“Me, too,” Phillip declared.
After they’d climbed on their horses, she trailed them down the mountain. Phillip did most of the talking. He couldn’t fathom that Bris was a four-thousand-year-old city built by the Romans. It was a good thing he was so eager to learn from his father. It prevented him from noticing how quiet she’d become.
Little did her son know her emotions were in utter chaos.
A line had been crossed today.
She didn’t have the power to turn back time to prevent the experience from happening. However she could make certain there would never be a repeat.
There was no excuse for losing her head. Until he’d admitted that he hadn’t been emotionally involved with Melissa, she would have assumed he’d lost his because she reminded him of her sister. Though the two of them had different coloring, physically they resembled each other in many ways.
Darrell could have understood him getting caught off guard in a small detour down memory lane, but according to him he couldn’t even remember that night with Melissa clearly. So what was the explanation?
Certainly it was a mistake! One of those heart-stopping, forbidden mistakes of unmatchable rapture she would remember for the rest of her life.
Deep in agonizing thought she scarcely remembered the ride back to the stable. Once she’d walked outside the barn, she caught sight of a cute, dark blond boy running toward Alex. He was calling out something to him in Romanche.
“Speak English, Jules.”
The boy reminded her of Phillip when he’d been a few years younger. They all bore that distinguishing Valleder stamp.
Alex put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Where’s Vito?”
“Around the front with Aunt Katerina.”
He guided him closer. “Jules? I’d like you to meet a relative from Colorado in the United States. I hope you’ll all become good friends.”
Jules looked up at Alex in surprise. “I didn’t know we had relatives in America.”
“You have one. His name is Phillip. He’s my son.”
The boy’s light blue eyes rounded in disbelief. “No, he’s not—”
For Darrell it was déjà vu because Phillip had sounded exactly like that when she’d told him his father was the king. The two boys had so much in common it was uncanny.
“Freaky, huh,” Phillip spoke up.
Alex smiled at his son. “Jules doesn’t know what freaky means.”
“Crazy.”
Jules was understandably bewildered. “How old are you?”
“Almost thirteen.”
Going on a hundred, Darrell muttered inwardly. Alex flashed her an amused glance as if he’d just thought the same thing. Her heart lurched every time he looked at her.
“Isabella’s not your mother,” Jules declared.
“No,” Darrell interjected, trying to ignore Alex. “I am. My name is Darrell Collier. I’m very pleased to meet you, Jules.” She put out her hand, which he shook politely. But it was clear he was puzzled.
Who wouldn’t be? The poor boy didn’t know Melissa had given birth to Phillip. But this was hardly the time and place for Darrell or Alex to get into the specifics.
Unfortunately it left the impression that Darrell and Alex had been lovers. One day soon the truth would come out. In the meantime she had to withstand Jules’s curiosity.
He finally switched his gaze back to Alex. “Then how come you’re going to marry Isabella?”
Darrell had anticipated his question and was ready for it. “Because she’s a royal princess and they love each other very much.”
“Isabella’s really cool,” Phillip piped up.
Jules glanced back at his new relative in fascination. “What does cool mean?”
“She’s a fox.”
Well, well, well. If her son said it, it meant Isabella was a true beauty.
Of course she would be, but the knowledge acted like a dagger plunged in Darrell’s heart.
“A fox?” Jules questioned.
Alex burst into laughter.
Jules looked so worn-out trying to figure everything out, Darrell took pity on him.
“What Phillip’s trying to say is that Isabella is a lovely person.”
Those light blue eyes studied her, then Phillip. “Do you want to come and see Great-Aunt Katerina’s dogs?”
“Sure. What kind are they?”
Jules looked to Alex for the answer.
“In English they’re called golden retrievers. Stick with my son, Jules, and your English vocabulary is going to skyrocket.”
“Go on with him,” Darrell urged Phillip. “I’m going back for a soak in the tub.”
He grinned. “You didn’t do half bad on that horse, Mom.”
“Thanks a lot, Roy.”
Her allusion to Roy Rogers, the famous cowboy, would be lost on Jules, but Alex and Phillip laughed.
“Come on, Dad.”
She felt Alex’s gaze compelling her to look at him, but that was all over. She didn’t dare allow herself another second alone with him. She didn’t want a postmortem of what had happened up on the mountain. Until Alex and Isabella sorted things out in the next couple of days, she intended to stay sequestered in the apartment away from everyone.
Turning on her heel, she took a path through the trees that would lead back to the castle without her having to see Alex’s mother.
One day they would have to meet, but not right now. Not while the feel and taste of her son’s hands and mouth had rocked Darrell’s world.
ALEX left Phillip and the boys in his mother’s apartment. She’d invited all of them to lunch. Knowing they’d be occupied several hours at least, he slipped out to take the inevitable phone call from Isabella.
Her parents expected him for dinner. That gave him three hours to talk to Darrell before the helicopter took off.
He had an idea she’d barricaded herself in the suite. The passion they’d shared had not only scared the daylights out of her, but it had changed him into someone he didn’t know anymore.
He took the stairs down to the second floor and walked through the hallway until he reached her door. Before he knocked, he pulled out his cell phone to call her.
There was no answer, however he hadn’t expected her to pick up.
He knew instinctively she was hiding from him. Maybe she would answer the door if he knocked, thinking it was the maid. But there was no response—no sound to indicate she was inside.
In his gut he knew she’d made up her mind not to open it, not even for the king.
But the man could gain access to her without anyone knowing about it—the man Alex had been repressing since that wild night years ago—the man who seemed to have been reborn since discovering he had a son…
The only way to do this meant going through the music room on the first floor located directly below the Saxony apartment. The rope Chaz had attached from the balcony to reach both floors still hung