Chapter Eight

Kelsey got her first C on a test in tenth grade.

She’d studied, knew the material, and thus felt comfortable staying up late binging rom-coms. Except it’d made her so sleepy the next day that she’d forgotten to turn over her test. Missed the whole back page. Entirely preventable, and entirely her fault. Frustration had her choking back dry sobs, until her mother handed her a pair of leggings, a sports bra, and told her to go run it off.

The first life lesson she learned from that was that it was impossible to cry and run. The need to suck in air superseded any petulant tears. The second lesson? It was possible to run off just about any bad mood. Or at least the worst of it. She really hoped that translated in a foreign country.

Because that ridiculous argument with her brother and her bodyguard wasn’t out of her system. Sure, Christian delivered his edict and left as though everything was resolved.

Nothing was resolved.

Except for a much stronger feeling that she did not belong here.

Kelsey paused at the end of the raked gravel path to get her bearings. Right in front of her was an oversize pond shooting off a fifteen-foot fountain. About a hundred steps led up to a towering brick arch topped by four golden horses pulling what she assumed to be her (give or take a few greats) great-great-grandfather. With at least another hundred steps down the other side, it seemed like a big enough challenge to sweat out her mood.

Righteous indignation got her up the first fifty steps. Righteous fury the next fifty. And the surprise fifty after that? Kelsey let the oldie but goodie “life’s not fair” propel her to the top.

Thank goodness there was a stone balustrade to hang on to as she bent over and panted. To her mom’s point, concentrating on breathing did clear out all the other stuff. For a few minutes, anyway, until she straightened to take in the view. A fairy-tale palace, colorful flowers in meticulous patterns around reflecting pools…and a bodyguard running hell-for-leather toward her.

Elias had ditched his suit jacket, revealing the shoulder holster strapped around the white shirt that barely contained his muscles. It was like watching an action movie hero coming to rescue her. Until Kelsey remembered that Elias represented the problems and the palace she was running from.

So she took off down the steps on the other side without a sufficient rest. Pain stabbed rhythmically under her ribs. Her calves burned, too. In a palace with so many employees, maybe there was an early Zumba class she could join? Or cardio kickboxing? Even if the instructor didn’t speak English, she could still follow most of the steps.

At the edge of the pond, Kelsey turned left. Away from the palace. Away from her new/original/infuriating family. Away from Elias. And promptly body slammed right into said bodyguard. Guess he knew a shortcut.

So much for running off her problems.

Elias curled his big, warm hands around her bare shoulders. “Your Highness, what are you doing?”

“Does this outfit not translate?” Kelsey looked down at the black spandex layered over her whole body. “It sure says running to me.”

His eyes flicked down and then up her body. “It says…something. Where’d you get the clothes? They don’t look like an outfit that Duchess Mathilde would pick out.”

Funny how Elias had asked exactly the wrong, most awkward question. Still, she didn’t want to lie to him. Kelsey also didn’t want another argument before she was done sweating out the last one. “Are you going to yell at me if I tell you?”

He let go. Stepped back and crossed his arms with patronizing amusement blaring from the smirk that lifted his lips. “Should I?”

“No. No, you most certainly should not get that stern tone in your voice and aim it in my direction ever again.”

Elias loosened the knot of his tie. A little. “You can trust me. In fact, this whole bodyguard thing only works if you trust me.”

Kelsey had trusted him from the moment she agreed to leave Manhattan in his care. Aside from Mallory, Elias was literally the only person on this continent that she fully trusted. Sure, he’d yanked her away from home. But he’d had a mission, integrity.

At least, as far as she could tell.

So far.

She had to believe there was someone solely on her side, right? With his entire agenda and purpose being to keep her safe, Elias seemed to be the most reasonable choice.

“Anya, my maid”—and how freaking weird did that sound?—“borrowed them for me. From Genevieve’s closet.” Without asking first. Not that she’d let Anya in on that hiccup of courtesy. “The woman already hates me, so I figured it didn’t make any difference.”

He speared his fingers through his hair. Which made Kelsey realize that the utterly controlled, soldier facade Eli wore like a uniform…well, it slipped off when it was just the two of them. “I’ll see what I can do about getting your own clothes delivered ASAP.”

“Good. Is that all?”

“No.” He looked from her over to a tall fence, then triangulated back to the palace. “You weren’t…were you running away?”

“From my problems, yeah. But here you are anyway,” she said dryly.

