The Prince (18 page)

“What do you want me to do?” his grandfather asked, his voice laced with frustration. Kingsley surmised tonight wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation.

“Father Henry called today to talk about it. He’s thinking Kingsley shouldn’t come back. They’re worried about him, about whatever happened that he won’t talk about.”

Not come back? Kingsley’s communion with the stars shattered at the very thought. Why would he not go back? Father Henry hadn’t said anything about him not returning. Where had that idea come from?

Søren…could it have been Søren’s idea? Did he regret that night? Had Søren told Father Henry he knew something about that night?

Panic consumed Kingsley. What if this was Søren’s doing? Even the priests deferred to Søren.

For days after Kingsley walked through the hours in a haze of self-doubt. He couldn’t go back if Søren didn’t want him there. But he had to see him again. He
had
to go back.

A week before the school year was to start, he sat at the kitchen table with his grandparents, not eating and not speaking.

“You got a letter today.” His grandmother handed him a white envelope. Kingsley didn’t glance at it. Another letter from Marie-Laure, surely. He’d read it later.

“School starts soon.” His grandfather looked at him over the top of his reading glasses. “Your grandmother and I have decided to leave it up to you. Saint Ignatius or Portland High?”

The choice lay before him. Both options seemed untenable. He couldn’t go back to Portland. Søren wouldn’t be there. He couldn’t go back to Saint Ignatius, not if Søren didn’t want him there.

Kingsley shook his head, crossed his arms and laid his head on the table. His stomach hurt. His head ached. He needed something, anything, a sign.

The letter lay in his lap and he saw the handwriting on it didn’t belong to Marie-Laure or any other woman. A man’s handwriting, strong and vital.

Slowly and with trembling fingers, Kingsley opened the letter and read the only word written on the ivory sheet of paper.

Reviens.

Come back.

The letter had been signed with only a strong swirling
S
with a diagonal slash through it.

Kingsley looked up at his grandparents.

“I’m going back to Saint Ignatius.”

NORTH

The Present

Kingsley stared at Søren only a moment before shaking his head in the profoundest disgust and walking off deeper into the forest. He heard the footsteps behind him and didn’t turn back. Today Kingsley didn’t run, but he didn’t particularly want to get caught, either.

Thirty years had passed since he’d traversed this dangerous terrain with its closely packed trees that gave way to sudden cliffs. Even after so much time, his legs retained the memory of so many walks down this path. In half an hour he came to a ridge overlooking a steep canyon.

“Mon Dieu…”
he breathed. After all this time…surely not. But there it was.

“It’s still in use.” Søren came to stand beside him. “They renovated it. It’s quite nice inside.”

“Our hermitage?” The old love welled in Kingsley’s heart, and he forgave Søren just enough to laugh.

“Our hermitage. It was never actually ours, you know. We only claimed it for ourselves.”

At the bottom of the canyon stood a tiny shack made of stone. A hundred years ago the first Jesuits who’d come to rural Maine had built a chapel first, then their living quarters, and finally a hermitage for Father Charles, who’d taken a vow of silence.

“Quite nice…” Kingsley repeated. “Of course they would wait until after we were done with it to remodel. Always the way. My God, what a hellhole it was.”

Søren laughed softly. “Indeed. But perfect for our purposes.”

“Oui,”
Kingsley agreed.
“Parfait.”

The hermitage had been their hideout when Kingsley returned to school, when he and Søren had taken up where they’d left off.

Kingsley pulled his eyes away from the small house where he’d given up his body to Søren in a thousand ways so many years ago. A hundred yards or more from the hermitage, a huge moss-covered rock loomed large. For a full minute Kingsley stared at it. Only when he felt a hand on the back of his neck—a gentle hand, a gentle touch, entirely kind and without ulterior motive—did he blink and look away.

“It was there?” Søren dropped his hand. Kingsley missed it the second it was gone.

“
Oui.
Right there. She landed so hard...” He stopped and swallowed. He had to blink again to wash the image of his sister’s body from his eyes. “Her face…”

“Je sais,”
Søren whispered.
I know.

