Once Upon a King

“I can’t forget,” he said.

She kept walking.

“Go away or I’m going to call security. They’ll arrest you for sure. I’m a guest of this country and I have friends in high places.”

Okay, so Parker’s parents weren’t really friends, but she imagined they’d help protect her from a lunatic ex-lover.

“Tell me where you’re going,” Michael ordered, still walking by her side. His legs were much longer than hers, so she had to take about a step and a half to every one of his long, loping strides.

“None of your business,” she said, trying to lengthen her own step, not wanting to be at a disadvantage. “Leave me alone, you cad.”

“Cad?” he said, his smile quirking sort of sideways with amusement.

“You gigolo.”

“Gigolo?” He chuckled.

That soft, throaty laughter had haunted her dreams for three months.

He placed a hand on her shoulder, as if to slow her down.

She shrugged free and tried to walk even faster. “Stop that, and stop following me.”

“I can’t stop following you. I was sent here to pick you up and take you to the castle, Cara Phillips.”

“You work for the king?” she asked, feeling as if a lightbulb had gone off over her head. “That’s why you were on Perry Square, in Erie. He sent you to try and make Parker go home, didn’t he? Then you met me, figured you could have a bit of fun before you ran back to Eliason. You figured you’d never see me again. Well, let’s pretend it worked, that you never met me back on the square. You can take me to the castle, then get on with your duties and forget we ever met.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, cara mia.”

The endearment whipped at her tenuous self-restraint. “Don’t call me that,” she said, hoping he couldn’t sense the emotion that was riding ever closer to the surface.

“I can’t do that either. You are my cara mia, my beloved,” he said.

He reached out as if he were going to touch her again, but drew his hand back. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Ha.”

“And I can’t leave you alone because my father asked me to assist you in whatever way suits your needs.”

“Your father?” she asked. A sudden sick pitch settled in her stomach as a glimmer of an idea struck her. An unsettling, horrible, the-fates-couldn’t-do-it-to-her kind of idea.

“Your father?” she repeated.

“My father, King Antonio Paul Capelli Mickovich Dillonetti of Eliason.”

This time Cara didn’t just feel weak-kneed, she actually sort of sagged.

Mike caught her elbow and steadied her.

An immediate awareness slammed through her system.

“What’s your real name?” she asked weakly, though she knew.

“I’m Antonio Michael Paul Mickovich Dillonetti. There are a lot of titles that come after that. But my friends call me Michael.”

“Well, Your Highness—”

“Michael,” he corrected.

“Your friends call you Michael, and I assure you I am not your friend. I’ll stick with Your Highness.”

“You’re right of course,” he said, using what he must have thought was a soothing tone.

In reality, it was too husky, too enticing to be soothing.

“You’re not a friend….” he began. “You’re more.”

Cara couldn’t stand it.

She knew that Parker and Shey were counting on her to keep this wedding intimate and not a circus like so many other royal weddings were. But she couldn’t do this.

She couldn’t be here, working with him every day.

Parker and Shey would understand. They’d have to.

She turned and headed for the ticket window.

“Where are you going now?” he asked, once again on her heels.

This time she realized there was a small group of men trailing after Michael as he followed after her.

Bodyguards?

Probably. After all, a prince had to have his entourage.

A prince. The rat.

“To buy a ticket home,” she said without turning around to look at him.

“You’re running away again?” he asked, his voice much softer now.

She whirled around and found herself face-to-face, just inches separating them. “What do you mean again? I woke up and you were gone. There was nothing to do but go. I left, but I certainly didn’t run away.”

Had he been there, she was certain she’d have stayed as long as possible.

“I went to buy us breakfast only to return to the room and find you’d left,” he said softly.

Cara felt light-headed.