King's Ransom (14 page)

He climbed in, hearing the men's apologies in a distant recess of his brain, and responding to them automatically. “Not your fault,” he reassured them. “It was mine for not making sure she was dressed for the mountains before we left Drago. You did the right thing. Thank you for looking after her as you did.”

He told himself he should wake her. Told himself anything else would be a mistake. But he couldn't do it. He picked her up effortlessly and sat down in her seat, cradling her in his arms for a moment, and that's when he realized she was still clutching the baby doll she'd used as a prop that morning. She'd brushed the dirt away but the damage wrought by the landslide was still evident.

She made an incoherent murmur and snuggled closer to him, closer to his warmth, but she didn't waken. If he'd been alone with her he would have kissed her awake. But he wasn't alone. And kissing her in front of the chopper pilot and the bodyguards—no matter how discreet they were—was out of the question. Even holding her like this was an indiscretion.

With a tiny sigh he lifted her over and deposited her in the seat next to him, then buckled her seat belt. She woke when he did that. Slowly. Her eyes fluttering open and staring up at him as if she couldn't figure out where she was or why she was there.

“Hi,” she said, finally focusing, unable to suppress a sudden yawn. A yawn followed by an unguarded smile that took his breath away. “Everything done?”

“For today. Tomorrow is another day, but that will not affect you.” He turned away from her and reached over abruptly to accept the wireless headset the pilot handed him over his shoulder, then fitted the headset in place and buckled his seat belt. He nodded at the pilot's questioning look, and the engines roared to life.

* * *

They were less than halfway back to Drago when one of the helicopter's engines began stuttering, like a car that wasn't firing on all cylinders. Juliana wasn't worried at first. But when the helicopter began bucking and swaying, when they began losing altitude and the pilot and Andre exchanged a quick flurry of words through their wireless headsets, she grew concerned. She wanted to ask what was going on, but knew now wasn't the time. Whatever the problem was, it wouldn't help for her to ask frantic questions. She just had to trust in Andre's military pilot...and Andre.

Prayer won't hurt,
Juliana decided. She'd always been uncomfortable praying for herself, but she wasn't the only one in the helicopter. She closed her eyes and clasped her hands tightly together as she prayed, refusing to watch while the helicopter spun out of control and the earth came up shudderingly fast to meet them.

Juliana was grateful for the seat belt holding her in place, because otherwise she would have been thrown from side to side in even more sickening fashion with the buffeting the helicopter took. Then a strong arm slid around her shoulders and a large hand closed around both of hers, squeezing gently.

When she opened her eyes she saw Andre watching her with an expression she was hard-pressed to describe. Love was there, but so was reassurance. Reassurance they weren't going to crash. And even if they did, his eyes seemed to be saying, she would walk away from it. She knew it wasn't true. She knew if they crashed no one would walk away. But it helped. Not that she wanted to die, but it helped to know that Andre was with her, that she wouldn't die alone.

Then she gasped as something suddenly became clear to her.
That's why Eleonora did what she did,
she realized.
Not just because she couldn't bear life without her husband, but so he wouldn't die alone.

She turned her hand and linked her fingers with Andre's, then she tightened her grip. This time when she prayed, she prayed for the courage to face whatever was to come—for both of them.

The pilot did something—Juliana was never sure exactly what—and the crippled helicopter stopped stuttering and shaking. Then slowly, agonizingly, as seconds ticked into minutes, they regained altitude, though their speed had noticeably slackened. She breathed suddenly, only then realizing she'd been holding her breath in anticipation of crashing.

Andre spoke through his wireless headset to the pilot in Zakharan, too quickly for Juliana to catch the words and translate them. And she couldn't hear the pilot's response. But she knew from Andre's tone that he was angry about something. Not angry with the pilot—that wasn't it at all. But he was holding on to his temper with fierce restraint.

They managed to make it back to Drago and land safely without further incident, but Juliana hadn't spoken the rest of the flight. Even when the crisis seemed to have passed, it would have been difficult to converse with Andre over the sound of the one remaining engine without raising her voice. She wanted to ask him what had just happened—what had failed and what the pilot had done to save them. But Andre's face was set in stern lines, and she didn't want to bring up a topic that was already a sore point with him.