Of course he knew. Marie-Laure had been Kingsley’s sister…but when she died, she’d been Søren’s wife.

Marie-Laure…only twenty…a ballerina in Paris.

“We killed her,
mon père.
”

“I’ve absolved you of any guilt long ago, Kingsley. You must learn to absolve yourself.”

“Her face was gone when they found her.” He turned to Søren. “The world imagines I am handsome, you are handsome, your Eleanor is beautiful…but we are nothing compared to what Marie-Laure was. I, her brother, couldn’t keep my eyes off her at times. All paled next to that face of hers. And when she died, when we killed her…”

She had no face. None. The impact of her fall had crushed her skull and sheered her face off. She’d been identified by her wedding band alone.

“She ran. She fell. You did not push her. Neither did I.” Søren spoke the words in a low voice as he moved closer. How Kingsley wanted to step back and press himself into Søren. Once when they were teenagers, standing in the forest staring at the night sky, Søren had wrapped an arm around Kingsley’s chest. The gesture had been simple, mindless, hardly even affectionate, only possessive. And it had saved Kingsley’s soul. To feel that again with Søren…Kingsley would treble his fortune and give every last penny away.

“She loved you,” Kingsley said. “And she trusted me.”

And she saw them.

Together.

“Come,” Søren said. “We should go back.”

“You go.” Kingsley smiled at him. “I want to stay a moment.”

Søren raised his hand and lightly gripped Kingsley’s long hair before releasing it and walking away.

“Of course.”

Alone now at the top of the hill, Kingsley’s eyes roamed from the rock where his sister had died, back to the hermitage. They should have been inside there, he and Søren. If they’d been in the hermitage, she would never have seen them. All Kingsley ever wanted was for Søren to want him as badly as he had that night in the forest. Søren never lost control like that again with him. Oh, Søren had hurt him, brutalized him, broken him. But he’d kept calm, controlled…he’d tamed his hunger, channeled it, restrained it. Kingsley longed for the fear he’d felt that first night. So he’d goaded Søren, challenged his authority. Finally, Søren had succumbed and dragged Kingsley into the woods. Jealously had brought about Kingsley’s temper tantrum. Søren had married his sister and Marie-Laure suddenly seemed to love him more than her own brother. And as a married man, Søren slept in Marie-Laure’s bed, while Kingsley once more slept alone. He had to have reassurance that Søren still desired him more than anyone. And he’d gotten it once more. Only this time the stars had not been the only witnesses.

Carefully, Kingsley made his way down the winding path that led to the hermitage. But before going to the cottage, he turned and walked to the rock.

The last time he’d gazed upon it, it had been painted red with his sister’s blood. A thousand winds and a thousand rains had washed her blood away and left it gray and green once more. Kingsley laid his hand on the cool stone.

“Marie-Laure…” How good it felt simply to say her name, to acknowledge, even if only to himself, that she’d lived. She should still be alive. He’d long ago forgiven God for the death of his parents. And his grandparents…their deaths barely a splinter compared to the bullet wound in his heart that had been his parents’ death.

But Marie-Laure, her death had destroyed him. It had gone off inside him like a bomb. Everything had shattered, and only the shell remained. He ate and drank death after that. Until Søren had come back and brought him to life once again.

“Ma soeur,”
he whispered.

“You should know, Kingsley, she’s not really gone.”

SOUTH

For the tenth time in one car trip, Nora shushed Wesley.

“What? Why are you shushing me?”

“I’m thinking about serious stuff. You know how hard that is for me.”

Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back in the passenger seat and visualized the race…the horses surging, flanks flying and Spanks for Nothing taking the lead and refusing to give it up.

And then just an hour later…that thousand pounds of muscle in motion had lain still and dead on the floor of his stall, with no visible injuries. She’d seen the horse, gone to him, looked at him with her own eyes, before kneeling on the ground next to Talel and wrapping an arm around his shoulders. They didn’t speak. She had nothing to say that would help him. She could only be there for him with a touch. Had Wesley not been there, she would have been there for Talel in other ways.

