SADIE BACKED SLOWLY into the room, feeling as if her insides had been scooped out.
When she’d come home from New York she’d felt like such a disappointment. She’d let down everyone who’d rooted for her. Having to tell the story of her withered dream over and over again had been an out-of-body experience.
This was way worse. Millions of people she’d never met would be reeling with dismay.
Sadie was not used to being disliked. In fact, her likeability was the cornerstone of her identity.
Her story was well-known all across Vallemont, she having been born literally on the road to the palace.
Her father—a less than exemplary model of manhood who had been dragging his pregnant girlfriend across the country to avoid debt collectors—had taken one look at newborn Sadie and fled. Luckily, the wife of the reigning Sovereign Prince—Hugo’s Aunt Marguerite—had been driving past when she found them, huddled on a patch of grass. The Princess had famously taken them in and given Sadie’s mother a job as a palace maid, allowing Sadie to grow up as a palace child. Sadie had been a firm favourite ever since.
The very thought of all that hatred coming her way drained the blood from her extremities until she could no longer feel her toes.
Someone cleared their throat.
Sadie’s focus shifted until she saw her reluctant rescuer, the living embodiment of unfavourable judgment, standing in the centre of the room holding his bags.
The only person she could possibly turn to, the only person she could lean on, ask for advice, was looking at her with all the warmth of a shadow. His dark energy added layers to her discomfort, making her feel edgy. Awkward. Hyper-aware.
Okay, she thought. This situation seems overwhelming, impossible even. But all you can expect yourself to do is handle one thing at a time. Starting with the thing right in front of you.
Dr Will Darcy.
He was the right age to have gone to school with Hugo. That elevated level of self-confidence was certainly comparable. Though where Hugo oozed sophistication and class as if he’d been dipped in them at birth, Will had the personality of a wounded bear: gruff, unpredictable. Dangerous.
She nibbled on one of her remaining fake nails.
In the end it didn’t matter. What mattered was thanking him and sending him on his way.
She moved to the small table behind the couch and grabbed some La Tulipe stationery and a pen. “Will. Thank you. So much. Truly. You’ve gone above and beyond. If you leave your contact details I’ll know where to send the money to pay you back. Petrol, car cleaning, laundry, the hotel bill. Whatever expenses you’ve incurred.”
He slowly shook his head. “Not necessary.”
Sadie flapped the stationery his way. “But it is. Necessary. I don’t like being beholden to anybody.”
“Really.”
Wow. Passive-aggressive, much? Sadie’s shoulders snapped together, annoyance rising in her belly. He really didn’t like her and wasn’t even trying to hide it. Well, he was no prince either. Sadie held back the desire to tell him so. Barely. Years of practice at being nice coming to the fore.
“Okay, then. I officially relieve you of your knight-in-shining-armour duties.” Sadie waved her fingers as if she were sprinkling fairy dust in his general direction.
Will’s expression changed. It was a miniscule shift. Barely akin to an intake of breath. But she felt it. Like a ripple of energy beneath the gruff exterior. Game on.
He hefted the smaller bag onto the couch. Then he nudged his muddy shoes off his feet in the way men did—using the toes to shove them past the heels. He picked them up, dropped them at the door, then padded into the small kitchenette.
“I’m thirsty. You?” he asked.
With an exaggerated yawn, she said, “I am exhausted though. I think the first thing I’ll do after you have your drink and go is take a nice long nap.”
Will took his time filling a glass with water from the tap. Then he turned, leaning against the bench. His voice a rumble across the room. “I’m not going anywhere just yet.”
A strange little flicker of heat leapt in her belly before she smacked it down. That wasn’t what he meant. Even if it was, now was not the time, or place...
The corner of his mouth lifted, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. It was unnerving. He was unnerving. She’d been so sure he didn’t like her. But maybe she had it all backwards and—
Then he said, “My tracksuit. I’d like it back.”
Right. Of course! He was waiting to get his clothes back. What was wrong with her?