There were other questions she wanted to ask—unrelated questions. But they were complex questions, needing more than just a yes or no answer. She wanted to know what would happen to the village of Taryna. Wanted to know the ultimate fate planned for the survivors of the landslide. The pilot had been in radio contact with his military superiors in Drago all day, so she knew no one else had died, and she'd sent up a little prayer of thankfulness every time he'd given her a status report in answer to her questions. But he couldn't tell her what the assessment team had found—only Andre could do that, and she wanted to know. Not because she was curious, but because she wanted him to share that difficult part of his life with her, wanted to know what he was thinking, feeling. Just as she had last night, she wanted to be the one he confided in.

Trouble shared is trouble halved,
her father used to say when she was a little girl. It was a simple statement, but profoundly true. Nothing ever seemed quite so bad if you could talk about it with someone else. It had been true when she was a little girl, and it was still true now. Hadn't it helped Dirk for him to confide in her about Sabrina's illness? Hadn't it helped him when she'd been able to give him insight into what Sabrina was going through from a woman's perspective? The dilemma she was facing and the decisions she'd made?

And what about you?
she asked herself.
Didn't you feel a tremendous sense of relief when you finally confided in Bree about what happened with Andre years ago?
Not that she'd told her friend everything. But that discussion had opened the door to a place in Juliana's heart that had been locked for eleven years, had allowed her to look at things from another perspective. Andre's perspective.

So the questions about Taryna weren't the only ones she had. She also wanted to ask Andre about the money. The money he'd sent her eleven years ago, and the motive behind it. If she could bring herself to do that—and it wouldn't be easy, she didn't fool herself it would be easy even to ask the question, much less listen to his answer—that discussion would have a pivotal effect on her life. Because if she could forgive him for the money, she would stay in Zakhar. She would stay because she loved him and always would.

But if she couldn't forgive him...she would leave when
King's Ransom
was done, and she would never see him again. Her self-respect wouldn't allow her any other option. As much as she loved him, there were some boundaries she couldn't cross, and keeping her self-respect was one of them. Just as she couldn't stay with a man who physically or verbally abused her no matter how much she loved him, she couldn't stay with Andre without an explanation she could accept and forgive.

 

Chapter 14

B
ut Andre wasn't available to ask...anything. Once they arrived back at the palace's heliport in Drago, Andre spoke with the pilot in Zakharan too quick for her to catch. The man nodded—in understanding? In acquiescence? Juliana couldn't be sure.

Two additional bodyguards were waiting at the heliport for their arrival, probably in response to the incident with the helicopter engine that the pilot must have reported. Before he left in their company, Andre addressed the man who'd looked after her all day, making sure she had everything she needed. This time she understood what Andre was saying in Zakharan when he told the man, “See her safely into the palace. Let nothing happen to her.” She was unexpectedly touched by his concern for her, although she knew it was misplaced.

Andre turned to her. “I must leave you here. I have a meeting with the Privy Council already scheduled—they are waiting for my return.”

“I understand,” she replied quickly.

He looked as if he wanted to kiss her, but he didn't. He left with a hasty “Thank you again, little one” instead, words uttered in a caressing undertone that told Juliana he didn't want to leave her just then...but had to.

Juliana's escort took her into the palace, then left as soon as she entered the door to the Queen's Suite and closed it firmly behind her. Once there she realized she desperately needed to talk with someone about the chaos in her mind. Someone she'd taken her troubles to when she was a little girl, and who'd never failed to give her wise counsel. She wasn't a little girl any longer, but still...

She pulled her cell phone out of her purse and checked the time, thankful Maddie had obtained a sim card for her so she could use her phone in Zakhar. She mentally tried to calculate the time difference between Zakhar and Virginia but couldn't remember how many time zones she'd crossed on her flight here and whether you subtracted time or added it. Then she crossed her fingers in hopes it wasn't too early, and hit speed dial for her father.

When he answered, she said, “I hope I didn't wake you, Dad.”

He laughed softly. “What time is it there, Juliana?”

She glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. “Almost seven. In the evening.”

“We're six hours behind you. Which means it's early afternoon here. So unless you were talking about disturbing my afternoon nap...”

Juliana winced. “Sorry, Dad. Math never was my strong point.”

Her father chuckled in her ear. “That's okay, honey. I wouldn't have minded if you
had
woken me. It's good to hear your voice no matter what.” He cleared his throat. “So what's wrong?”

“I don't just call you when something's wrong,” she protested.

“No, but I've known you all your life,” he reminded her. “And a father can tell when something's troubling his baby girl.”

“Oh, Dad...” She laughed, more rueful than anything else. “That's just it. I'm not your baby girl anymore. And I...”
Good girls don't,
she suddenly remembered him saying, and realized this might not be such a good idea, after all.