Talel…she still couldn’t believe this ghost from her past had shown up in Wesley’s world. Nora replayed the chain of events in her mind. Wesley had walked off with his father and left her alone near the stables. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a familiar outline. Her eyes had widened, her heart had raced. Talel? Here?

Forgetting all her promises to Wesley of maintaining decorum and good behavior, she’d shouted, “Talel!” and raced toward him. He’d whipped around at the sound of her voice. Son of Middle Eastern royalty or not, the man still obviously worshipped at her feet. They’d embraced with laughter and kisses. In his arms, Nora had felt a calm return to her, a calm she hadn’t felt since leaving the safety of New York.

“How is my car treating you?” he’d asked, and Nora laughed in his face.

“
My
car. You gave me the Aston Martin. She’s mine.”

“And I am yours,” he said, kissing her hand.

“None of that. That car has gotten me into as much trouble as you did.”

“That was my plan, Mistress. I’d hoped you would get into so much trouble only I could get you out of it.” He’d whispered the words in her ear, and she’d playfully purred at him. Talel…she’d broken a lot of rules with this man. Three years ago Kingsley had learned that the dashing sheik who’d come to New York ostensibly on diplomatic matters had been making quiet inquires into where and how he could enjoy some playtime with one of the city’s legendary Dominatrixes. Kingsley had seen nothing but dollar signs on Talel. But Nora had seen more. Life in a strict Muslim country had left him hungry to explore the decadences of the Western world. More than that, however, he simply needed affection, acceptance. In his world, his desires were taboo. His father would have exiled him had word gotten out that Talel had a sexual submissive streak in him as wide as the desert that bordered his country. Kingsley had one hard and fast rule about the Dominants and submissives in his employ—no sex with the clients. With pride, Kingsley could say he was no pimp. If Nora slept with Talel, then Talel could not be a paying client.

She’d slept with him. And Kingsley had been furious. Not that Nora had cared. She’d just run off to Jordan with Talel for a week, and holed up in the grandest hotel in the country. Day after day, night after night, she’d become Talel’s oasis…giving him what he’d thirsted for in his desert home, but never could find. For one beautiful week with him, she’d gloried in her Dominant side as she beat Talel, bound him, brought him to his knees again and again. He had kissed her boots, obeyed every order, lived and died between her thighs. He’d begged her for everything, for every touch, for every kiss…and only if he begged well enough did she acquiesce. At the end of the week he’d begged her for one more favor.

Stay with me…stay forever.

And for the second time in her life she’d looked into the eyes of a man she adored, a man who could give her a life of luxury, a man who wanted her more than the air in his lungs…and she’d said, “No.” And she’d said it to Talel for the same reason she’d said no to another beautiful heartbroken man all those years earlier. Daniel…Talel…even Griffin…she could have had them but walked away, and all for the same reason.

Søren.

But he’d forgiven her, Talel had. And he’d loved her despite knowing she loved another. And the week after she returned to America, she’d found an inferno-red Aston Martin with a license plate that read MSTRSS sitting in her driveway.

To see him again, here at a racetrack a thousand miles from New York and a billion miles away from his home country…Nora couldn’t believe her eyes, her luck. Once in Talel’s arms she felt at home again. These rich Southerners with their million dollar accents and their twenty-five-million-dollar ponies, they weren’t her people. Talel with his hunger for female Dominance, his willingness to submit to anything she wanted to do to him, his whispered “Yes, Mistress” in her ear—he felt like home to her.

So she grieved even more that Spanks for Nothing had been one of his horses. Such a beautiful creature with the white star on his forehead and the little red socks on his ankles. Talel had told her he’d been thinking of her when he’d named the horse. She’d slapped him on his firm bottom in reply.

“You’ll get me into trouble if anyone sees us together,” Talel said, grinning at her.

“Horses don’t talk, right? Or do they? Mister Ed wasn’t real, was he?”

“No, Mistress. Horses don’t talk. Thank God. I can only imagine what this ill-tempered beast would say if he had the power of speech. Nothing a lady should ever hear.”

“Good thing there are no ladies present. But he doesn’t seem that ill-tempered to me. Right, Spanks?” She’d reached over the stall door and patted the beast on his velveteen nose.