“I meant, were you running away from the palace?” Elias reached out to grip her shoulders again. His fingers dug in just a little too hard, as if some of his control had slipped away. “Because that would be dangerous.”

Ohhh. He’d been worried about her. The sweetness of it blew away some of the sting of being caught. “I told you, I won’t dodge my responsibility. I’m here for two weeks no matter what. I promise I’m only out here to blow off steam—not to blow off the House of Villani.”

His arms dropped back to his sides. “Kelsey, you can’t run like this. You’re in hiding, remember? It isn’t, ah, usual for anyone to go racing through the formal gardens.” He indicated the park-like grass and flowers and water features and trees as if she’d be unclear on the concept of where not to run. But at least he wasn’t yelling. Explaining was…acceptable. “If you’re seen, questions will be asked. Staff wouldn’t dream of doing it. The royal family has their own gym. The prince goes down to workout at the Navy barracks. That leaves a grand total of one burning mystery woman that’ll make everyone start buzzing.”

Message received. Freedom was off-limits.

Kelsey eased into a calf stretch. Mostly for her calves, but also somewhat to have an excuse not to look at Elias while she got these words out. “I hear you, truly. I didn’t think through the ramifications. I just needed to get out. Get my emotions out. Without swearing a blue streak at the top of my lungs. I thought running would be more, ah, expedient.”

“I’ll take you to the family gym. Or for a walk around the gardens. If you need to stretch your legs, we’ll make accommodations.”

She’d thought being kicked off social media was the ultimate proof that her whole life had done a one-eighty. Or even being told to quit her job.

Turned out those weren’t big picture enough changes. No, what most made Kelsey realize that nothing would ever be the same again? Being told that her desire to do something as basic and uninvolved as jogging required “accommodations.”

It knocked the wind out of her. Along with her notion of the freedom of being an adult. If she wanted a grilled cheese at midnight, could she wander down to the kitchen? Or would she have to take into account selfishly waking up a cook to do it for her?

On the more complex side…not having a job? How’d she lose that choice? If freedom of choice was what Kelsey had to trade to keep her tiara, then she honestly didn’t know which choice she could live with.

Or would she be able to live with herself if she made the wrong one?

Did staying here mean giving up all autonomy? Obeying commands, turning into a shell of herself?

But was going back home the ultimate in selfishness? Would she—could she—let an entire country down, as well as the king and her siblings? Not to mention—would it really be that different? Aside from the easy access to TV shows in English and Times Square hot dog carts, wasn’t it naïve to think she could slough off princess-hood? A Moncriano tiara could very well cast its shadow all the way across the Atlantic.

Kelsey looked out across the pond to a pair of winding paths that curlicued around each side of the riotously colored beds. It was beautiful.

A beautiful prison.

“I don’t care how expansive the grounds are,” she murmured, not caring if Elias heard her rambling thoughts. “I feel like a cloistered nun.”

His gaze burned through her spandex. Kelsey expected to see steam coiling upward from where it tightly contained her breasts.

“You’re no nun.” The words ripped out of him like a spray of gravel from behind a Harley. Rough. Fast.

Elias did a quick three-point check of their surroundings. Then he took her hand. “Come with me. Please.” He led her behind the brick edifice to a row of skinny pine trees shaped like the flame of a candle. They slid sideways between them and were suddenly in an entirely different garden.

It was more of a forest—barely claimed by humans. It was wild and overgrown and teetered on the edge of messy. Vines crowded along the edge of the dirt path. Tiny white flowers were sprinkled randomly, like a gigantic dandelion had exploded. A stream ran past them, surprisingly wide for being in the middle of a garden.

Down about a hundred feet, the path rose to the entrance to…well, not a gazebo. The structure looked like the latticed and fanciful turret to a dollhouse—just all by itself atop a wide shelf of rocks that had water spilling over the ferns and stone outcropping. The walls were mostly square glass panes, but it was impossible to see inside from the glare and angle of the sun.

As Elias led her inside, he asked, “Are you upset about this morning?”

Even fifteen minutes ago, Kelsey would’ve flipped out at such an obvious question. But she’d calmed considerably since…well, since Elias put his hands on her. So her words were tinged with humor rather than heat.

“Are you so dense about women that you need to ask?”

“Prince Christian and I apologized for being…” He fumbled with the door latch, probably as much for cover of not knowing what to say next as due to warped wood.