“It's about Andre, isn't it?” he asked her gently.

She gasped. “How did you know?”

“You think I didn't know how you felt about him all those years ago? That I didn't know you loved him with all your heart when you left Zakhar to attend college? You think because I'm an old man I don't remember what it's like to be in love?”

“You're not old.”

“I'm seventy-five, honey. That's old in anyone's book, especially mine. But I remember the moment I met your mother as if it were yesterday. I loved her then and I love her still. I always will. Her death didn't change that.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “You...you've never really talked about Mom with me that way. You told me what she was like, but...not about how you felt. About...” She didn't know how to finish that sentence.

He was silent for a moment. “I waited a long time to fall in love, Juliana. You know that much. And I only had your mother for five years before she was taken from me. But I wouldn't trade one moment of the time I
did
have with her for anything you could offer me. I wouldn't be surprised if you finally realize that's how you feel about Andre now that you've seen him again, and that's why you're calling me.”

When Juliana didn't answer, he said, “I never brought it up at the time because I figured if you wanted my advice you'd ask for it. You always had before. But even though you didn't ask, I couldn't help but wonder what happened between the two of you. Wonder why you stopped loving him.
If
you stopped loving him.”

The slight upward inflection on the last sentence turned it into a half question.

“I...didn't,” she managed. “But he...”

“Don't tell me he stopped loving you,” her father stated unequivocally. “Because I refuse to believe it.”

“I... It's complicated,” Juliana stammered out. “You don't know... I never told you, Dad, but...”

“But you slept with him the night before you left Zakhar.” Stunned speechless, Juliana could only gasp again. “Oh, baby,” her father said with tenderness, “did you think I wouldn't know?”

“But...you never said anything.”

“What should I have said? It was your decision. I figured you knew what you were doing—or thought you did. I figured you'd gone to him—which was no more than your mother did when she sought me out.”

“Mom did that?” Juliana couldn't believe what she was hearing. “But you said... You told me good girls don't.”

“Girls, yes. But you weren't a girl by then, any more than your mother was when we fell in love.” He hesitated. “Is that why you never asked me for advice on this? Because you thought I'd judge you harshly?” His voice softened with regret. “Oh, baby, I'm sorry. If I'd known...I would have said something.”

His sigh sounded in her ear. “I never thought badly of you for what you did. I never thought badly of Andre, either, or that he took advantage of you—well, no more than I thought badly of myself for not being able to resist your mother when she came to me.”

“Why didn't you ever tell me? About Mom...and you?”

“How do you think we ended up together? There were almost twenty years between us, and I tried so hard to be noble. Tried so hard to resist loving her. But your mother was having none of that.” He chuckled softly to himself, and Juliana knew he was remembering her mother in a way she'd never envisioned her parents. “She came to me, told me she loved me, and the hell with my efforts to be noble and deny what was between us. Then she—” He halted abruptly, coughed and added drily, “You were born almost nine months to the day afterward.”

Juliana's throat tightened with emotion. “Oh, Dad, I wish I'd known. All I could think of was you telling me good girls don't, and I didn't want you to know what I'd done.”

“I didn't want you to take sex lightly, that's all. I wanted it to mean as much to you as it meant to your mother—a precious intimacy to be shared with the man you loved. I wanted you to grow up to be like her—strong, courageous and true. Fearless when it came to love. You weren't my little girl anymore that summer—I knew that. You were a woman, making choices you had every right to make for yourself.”

He let that sink in. “And don't forget, I knew Andre. I knew the kind of man he was. Most important to me as your father, I knew he loved you more than anything, loved you enough to sacrifice his own desires for your benefit...to let you go...to give you time to grow up completely. You couldn't have picked a better man to love.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later Juliana was still in a state of shock. Not just that her father knew about the night she'd spent with Andre, but that he adamantly refused to believe what she'd told him about Andre's actions afterward.

“There's an explanation, baby,” her father insisted. “Give him a chance to explain. I can't and I won't believe it unless I hear it from Andre himself—and even then I'd have a hard time believing. He's too good a man.” The conviction in her father's voice shook her to the core, and she couldn't have spoken even if her father hadn't continued.

“I never liked Andre's father, but you know that. I didn't like the way he treated his daughter, for one thing, as if she were worthless, when most fathers would have been immensely proud of Mara. And I didn't like the way he treated his son, either, as if Andre was just a
possession
to him, someone he could dictate to. But Andre never let what his father thought he should do control his actions—if he believed something was the right thing to do, he did it, and damn the consequences. That kind of moral courage is rare.”