She was a mess, that was what was wrong. Scared, disoriented and emotionally wrecked. Not at all herself. She felt a small amount of relief at the realisation that that was why every little thing Will did—his every look, every word, every dig—was getting under her skin.
She managed a laugh. “Right. Sorry! What a goof. I’ll just...find an alternative. Get you your clothes and then you can be on your way.”
He took another sip of water and gave her nothing in response.
She spun around. Near the bed was a pair of doors. Behind one was a bathroom. Ooh, how lovely! A bath the size of a small car. That would go a long way to getting her back on track. But first... Voilà! A closet! With a pair of fluffy pink robes with rose-gold stitching and matching slippers, no less. Viva Vallemont!
She turned around. Will had moved to the lounge room and was sitting on the couch, looking right at home.
Sadie thought of the bath. Her head felt like mush. Her muscles ached. Even her bones were tired. Happy-go-lucky reserves fading like an empty battery, she said, “Give me ten minutes.”
With that she headed into the bathroom.
There she stripped off Will’s clothes and took off her chemise.
Something rubbed against her thigh. The garter. Thankfully the ring was still attached. Hugo’s grandmother’s ring. Not only was it part of the royal collection, and worth more than the building she was standing in, but also it didn’t belong to her any more.
Not that it ever really had.
She carefully slid the garter down her leg and over her foot, placing it on the bathroom sink.
Last came her stockings, mud-covered and torn. Without a shred of remorse she threw them in the bin.
Then she turned the taps on the gorgeous big bath to as hot as was manageable. She found complimentary bubbles and squeezed until the bottle was empty and watched as the room became misty with steam and the bubbles threatened to topple over the sides.
And, as water tended to do, it began to unlock and unwind the knotty thoughts, opening the way to the simplest plan for dealing with the problem in front of her—moving Dr Will Darcy on.
* * *
Will leant back into the big, soft couch, checked his watch and adjusted the map of his day yet again.
He hadn’t given up on making the late flight home, even as the afternoon faded, but then evening began to creep in, painting golden tracts of sunlight across the wooden floor.
It flipped a memory to the front of the pack. A crumbling cottage made of stone; cosy and warm, with a fireplace and rugs on the wooden floor. His parents’ house—his and Clair’s—before his mother and father had died.
His grandmother had insisted he’d dreamt it. No Darcy would dare live in such a place.
But something about this place made the memory feel solid. Perhaps it was the surrealism of events. Or the fact he was thinking so much about Clair.
He rubbed his hands over his face, then reached for his phone, dashing off a quick message to Hugo giving him their location.
Within seconds a message came back:
Well done.
As if he’d known Sadie-wrangling wouldn’t be easy.
Needing a distraction, Hugo made another call.
The phone was answered. “Boss man!”
“Natalie. How are you?”
“Frantic. Busy. Overworked.”
“Happy to hear it.”
Will’s assistant laughed, the jolly sound coming to him from somewhere in the Midwest of the United States.
Natalie had worked for him going on seven years now, after having been attached to his case by a publicity firm the week his textbook was first published. Finding her tough, keen and pedantic, he’d offered her a permanent position as his assistant and she’d snapped it up. They’d never actually met, working purely online and over the phone which suited him. Less time wasted on personal chit chat that way. She ran his bookings, planned his travel and was the gatekeeper between him and his business manager, clients, institutions, conglomerates and governments the world over.
“Now,” said Natalie, “Garry is breathing down my neck like a dragon with a blocked nose, wanting to set up a meeting.”
Will’s business manager. Probably wanting to talk career strategy, aka Slow Down Before You Break Down. He’d heard it before, mostly from whoever he was dating at the time. Perhaps it was time for a new business manager too.
“When are you coming home?”
Will knew that by “home” Natalie didn’t mean London. He had an apartment there, as he did in New Mexico, Sweden, Chile and many of the best star-gazing spots in the world, but he was rarely in one place longer than any other. By “When are you coming home?” Natalie meant, when was he getting back to work?
