He glanced around. “From the looks of things, it will take a long time. I’ll meet our group instead.”
“Good idea. I’d bet they’re all dying of curiosity.”
A knock at the door interrupted. “Come in,” he called out.
Lucy poked her head inside. “Is everything OK in here?”
“It’s fine,” Gina responded.
“Can I get either of you anything?” she asked. “Coffee, tea, or…?”
“Thank you, but not at the moment,” Ruark answered politely.
Disappointment flitted across Lucy’s features. “If you should change your mind…”
“We’ll let you know,” Gina assured her.
“OK.” The nurse disappeared and Gina faced Ruark. “The natives are definitely dying of curiosity.”
“I’ll deal with them in a minute,” he said. “But before I do, I’d like to discuss a more personal matter.”
Knowing she had nothing to hide, she shrugged. “Sure.”
He studied her intently. “You truly didn’t know I was coming?”
“Didn’t have a clue,” she responded cheerfully.
“My name didn’t sound familiar?”
She shook her head. “Should it?”
“Really?”
“Really. Have you been in the news?” She hoped not. If he was a household name and she didn’t recognize it, she’d feel horribly awkward.
“Not lately.”
She smiled. “Good, because otherwise I’d have to apologize. I rarely watch television,” she admitted.
His gaze held hers. “What if I told you I’m originally from Marestonia.”
Marestonia? A warning bell sounded in her head and her smile froze in place. Stay calm, she told herself. Lots of people lived in Marestonia.
She pretended ignorance. “Someplace in Eastern Europe, isn’t it?”
“Next door to Avelogne.”
Her heart pounded painfully in her chest. She hadn’t heard the name of her father’s country since she’d turned sixteen and he’d told her the entire tale of his life.
A life he’d given up rather than sacrifice his principles.
A life where he’d gained a wife and daughter and lost everything else.
“Your father and mine were friends years ago.”
The past wasn’t supposed to surface after all these years. Her father had left that life behind, never to embrace it again. Acknowledging it now seemed rather disloyal to her parents’ memory.
“Was your father an aeronautical engineer, too?” She sounded stiffly polite as she pretended ignorance of her family background. “Did the two of them do business together?”
“Their friendship began long before your father moved to Seattle. Countess.”
She drew herself up at the title she had a right to use but didn’t. “Do not call me that.”
“Deny your heritage all you want, but I have the proof.”
“And what if you do? It means nothing. I don’t have any official ties to Avelogne.”
“Ah, but you admit you do have ties.”
Feeling like a mouse caught in a trap, she bit her lip, reluctant to say anything else.
“You do,” he insisted. “You have a grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins.”
“Whom I never met,” she countered. “I’m thirty years old and I’ve lived my entire life without them. I’m not interested in changing my family dynamics now.”
With a blinding flash of insight, the pieces of the puzzle making up Ruark Thomas began to align themselves in a picture she didn’t like. His aristocratic bearing, his take-charge attitude, his familiarity with the security guards all suggested he was more than a physician, more than the new chief of emergency services.
She studied him with the same intensity she used when searching for bacteria under a microscope. “Who are you, Dr Thomas?”
CHAPTER TWO
RUARK watched the woman in front of him. Her green eyes flashed with fire and she bristled with a combination of indignation and suspicion. Breaking the news to her wouldn’t be easy; he’d known it for some time, which was why he’d planned and orchestrated the proper timing.
He clicked his heels together and bowed slightly. “Ruark Benjamin Mikael Thomas, Prince of Marestonia.”
“Prince?” she asked on a near squeak. “I thought you were a physician.”
“They aren’t mutually exclusive. I happen to be both.”
“What brings a physician slash prince of Marestonia to Belmont Memorial?”
“To work, like everyone else,” he promptly answered.
“Since when do princes need to earn a living?”
“It’s called serving the people,” he said lightly. “As the third son, I was free to choose my own career, and I chose medicine. Just as your cousin, Leander, did.”
Curiosity flashed in her eyes at the mention of a cousin who shared her interest and her profession, but a few seconds later indifference appeared, as if she simply refused to acknowledge any sort of connection between her and her father’s family. “And you chose to work in the US?”
“When I’m not involved in relief work.”
“How noble.”
“Please, feel free to tell me what you truly think.”
His gentle rebuke brought color to her face. “I apologize,” she said stiffly. “As a physician, I was out of line to say something so unforgivable.”
“Apology accepted.” Gina was many things, but she didn’t hesitate to speak her mind, he decided. From the reports he’d read about her, he hadn’t expected her to do otherwise.
She crossed her arms. “OK, you’re a prince who works for a living, but out of all the hospitals in this country, what made you choose Belmont?”
“Because you’re here,” he said simply.
She scoffed. “Oh, please. You can’t be serious.”
“It’s true,” he insisted. “I came as soon as a job was available.”
She looked puzzled. “But why? We don’t know each other.”
“Your grandmother and my father sent me.” He reached into the left inside pocket of his suit coat, retrieved a white envelope and held it out to her. “The Queen Mother asked if I would deliver this.”
Recognition flashed in her eyes as her gaze traveled from one corner emblazoned with the royal crest of the House of Avelogne to the middle where her name appeared in large, beautifully precise script. “Why would the royal family send a letter to me?” she asked suspiciously.
“You’ll have to read the explanation for yourself.”
She eyed the envelope as if it were a pure culture of Hantavirus, but indecision flickered across her face. He hoped her curiosity would overrule the hard feelings she so plainly felt.
Reluctantly, she accepted