His Princess in the Making (7 page)

Confusion; lovely, awful confusion. What
did
she want? “I…” She couldn’t go on. And she couldn’t help it: despite her elegant hairdo and the tiara, her head fell to his shoulder and snuggled into his neck as she’d always done. Not quite friend, definitely not little sister. It was the closest she’d come in eleven years to saying three words to her best friend.

I want you.

The unspoken resonance quivered into her and shimmered outward, until he heard the silent music inside her. He moved another inch closer, and a half-inch, until the material of her dress moved in soft-satin friction against his shirt. A gossamer cobweb of touch.

She turned her face until her mouth was near his ear, almost afraid to break the enchantment holding them both. But soon, too soon, the music would end and real life would intrude and shatter this lovely, spun-glass bubble. “Who are you?”

He turned his face to hers, as delicate as the movement of the dance. “You know who I am.”

She shook her head, the tiny movement brushing her skin against his, cheek to cheek; a dreamy lassitude stole over her.

“You know me. I’m the man who has done anything, everything, for you. For you alone. Always for you.” Slowly, with a sensuality she’d never known, he dipped her back from the waist, holding her hips against his. “You’re so lovely,” he whispered in her ear. “A silver-and-golden angel, your hair shimmering in the light. The prettiest woman in the room, and I want you so much I’m hurting with it.”

She shivered; her hand, at his shoulder, slid round to his neck. She laid it there, but one finger moved by itself to find his hair in a tiny fingertip caress. “No,” she whispered back, afraid. “You don’t want me.”

“I can’t think about anything but this, but you.” His hand, at her waist, moved: delicate, butterfly touches she felt burn
through her dress to her skin. She gasped and swayed against him.

“Giulia.” His voice was rough, commanding, taut. “Look at me.”

Slow and dreamy, she pulled back, still half-afraid, the other half a strange mix of wonder and confidence. She looked up at him and saw the stars behind his face. He’d danced her out onto a balcony, and her starved heart sang, a night-whisper only he could hear.

His eyes blazed into her soul. His mouth made her ache.

“Those big, sleepy eyes, so beautiful, are telling me how much you want me. I drown in them every time I see you. Every time you’ve looked at me like this in the past eight weeks, you’ve made me so hard it hurts.”

If he’d treated her like a child for too long, he was making up for it now. The words sent a thrill ripping through her body. And his mouth—oh, his mouth—so close in the autumn darkness…

Where was she? Who was she? This was a new world, where she danced in marble halls and on balconies under the stars, she wore silk and satin and a tiara, and she almost felt pretty enough for him. This night, this moment, duty and bloodlines didn’t matter, only he and she existed…

A new world, where he finally cradled her hip-to-hip like a lover, and every pore and cell of her thrilled to the hardness of him.

With thrumming intent, he brought her up and she met him, face to face, mouth to mouth. “You’re the only one who knows me. I’m the man who slept beside you when you needed me, who learned to dance because you wanted it.”

“That’s—that’s what brothers do,” she murmured. Another finger joined the first, tips glorying in the feel of his hair against them, like hot silk.

“Do they? Did Charlie?” he whispered back. His hand moved round to her back and pulled her in closer, a delicious millimetre or two, in a semblance of dancing that brushed his body against hers.

“Oh.” She blinked, tilted her head, and a smile grew and grew. “No.”

“Because he didn’t yearn for the chance to hold you like this for a few hours every week,” he breathed near her mouth, so close. “I did. I still do.”

“Oh.” Unbearable brightness flooded her heart, her awakening body. “You did?” Her thumb found the skin beneath his collar and caressed it, exquisitely intimate.

“I did. I do.” His eyes closed as he dipped her—a prelude, a promise—and brought her back. “Every week I hoped like hell you’d touch me like you just did.”

I wanted to; oh, how I wanted to.
But she couldn’t say it, couldn’t show him, even now. To risk everything all over again…

“Touch me again, Giulia.” Rough-edged, hot, his voice shivered into her deepest core. “Touch me, beautiful girl, just touch me.”

The words, more raw and commanding than pleading, sent anguished, painful longing through her, her skin too sensitive to the touch…Her hand wound into his hair, her palm filled with softness, her fingers with his skin. Her eyes closed.
Ah…

“This is me,” he murmured into her ear, rough, hard and aching with need. “I’m the man who moved into your house to become a part of your family, but mostly because I couldn’t stay away from you. You fascinate me endlessly with every word and movement. I’ve kissed you ten-thousand times in my dreams and loved you only with words, hoping like hell you’d understand, while I was aching to do this.” He moved his hips against her, and she moaned and gasped, her eyes closing again with intense, aching beauty and excitement.
“I’m the man who’s been waiting ten long years for you to move a single inch.”

