really I would. But I don’t have time. I’m only staying with Dad for a couple more weeks while I’m on leave and my apartment’s being redecorated.”
He raised his eyebrows. “It’s that big a job? Making me into a better date? It’s going to require more than a couple weeks?”
“No. I’m sure it’s not.”
“Then it won’t take up much of your time, will it?”
She chewed her lip as she shook her head. When she was ten, Adam, who’d had a broken leg at the time, had taught her to play chess. Over the next few years when he came back on summer vacation he always made time to play her at least once or twice. But no matter how much she’d studied and practiced he’d always been able to maneuver her unawares into a corner and into checkmate.
“For so long I haven’t really had to try with women and … after Michelle I didn’t really want to. I’ve almost forgotten how.”
Michelle, whom he’d dated several years ago, well before the advent of Rafe’s wife Lexie, was the last woman he’d been linked seriously with. They’d looked like the perfect couple, well matched in so many respects. An engagement had been widely expected. Then suddenly they’d broken up, and Michelle was now engaged to another member of Adam’s polo team.
“What about your mystery woman?”
He frowned. Not annoyed, but perplexed. “What mystery woman?”
“Palace gossip has it that …”
“Go on.” The frown deepened.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Danni? What palace gossip?”
She took a deep breath. “Rumor has it that whenever you get free time, you disappear for an hour or two. When you come back you’re generally in a good mood and you’ve often showered.”
The frown cleared from his face and he threw back his head and laughed like she hadn’t heard him laugh in years. The sound pleased and warmed her inordinately. “Does this mean there’s no mystery woman?” she asked when he stopped laughing.
He was still doing his best to quell his amusement. “There’s no woman, mysterious or otherwise.”
“Then where—”
“Let’s get back on track. Because there does need to be a woman, the right one, and I think you can help. This is important, Danni. All I really want is your insight and a few pointers. It won’t take a lot of your time.”
Danni hesitated.
“Is there something or … someone you need that time for?”
She didn’t want to admit there wasn’t. There had been no someone since the rally driver she’d been dating dropped her as soon as he started winning and realized that with success came women—beautiful, glamorous women.
“You’ll be compensated.”
He correctly interpreted her silence as admission that there wasn’t anyone. But the offer of remuneration was insulting. “I wouldn’t want that. You wouldn’t have to pay me.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“But you think finding the right woman is about lists and boxes you can check off, and it’s not.”
“That’s why I need you. Lists and tickable boxes are part of it and you’ll have to accept that, but I know there’s more. I want more.” He paused. “I want what Rafe has.”
Danni stifled a gasp. “You want Lexie?”
“No.” The word was vehement and a look of disbelief and disappointment crossed his face. “I just meant he found someone to marry. Someone he could be happy with.”
“She was supposed to be yours,” Danni said quietly, daring to voice the suspicion she’d harbored.
“Only according to my father. We, Lexie and I, never had anything.” As far as Danni could tell, Adam seemed to be telling the truth and she wanted to believe him. But it was common knowledge that Crown Prince Henri had at one point intended that the American heiress with a distant claim to the throne herself would be the perfect partner, politically, for Adam. “And to be honest,” Adam continued, “I’m inclined to believe my father’s later assertion that he’d always intended for Lexie and Rafe to be together. He wanted Rafe to settle down and rein in his ways, but he knew Rafe would rebel against any overt matchmaking.”
Rafe had been charged with escorting Lexie to San Philippe to meet Adam. By all accounts the two had fought falling in love almost from the time they laid eyes on one another. When Rafe and Lexie finally gave in to their feelings, they utterly derailed the Crown Prince’s perceived plans and Rafe’s carefree bachelor existence. They’d since married and now had a beautiful baby girl. Rafe had never looked happier. And while to all outward appearances Adam had also seemed more than happy with the arrangement, Danni had always wondered. A little.
He shook his head as he watched her. “You don’t believe it?”
She shrugged.
“I like Lexie.” He sighed heavily as though this wasn’t the first time he’d had to explain himself. “In fact, I love her. But as a sister. It was obvious from the start that it was never going to work for us. We just didn’t connect.”
“She’s beautiful. And vivacious.”
“She’s both those things. But she wasn’t for me. And I wasn’t for her.”
Danni nodded, almost, but not quite, buying it.
He must have read that shred of doubt in her eyes. “I’ll tell you something on pain of death and only because it will help you believe me.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I think I do.” Adam glanced away looking almost embarrassed. “On our first date …”
A log shifted and settled in the fire as she waited for him to continue.
“I fell asleep.”
She covered her mouth. “No.”
“I’d been working hard, putting in some long hours. The timing was off. Dad never should have had her brought out then.” He reeled off his excuses. “But anyway, we went to dinner at the same place I went with Clara, we had a lovely meal and on the drive home …” He shrugged. “It was inexcusable. But it happened.”
“Was my father driving?”
Adam nodded.
“That explains why he’s always been adamant that you were okay with Rafe and Lexie.”
“I’m more than okay with it. But I’ve seen how happy they are, and Rebecca and Logan, as well.”
Hard on the heels of his brother finding love his sister, Rebecca, had, as well. Her wedding to Logan, a self-made millionaire from Chicago,