“What’s coming up?”
Natalie listed a string of upcoming engagements. Full to bursting. Just as he liked it.
Without the onus of family, his work was the sun around which his life revolved. Whether he was looking through a telescope, hooking a crowd of eager-faced college students, putting the hard word on funding to a room filled with industry leaders, chipping away at the whys and wherefores of the universe, he was as engrossed now as he ever had been.
The rare times he loosened his grip, took a short break, said no to opportunity, he felt his life touching on the ordinary—and with it a creeping sense of futility. Of being indolent and inadequate. Just as his grandmother assured him his parents had been.
“You’ve also had meeting and speaking requests from a talk show in LA, a finishing school in the south of France, and...this is my favourite.” She rattled off the name of a big-time rapper, who was keen on investing in new digital mirroring technology that Will had funded from day dot. NASA were liking the looks of it and the musician wanted in.
“Fit them in.”
Not surprised with his answer, Natalie barrelled on. “And the prime minister would like five minutes next week.”
Will perked up. “The agenda?”
He could all but see Natalie’s grin as she said, “The Templeton Grant.”
Will smacked his hand on his thigh. “Finally! Make the time. Day or night. I’m there.”
Professor Templeton was the man who had conducted the first lecture Will had ever attended. He had become a mentor over the years until he had passed away a few months before. The long-running grant the professor had directed for the university was in danger of being phased out. Will was determined not to let that happen. He’d petitioned parliament to ask they continue in perpetuity, and to rename it in Templeton’s honour. So far unsuccessfully. The prime minister—a smart man, a good man, a man of science—was his last hope.
“You bet,” said Natalie. And Will was certain she’d make it work.
Until then, so long as he was on the first plane out in the morning, he could roll from one commitment to the next like the human tumbleweed that he was.
“Anything else I can do for you, Boss Man?” Natalie asked.
“Tell Garry we’ll make time soon. And send through the changes to the calendar when you have them.”
“Shall do.” A beat then. “So is it true?”
“What’s that?”
“That the royal wedding didn’t go off as planned?” Her sing-song voice dropped, as if they were sitting across from one another at a café. “It’s all over the news. Apparently, the bride-to-be had a change of heart.”
“You don’t say.”
Will glanced towards the wooden door when the sound of running water stopped. He listened a moment before he heard a splash. He imagined Sadie stepping a muddy foot into the bath. Then a long, pale calf, then...
Natalie sighed, bringing his vision to a halt. “She looked so nice too. Fun. Smiley. Someone you could be friends with. What did you think? I mean, before she did a runner? Did she seem as lovely as she looked in the magazines?”
Will knew better than to engage. He rubbed his temple instead.
“Aw, come on, Boss Man! My cousin Brianna works for a reality TV producer. I don’t get many chances to one-up her in ways she understands.”
“Alas.”
“Fine. I’m guessing by the stoic silence she’s not all she’s cracked up to be. I mean, did you get a load of the Prince? Oh, me...oh, my. I guess a real-life, normal girl marrying a prince is simply too much to hope for.”
“Hang in there, Natalie.”
“I’m all right. You’re the only man I need.”
“Lucky me.”
And then she was gone.
It seemed word was out. If Natalie was busy making negative assumptions, tucked away in her cottage in Wisconsin, it wasn’t looking good. Things had gone up a notch. This was no longer simply a case of keeping Sadie in sight until Hugo came to get her, but actually keeping her safe.
Something he’d not been able to do for Clair.
Throat feeling unnaturally tight, Will lifted a hand to his neck, tugged his tie loose, then pulled it free and tossed it on top of his bag.
He wasn’t built for this. All this...emotional disarray. It wore down a man’s sharp edges. He liked his edges. On a day like today—with the whole world looking to others with a need to “share”—those edges were a requirement.
