would be my wedding gift to you,” Eric told her.
“A Crock-Pot is a wedding gift,” she said. “What you’re offering is…a dream.”
He shrugged. “You make my best friend happy. If this makes you happy, it’s a fair trade.”
Her smile was radiant. “Then I’ll say ‘thank you.’ But we’ll stick with Scott’s plan to hold a formal reception back here in a few months and just have immediate family for the ceremony in Tesoro del Mar. And Molly, my maid of honor, of course.”
When Molly arrived at the ranch, she was both surprised and immensely relieved to learn that the crisis had already been diverted.
“I didn’t think anything could be more romantic than being married at Harcourt House,” Fiona gushed, all smiles instead of tears now. “But a wedding at a royal palace might just top everything else.”
Molly sank down onto the arm of a chair. “A royal palace?”
“Scott’s in the other room with Eric now, confirming the arrangements.”
The butterflies were swarming again.
Eric. The best man. The friend of Scott’s that Fiona had been talking about for months who somehow had access to a royal palace. Could it be—
No. It wasn’t possible. She’d just been so unnerved by the realization that her baby’s father was a prince that she was jumping to conclusions. Because as much as her cousin had talked about the best man, Fiona had never mentioned that he was royalty. Molly definitely would have remembered that.
She managed to smile. “So where is this royal palace?”
“It’s on an island in the Mediterranean called Tesoro del Mar. I’d never even heard of it before I met Eric, and I didn’t even know he was a prince until a few days ago. Scott said they’ve been friends for so long he doesn’t think about the fact that Eric is in line for the throne, but I nearly fainted when I found out. Can you believe the best man at my wedding is a prince?”
“Unbelievable,” Molly agreed, as thoughts and questions whipped around in her mind like dry leaves in a hurricane. And before she could grasp hold of even one of them, he was there.
He was standing in front of her—okay, across the room, but the distance did nothing to dilute the effect of his presence. His legs were as long as she remembered, his shoulders as broad, his jaw as strong, his eyes as dark.
Yes, she remembered all of the details—the thickness of his hair, the curve of his lips, the skill of his hands. But she hadn’t quite remembered—maybe hadn’t let herself remember—how completely fascinating he was as a whole.
He smiled at Fiona. “Everything’s confirmed.”
She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, thank you, Eric. You’re the best.”
“That’s why he’s the best man,” Scott said, unconcerned by the fact that his fiancée was embracing another man. Eric chuckled.
The sound of that laugh, warm and rich and familiar, sent shivers down her spine, tingles to her center.
It was Scott who spotted Molly first, and he smiled. “Hey, Molly.”
Eric’s head turned. His gaze locked on hers, and widened in shock.
Molly thought she had some idea just how he felt.
“Eric—” Scott turned to his friend “—you haven’t met Molly yet, have you?”
“No, we haven’t,” Molly answered before he could, rising to her feet and praying that her wobbly legs would support her.
“But I’ve certainly heard a lot about her,” Eric said, his eyes never leaving Molly’s face.
She definitely hadn’t remembered everything—like how one look could make her pulse race and her knees quiver, as her pulse was racing and her knees were quivering now.
“And here she is,” Scott said. And to Molly, “This is His Royal Highness, Prince Eric Santiago of Tesoro del Mar.”
“Should I curtsy?” she asked lightly.
“No need,” he said.
She didn’t actually remember offering her hand, but she found it engulfed in his, cradled in his warmth. It was a simple handshake—there was nothing at all inappropriate about it. And yet she felt her cheeks heat, her skin burn, as memories of his hands on her body assaulted her mind from every direction.
The heat in his eyes told her that he was also remembering, and though her mind warned her to back away, her body yearned to shift close, closer.
“It’s a pleasure to see you, Molly,” he said in that low, sexy voice that had whispered much more intimately and explicitly in her ear as they’d rolled around on her bed together.
“Oh, we’re going to have so much fun together in Tesoro del Mar,” Fiona said, then to Molly, “You will come, won’t you?”
A wedding on a Mediterranean island sounded romantic enough, throw in a royal palace, and Molly could understand why her cousin was glowing with excitement and anticipation. And no matter how much Molly’s brain warned that going to Tesoro del Mar was a very bad idea—that going anywhere with Eric Santiago was a very bad idea—she couldn’t refuse something that meant so much to Fiona.
So she ignored the knots in her stomach and forced a bright smile. “Of course I’ll be there. You can hardly get married without your maid of honor.”
Fiona threw her arms around Molly, just as she’d done with Eric, and hugged her tight. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Molly hugged her back. “I just want your wedding to be perfect for you.”
“It will be now,” her cousin said confidently.
Molly was pleased that Fiona’s problems were solved, but couldn’t help but think her own had just multiplied.
It had been unsettling enough to accept that she was pregnant with a stranger’s baby, but learning that the stranger was her cousin’s fiancé’s best friend added a whole other layer of complications. And she couldn’t help but wonder how differently everything might have played out if she’d known two months ago what she knew now about Prince Eric Santiago.
“Okay, now that the crisis has been resolved, I should get back to work,” Molly said, eager to make her escape.
But she felt the heat of Eric’s gaze on her as she made her way to the door, and acknowledged that this new information might not have changed anything. Because even now, she wanted him as much as she’d wanted him then.
This time, however, she was determined to prove stronger than the desire he stirred inside of her.
At least, she hoped she would.
