Prince's Love-Child. Кэрол Мортимер
was he here? In fact, who the hell was he? Damned if he knew…!
‘Rik…?’ Dee gave him a quizzical look now. ‘You aren’t still angry with me, are you?’ she cooed.
Angry with her? Had he ever been angry with her? Hadn’t his anger all been reserved for her manipulative stepmother and stepsister, both so determined that Dee would marry the mega-rich and powerful Jerome Powers? As he looked at Dee now, so beautiful, so intensely alive, it was difficult to believe anyone could ever be cruel or angry with her.
She gave him a poutingly reproving smile. ‘At least say something, darling!’
He wasn’t sure that he could, his tongue seeming cleaved to the roof of his mouth, like some awkward schoolboy. Which for a man of thirty-five, with a succession of screenwriting awards to his credit, plus ownership of a movie company with his older brothers, Nik and Zak, was pretty pathetic.
It was because he had had no warning of this meeting, he consoled himself.
Today had begun like any other day of his two months’ stay in Paris: he woke at eight o’clock, went for a brisk walk beside the Seine, returned to his hotel for a breakfast of coffee and croissants and lingering over the newspaper, before venturing out again later in search of somewhere to eat lunch.
Nowhere in any of that relaxed routine had he had the least premonition that he would also see Dee McCall again today!
But he had to say something, couldn’t stand here like a speechless moron for ever.
‘You’re looking well, Dee,’ he finally managed gruffly, his American accent totally at variance with her softer English tones.
‘So are you, Rik,’ she returned softly, her eyes flirting with him beneath lowered dark lashes. ‘Are you—?’
‘Is—?’ He broke off as they both began talking at once. ‘You first,’ he invited wryly.
He might not have thought of this woman for months—years?—but when he had, he had never imagined the two of them meeting like this, awkwardly, stilted, like two strangers who had never been madly in love with each other. He hadn’t imagined Cathy and Heathcliffe either, but this—this was just banal!
Dee gave him a mischievous smile. ‘I was just going to ask if you’re here with someone.’
He shook his head. ‘And I was just going to ask if you were here with Jerome.’ Her husband. The man she had married five years ago instead of him. Despite all his pleadings for her to do otherwise.
It wasn’t a period of his life he was particularly proud of, but at the time he had been so much in love with Dee that nothing else seemed to matter.
At the time…?
Yes, at the time, he realised dazedly now as he looked at her, because he wasn’t still in love with Dee; time, and absence, had made that impossible to sustain. It was the memory of what they once had together, those fierce, snatched times together, that had kept her memory so much alive.
She had been so young, only twenty, on the way up in the world of acting, pressurised by her stepmother and stepsister into becoming engaged to and marrying Jerome Powers, then a man of forty and even more powerful in the world of media and entertainment than the three Prince brothers.
Rik had argued, Dee had been stubbornly adamant, tearfully pleading with him to understand that she had to marry Jerome in order to get away from her grasping stepmother and stepsister. His promises that he could—and would—protect her in the same way, had all been tearfully rebuffed.
No, he wasn’t still in love with Dee, but the anger he felt towards her stepmother and stepsister was still there!
‘Dee-Dee, you have to come and look at the most beautiful little purse and pocketbook we found for you!’ a man’s deep voice interrupted.
Rik didn’t need to turn to know who that man was; only one person called Diamond McCall Dee-Dee in that possessive tone; Jerome Powers, Dee’s husband of the last five years.
‘Hello, who—Rik…? Rik Prince!’ Jerome greeted warmly as Rik finally steeled himself to turn and look at him. ‘What on earth are you doing in Paris?’ Jerome smiled at him warmly, at the same time dropping a lightly possessive arm about Dee’s shoulders.
It was impossible not to like this man, with his genuine warmth and charm, his iron-grey hair and sophisticated good looks attracting women of all ages. Even Rik couldn’t help liking Jerome, and it would have been so much easier to dislike the man who was married to Dee.
‘I was working for a while,’ Rik answered, ‘but now I’m just taking a couple of days’ holiday before returning to the States.’
Jerome nodded. ‘How are Nik and Zak? I heard they both got married recently. Making you the last of the Eligible Princes, I guess.’ He grinned good-humouredly.
A grin Rik found very hard to return; if things had worked out for him five years ago he would have been the first of the Prince brothers to marry. Except the woman he had loved had married this guy instead…
‘They’re both good,’ Rik nodded. ‘Very happy, in fact.’ Yet another reason for him to spend this time in Paris. Not that he begrudged his older brothers their newfound happiness, because he didn’t, knew both of them were married to lovely women. But the settled happiness of his siblings made his own bachelor state seem all the more lonely.
Meeting Dee again like this in the company of her husband wasn’t helping that situation.
‘Excellent.’ Jerome nodded happily. ‘Dee-Dee, would you like to come and look in the store? I just know you’re going to love the purse and pocketbook, and—hell, where are my manners?’ Jerome shook his head self-disgustedly. ‘I totally forgot to introduce Sapphie.’ He turned to smile apologetically at the woman standing slightly behind him.
Rik hadn’t even noticed the petite, auburn-haired figure until then—what man would when in the company of a golden goddess?
But as she stepped forward at Jerome’s encouragement, shoulder-length auburn hair gleaming brightly in the sunlight, amber-coloured eyes gleaming like a cat’s as she looked up at Rik challengingly, he felt the last vestiges of colour fade from his already pale face.
Today was already turning out as something of a shock; first the unexpected meeting with Dee and her husband, then the realisation that his love for Dee had died long ago. But now, with this other lady’s appearance, it had just taken on nightmarish proportions!
Because he knew her.
He hadn’t seen her for five years either, and their acquaintance had been brief—very brief!—but nevertheless he knew her.
In every sense of the word!
CHAPTER ONE
RIK PRINCE had recognised her, Sapphie realised with inner dismay as he continued to stare at her in disbelief.
Not that any of her own emotions showed—she kept her own expression deliberately bland, and betrayed none of her shock, or the effects of the painful memories that were flooding back: the love that had shaken her world apart after she had spent a night with this man. Most definitely, she showed none of the horror she felt inwardly at finding herself face to face with a man she had thought she’d never see again!
But then, it might have been OK if he hadn’t so obviously recognised her and remembered too…!
Her small, pointed chin rose defensively as she thrust her hand out in greeting. ‘Sapphie Benedict, Mr Prince,’ she introduced herself with a pointedness that only a complete idiot could miss. And, despite the fact she knew that Rik Prince loved Dee to distraction, she didn’t believe he was a complete idiot.. just a selectively blind one!
Rik continued to stare at her, making no effort to take her outstretched hand, giving every impression of a man who had just been poleaxed.