“Jerks?” Kelsey tossed out with a helpful, tight grin. Because it was turning out to be a little bit fun watching her smooth operator of a bodyguard so awkwardly dig himself into a hole.

“Ah, insensitive, I’d say.”

“Also true.” She followed him into the cool gloom of the octagonal room. There was a large grouping of well-cushioned wicker couches and chairs in the middle. Instead of sitting, Kelsey faced Elias. Better to clear the air now. “I appreciated the apologies, but it takes more than a finger snap or even a well-crafted, sincere apology to fix some things. Many things.”

“Understood.” He was silent for a moment. “What can I do? Because I pledged to be the person you could trust, could turn to.”

Ohhh, that offer was better than an apology, more meaningful. If she wasn’t trying to set a precedent, Kelsey would’ve forgiven him right on the spot. “Time usually helps me cool down. After glancing at the schedule my grandmother put together, I realized I don’t have much of that, so I went for a run. To work off my temper before I accidentally unleashed it on anyone else.”

“I do the same thing. Run until all my thoughts disappear and all I can feel is the need to breathe.”

“My mom taught me to do it. My, ah, American mom.” What was she supposed to call her now? And why on earth hadn’t she returned Kelsey and Mallory’s string of phone calls yet? Blaming it on the time difference didn’t cut it anymore. This radio silence from their parents worried her. The Villani royal family could answer her questions about centuries of ancestors and proper etiquette, but they couldn’t answer the number one question burning in Kelsey’s brain.

How had she ended up with another name, with another family, in another country?

Elias took her hand again and drew them down onto the green- and yellow-flowered cushions. “I’m not stopping you from running. Merely requesting a change of venue. Perhaps five minutes advance notice so I can change into more appropriate shoes.” He stuck out his leg, with the polished black loafer at the end of it and wiggled it back and forth.

He looked ridiculous. And that broke the last of the tension tightening her chest.

“I understand. I’ll follow the rules. But it’s a bigger picture problem. The running that I can’t do out here”—she gestured at the trees outside the glass panes—“represents everything I’m cut off from, every opportunity, every dream that I’ll potentially lose if I stay in Moncriano.”

“It’s an adjustment, not an end of the road. A shift in lanes, as it were. One you didn’t ask for, but one full of its own unique joys.”

Meh. All in the eye of the beholder. And so far, she didn’t behold anything that compared to her dream life in Manhattan, working with her clients on fulfilling projects. Did they even have pizza places in Moncriano that delivered at three a.m.? Kelsey snarled, “The princess perks.”

“Not just the clothes and jewels and palaces and yachts. Although you might want to give yourself the chance to enjoy all of those.” His eyelids lowered to a level of pure smolder. “I think you’d look spectacular with pearls and diamonds dripping down your throat.”

On the rare occasions Kelsey ditched her uniform of tees/yoga pants, she only upscaled to jeans and a snazzy shirt. Fun, artistic pieces she grabbed at street fairs were as fancy as she got. “I don’t have an outfit that goes with pearls and diamonds.”

“I didn’t say you’d be wearing anything else in this particular fantasy.”

Oh. Oh. Evidently, now that they were shut away in a hidden garden in the very private summerhouse, Elias could drop his “yes, your royal highness” routine. It was the real Elias with her at this moment— like when he’d dropped the proper bodyguard facade on the plane and held her.

Just like when he’d kissed her in the garden yesterday.

Kelsey had a feeling she’d enjoy playing out his fantasy. But how did you ask your scary as hell new grandmother, hey, can I borrow the crown jewels for a make-out session?

Despite her dry mouth, she managed to get out, “Princess perks aren’t enough reason to give up the life I planned.”

Elias gave her that look—the one he’d given her over and over again since their first meeting. The one that declared her to be extraordinary and unfathomable. Characteristics Kelsey had hoped to pick up after living in Manhattan for at least a decade. After watching other people do exciting things, have interesting adventures. After learning how to live it up.

Because Kelsey knew she was ordinary. She lived in yoga pants, wore yellow-tinted glasses occasionally to cut down on the blue-light glare after staring at her computer monitors for ten hours straight, and had lived an utterly boring life.

Manhattan was her chance to—eventually—change all that.

Being stuck inside a gilded prison, even with pearls around her neck, did not hold up well in comparison. And Kelsey hadn’t gotten the impression that this could be a part-time gig. This choice wouldn’t merely effect or shape her future; it would become her life.

A life sentence.