Ironic that he’d thought Clair’s memory would be the biggest battle he’d fight today, instead it was the reality of Sadie. Yet somehow it was all intertwined. Choices, decisions, reactions, repercussions.
The door to the bathroom opened. He pulled himself to standing. Turned. And whatever ethical dilemma he’d been mulling over disintegrated into so many dust motes as his eyes found Sadie.
Gone was his oversized tracksuit, the piles of messy curls, the tear-soaked make-up.
Her hair was wet, and long, and straight. Her cheeks were pink from the heat of the bathroom. Freckles stood out on the bridge of her straight nose. Without the black make-up her eyes were even bigger. Blue, he thought, catching glints of sky. Wrapped in a big, fluffy, shapeless robe, she seemed taller. Upright. More graceful somehow. Long, lean and empirically lovely.
Something tightened in his gut at the sight of her. Something raw and unsettling and new. Like the deep ache of a fresh bruise.
Her brow knotted and she ran a self-conscious hand over her hair.
Will came to; realised he’d been staring.
“Better?” he asked.
“Much. I did wonder if you’d still be here when I got out.”
Will held out his hands. “Not going anywhere without my favourite running gear.”
Sadie seemed to remember she was holding his clothes. She padded over towards him and handed them over. She was careful not to touch him.
He threw them atop his bag and her eyes followed, glaring at the clothes as if by sheer force of will alone she could unzip his bag, pack the clothes away and make him leave.
“Now that you have them...”
Will put his hands into his pockets. Right. How to convince her to let him stay without coming across as a Neanderthal. Or a Lothario. Without giving her actual cause to run.
“Will,” she said.
“Yes, Sadie.”
She lifted her gaze, bright eyes snagging on his. Then she laughed, a sound both sweet and husky. But there was no humour in it. “I was going to eke it out. To keep you hanging. Make you suffer. But you look like you’re about to pull a muscle with the effort at keeping this up. I saw your credit card downstairs. You’re Will Darcy. You were heading to the wedding at the palace today because you were invited by Prince Alessandro himself.”
Will should have been prepared for this eventuality. He was a man of angles after all. And control was an illusion. The universe chaotic. Any number of factors altered the possible futures of any given body, making accurate projections near impossible. Still, he found himself unprepared.
“Are you going to deny it?” she asked; gaze steady, that humming energy of hers now turned up to eleven.
He shook his head, No.
As if she’d been hoping for a different answer, Sadie deflated, crumpling to sit on the arm of the couch. “Okay. Next question. I know the answer but I want to hear it from you. Do you know who I am?”
Will crossed his arms over his chest as he decided how to play this; fast and loose as he had so far, or absolute truth. As a man of science, the decision was elementary, and a relief.
“You were Hugo’s intended. Now you are his runaway bride.”
Her eyes were wide, luminous in the fading light. “How?”
“The dress. The tears. The determination to be as far from the palace as you could be. But it was the ring that clinched it. I’d seen it before. We were at school when his grandmother sent it to him. After...”
“After Prince Karl—Hugo’s father—died in a crash,” she finished, her gaze not shifting a jot. She was far tougher than she looked.
Then she shifted, her robe falling open. The slit separated at her ankles, then her knees, revealing one long, creamy pale leg. She had freckles on her knees. A small bruise just below. Her hands delved up inside the robe and, before Will could even look away, with a wriggle she pulled a frilly pink garter down her leg.
The fact that this rather intimate move had been meant for Hugo later that evening was not lost on him. Neither was the heat that travelled through him like a rogue wave.
Will pressed his feet harder into the floor and thought of England.
Holding the garter scrunched in her hand, she took a deep breath and opened her palm. And there, tied to the thing with a length of pink ribbon, was the Ring of Vallemont.
Then, tucking the ring back into her palm, she held out her other hand. “Mercedes Gray Leonine. Pleased to meet you.”
He took it. Her hand wrapped around his—soft and cool and impossibly fine. He could all but feel the blood pulsing beneath her skin, the steady vibration of the perpetual electric impulses that made her tick.
