He’d surprised her by standing as well. It was a quick motion, one he either hadn’t expected to make, or didn’t appreciate having to make. As he came around that large desk, Landry remembered the book she’d read on the plane about royal protocol. Most men in America did not stand when a woman did. An attestation to the whole chivalry is dead mantra. Here, the men—correction, the royal men—were different. At least that’s what the book said.
“Welcome to Grand Serenity Island,” he stated and extended his hand to her.
Landry hesitated momentarily, but then accepted his hand and looked him in the eye.
Did the earth shake? Was that thunder she heard? Who turned up the heat in here?
A wave of heat flowed steadily from her fingers to her wrist, up her arm and rested embarrassingly in her cheeks. He looked down at their hands about a second or so before she did. He was a few shades lighter than her mocha hue.
When she looked back, it was to see him staring at her. She could swear her thoughts were mirrored in his expression. Prince Kristian DeSaunters was not blushing as she feared she probably was, but he did appear shaken. It was a faint change from the stern and serious look that had been in his eyes just moments before. His lips pressed together tightly until he almost seemed to grimace.
“Thank you,” Landry replied but made no attempt to remove her hand from his grasp.
His fingers moved over hers as their gazes held.
“No rings,” he spoke quietly.
“I’m not married,” she answered. “I thought we already established that fact.”
Neither was he, Landry thought. He was single and dashing and still holding her hand. It felt natural and odd at the same time. Welcome, yet a bit too familiar for their first meeting. And still, she did not pull away.
“I look forward to seeing more of you,” the prince continued. “More of your work, that is.”
Right, she reminded herself. She was here to work, not to ogle this man.
“Thank you, Your Highness. I plan to do my very best,” she said in her most professional tone, just as there was a knock at the door.
He was still holding her hand when someone entered, already speaking.
“Hey Kris, we need to talk about tomorrow’s meeting with the board of directors and then—” her voice trailed off as the stunningly beautiful Princess Samantha Raine DeSaunters came to a stop right beside them.
The prince dropped Landry’s hand as if she’d had a palm full of hot coals.
Landry then finished with the roller coaster of emotions brought on by the introduction to Grand Serenity’s royalty, bid a quick farewell before making a hasty retreat.
* * *
“Who was that and what did you do to run her away like that?”
Kristian stared at the door Landry had just passed through. He was asking himself an array of questions at the moment, none of which he wanted to share with his younger sister.
“That was Landry Norris. She’s Malayka’s stylist,” he replied then moved to stand behind his desk once again.
He closed the file his assistant had compiled on Ms. Norris and her business venture. The picture that was included—the one that had captured him the moment he’d first seen it earlier this week—was tucked securely in the back. That’s where he’d finally put it yesterday, when he couldn’t rationalize why he kept staring at it.
“You’re kidding, right?” Sam shook her head as she continued to walk into the office, taking a seat in the chair that Landry had vacated. “Why does she need a personal stylist? She already has her hairdresser and makeup artist here.”
Kris took his seat. “I was going to ask you that same question... Do you have someone who selects your clothes for you?”
It seemed like a silly question to ask, especially when posed to his sister, who lived in the same house with him. In his defense their house was unlike usual homes. It was a palace, after all. Wonderland, that’s what Vivienne DeSaunters, their mother, used to call the family home. Located high on the cliffs of Grand Serenity, a Caribbean island just north of Colombia and Venezuela, the royal palace was a sprawling white structure with jutting towers capped in gold domes. It was roughly the size of twenty-five of the homes in the town below, and housed the rulers who had governed the island for the last sixty-five years.
His family resided in a large wing toward the center of the house with the majority of the rooms overlooking the cliffs that fell off into the glorious turquoise sea. Before Vivienne had come to live in the palace windows had been barred and locked, as one of the former rulers, Marco Vansig, had not been a particularly kind man, thus soliciting more enemies than he could eventually ward off. Under Vivienne’s progressive and feminine hand the barred windows were removed and replaced with practical weather-resistant glass ones that sparkled and brought in every ounce of sunlight and the island’s magnificent view.
Kris’s father, Rafe, had the largest group of rooms in that wing of the house as the reigning prince of the island. Kris and each of his younger siblings, Sam and Roland, had their own rooms situated among the areas of the massive dwelling in a way that provided them all with the privacy they seemed to desire. It wasn’t easy living under the titles they held, finding solace within the walls of their private rooms was sometimes all they could manage. At least it was that way for Kris.
As the crown prince, the one who would ultimately succeed his father in ruling their country, Kris carried a tremendous weight on his shoulders. One which was now causing a great deal of stress for him.
“I am not your average woman, I suspect,” Sam replied to his question with a quirk of her lips. “I love beautiful clothes and accessories, but I like to have the final say in what I wear or purchase for that matter.”
She always looked good, Kris thought, as he stared across his desk at his sister—younger than him by six years—looking vaguely amused by their conversation. Samantha Raine DeSaunters was a beautiful woman with her smooth milk-chocolate complexion, and thick coal-black hair. Her skin tone and assessing eyes came from their father, while her outgoing personality and the innate need to take care of everyone around her were undoubtedly traits obtained from their mother.
“I think it’s safe to say that you are nothing like Malayka Sampson,” was Kris’s dry response.
Sam agreed with the nod of her head. “I don’t know that there is anyone like her. Did you know that she has already begun planning the wedding?”
Kris sat back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap, a position in which he could easily be mistaken for his father. “The date is set for December first. The date has significance to her and she wants a grand celebration. Those were Dad’s exact words.”
“And he plans to give it to her?” Sam asked.
“He does.”
She cursed.
It was soft and way too dainty to carry much weight, still Kris realized the severity of the situation at hand especially because it made his normally pleasant sister vent in such a way.
Malayka Sampson was engaged to their father. She was a thirty-seven-year-old American who would, in just seven months, become the princess of Grand Serenity Island. As such she would manage Wonderland...no, that was his mother’s. It belonged only to her. It always would. Malayka would manage the palace and she would take over much of the community and public relations duties that Sam now held. She would become the new face and voice of the island, while his father continued to rule via business and policy the way his father had before him.
“I don’t like her and neither does Roland,” Sam told him.
Her words