“I’ve never had to sell someone on royalty before.” Elias took her hand. As he held it, he slowly rubbed his thumb across the top. “Let me take another stab at it.”

“Go ahead.” Heck, she’d let him recite the periodic table as long as he kept up the soft rubbing. Almost soft. His fingers had callouses that were just rough enough around the edges to be intriguing. To make the fine hairs on her arm stand at attention.

To make all her nerves stand at attention.

“Kelsey, the perks that come with being royal aren’t surface frivolities. It is the honor of knowing that the entire country looks up to you. That they see you as a role model. You can give hope and courage, strength and laughter to all of your subjects.”

Talk about a tall order. Elias did a good job of selling the position of princess, just like he had on the plane. He made her a believer for a moment. But it didn’t last, because the way Elias described being royal sounded…awe-inspiring.

Number thirteen of all the things Kelsey wasn’t.

It didn’t feel right, or fair, to mislead an entire country. To force them to curtsey to an imposter who hadn’t even known they existed a week ago. To ask them to respect someone who didn’t know their language, their customs, or even the color of their flag. Someone who would, inevitably, let them all down.

That was her selfless reason.

Selfishly? How could she make Elias understand that life in New York had been her focus and goal for the last decade? That this fiery dream that had blazed in the forefront of her mind was being extinguished?

More than that, she needed him to understand, needed to morph him out of the stern shadow of her brother and back into her protector. Back into the man who’d promised to be on her side…even if that meant standing up to his prince.

How could she make him understand anything when her whole being was centered on the circles his thumb made on her now overly sensitive skin?

Kelsey dragged her gaze up off her hand to the blazing blue eyes locked on…her lips? Instinctively, her tongue flicked out to lick them.

“I can’t stop being a part of my friends’ lives, especially if I’m an ocean away. Keeping up online is the only way. They’re important to me.”

“You can look, stay up-to-date. You just can’t post yourself.”

Sighing, she moved on to the next big problem he and Christian had presented. “I can’t stop working.”

Elias started to laugh. Probably thought better of it once he caught a whiff of the stink-eye she was aiming his way. “Believe me when I say you will work, in a…different way. A change of careers.”

He wasn’t getting her point. “Manhattan was going to be my own personal movie. I wanted to watch a world of adventures unfolding in front of me. Like unlimited cable channels—I’d get to choose what to watch, when, on my own terms. Now? Nothing’s on my own terms.”

He stilled, with an intense glower around his eyes, as if holding an internal battle with himself. After a quick shake of his head, those blue eyes cleared. Putting one arm behind her on the edge of the couch, Elias leaned over. Sort of hovered right in front of her face, while that steel wall of his chest pressed along her arm. “There’s one thing that can be on your own terms.”

“What?”

“Me.” Then he stayed there, only touching the edges of her. Along her upper back, arm, and thigh. He was so close that gravity should’ve done its thing and nudged him the final few centimeters.

Oh. But that was the gift Elias had given her. No need to wait for gravity. No need to wait for him to soldier past his list of responsibilities and reasons why they shouldn’t kiss. It was all on her terms.

So Kelsey accepted the gift. She lifted her chin just a bit. That was all it took to have her lips make contact with his. Just a touch, a brush. It was the green light Elias had evidently been waiting for.

He rounded his shoulders to cage her in with his other arm. But was it really a cage when it was precisely where Kelsey wanted to be at this moment? In fact, this was the most free she’d felt in days.

And she was suddenly glad she’d brushed her teeth while waiting for Anya to riffle through Genevieve’s workout gear for her.

Elias kissed her. His lips worked across hers, kneading and pressing and sending little flares of heat into the center of her body with every single change in pressure. He was slow, steady, methodical in his approach to varying softness and firmness, speed and finesse. It wasn’t just as good as the last time.

It was better.

Better because he—or gravity, finally having shown up to the party—was slowly pushing her over sideways. As soon as her head hit that flowered cushion, Elias covered the rest of her body with his. Heat and weight everywhere, a million times better than the coziness of being under the warmth and heaviness of a down comforter topped by three afghans during a blizzard.

His heat radiated through the thin material of his dress slacks onto her bare legs, through his shirt to her belly and breasts. Even through the buzz cut of his short hair as she ran her nails through it. And all of that was nothing compared to the heat at her core.

Elias teased her lips apart. She was no dummy. Kelsey parted them and immediately tangled her tongue with his. It was a dance, really. A twining, swirling dance first in her mouth, then in his, to the point where she lost track of whose was whose.