After she hung up the phone Juliana stood undecided for a moment, then abruptly headed for the DeWinters' suite. Needing to know she wasn't crazy to be thinking of staying in Zakhar. Hoping maybe Sabrina could help her make sense of the confusion of thoughts and emotions swirling through her. Especially since her conversation with her father had only raised more questions than provided answers.

Dirk opened the door to Juliana's knock. “Hey, babe. What's up?”

“Oh. Hi,” she answered, her disappointment showing on her face.

Dirk laughed under his breath. “Well, that's a blow to my ego,” he teased. “I take it you weren't looking for me.”

She smiled appealingly and shook her head. “I was hoping I could talk with Bree.”

“She's sleeping. The pregnancy's taking a lot out of her. I barely got back from the set when she pretty much passed out on my shoulder as I was telling her how today's filming went, so I put her to bed.”

Suddenly concerned, Juliana asked anxiously, “Is that normal, Bree being so tired at this stage?” She tried to think about her other friends who'd gone through pregnancies. “I thought by the second trimester women weren't that tired. Is it related to the cancer?”

He shook his head slightly. “Not as far as I can tell. And Bree's taking all her prenatal vitamins, eating right, doing everything she should be doing at this stage of her pregnancy.” Two of the palace's household staff turned a corner and began walking down the corridor toward them, and Dirk pushed the door open. “Come on in—this isn't a conversation I want to have in the hallway.”

Once Juliana was ensconced on the sofa in the sitting room, he stood leaning against the fireplace mantel and continued. “Morning sickness is long past, thank goodness. But she
is
carrying twins, and that takes an extra toll on her body. Bree's been seeing an ob-gyn here in Zakhar—we found a woman Bree felt comfortable with—and she tells us things are progressing normally where the babies are concerned.”

His face softened into incredible vulnerability. “I don't know if Bree mentioned it to you, but she's feeling the babies move already. Little flutters. And at her last checkup we heard the heartbeats.”

He didn't have to say another word. The babies were real to him now in a way they hadn't been before. There was such an expression of paternal love and wonder on his face that Juliana knew he wasn't even thinking about what he'd told her the first time he'd talked to her about Sabrina's pregnancy, before they knew she was carrying twins—that he didn't care about the baby, that he would sacrifice their child without a second thought if it would save his wife. There was no way Juliana was going to remind him, either. He loved their babies now, maybe not exactly the same way Sabrina did, but he wanted them just as much. He wanted his wife, but he wanted their children, too, and he would no longer sacrifice one for the other.

Juliana closed her eyes and breathed deeply, realizing she had her answer even without talking to Sabrina. Her eyes flew open. “Thank you,” she told Dirk. “You have no idea, but...thank you.” She jumped up and crossed the room to hug him tightly, then headed for the door.

“Wait a second,” Dirk called after her. “What did I say?”

She turned with her hand on the doorknob, her eyes shining.
Men can change,
she thought, free of the shackles of the past at last.
They can grow into love.
But she couldn't say that to Dirk, not without reminding him of how he'd first felt about Sabrina's pregnancy. She couldn't tell him that eleven years ago Andre had sent her money along with a cold, nearly unforgivable message—that the money was for an abortion if she was pregnant. And if not, the money would serve as his parting gift to her. She hadn't been pregnant, but those words had destroyed her make-believe world, the world where Andre loved her and would love any child they created.

But the money and the message he'd sent her eleven years ago didn't necessarily mean that was the way he felt now. Dirk hadn't wanted his own baby at first, even though he loved Sabrina with all his heart, but now he did. The same could hold true for Andre. “I can't tell you,” Juliana told Dirk, her face radiant. “But I owe you anything you want to name. Just ask. Anytime, anywhere. And when Bree wakes up, give her a kiss for me and tell her I said she's so lucky to have you. I mean that.”

* * *

Back in her own suite Juliana paced her bedroom restlessly. Glancing constantly at the tapestry on the wall, the tapestry that hid the door to the passageway leading to Andre's bedroom. He would never use it again. He'd promised her he wouldn't, and she knew he'd keep his word. But he'd also told her,
“You are welcome to use the passageway to come to me, if you choose. Anytime. Day or night.”

If she went to him, she would be admitting she forgave him for everything that had happened eleven years ago, for his rejection of her and the child they might have created that night. She would be admitting she loved him—had always loved him—and she would accept whatever he had to offer her, whatever role he would allow her to have in his life. Even if it wasn't the marriage she'd dreamed about at eighteen.