CAITLIN CREWS – His Two Royal Secrets (страница 6)

The vicar, who Eddie had hated in life, though had requested in his will in some attempt to torture the holy man from beyond, murmured a prayer. Pia kept her eyes on the casket that was all that remained of her father—of her childhood—until she could no longer see it.

And somehow kept her tears at bay. Because there were too many cameras. And how many times had Alexandrina lectured her about red eyes and a puffy face?

It hit her again. That Alexandrina was gone. That Eddie was gone. That nothing was ever going to be the same.

Then Matteo’s hand was on her back and they moved away from the grave site to form the necessary receiving line for those who might or might not make it back to the small reception at the house. It was times like these that her years in finishing school came in handy. Pia was infinitely capable of shaking hands and making meaningful eye contact with every royal in Europe without noticing them at all.

“May I offer my condolences on the part of the Kingdom of Atilia and His Majesty King Damascus, my father?”

Something about that voice kicked at her.

Pia’s hand was already extended. And even as she focused on the man standing before her, his hand enveloped hers.

And she knew that sudden burst of flame. She knew the shiver that worked its way from the nape of her neck down to pool at the base of her spine.

Her eyes jerked up and met his.

As expected, his gaze was green, shot through with gold. And as shocked as hers.

Pia panicked. How could this be happening? The last time she’d seen this man, he had been sprawled out, asleep, in a penthouse suite high above Manhattan. She had gathered her things, feeling powerful and shaken at once by her daring and all the things he’d taught her, and had tiptoed away.

She’d never imagined she would see him again.

“You,” he said, almost wonderingly. “New York.”

And part of her was warming, in instant response to the way his mouth curved in one corner. As if Pia was a good memory, as he had been for her. At least at first.

Before the morning sickness had sent her to the doctor to discuss the flu she couldn’t kick.

But Pia couldn’t indulge in memories, good or bad, because she was standing next to her brother. And he was focusing that dark scowl of his on the man still holding Pia’s hand.

“New York?” Matteo asked. Demanded, more like. “Did you say you know my sister from New York?”

“Matteo. Stop.”

But the man, still smiling slightly, seemed unaware of the danger he was in. “I met your sister in Manhattan some months ago,” he said, amiably enough. He smiled at Pia. “Do you go there often?”

“Miss Combe, my younger sister, has been there once,” Matteo growled. “And guess what? She picked up a souvenir.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The man frowned. But in that way very important men did, as if inviting everyone around them to apologize for opportuning them.

“My sister is six months pregnant,” Matteo bit out.

Pia had the sense that she was in some kind of slow-motion car accident. The sort she’d seen in movies a thousand times. She could almost hear the scraping of the metal, the screech of the tires. Yet everything before her seemed to move in tiny, sticky increments. She watched her brother ball up his fists and step closer to the man. The man—who had told her his name was Eric, though she doubted that was real—did not back up.

And they both turned and stared at Pia as if she was some kind of roadside curiosity.

“If your sister is or isn’t pregnant, that is no concern of mine,” the man said.

Far less amiably.

Just in case Pia had wondered if it was possible to feel worse about all of this. Look at that! It was. She rubbed at her chest as if that could make her heart stop pounding the way it was. Or at least, ache less.

“Pia,” Matteo said, dark and furious. “Is this the man?”

“Have you forgotten where we are?” she managed to ask, though she was barely able to breathe.

“It’s a simple question,” her brother bit off.

“Once again, the state of your sister’s womb has nothing to do with me,” the man said.

And he wasn’t just a man.

If Pia had been going to throw away a lifetime of doing the right thing and making the correct choice over any old man, she would have done it years ago. This man was beautiful. Those gorgeous eyes and silky dark hair, a jawline to inspire the unwary into song and poetry, and shoulders to make a girl cry. This man had walked into the party where Pia had already been feeling awkward and out of place, and it was as if a light shone upon him. It was as if his bones were like other people’s, but sat in him differently. Making him languid. Easy.

His smile had been all of that, plus heat, when he’d aimed it at her, there beneath some modern art installation that looked to Pia’s eye like an exclamation point. In bronze.

But best of all, this man hadn’t had any idea who she was.

She could always tell. It was the way they said her name. It was a certain gleam in their eyes. But he’d had none of it.

He’d liked her. Just her.

Just Pia.

She’d planned to hold on to that. She’d wanted to hold on to that. But it seemed that would be one more thing she didn’t get to have.

“Thank you so much for asking about my private life, Matteo,” she said to her brother now. In a decent impression of her mother’s iciest tone, which came more naturally than she’d expected. “But as a matter of fact, I have only ever had sex with one person.”

Then she looked at the man before her, and her memories wouldn’t do her any good, so she cast them aside. No matter how beautiful he was. “And I regret to inform you, but that one person was you.”

But that didn’t have the effect she expected it to have.

Because all the beautiful man before her did was laugh.

At her, if she wasn’t mistaken.

“Like hell,” he said.

And that was when Matteo punched him.

Right in the face.

CHAPTER THREE

ONE MOMENT ARES was standing straight up, looking one of his past indulgences in the face.

He’d laughed, of course. What could he do but laugh?

Because the truth was, Ares hadn’t forgotten her. He hadn’t forgotten the way her gray eyes had lit up when she’d looked at him. He hadn’t forgotten her smile, shy and delighted in turn. And he certainly hadn’t forgotten her taste.

He might even have toyed with the notion of what it would be like to seek her out for another taste, now and again over the past few months—

The next moment he was on the ground, and it took him a moment to understand that the Combe heir had punched him.

Hard.

Not only that, he’d chosen to do so in full view of the paparazzi, all of whom swooped in closer like the locusts they were at the sight. They took picture after picture and held up cameras to record every last detail of the Crown Prince of Atilia’s inelegant sprawl across the wet grass in the middle of a funeral.

Ares glared up at the man who had laid him out. He wanted—badly—to respond in kind, but restrained himself. Because he might not want to be king, but he was still a prince, whether he liked it or not. And princes did not swing on bereaved commoners, no matter the provocation. Moreover, he preferred to control the stories that appeared about him, especially when the press on his father was so dire these days.

He couldn’t change the fact this man had hit him. But he could opt not to react in a manner that would only make it all worse.

He climbed back to his feet far more gracefully than he’d gone down. He brushed himself off, his gaze on the man scowling at him in case he started swinging again, then put his hand to his lip. When he drew it away, he noted darkly that there was blood.

Because of course there was blood.

Because everything was about his damned blood. Hadn’t his father told him so a thousand times before Ares had turned seven?

Ares noticed movement in his periphery and held up his hand before his security detail handled the situation in a manner that would only make it worse. He glared at the Combe heir, whose name he hadn’t bothered to learn as he’d run over his notes on his way here today.

That seemed like a significant oversight, in retrospect.

“You understand that I am the Crown Prince of Atilia, do you not?” he asked coolly instead. “Attacking me is considered an act of war.”

“That doesn’t frighten me,” the other man retorted.