It was fantastic.

He broke off the kiss and raised up on his elbows. “You’re so beautiful, Kelsey. And you look so delicate, fragile even. Until you kiss me back with such fierce passion that I can hardly restrain myself.”

Something about the way his speech patterns—which were the only clue that English wasn’t his first language, aside from the lilting hint of an accent—tended toward the formal struck her as unutterably sexy. Maybe it was a naughty professor fantasy she’d never realized lurked in her subconscious? When he spoke to her in those longer, almost old-fashioned sentences, it just curled her toes.

“Don’t.”

That popped him from his forearms up to his hands, practically planking above her as he lifted his body. “Don’t kiss you?”

“Omigosh, not that at all. Don’t restrain yourself.” More sure of herself now—or more sure that Elias and his strict adherence to rules wouldn’t hold her at bay—Kelsey curled her legs around his calves to pull him back down. Then that felt so good that she kept going, wrapping them tight just below his ass.

Then she undulated, half to drive Elias crazy, half because she simply couldn’t stop her hips from moving against his. Not when it rubbed her against a very long, very hard bulge in his pants.

One that she now craved to see out of his pants.

The movement spurred Elias back into action, his momentary hesitation gone. He buried his face against her neck, biting and licking and sucking his way from the hollow below hear ear, across where her racing pulse beat frantically against her skin, down to the hollowed notch in the center of her collarbone.

God, she loved how methodical he was.

Elias surged back up, taking her mouth once more. More…recklessly. A little rougher, a little less polished. More…urgent. Lips more insistent, tongue more persistent. Somehow, he made her shiver and flush with heat at the same time.

A man who could tweak the laws of science with his kisses was a good man, indeed.

It was so quiet in the summerhouse that their increasingly harsh pants were louder even than the tree branches the wind tapped against the glass panes. That made it all more real. That there wasn’t a pulsing techno soundtrack to distract, or even the sharp symphony of taxi horns she’d fallen in love with in her two days in Manhattan.

There was only their breath. The proof of their mutual arousal.

It was exactly what Kelsey needed as an antidote to the morning.

His big, facile hands circled the bare skin above the waist of her shorts. But shoving her sports tank up only gave him access to the tight band of the built-in bra. And by tight, she meant locked down tighter than San Quentin during a riot. Kelsey could swear she came close to dislocating a shoulder at least once a month while fighting to remove her sports bra.

Clearly, he knew not to fight a losing battle. Instead, he rasped his thumbnail across her taut nipple, poking hard against the tight spandex. It wasn’t his mouth on her, which Kelsey longed for. But omigod, it made every nerve ending squeal in delight, especially when he squeezed and pinched the other one, too. Twin bolts of bliss arrowed from her breasts to the hot, needy ache between her thighs.

“I want you, Kelsey,” he said in a gravelly, thick voice. “I want to have you. All of you. Naked beneath me, on top of me, surrounding me.”

Oh, she was all in. But, as Elias had so gallantly offered, on her terms. So Kelsey asked, “Is that another order, or a request?”

“It is my most fervent desire.”

Kelsey had been with other guys. Men. She’d had satisfactory sex, no complaints. But she’d never, ever been someone’s fervent desire. It was both romantic and a remarkable turn on. “I’m rather fervent with that desire as well.”

He kissed where her breasts swelled over the spandex, then her nose, her forehead, and ended with a slow, sweet kiss on her lips. “But not here, and not now.”

“What happened to being on my terms? Which would be right the heck here and now, by the way.”

Elias grimaced, wiping his hand across his close shorn hair in embarrassment. “No condom.”

She didn’t bother to hide her giggle as he sat up and smoothed her tank top back down into decency. “Isn’t that number one in a protection necessity right behind a gun?”

With a chuckle, he said, “Not for when I was guarding your brother. It hadn’t, ah, come up as a security measure. Besides, you’ve got a full schedule yet this morning. Sir Evan is probably about to stalk the security cams to find you.” Another brush of his lips against hers that didn’t match the darkness and desire that had blown out his pupils. “I don’t want to rush with you.”

It was a good sentiment. Thoughtful, generous, and one that left her with an unspoken promise of undoubtedly more than one orgasm.

The only problem?

They sort of did need to rush, because Kelsey knew her time here in Moncriano was ticking away fast.

Elias might end up as just one more princess perk. Like a sparkly tiara, something she got to try on, but ultimately, would have to leave behind.