The Prince She Had to Marry (18 page)

And that was it. The voice mail robot came on with options. She hung up without choosing one.

And then she sat there, staring blindly at the far wall, the tears falling freely now, dripping off her chin, plopping on the coverlet until she couldn’t stand it anymore and she dialed voice mail again, just to hear his voice a second time. She listened to his message all the way through. And then she listened to it again. And then another time after that.

What she somehow managed
not
to do was to call him back.

* * *

Alex called again in the morning and left another message. “It’s midnight here. I fly out first thing in the morning before dawn. What’s going on, Lili? I called our apartment. Rufus answered. He said that you’d gone back to Alagonia. He said you left a letter for me. A letter? Lili, are you all right? Why didn’t you return my call?”

An hour later, he called again. “I called my father.” His voice was flat. “He says you are well. He says... Lili, have you left me? Lili, what in hell is going on?” That was the end of that message.

After that, he didn’t call again.

Lili ached with the need to call him back.

But she didn’t. She ate her breakfast. She took a long stroll on the palace grounds. She dealt with correspondence. She painted and she read. She had dinner in the state dining room with her father and some of his ministers and their wives. Everyone said how glad they were to have her home again. She smiled and she chatted. When the meal was over, she joined the others in the music room where a famous pianist played compositions by Liszt and Chopin.

She retired at a little after ten, had a long bath and then went to bed.

She did not call her husband.

The next move was his. She was not making that move for him. Calling was not enough. Coming home to Montedoro was not enough.

He would have to come to Alagonia to get her.

And he would have to convince her beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wanted—that he
chose
—to be her true husband and a real father to their child.

* * *

Alone in the master bedroom of their apartment in the Prince’s Palace, Alex read again the letter that Lili had left for him:

Alexander,

I’ve been waiting. Thirty-six days since you left me. Eight hundred and sixty-four hours. Fifty-one thousand eight hundred and forty minutes. Three million, one hundred and ten thousand, four hundred seconds.

Yes, I did the math. After all, I’ve had plenty of time.

Thirty-six days—and not one phone call from you. Not a single letter. Not a postcard. Not an email or a text.

I was angry when you left. Angry and hurt. I understood that you had to go, understood the necessity to make recompense to the family of your lost friend. What I did not understand was why you had to go alone.

But I was willing to accept that you had to do it your way, willing to put aside my anger and my hurt. Willing to wait for you.

Up to a point.

But I have waited too long. I refuse to wait any longer. It has become clear to me that I have waited more than long enough. I have finally come to realize that in this sad little necessary marriage of ours, I have been the one who has constantly put forth the effort, swallowed her pride, reached out her hand, been willing to try and try again.

From all this constant striving to make things work with you, I have learned a hard and painful lesson. A marriage is not made by one but by two. Without your love, without your honest determination to be with me, to be my husband, without your joy in the journey at my side, we have nothing.

I fear that we have nothing, Alex.

I am going home.

Yours,

Liliana

* * *

Nothing
.

Alex stared at the words.
I fear we have nothing.

How could she think that? After the island. After...everything.

Didn’t she know that she was his heart? His soul? His future? His rock and his solace?

Didn’t she understand that he’d left her only so that he could return to her a free man at last?

Apparently, she did not.

He thought about that. For a very long time.

He also thought about how he really should have called her, even though to call her would only have reminded him that he was far away from her and he wasn’t going to allow himself to return to her until he’d finished the task he’d set himself.

Yes, all right. He had been wrong, not to call.

And yes, now he thought back, he had to admit that she was the brave one, the strong one, the one who kept trying over and over, while he constantly hurt her and pushed her away and crawled back into the hole of mourning and self-recrimination he had dug for himself.

He supposed he’d become accustomed to her surprising strength, her impressively steadfast determination to make a husband out of him against all odds. He’d come to count on her putting up with him, being patient with him, always giving him another chance.

Had he run out of chances with her?

His heart seemed to shrink in his chest as he realized that he actually might have managed to accomplish what he’d set out to do when he tricked her into marrying him.

She was giving him what he used to think he wanted: a marriage in name only, the two of them leading separate lives.

* * *

The next morning, he met with his father privately in his father’s palace office. His Serene Highness Evan had once been a successful film actor in America. He was quite handsome, with gray-streaked dark hair and piercing green eyes that missed nothing.

He pulled no punches. He offered Alex a chair and said frankly, “You’ve hurt your wife. Deeply.”

As if he didn’t realize that now. “I just need to see her. She won’t take my calls.”

“None of us blames her for leaving, Alex. For...cutting off communication with you.”

Alex wanted to hit something. Instead, he hung his head. “All right. I’ve been a blind idiot. I understand that now. What do I do...to make things right? To get my wife back?”

“You do love her?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Of course.”

“As a man loves the woman to whom he binds his life?”

“Yes. Like that. Just like that.”

His father was silent for a moment. Then he drily advised, “You actually have to learn to say the words, Alex.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” he demanded. His father only regarded him patiently across the inlaid expanse of his mahogany desk. “All right.” He couldn’t sit still. He rose, paced to the door and then back again. “I’m a bloody idiot. Didn’t I already say that? I see that. I fully understand that now.”

“So, then. You have yet to tell your wife that you love her.”

He dropped to the chair again, braced his hands on the chair arms, glanced left and then right. Finally, he muttered, “At first, I didn’t realize what she meant to me. How important she is. And then, after we were stranded on the island, I knew she meant everything. I knew my true feelings. But I felt that I...didn’t have the right to speak of love to her until I had made recompense for the past.”

“In other words, no, you haven’t told her.”

“I was going to. As soon as I got home. I swear I was.” The words sounded weak, even to him. They sounded like poor excuses.

“It appears you are a little late,” his father observed.

