Merry knew what Cinderella felt when she had to leave the ball. She could almost hear an imaginary clock striking midnight, as if announcing the end of something she wished could go on forever. But it couldn’t. She stifled a powerful urge to weep and pulled her gloved hand out of Alexander’s much larger one. As their fingers separated it seemed as if she were watching their destinies split, too. She belonged to someone else. They were not meant to be together.
Moving away from him, she sealed that fate. “Goodbye, Alexander.”
But Alexander shook his head as he led her off the dance floor. “Oh, no. You’re not walking to your quarters alone.”
“I’m fine,” Merry protested softly, though she knew she’d accept the assistance of whatever resort employee he pressed into service, if only to save an argument. She expected him to stop a passing waiter or to escort her to the bar where the bartender could ring the front desk. Instead he directed her to the ballroom entrance.
“What are you doing?”
“Walking you to your villa,” Alexander calmly replied.
“You can’t!” Panic skittered through her. Not only was she unbearably attracted to him and terrified she would make a fool of herself, but also she was changing. She was sure of it now. At any second she could zap back into a princess.
“I can.”
“Alexander…Mr. Rochelle. You can’t. You’re one of the guests of honor at the wedding!”
“The bride and groom are the guests of honor.” He guided her through the lobby, across the shiny green floor tiles, past the fountain that roared from a stone base to the skylight several stories above, to a glass double-door entrance in the back, which automatically opened.
When she didn’t immediately step outside, he caught her arm to keep her moving and the heat of his hand on her flesh triggered responses that thundered through her. Her heart rate jumped to triple time.
“This isn’t right!”
“This is fine.” He urged her onto the garden path.
Moonlight spilled into the courtyard. The leaves of the palm trees swayed in the light breeze off the gulf. The Oasis pool waterfall shimmered in the distance. The scene couldn’t have been more romantic if Merry had planned it herself, intensifying the continuing shivers of desire that trembled through her from his touch. Light-headed with fear, Merry picked up the pace.
When Merry Montrose began to walk faster, almost running to her cottage, Alexander Rochelle also quickened his steps. He wondered what she’d think if she realized she was being disrespectful to a monarch, then shoved that thought to the farthest corner of his brain. Being Prince Alec Rochelle Montclair wasn’t merely stifling. It was a royal pain in the butt.
That was why he liked the United States. The people paid attention to royalty but money talked louder than titles and rich movie stars were of more interest to them. After Alec’s betrothed, Princess Meredith Bessart, disappeared, he avoided the press by coming to the U.S., knowing that without money he really wasn’t that amusing. But he soon realized that in a country as progressive as this one, he could reverse his family’s financial misfortunes.
However, he also quickly saw that his business associates always assumed he had more money than he did because he was a prince, making deals difficult. So with a slight change of his first name and by dropping a few extra names he didn’t really need, he became a commoner, someone expected to negotiate like a pit bull, and he built an empire.
In those seven years, his appearance had also changed. He grew into his lanky frame, filled out, acquired a more mature demeanor and the stature of a man. People in his home country wouldn’t even recognize him now, but, unfortunately, his good looks and newly acquired wealth had made him fodder for the paparazzi again.
He had come to La Torchere to check out the rumors about the many weddings that had recently taken place at his resort and eventually he decided to hide here. Not because he owned it, but because places such as this catered to people who didn’t wish to be recognized or bothered. At La Torchere he had been comfortable, happy. And that was due in no small part to the woman beside him.
He stole a glance at Merry. She wasn’t the most pleasant-looking female on the face of the earth. He guessed her age to be somewhere around sixty, but she appeared much older. Her gray hair was coarse and usually kept in a tight knot. Her nose had elongated with the passage of time. Her neck had enough folds that the necklace she wore could easily disappear and never be discovered again. But she was also the most interesting woman he’d met in a long time. He suspected there was a very good story behind her life.
Alexander had begun paying attention to her when he realized La Torchere’s reputation as the fountain of love was due to Miss Merry’s matchmaking. Oh, she was subtle. But as resort owner, Alexander noticed everything, and he knew this kooky old woman was the bottom line to his resort’s most recent surge of success. He was even considering hiring an assistant for her to assure she could work for many more years.
“You should be back at the wedding reception.”
Alexander shook his head. The wedding reception was the last place he wanted to be. He didn’t like anything couched in pomp and circumstance. He’d had enough of it to last a lifetime when he was a child. His parents, a prince and princess of deposed monarchies in an arranged marriage, held ambassadorial roles that required them to represent their respective countries at so many functions that Alexander grew almost as tired of the pageantry as he did his parents’ continued fighting. He’d believed arranged marriages were an archaic tradition that should be abolished until his father privately negotiated a trade agreement with the U.S., which his mother backed up with promises from her country. Then Alexander saw the purpose of their marriage. Silently, almost stealthily, a good ambassador could change a country’s destiny.
With his current business acumen and knowledge of the United States, Alexander knew he probably didn’t need an arranged marriage to change his country’s destiny, but his betrothal to the princess from Silestia had opened trade routes he couldn’t have opened on shrewdness alone. And he knew his country needed his marriage.
So he would do his duty when the time came. If and when Princess Meredith Bessart, the woman promised to him, came out of hiding, he would marry her and fulfill his princely responsibilities. Until then, he intended to pack as much living into these years of freedom as he possibly could. That meant he didn’t go anywhere he didn’t want to go.
“The wedding bored me.” They reached the small stone path to her villa and Alexander directed her to turn, indicating that he would walk her to her door.
She sighed. “Really. I’m fine.”
“And I’m fine. I never pass up the opportunity to take a moonlight stroll with a beautiful woman.”
Merry laughed, but the sound came out as more of a cackle. Knowing she couldn’t see him, Alexander winced at the horrible sound. They reached the front door of her cottage and Merry stopped.
“I’m hardly a beautiful woman.”
“Oh, I’d take exception to that,” Alexander said, meaning it. He touched the spot where her heart beat beneath her thin gown and frail skin. “Here’s where you’re beautiful.”
To Alexander’s surprise, her eyes filled with tears and she blinked rapidly. “I’m not.”