An inch? Her eyes fluttered open, heavy with agonised passion. She looked at him and saw only his mouth, an inch from hers.

He dipped her again, slowly and sensually, a prelude to the inevitable, the beautiful and wanted. “I’ve always been right here, waiting. Move that inch, Giulia,” he whispered against her lips. “Come to me. Give me you. Just an inch.”

Floating between lovely dream and invisible reality, she released his other hand, slid hers up past his shoulder, over his neck and into his hair, pulled him down with hands trembling with eagerness, and opened her mouth to him.

A kiss is just a kiss.
No, no; it was everything…

Soft and clinging, it was everything she’d hoped for through years filled with and yet starved of his touch. Gentle, as unforgettable as the song that had been playing when they’d started dancing. Their bodies were still apart, still dancing a warm current of wanting; delicate caresses of breast to chest almost incidental to the movement of the music, lips slanting in barely-there kisses filled with tenderness. And it was Toby who was kissing her, her dearest, beloved Toby…

“Your Highness, the King wishes to speak to you at your earliest convenience.”

She felt Toby move back, but still dazed, she didn’t realise the words were directed towards her; all she wanted was to keep kissing him, touching him. She pulled him back to her and kissed him again, moaning softly.

“Princess Giulia!”

She blinked, remembering that the title “princess” applied to her. Slowly, she turned to the speaker—Jazmine’s PA, Lady Eleni, stood at the open doorway of the balcony. Lia sighed. “Thank you, Eleni. Please tell him I’ll come soon.” With an irritable motion, she waved her away.

Eleni’s brows lifted, indicating her surprise, but she backed away.

She drew in another breath and looked up at Toby. His mouth was twisted in rueful amusement. She almost got lost again, just looking at him. “As they say in the classics, I think we’ve been busted.”

A laugh burst from her. “Well, forewarned is forearmed.” Her brows lifted in quirky acceptance. “I think I’ll be on the receiving end of Theo Angelis’s displeasure for once.”

“I’ll be right beside you.” He took her hands in his. “I wouldn’t leave you to face this alone.”

She shook her head. “He wouldn’t appreciate you protecting me. Don’t worry, I can handle it.”

“I started this. It’s my place to be there and receive his anger.” He frowned and searched her face, and a flash of annoyance tore through her. He was looking for signs of weakness—that she needed him.

“I’m fine,” she said as briefly as before, and released his hands. “This has far more levels than the personal.”

“I know that.” He spoke with no impatience, yet she felt it, felt his annoyance—and no wonder. He’d not only taken Charlie’s dream for Hellenia and run with it while Charlie was learning how to be a king; he’d also begun implementing his own plans. In the past eight weeks Toby had recruited retired firefighters from Hellenia and Australia and begun a centralised training school based in the capital, Orakidis City, and in Mirapoulos, the major city in the Malascos region, Papou’s birthplace. He’d fought fires and taught volunteers and families the best way to protect their homes, schools, hospitals and villages from the wildfires that had destroyed a full third of the country last summer—and from the sneak attacks by Orakis’s followers. He was helping to make the country safe. The people cheered him wherever he went.

He spoke before she could think of anything conciliating
to say. “Hold onto that regal attitude you unleashed on Lady Eleni when you speak to the King.” He drew a tender line down her cheek with a finger. “You need to stand as his equal, Giulia. He’s abdicating in a couple of months. This is your choice.”

Subduing another unprecedented flash of irritation, she forced a smile. “I know how to deal with Theo Angelis.”

“Of course you do. I’ve seen you wrap the old man around your finger.”

“But this is an enormous thing. No member of the royal family has ever…” Again, she stopped, unsure.

“Married the fourth child of divorced, lower-middle-class parents?” he asked softly, sensually, every other emotion gone but the wanting. “I did propose to you, Giulia, if in a backdoor fashion. I’ll do so in a more romantic style as soon as I can finally have you alone. And I’ll be fervently awaiting your response.”

She frowned. “Why, Toby? Why here, why now? Why did you wait until now, when—?” She stopped, realising how enormous the choice was that loomed before her. How many lives would be affected?

