When Zoe came along, their daughter gave them both something new and wonderful to focus on. With Teresa’s passing, Zoe had become the joy of his life. There’d been other women in the past two years, but the part of his psyche that had never been touched was still a void.
Enter Dottie Richards, a woman who’d buried a son and husband. He could still hear her saying she’d lost the great loves of her life. She’d experienced the kind of overwhelming love denied him because of his royal roots. He really envied her the freedom to choose the man who’d satisfied her passion at its deepest level and had given her a child.
Though it was an unworthy sentiment, Alex found himself resenting her husband for that same freedom. If Alex had been a commoner and had met her in his early twenties—before she’d met her husband—would she have been as attracted to him as he was to her? Would they have married?
She wasn’t indifferent to Alex. The way she’d kissed him back last night convinced him of her strong attraction to him. He’d also sensed her interest at odd times when he noticed her eyes on him. The way she sometimes breathed faster around him for no apparent reason. But he had no way to gauge the true depth of her emotions until he could get her alone again.
As for his feelings, all he knew was that she’d lit a fire inside him. In two weeks, even without physical intimacy, Dottie affected him more than Teresa had ever done during the three years of their marriage.
For the first time in his life he was suddenly waking up every morning hardly able to breathe until he saw her. For the only time in his existence he was questioning everything about the royal legacy that made him who he was and dictated his destiny.
His jealousy terrified him. He’d seen his brother’s interest in her. Stasi’s arranged marriage would be happening on his thirty-fifth birthday, in less than three weeks now. Until then it didn’t stop him from enjoying and looking at other women. But it had angered Alex, who felt territorial when it came to Dottie. That’s why he hadn’t let Stasi dance with her. Alex had no right to feel this way, but the situation had gone way beyond rights.
Alex wanted his daughter’s speech therapist. But as he’d already learned, a command from him meant nothing to her. A way had to be found so she wouldn’t leave, but he had to be careful that he didn’t frighten her off.
He swam back to Zoe, who hung on to the edge of the pool, practicing the hard C sound with Dottie. Without looking him in the eye, Dottie said, “Here’s your daddy. Now that your lesson is over, I have to go inside. Zoe, I need to tell you now that I won’t be able come to your bedroom to say good-night later. I have plans I can’t break, but I’ll see you in the morning.” She finally glanced at him. “Your Highness.”
Alex had no doubts that if she’d dared and if it wouldn’t have alarmed Zoe, Dottie would have run away from him as fast as she could. Fortunately one of the positive benefits of being the prince meant he could keep twenty-four-hour surveillance on her.
After she’d left the sun deck, he spent another half hour in the pool with his daughter before they went inside. But once in her room, Zoe told Sofia to go away. When Alex tried to reason with her and get her to apologize, she broke down in tears, begging him to eat dinner with her in her room. She didn’t want to be with Yiayia.
Dottie’s announcement that she wouldn’t be coming in to say good-night had sent the sun behind a black cloud. Naturally Dottie had every right to spend her evenings the way she wished. That’s what he told Zoe. He had to help his daughter see that, but the idyllic day had suddenly vanished like a curl of smoke in the air.
“Make her come, Daddy.”
A harsh laugh escaped his lips. You didn’t make Dottie do anything. He didn’t have that kind of power. She had to do it herself because she wanted to.
What if she didn’t want to? What if the memory of life with her husband trapped her in the past and she couldn’t, or didn’t want to, reach out? On the heels of those questions came an even more important one.
Why would she reach out? What did a prince have to offer a commoner? An affair? A secret life? The answers to that question not only stared him in the face, they kicked him in the gut with enough violence to knock the wind out of him.
Once Zoe was asleep, Alex left for his suite, taking the palace stairs three steps at a time to the next floor. The last person he expected to find in his living room was Stasio with a glass of scotch in his hand.
He tossed back a drink. “It’s about time you made an appearance, little brother.” For a while now a cross-grain tone of discontent had lain behind Stasi’s speech and it had grown stronger over the last few months. No crystal ball was needed here. The bitter subject of arranged marriages still burned like acid on his tongue as it did on Stasi’s.
“Did you and Yiayia have another row tonight?” Alex started unbuttoning his shirt and took off his shoes.
“What do you mean, another one?” Stasio slammed his half-empty glass on the coffee table, spilling some of it. “It’s been the same argument for seventeen years, but tonight I put an end to it.”
“Translate for me,” Alex rapped out tersely.
Stasio’s mouth thinned to a white line. “I told her I broke it off with Beatriz while I was in Valleder. I can’t go through with the wedding.”
Alex felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He stared hard at his brother. All the time Stasi had put off coming home, something in the back of Alex’s mind had divined the truth, but he hadn’t been able to make his brother open up about it.
Since Stasio had been old enough to comprehend life, he’d been forced to bear the burden of knowing he would be king one day. That was hard enough. But to be married for the rest of his life to a woman he didn’t love would have kept him in a living hell. No one knew it better than Alex.
“How is Beatriz dealing with it?”
“Not well,” he whispered in agony.
“But she’s always known how you truly felt. No matter how much this has hurt her, deep down it couldn’t have come as a complete surprise. I thought she would have broken it off a long time ago.”
“That miracle never happened. She wanted the marriage, just the way Teresa wanted yours.” Alex couldn’t deny it. “What always astounded me was that you were able to handle going through with your marriage to her.”
Alex wheeled around. “The truth?”
“Always.”
“It was the last thing I wanted. I wouldn’t have married her, but with Father on his deathbed making me promise to follow through with it, I couldn’t take the fight with him any longer and caved. The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that I wouldn’t be king one day, so I wouldn’t have to be in the public eye every second. And then, Zoe came along. Now I can’t imagine my life without her.”
Stasio paled. “Neither can I. She’s the one ray of sunshine around this tomb.” He took a deep breath. “Under the circumstances I should be grateful Yiayia isn’t taking her last breath because there will be no forced wedding with Beatriz. Philippe has backed me in this and he holds a certain sway with our grandmother.”
Alex was afraid that was wishful thinking on Stasio’s part. Not only was Philippe his best friend, he’d been one of the lucky royals who’d ended up marrying the American girl he’d loved years earlier. They’d had a son together and the strict rules had been waived in his particular case.
But the queen hadn’t approved of Philippe’s marriage, so it didn’t follow she would give an inch when it came to Stasio’s decision. In her eyes he’d created a monumental catastrophe that could never be forgiven.
“So what’s going to happen