“Damn it. I see that. I understand that. But what do I
do?
”

“Well, you must go after her, of course. My guess would be that she’s not going to make it easy for you. And then there will be Leo to get through. That should be interesting.”

“Leo. My God.”

“Yes. Leo will want his chance to toy with you a bit. The way I see it, Alex, you must not only go after her, but you must also not, under any circumstances, give up and go away.”

* * *

Alex arrived in Alagonia by helicopter at four that afternoon. With him were two of his most capable, skilled men of the CCU.

Apparently, he had been expected. And not in a good way.

His men were detained at the airport.

Alex was taken under armed guard to D’Alagon. He asked to see his wife. He was ignored.

At the palace, he was led in at a side entrance and down stone stairs, two levels belowground to the world-famous dungeon of D’Alagon, built when the palace was first constructed as a fortified castle back in the thirteenth century. Like most dungeons, it was dank and dim with walls of stone.

He was led to a cell, at which point he asked to see King Leo.

The guards only pushed him into the cell and locked the door.

He surveyed the accommodations. Four windowless stone walls, a ledge for a bed, an open hole in the corner—his toilet, he assumed. It was far from luxurious. But as prisons went, it could have been worse. He knew that from personal experience.

What next?

He knew what: waiting. Probably for a very long while. He could do that. He went and sat on the ledge and told himself to be patient.

Sometime later, he was given a bowl of lamb stew and a cup of water, both pushed through a compartment in the cell door. He ate the stew and drank the water.

And he waited some more. In time, he slept. They’d left him his watch, so he knew it was after four in the morning when he woke.

Eventually, there was breakfast—lukewarm cooked cereal and watery tea. He pondered his thoroughly annoying father-in-law for a time. And he thought of how very much he loved his wife.

Finally, at a little after ten in the morning, they came for him. They hauled him back upstairs to the throne room, where Leo sat alone wearing an Armani suit, his crown and an excessively gleeful expression.

“Your Majesty.” Alex bowed as best he could, with a guard holding either arm.

“You need a shave.” Leo’s smug smile widened.

“And a bath,” Alex agreed.

A frown formed between the king’s well-trimmed brows. “I told her I would have your head on a pike. But she told me no, that wouldn’t do.” Leo sighed heavily. “So I suppose I shall have to allow you to keep that thick head of yours.”

“Thank you, sir. May I see my wife now?”

Leo waved in a bored and leisurely manner. “I’m afraid not. She doesn’t want to see you.”

He held his temper. And tried again. “Take me to her. Please.”

Leo only shrugged. “You don’t seem bothered at all by a night in my dungeon.”

“Sir, I only want to speak with my wife.”

Leo studied his manicure. “Seriously, Alexander, you are no fun at all.”

“Sir, I—”

“She refuses to see you.”

“If you would only—”

“No, my boy. It’s no good. She will not see you. My men will return you to the airport, after which you and your men will depart Alagonia, never to return. Am I clear?”

Alex considered. What was arguing or disagreeing with Leo going to get him? Nothing. “Very clear, sir.”

“I’m sorry it’s all worked out so poorly.”

You don’t seem very sorry
. “Yes, sir. I accept your...condolences.”

“Go home, Alexander.”

“Goodbye, sir.”

Leo gestured grandly to the guards. “Take him away.”

* * *

An hour later, he and his men lifted off from San Ferdinand. They flew west, out over the open sea. And then, once they were well clear of the southwestern port of Salvia, they circled back, still over water, only approaching land again when they could come in from the north.

They found a wide, dusty field dotted with olive trees several kilometers from the palace. Placid Alagonian sheep regarded them solemnly from a distance as the helicopter touched down.

Still wearing the lightweight designer suit he’d donned the day before in Montedoro, Alex got off alone. He carried a backpack with a change of clothes, a series of scale drawings of D’Alagon, some water, food bars, a computer memory stick and an iPhone.

He stood in the shade of an olive tree and watched the helicopter carrying his men rise and wheel away. Then, swiftly, he took cargo pants, a plain black T-shirt, cotton socks and sturdy shoes from the pack. He changed. He left the wrinkled suit where it fell, beneath the tree, and he set out. The time was one-fifteen in the afternoon.

It was 40 kilometers to D’Alagon. He was capable of keeping a steady, brisk pace of 6.4 kilometers per hour. If all went well, he would arrive at the palace in under seven hours. He would get there a lot faster if he caught a ride. But he’d already decided against that, against getting into a vehicle with a stranger.

He would walk it, and keep an eye out to duck for cover if he spotted anyone too official-looking. The real challenge would be getting in and getting to Lili after he reached her father’s palace.

* * *

Lili wanted to scream.

He had
left
.

Her father had thrown him in the dungeon overnight and then sent him away.

And Alex had gone.

Given up.

Never mind screaming. Lili wanted to break down and cry. She’d pushed him too far. She’d asked too much of him.

She never should have allowed Papa to put him in that cell. After all he had suffered, all that he had been through in Afghanistan, it had probably caused some terrible flashback, a bad bout of post-traumatic stress. It had probably damaged him immeasurably all over again.

And it was all her fault. She should have picked up the phone that first time he called, should have forgiven the hurt he’d caused her. Should have let bygones be bygones and...

She sank to the edge of her bed, shaking her head.

Really, she didn’t know what she
should
have done. It had seemed like the right thing, the
important
thing, to finally draw the line on him, to make him see that he really did have to meet her halfway.

But now, now that he had honestly tried to reach her and she had refused repeatedly to speak with him, had rebuffed him soundly several times...well, now, she just felt that she had pushed this object lesson way too far.

She picked up her cell phone and started to call him.

And then, well, somehow, she just couldn’t. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day.

She knew now that she was going to have to be the one to make the effort, mend the breach.