why would you think that?” She lifted her impish chin. “Am I so undesirable that I wouldn’t have a steady boyfriend?”
Undesirable? Alex fairly chuckled at the thought. The word sounded like insanity coming from that full, sweet mouth he wanted to taste again. Just as the word boyfriend rang like an irritating bell in his brain.
His jaw tightened. He didn’t want to think of her with another man, he didn’t want to think of her taking birth control for an active love life. Both thoughts made his gut twist. But such feelings were dangerous.
“I wasn’t meaning to insult you,” he said tightly. “I just assumed… Well, you’ve been out to sea for at least four months. Alone. The need for companionship—”
She cut him off, her tone shaky, “How in the world could you know that I’ve been at sea for four months?”
“I saw you.” The image of her standing on that boat, hair wild, all mind-numbing curves, slammed into his mind—along with the white-hot need that accompanied it.
“When?” she demanded. “When did you see me?”
“In Scotland. Back in May. I was on the beach. You were standing on the bow of your boat.”
As the salty wind whipped around them, her eyes darkened to a rich green, pink stained her cheeks. “That was you?”
Alex nodded, his pulse jumping to life in his blood.
So she’d seen him, too.
Sophia knew her face was turning bright red in front of this man, and she hated herself for it. She wasn’t one for embarrassment or awkward situations. In fact, she pretty much ran headfirst into conflicts so they could be resolved and done with. But around this gorgeous creature she wasn’t herself. And the fact that she’d had dreams, even fantasies about seeing him, bare-chested and formidable, etched into Scotland’s rocky coastline for a full month afterward, made her even more disheartened.
“Who are you? Really?” she asked him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Crown Prince Alexander William Charles Octavos Thorne.” The grin he gave her made her knees soft as cream. “Really.”
“You’re lying.”
He shook his head. “I don’t lie.”
Breath held, she studied him in the light of the fading sun. Her grandfather had always said she was a great judge of character. But this man was harder to read than most. He seemed to have iron bars shooting up around him.
But even so, in those heather-colored eyes, in that solemn set of his jaw she saw honor—she saw truth.
She turned away, back toward the sea, with a groan. This was impossible. Impossible. Such things didn’t happen in real life. A prince, for heaven’s sake. Had she really gone and done something so outrageous as to make love to a prince?
Her hand went to her stomach.
A child… An oh-so-familiar ache surged into her throat. She’d been an only child, treated as an adult with all the responsibilities that came with it since the age of five. Ever since, she’d dreamed about having a family, a brood of kids. Teaching them to read, to sail, to swim and, most important, to be silly and carefree—to be a kid.
But having a child this way…
And with royalty…
For a moment Sophia thought that maybe she’d fallen asleep on the deck of the sloop that afternoon. Under the hot sun. Maybe her mind had played tricks and this was all just one crazy dream. The crash, the fog, the man…
With a dash of hope in her heart, she reached over and pinched her arm. A sudden sting told her that she was very much awake.
“And your name?” he asked.
Sophia glanced up at him and muttered a bleak, “Sophia Dunhill from San Diego, California.”
With a grim smile the prince took her hand. “Come back to my house, Sophia, dry off, then we’ll have your boat rescued.”
“Good God. Not another American,” the king exclaimed.
Leaning back against the palace library’s black-walnut mantel, Alex crossed his arms over his chest and watched his brother, Maxim, and his newly-pregnant sister, Cathy, turn to their American spouses and break out into laugher.
Ten minutes ago Alex had left his spunky little mermaid to her bathing. She’d sworn up and down that she would stay put “at least for tonight,” she’d said. He didn’t know whether to believe her or not, but what he did know was that if he hadn’t taken a break from her presence, he would have pulled her into his arms and made love to her again.
Now, just the thought of her nude, in his bath, up to her neck in vanilla-scented suds…
His hands balled into fists under his crossed arms. Control had to return, must return.
“Unlike my brother and sister,” Alex began with a frown. “There is no…romance here, father.”
The king gave his regal wolfhound, Glinda, a pat on the head, then leaned back in his favorite armchair and took a swallow of brandy. “I should hope not. This would be a very unwise time to go running around with—”
“Some American, Your Highness?” Maxim’s wife, Fran, said on a chuckle.
Alex watched as the king tried to jolt his pregnant and very American daughter-in-law with a withering look, but it came out as a lopsided grin instead. And when the pretty veterinarian returned the smile and patted him on the knee, the old man actually blushed.
The sight of his father turning from staunch dictator to blushing teddy bear stunned Alex. He’d never seen that side of his father. Not since he’d returned home, at any rate. It didn’t take a masters in psychology to deduce that this “American” had done the softening up.
Maxim turned to Alex, grinned. “So, she turned up on the beach, did she?”
Alex nodded succinctly. He wasn’t elaborating. The particulars of his encounter with Sophia on the beach didn’t need to be shared. As it was, the truth wouldn’t stop playing over and over in his mind; visions were more than enough. “Her boat needs extensive repairs.”
“And you volunteered to put her up until it’s fixed?” Cathy’s husband, Dan, asked with a grin to match Maxim’s. The new head of palace security was not only a former U.S. Marshal, but far too inquisitive for his own good.
Alex muttered tightly, “That’s right. It was my stretch of beach she washed up on. I would say that holds me responsible.”
Dan and Maxim exchanged wry glances.
“Didn’t you used to dream about mermaids when you were little?” Cathy asked, taking a sip of her cranberry juice.
“He certainly did,” Maxim said.
Fran smiled broadly and snuggled closer to her husband who had her very sleepy wolfhound pup, Lucky, on his lap. “How very romantic.”
