“And my mother would be appalled if I allowed it.”
She smiled. “I like your mother.”
He returned the smile, and Carly prayed her eyes wouldn’t cross from the brilliance. “As do I.”
He inserted the key, then stood back, allowing Carly to enter first.
After setting her bag on the floor, he placed the laptop on the small table next to the bed.
“Someone left you a newspaper.” He picked the thing up as he would a dead mouse.
She grimaced. Hadn’t this very Dallas newspaper carried the story of her arrest for breaking and entering? Sheesh. She’d fallen and entered, and the only thing she’d come close to breaking was her own neck.
“The last thing I want to see while I’m here is a newspaper.”
Luc Gardner dropped the Dallas Daily Mirror into the trash can. “I feel exactly the same.”
“You don’t like the media?” She went to a small round table to smell the flowers and finger the fruit. Her shirtsleeve slid down again. This time she gave up and left it.
“Not particularly. Prying into someone else’s private life for gain is not my idea of a worthy occupation.”
Ouch. “Really?”
If he thought reporters were nosy, what would he think of a private investigator? Better lie low with this guy and keep her career goals to herself.
Carly polished a shiny red apple on the tail of her shirt and tried not to watch him from the corner of her eye. He really was gorgeous. “How long have you been here?”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the open door facing her. “Two days.”
“Planning to stay long?” Rats. Where had that come from?
“As long as it takes.”
Interesting answer. “To do what?”
“Get to know you, of course.”
Carly laughed. She knew her shortcomings. Guys liked her. They confided in her. Asked her advice. Treated her like a sister or a best friend. A few even dated her. But no one tossed compliments to Carly the Klutz.
Certainly not guys like this one.
So why had he?
Chapter Two
Luc unlocked the door to his own room and went inside, tossing the white cowboy hat onto the bed. He was still thinking about the latest guest to arrive at the Benedict Ranch.
She amused him, did Miss Carly Carpenter, with her quick wit and baggy attire. Not the usual woman of his acquaintance, but that was the appeal, he thought. She hadn’t simpered and fawned over him.
Probably because, to his enormous relief, she had no idea who he was. For once he was in a place where not one person—other than his old college mate, Carson Benedict—had even a hint of who he was.
Never in his life had he been out of the limelight, though he’d lived in the shadow of his brother for most of the time. But since Philippe’s death, the European paparazzi had turned into blood-sucking leeches, draining every moment of peace from his life. The American press, while fascinated by him during his brief time at university, had yet to discover his presence this trip.
He could thank Carson for that. His friend had graciously agreed to protect his privacy and in effect hide him out for this last summer. His summer of decision.
He rubbed at the little knot of tension in his neck and went to the computer on the small desk next to the window. Though he wasn’t picky about accommodations, the room was pleasant and sparkling clean.
Knotty-pine walls surrounded an ample-size bed covered in a colorful red-and-blue Americana quilt. A large area rug was beneath his feet, and a small bathroom opened off to one side. He knew from conversations with Carson that the baths had been added when the ranch had opened its doors to visitors.
He felt for his old friend, a quiet loner of a man who must be constantly annoyed to have strangers running about his land. Carson had been as much a misfit at Princeton as he, though for far different reasons. They had become such good friends because they’d both sought solitude and peace where there was none.
Flipping open the lid of the laptop, Luc typed in his password and opened his e-mail, checking for word from the palace in Montavia. He’d promised his father, King Alexandre, that he would be in frequent communication should a crisis arise and he needed to return home—something he didn’t want to do anytime soon. Oh, he loved his country and the warm, gentle people living there, just as he felt the strong call of duty upon his life.
But when he’d come to Oklahoma on spring break with Carson during that one year Father had allowed him to attend a foreign university, he’d been free of the conventions and diplomacy that ruled his life—or tried to.
That one glorious year when he’d fallen in love with a country other than his own and had completed a degree in resort development. A degree that he had hoped to use as a means of strengthening his small country’s role in the global economy, though the press had mocked his interest as an excuse for the lesser prince to play.
“The playboy prince,” they’d called him. And though he was much less the playboy than the tabloids had indicated, he’d done his share of playing. He made no excuses for enjoying life. Race cars, fast horses, ski competitions. He’d gloried in them all.
Then, only days before his twenty-seventh birthday, Philippe, crown prince of Montavia, had died. His brother, his best friend, killed during Christmas vacation while they’d skied in the Alps.
With great effort Luc closed off the thought of that day, of the flash of red on white snow, the utter silence that had come after and the terrible knowledge of his own culpability.
Then he, Luc Jardine, the playboy prince, the second son, had become the heir apparent. And life had never been the same again.
He’d been reared to serve, reared even to reign should that become necessary, but no one had ever believed anything would happen to Philippe. Mother and Father had trained both sons in government, but Luc had resisted more than he’d cooperated. He had skipped as many international summits and state dinners as he’d attended.
Philippe, so serious and intellectual, had never taken his responsibility lightly, not the way Luc had. Philippe would have made a strong and able king, just as he’d been a steadfast and loving brother. Even now Luc’s heart bled with missing the best friend he would ever know.
He rubbed a hand over his suddenly misty eyes. Philippe had been the right man for the throne. Luc, the playboy prince, felt he never would be.
And that was where the indecision lay. Could he rule?
When Father had shipped him off to the military shortly following Philippe’s death, Luc had been too stunned and grief-stricken to argue. The experience had strengthened his character, taken the edge off his wildness and made
