She considered tracking down Dami and quizzing him about that friend of his who looked exactly like the poverty-stricken groom she’d met Wednesday.
But no. Not tonight. Damien might be able to enlighten her, but then he would have questions of his own. She just wasn’t up for answering Dami’s questions. And it didn’t matter anyway. She knew what to do: forget it. Forget him.
It was all too weird. It made no sense and she wasn’t going to think about it.
She would enjoy the rest of the evening and move on.
A familiar voice behind her said, “Allie, I haven’t seen you in ages.”
She turned to smile at a longtime friend. “Robert. How have you been?”
“I can’t complain.” Robert Bentafaille was compact and muscular, with an open face and kind green eyes. The Bentafailles owned orange groves. Lots of them. He and Alice were the same age and had gone through primary and secondary school together. “You look beautiful, as always.”
“And you always say that.”
“I hear the orchestra.” He cast a glance back at the palace, at the lights blazing in the upstairs ballroom. Music drifted down to them. He offered his hand.
She took it and they turned together to go inside.
* * *
Alice danced two dances with Robert.
Then another longtime friend, Clark deRoncleff, tapped Robert on the shoulder. She turned into Clark’s open arms and danced some more.
After that she left the floor, accepted a glass of sparkling water from a passing servant and visited with Rhia and Marcus for a bit. Rhia was sharing her plans for the nursery when Alice spotted Dami across the dance floor. He was talking to the man who almost certainly was Noah. She stared for a moment too long.
The man who had to be Noah seemed to sense her gaze on him. He turned. Their eyes met. His were every bit as blue as she remembered.
She had no doubt now. It had to be him. Quickly, she turned away and gave her full attention to Rhia and her groom.
Noah didn’t matter to her. She hardly knew him. She refused to care what he was doing there at her sister’s wedding party or what he might be up to.
Marcus asked Rhia to dance. They went off together, holding hands, looking so happy it made Alice feel downright misty-eyed and more than a little bit envious.
Her eldest brother, Maximilian, came toward her. The heir to their mother’s throne, Max was handsome and magnetic—like all of her brothers. He used to be a happy man. But three years ago his wife, Sophia, had died in a waterskiing accident. Max had loved Sophia since they were children. Now he was like a ghost of himself. He went through all the motions of living. But some essential element was missing. Sophia had given him two children, providing him with the customary heir and a spare to the throne. He didn’t have to marry again—and he probably never would.
“We hardly see you lately,” Max chided. “You haven’t been to Sunday breakfast in weeks.” It was a family tradition: Sunday breakfast in the sovereign’s private apartments at the palace. She and her siblings were grown now, but they all tried to show up for the Sunday-morning meal whenever they were in Montedoro.
“I’ve been busy with my horses.”
“Of course you have.” Max leaned closer. “You did nothing wrong. Don’t ever let them crush your spirit.”
She knew whom he meant by them: the paparazzi and the tabloid journos. “Oh, Max...”
“You are confident and curious. You like to get out and mix it up. It’s who you are. We all love you as you are and we know it was only in fun.”
“I’m not so sure about Mother.”
“She’s on your side and she never judges. You know that.”
“What I know is that I’ve finally managed to embarrass her.” It wasn’t so much that she’d French-kissed a girl. It was the pictures. They came off so tacky, like something out of Girls Gone Wild.
“I think you’re wrong. Mother is not embarrassed. And she loves you unconditionally.”
Alice didn’t have the heart to argue about it, to insist that their mother was embarrassed; she’d said so. Instead, she leaned close to him and whispered, “Thank you.”
He smiled his sad smile. “Dance?” Though Max would never marry again, women were constantly trying to snare him. They all wanted to console the widower prince who would someday rule Montedoro. So he tried to steer clear of them. At balls, he danced with his mother and his sisters and then retired early.
“I would love to dance with you.” She pulled him out onto the floor and they danced through the rest of that number and the next one.
Before they parted, he asked her directly to come to the family breakfast that Sunday. “Please. Say you’ll be here. We miss you.”
She gave in and promised she would come, and then she walked with him to where their youngest sister, Rory, chatted with Lani Vasquez. Small, dark-haired and curvy, Lani was an American, an aspiring author of historical novels set in Montedoro. She’d come from America with Sydney O’Shea when Sydney had married Rule, the second-born of Alice’s brothers.
Alice had assumed Max would dance next with Rory. But he took Lani’s hand instead. The music started up again and Max led the pretty American onto the floor.
Rory said, “Well, well.”
“My, my,” Alice murmured in agreement. For a moment the two sisters watched in amazement as their tragically widowed eldest brother danced with someone who wasn’t his sister.
Then a girlfriend of Rory’s appeared out of the crowd. She grabbed Rory’s hand and towed her toward the open doors to the balcony. Alice considered following them. It was a lovely night. She could lean on the stone railing and gaze out over the harbor, admire the lights of the casino and the luxury shops and hotels that surrounded it.
“Alice. Dance with me.”
The deep, thrilling voice came from directly behind her and affected her just as it had when they were alone in the stables. It seemed to slip beneath her skin, to shiver its way along the bumps of her spine, to create a warm pool of longing down in the deepest core of her.
She didn’t turn. Instead, she stared blindly toward the open doors to the balcony. She wasn’t even going to acknowledge him. She would start walking and she wouldn’t look back.
If he dared to come after her, she would cut him dead.
But really, what would that prove? That she was afraid to deal with him? That she didn’t have the stones to stand her ground and face him, to find out from his own mouth what kind of game he was playing with her? That Max had been right and the tacky tabloid reporters, the shameless paparazzi, really had done it? They’d broken her spirit, made her into someone unwilling to face a challenge head-on.
Oh, no. No way.
She whirled on him and glared into his too-blue eyes. “It is you.”
He nodded. He held out his hand. “Let me explain. Give me that chance.”
She kept her arm at her side. “I don’t trust you.”
“I know.” He didn’t lower his hand. The man had nerves of steel.
And she couldn’t bear it, to let him stand there with his hand offered and untaken. She laid her fingers into his palm. Heat radiated up her arm just from that first contact. Her breath caught and tangled in her chest.
How absurd. Breathe.
With slow care, she sucked in a breath