Her Royal Husband. Cara Colter
love after that, wild, passionate, completely unbridled.
“Thank you for making me so happy,” she had said sleepily, trustingly. And he had lain awake, knowing he had to tell her the truth about himself, and knowing at the same time he could not.
In the morning, he had gotten up before her. He walked down to their favorite oceanfront café to get her a croissant and one of those specialty coffees she adored. Filled with thoughts of waking her up with his lips on her cheek, he had walked into a trap.
Four members of the Royal Elite Team, apparently tipped off about his routine, were waiting for him there. They had been sent to escort him home. No more extensions.
“I just need to do one thing. Alone. I promise I’ll come right back. One hour.”
“We can escort you where you need to go, sir.”
But then they would know about her, and her life would be scrutinized and investigated and torn apart for no reason. The security team was the best, but what if there was a leak? What if the tabloids went after her?
“No, no escort.” He must have looked like he was going to make a dash for it, because he’d found himself in the center of a circle of big, intimidating men, who looked sympathetic but unmoving.
“Sir, please don’t make us do this the hard way.”
No goodbyes and no explanations. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe it would be better if she hated him, rather than held some hope in her heart.
He had made a vow, and he was now being asked to keep it.
Owen turned his back on that part of his life that would have made him insane had he allowed himself to dwell on it, to remember it.
He returned to Penwyck and threw himself into the role he had been born to play, the role he had agreed to play in exchange for one magical summer.
He tirelessly attended functions, raised funds for charities and worked on economic development projects for his country. He felt the adoration of the people and tried to be worthy of it. When the Penberne River did its annual flood, Prince Owen was filling sandbags, shoulder to shoulder with the citizens of Sterling. When the Lad and Lassies Clubs were having a fund-raiser he could be counted on to take a turn in the dunking booth, to buy the first pie at the raffle. He cut ribbons and gave speeches, danced the first dance of each and every charity ball.
The rift between he and his brother deepened—Dylan not understanding his brother wasn’t trying to win a crown—he was trying to outrun a broken heart.
It was only his mother that he knew he had failed to convince. Sometimes he caught her watching him, unveiled sadness in her eyes. But had he not always detected a faint sadness when his mother looked at him?
A sadness that was not present in her eyes when she looked at Dylan?
Even so, he knew it to be intensified now.
And really, his campaign who was leading him down the road to being king, and away from the road of being normal, had almost worked.
Had worked until the precise moment his bedroom door had blasted open in the middle of the night, a drug-saturated cloth had been forced over his face, and he had been kidnapped.
Now, ironically, in a cell where the prince had nothing, he had everything once more.
Her memory came to him. And brought him comfort. Once again he could smell her and taste the salt on her lips, feel the silk of her hair sliding through his hands.
“If I die,” he mumbled, “I will die happy if my last thoughts are of her.”
She filled him, and he felt content.
He almost didn’t want to be drawn back from where he was by the far off sound that he could have mistaken for firecrackers, had he not been waiting for it.
Gunfire. It could only mean a rescue attempt.
And he knew he had to do his part. He struggled back from Jordan’s memory, and yet it filled him with a strength such as he had never known.
Shackled, he lurched to his feet. When his cell door flew open, and it was the enemy who arrived first, he lowered his head, like a battering ram, and charged.
And held them until he saw the familiar crest of Penwyck’s Royal Navy Seals on the dark clothed men now swarming down the hall, the enemy fleeing in front of them.
“Your Royal Highness,” a man said, stepping toward him, his smile white against the camo-darkened skin of his face.
Owen recognized the voice and took a closer look. It was his cousin, Gage Weston, a man who had made a calling of showing up where there was trouble.
Gage said, “With all due respect, you fight like a man who was born to it.”
Owen smiled wearily. “So I’ve been told.”
He looked back at his cell, and felt relief. Jordan would be safe now. All his secrets were safe.
Except for the one he had been keeping from himself. He had never, ever stopped loving her.
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