“No, it’s not too late,” he murmured, touching his forehead to hers. “Charlie and Jazmine just changed the law once. It can happen again. And if not—” he shrugged “—we have two houses to choose from in Sydney. You have your school still, the substitute teacher is there until you decide to sell. I have my job. We’ll never have the kind of riches you enjoy here, but you’ll never have to go without, that I swear to you. Everything I am, everything I have, belongs to you. It always has and always will.”

Sadness swamped her without warning or reason. Why, when he’d said everything right? He’d been romantic and strong, and he’d kissed her as if he’d meant it. Her first kiss had been everything she’d wanted it to be.

But it was the wrong time, wrong place, far too late. The chasm was there between them now, no matter how they tried to bridge it. And she didn’t
believe
him.

“I have to go.” She turned quickly, before he could see her emotion.

“Giulia, if you’re worried that he’ll upset you…”

She repressed a sigh. “Thank you.” The needle-fine politeness she’d used on Eleni came out again. “I’m a woman, Toby. I don’t need you to come running to rescue me any more. I haven’t given you the right.”

She opened the hand he’d taken, forcing him to drop it, and she walked over to the King without looking back.

W
HAT
the hell just happened?

From a convenient corner where only the wedding party and royal family could sit, Toby watched Giulia as she spoke to the King.

I can handle him.

She certainly could. Within two minutes, the King’s scowl lightened, not in relief but love. Her hands were in the old man’s; she kissed his cheek with a genuine affection that had shocked Toby the first time he’d seen it. Giulia’s affection was deep, but she’d always kept it for family. She was reserved with strangers; it was her way.

But within weeks of leaving Sydney, she spoke to strangers daily, helping them with their problems in her role as princess. She was the King’s pet, Jazmine’s friend and sister—and as for the handsome young Grand Duke with a castle and two-hundred million euros…

Giulia smiled for Max, laughed with him and talked to him in a way she’d only talked with him, Toby, before.

How had she changed so much? She’d become a princess in more ways than the obvious. And now, only five minutes after the most beautiful kiss of his life, he had the sinking feeling there was no going back.

The woman he’d loved for ten years had always been like a flower touched by frost: coming to warm, vibrant life only for him. Now she was blossoming on her own, and that scared
the living daylights out of him. If she didn’t need him, who was he? What life did he have without her in it?

But then he saw her serene expression change. She paled and, beneath the silver silk dress that made her look like a dark-haired, golden-skinned angel, her toes started the tap-tap thing. He could see the slight up-down motion of her hem. One of her few secretive signs of stress. He got to his feet.

A hand fell on his shoulder as he took the first step. “Grizz, we need to talk.”

Toby forced a smile as he turned to his turbulent best friend. “You have your hands full with your bride, Rip. You don’t need to bother with me tonight.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have if you’d toed the line.” Charlie didn’t have the thundercloud look Toby had expected: another sign of his friend’s rapid growth from volatile fireman to king-in-waiting. “Jazmine’s gone to talk to Lia.”

A sense of doom fell on him, hard and fast. “Is the entire royal family in array against me?” he asked lightly.

Charlie swore. “Look, this is hard enough to say. This is my wedding night, and you’re my brother. If you’d come to me five, six months ago and said you wanted to marry Lia I’d have been the happiest bloke in Ryde.”

Seeing Charlie floundering, Toby supplied the rest of it for him. “But now you aren’t the happiest Crown Prince in the palace.”

Charlie said bluntly, “Lia can’t renounce her position without the permission of the reigning king and the entire House of Hereditary Lords—and with only four of us to rebuild the dynasty there’s no way they’ll let her go.”

Toby went cold. “Does Giulia know that?”

“
I
didn’t know until Jazmine told me a few days ago.” Charlie sighed. “The law is designed to tie royalty to the nation for life. That’s why Papou had to disappear the way he did, and could never come back.” Charlie’s mouth tightened. “I trust you with her life, Grizz, you know that. But you can’t take her home.”

He stared his old friend down. “Then I’ll stay with her.” The thought of a life without Giulia in it was unbearable. She and Charlie were his family, had been ever since his parents had divorced with a bitterness that had torn the Winders apart. His parents had demanded full loyalty, that he live with one parent or the other. Unable to stand it, he’d opted out and chosen the Costas—and neither of them had forgiven him for the betrayal.

“You can’t.” Charlie’s voice grew stressed. “The people won’t accept you. This is a male-dominated society, and whoever marries Lia becomes a prince by default.”