His voice was a little rough as he said, “Will Darcy. Pleasure’s all mine.”
She let go and used both hands to slide the garter back into place. “But it’s not your pleasure, not really, is it?”
Will said nothing, holding his breath so long it grew stale in his lungs.
“I’m a drama teacher, you know. Or I was...before. Body language—understanding it and duplicating it—is my job. You’ve hardly hidden the fact that you would rather be anywhere but here.” She blinked at him. “If it helps any, I’d rather be pretty much anywhere but here too.”
It didn’t. It only made his task more complicated than it already was. He didn’t want to see her side of things. He certainly didn’t want to empathise. He wanted to keep her from running away again and gift her back to Hugo in one piece. Then leave.
He saw the moment she realised it too. She sat taller, and narrowed her eyes his way. Something hardened in her gaze, like steel tempered by fire. And Will couldn’t press his feet into the floor hard enough.
Her eyes drilled into his as she said, “He’d never mentioned you before, you know.”
A deliberate barb, it scored a direct hit. Will crossed his arms tighter.
She noticed. A small smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “And suddenly, with the wedding, you loomed large. This friend from school he hadn’t seen in years. A falling-out he never explained, no matter how maddeningly I prodded. With all that, I imagined you hunched and brooding. More Holden Caulfield, less...”
“Less?”
“Mr Rochester.” She waved a hand his way as if it was obvious, her eyes dashing from his chest to his hair and back to his face. Her cheeks came over such a sudden pink he knew he’d have to track down this Rochester fellow the moment he had the chance.
She looked down at her toes, where he could see the nails painted in some kind of animal print, making him wonder if this palace rebellion of hers had been coming on for some time. Then she asked, “How did you imagine me?”
“I didn’t.” It was true. He’d done everything in his power not to know anything about her. He was no masochist. Though the longer he chose to stick around this woman, the more he’d question that fact.
Sadie crossed her arms, mirroring his defensive position. “Seriously? Then you have a better hold over your curiosity than I do. Well, how about now? Am I the kind of girl you imagined Hugo would one day marry?”
Will ran a hand through his hair. Hell. This was worse than masochism. He’d found himself on the pathway to hell.
“Forget it. It doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head. “Okay. So, cards-on-the-table time. What are we doing here, Will? What’s your end game? I know something happened between you and Hugo, something regrettable. If your intentions aren’t above reproach, if you’re out to humiliate him in any way... I’ll... I’ll cut off your whatsit.”
Even though he knew she was all bluff, Will’s whatsit twitched in response. “I think he’s had quite enough humiliating for one day, don’t you?”
Her gaze dropped to his...whatsit.
Will’s voice was dry as he said, “I was talking about Hugo.”
Another hit. This one flashed in her eyes like a bonfire. “Leave him out of this.”
He shook his head.
“Why? Wait. Have you spoken to him? Is he okay? Does he know we’re here?”
Will pulled the phone from his pocket. “Call him. Ask him yourself.”
Sadie’s arms loosened, her hands dropping to grip the arms of the couch on which she sat. She pulled herself to standing. Then reached out and took Will’s phone.
Their fingers brushed, static electricity crackling through his hand.
Her eyes shot to his. She’d felt it too. Breathing out hard, she asked, “Are you sure? I mean, will he even take my call?”
“Call him.”
She nodded and took a few steps away, before turning back.
“Today—not going through with the wedding... It wasn’t a decision I made lightly. I usually make a much better first impression. I’m very likeable, you know.”
“I’m sure.”
She looked at him then, all ocean-blue eyes and electric energy. With her brow twitching a moment, she said, “No, you’re not.”
And then she stepped out onto the balcony and was once more gone from his sight.
With leaden feet, Will sat back on the couch. Feeling like he’d gone ten rounds.
She was right. After what she’d done today, to his oldest friend, he wasn’t convinced that he would ever come to like her. But there was no denying she’d made an impression he’d not soon forget.