A prince is only supposed to marry a princess, or at least a lady, and you’re a soldier—’
‘Is he really that uptight?’ Stella asked curiously. Or was this as much fiction as the rest of the fairy tale Eduardo was concocting?
He briefly met her eyes, a glint of ironic amusement in his. ‘Yes. And you’re supposed to be learning about me—not my brother.’ His smile tightened and that quirk of softness disappeared into a frown. ‘And your father...how will he take it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Stella muttered.
‘You’re not close?’
‘He’s a good man.’ She avoided answering directly. ‘He wants to do what’s right. And he’s very good at his job.’
Eduardo regarded her for a moment. ‘Would you have had him escort you at our wedding?’ he asked. ‘Will he be hurt by that oversight?’
Oversight? ‘You’re only wondering about that now?’ She fiddled with her drink, running a finger around the rim of the glass.
‘There are many things of concern right now. Your relationship with your father is only one of them. Should we summon him to my apartment at the San Felipe palace? We can meet him there before seeing Antonio.’
‘No.’ She didn’t want to deal with her father yet, and she certainly didn’t want to give orders to him. That was his world and no longer hers. If he wanted to know how she was he’d have to step out of service mode.
Neither of those things he ever did.
The truth was she had no real relationship with her father. She’d always disappointed him and he’d dismissed her—in every way possible. There was nothing more she could do.
‘Will he back up our story?’
Stella looked up at Eduardo’s quiet question, realised he was watching her closely, a frown knitting his eyebrows. She pasted on a cynical smile. ‘He would never comment to the media or anyone. He’s utterly dutiful.’ He’d act the part because he always followed the rules and kept up appearances. ‘My father is the perfect emotionless soldier, doing what’s best for the greater good.’
He sacrificed the personal in order to serve the Crown Prince. Every. Time.
‘Is he why you were so determined