A cold shiver ran through him. He loved Giulia, he always would. But he was a fireman. He loved his life at home. To have the woman he loved, he’d have to become a prince, facing the media and the task of rebuilding Hellenia on a daily, hourly basis. It was a vision as ridiculous as it was impossible.

He’d come to Hellenia ready to save her, convinced she’d collapse under the stress of royal life; but all he’d seen in the past eight weeks had been her strength, her wisdom, courage and dignity. Since coming to Hellenia, she’d flourished.

So what was he doing? Trying to ruin her new life filled with challenges she revelled in, weaken her strength to re-find his place with her?

Charlie ran a hand through his hair. “When you planted the first kiss on her, I brought up the notion of her marriage at the next session of the House of Hereditary Lords. They almost started a revolution.” He shrugged. “Changing the law to allow a queen to co-rule with me is the most change they’ll allow this decade. They’re old-fashioned and class-conscious. In their minds, if Max or Orakis don’t get Lia, one of their sons does. Change happens at the speed of a tortoise.”

Voice and body tight with fury, Toby said, “‘Get’ Giulia, Rip? Listen to yourself. For the past fifteen years you’ve been ready to tear apart any man who approached her. Now you’ll hand her over to the highest bidder?”

“Don’t misquote me.” Charlie’s voice turned icy. “I said
in their minds.
Don’t ever think that, just because you saved her life, you love my sister more than I do.”

Facing his oldest friend off with equal coldness, Toby snapped, “How would you feel if I spoke about any other man ‘getting’ Jazmine?”

Charlie’s fists clenched, then released, and he sighed again. “Look, mate, I’m doing the best I can in a hell of a situation. This will be my first decision as King, and the people—and Orakis—will be watching to see what I do. And I’m damned if I’ll start a war for your sake, brother or not.”

Toby stood in grim silence, waiting for the axe to fall on his life’s dream.

“If I changed the law for you and Lia to marry, all the people will see is that under the new rulership nepotism rules. That’s what brought down the Orakis dynasty. Papou’s disappearance brought on ten years of civil war last century.”

There fell the axe. But it wasn’t his head that fell bleeding to the ground; it was his heart. Charlie was in a hellhole, and he and Giulia had just deepened it.

Charlie was right. If Toby had been given a choice between eight-million people’s lives and the personal happiness of the two people he loved best in the world, he knew the inevitable choice.

He lifted a hand, his gaze on Giulia like an unspoken farewell. “I’ve put you in a hell of a position and I’m sorry, Rip. It’s time I returned to my life back home.”

“No, mate. Please. I don’t want you to go, and Lia needs you.”

He gave a short, bitter laugh. “From everything you’ve said, I think all she needs is for me to disappear from her life.”

“She wasn’t eating enough until you came. Surely you’ve seen she’s thinner?”

The words stopped him cold.

Lia had just heard the same words from her new sister-in-law.

Civil war…

The downfall of the Orakis dynasty…

You can’t renounce your position without the permission of the King and House of Hereditary Lords…

Now she knew why Papou had had to disappear completely.

To think of Charlie, her beloved brother, and Jazmine, Max, Theo Angelis, all having to flee from their home.

What hurt most was that, had she kissed Max in front of the wedding guests, in front of the cameras in the middle of the cathedral during the wedding, she wouldn’t have been lectured on history and the risks she was taking, or even acting like a princess. All she’d have had in response would have been everyone’s amused approval.

But kissing her best friend apparently would all but start a war.

She took a step back, and then another. “Enough, Jazmine, I understand.”
Shut down, turn off.
She knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t help it. If she didn’t disappear emotionally for a while, she’d break.

Jazmine bit her lip. “Lia, you know we—”

She held up a hand for Jazmine to stop. She dragged in a breath, two, trying to control herself. She’d made enough public displays for one night.

But as she turned to the doors, she saw Theo Angelis coming over to her in his wheelchair, his face a mixture of steely determination and loving concern, and knew it must be said. “If you send Toby away, I’ll disappear, as Papou did,” she said fiercely.

The King wheeled to a stop. Even the royal minder behind him gaped.

The King’s eyes snapped with anger. “Don’t make empty threats at me, girl.”

“Do it and you’ll discover just how much my grandfather’s child I am.” The continued silence assured her she’d made her point. She turned to leave.

“Someone saw him kissing you that first day,” the King said, stopping her in her tracks in turn. “One of Orakis’s spies, or it could have been one of the Lords’ paid eyes and ears. Someone’s unhappy. There’s been a threat against his life.”

Lia froze. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. A shard of ice pierced her soul.

“Given our history, it’s no empty threat.” The King spoke with compassion, yet was inflexible. “The people demand certain standards from us. You
are
a princess. You must behave as one.”

One shiver after another raced through her entire body. Oh, God; God help her.

Tick, tick, tick…

The clock moved backward and she was fifteen again, facing the truth: she could never have the boy she loved with all her heart and soul.
But now, loving him could kill him.

And her ancient enemy came back to taunt her, as her stomach clenched and she felt bile rising.

“I’ll be back to see you off,” she whispered to Jazmine, and left the ballroom with slow, deliberate grace, like the princess she must be.

Toby watched her leave, saw the uneven step, and felt sick himself. He knew where Giulia was going…

He had to go to her—but he was being watched. He couldn’t follow her, unless he went round by another way, or unless he made the perfect excuse.

As the best man, he had that.

He gathered the eleven groomsmen—the only one he knew at all was Max, the others were noblemen and politicians from around Europe, chosen for political purposes, as Jazmine’s bridesmaids had been—and he told them a few certain Australian wedding customs without which Charlie wouldn’t feel properly married, and where the “accessories” could be found.

The men all laughed and agreed to help. Even Max smiled
with enthusiasm, as if they were friends, yet he must have seen Giulia kissing Toby on the balcony…

The eleven noblemen and politicians left in groups of three and four at each door, causing a logistical nightmare for their respective minders. Toby watched his security detail going bananas trying to discreetly follow them. Any moment now, all of the groomsmen would have their arms filled with tin cans, ribbons and spray-paint cans with which to decorate the honeymoon helicopter, freaking out every Secret Service agent with the potential for explosive materials.

And so, for the ten seconds his security detail was distracted by the earpieces going berserk, he slipped out to the balcony, hopped it, dropped the twelve feet to the ground—peanuts for him, even in a tux—and came back in via the front.

He’d have about ninety seconds to find her before they found him.

When he found her door locked, he ran to the end of the corridor, hopped to the first balcony and leapt from one balcony to the next until he reached hers. He knew it would be locked, but Giulia could never stand a stuffy room, even in winter. And the weather was still unseasonably warm for autumn.

Hanging by his hands from the corner of the railing, he kicked his legs into the bedroom window, gripped tight, and swung upside down for a moment before doing a sit-up. Hands gripped the sash; he was in.

Outside her private bathroom, he heard the sounds he’d dreaded returning for more than a decade. Muffled, painful retching…

The bathroom door was locked, too. So he kicked it in, grabbed it by the handle in case it went off its hinges and fell on her, and pushed it against the wall before he strode to her. She hung over the toilet bowl, retching up nothing.

Oh, God, no; God, no, please…

“Toby,” she croaked, and vomited again.

He gathered her into his arms and sat back down with her
on his lap. “Still more?” he asked simply, knowing this was not the time to berate her or ask questions she couldn’t handle.

She started to nod, then leaned into the bowl again.

He wanted to hit someone about now, to scream, “See? She needs me, you morons!” but time was of the essence. They had to be back at the wedding party within half an hour or the situation would escalate, more pressure would be put on her, and the cycle would be worsened. If his short acquaintance with the King was any indication, he’d kick Toby out and order in an army of specialists: people who knew their job, but didn’t know Giulia. And she’d just get sicker.

He couldn’t tell anyone. This had to remain between them alone.

Charlie would know the moment he saw his sister’s face, but he couldn’t help that. He’d go on his honeymoon worried sick and share his fears with Jazmine. The two of them would call twice or three times a day to make sure she was eating. All of which would make Giulia feel worse, by showing their worry, love and fear of losing her, their beautiful, special Giulia, so wise about everyone except herself.

It was time for damage minimisation, not damage control.

When the spasm passed, he held her and stroked her hair, which was falling from its perfect chignon. “I’m here, beloved. I’m here.”

Her head fell to his shoulder. “For how long?” she whispered.

If he knew her, she knew him too, he thought wryly. “Do you honestly believe I’d ever leave you like this?”
Or at all,
his mind added, accepting a truth he’d barely been able to face when he’d made that vow to the doctor years before:
Will you still give her everything she needs when she’s sleeping with another man?