Tempted By The Royal. Michelle Celmer
Pushing away from the desk, she grabbed her cell phone before heading downstairs to make sure the restaurant was set up for dinner. She noticed the voice mail icon on the display and sighed as she dialed into her mailbox, determined to ignore whatever crisis had her sister tracking her down now. But it wasn’t Abbey’s number on the display, it was Fiona’s, and her cousin’s voice was quiet and muffled, as if she was trying not to cry.
Fiona wasn’t prone to dramatics, so her brief and teary “the wedding’s off” message had Molly detouring through the restaurant only long enough to make sure that Karen could stay behind the bar until she returned. As she drove the familiar route to her cousin’s ranch, it occurred to her that whatever had Fiona in a panic, it had succeeded in taking Molly’s mind off of Prince Eric Santiago.
At least for the moment.
When Eric contacted Scott’s fiancée to let her know that he was coming back to San Antonio, Fiona promised that a room would be ready for him and chatted excitedly about the final preparations for the wedding. But something happened between the time of his phone call and his arrival at the door so that she was no longer bubbling over with happiness but with tears.
Having spent most of his adult life in the navy, Eric felt completely out of his element when confronted by a weeping woman. Not that it was his job to comfort his friend’s fiancée—and thank God Scott was there to do that—but he still felt helpless. And clueless.
“We got a call from the manager of Harcourt Castle,” Scott explained, when Fiona’s sobs had quieted enough that conversation was possible.
“That’s where the wedding’s going to be, right?”
His friend gave a small shake of his head as he continued to pat Fiona’s back consolingly. “We’ve had a lot of rain over the past couple of days and some of the lower lying areas experienced flooding, including Harcourt.”
Eric knew a flood indicated water damage, which meant the venue was likely out of commission for several months—definitely past the date of the wedding.
“Maybe it’s a sign,” Fiona sniffed.
“It’s not a sign,” Scott soothed his bereft fiancée. “Except for the fact that we’ll need to find another location for the wedding.”
She brushed her tears away and looked up at him, incredulous. “Less than a month before the date?”
For the first time since Eric had arrived on the scene, Scott looked uncertain. “Does that seem unlikely?”
“Not unlikely—” the tears began falling again, her words barely comprehensible “—impossible. And—” she gulped in a breath “—you know why I wanted the castle.”
“We met at Harcourt,” Scott explained to Eric.
“And he took me back there to ask me to marry him,” Fiona said, suddenly sobbing harder.
Yeah, Eric was definitely out of his element, and desperately wracked his brain for a solution—any solution—to stop the tears.
“Okay, so we’ll postpone the wedding for a few months,” Scott suggested.
“We’ve already sent out the invitations, ordered the cake, the flowers and—”
“I said postpone,” her fiancé interjected, “not cancel.”
She sighed. “It seems like we’ve been waiting so long already, and I just want to be married to you.”
“Then let’s do it,” Scott said impulsively. “Let’s forget all the chaos and crises, hop onto a plane to Vegas and get married.”
Fiona’s nose wrinkled. “Vegas?”
“I know it’s not what we’d planned, but we can have a big, blowout reception back here in a few months, when Harcourt Castle is reopened.”
His fiancée still hesitated.
Eric had never been to Vegas, but he’d seen enough movies to form an impression of the city and he could understand Fiona’s reluctance. She wanted ambience and elegance, and what Scott was offering was loud and garish. Okay, maybe that wasn’t an entirely fair assessment considering that he’d never stepped foot in the town, but he thought he’d gotten to know his friend’s fiancée well enough during his last visit to be certain it wasn’t what she’d envisioned.
“Vegas,” she said again, more contemplative than critical this time.
He figured it was a testament to how much Fiona loved Scott that she was even considering it.
“Or you could hop on a plane to a picturesque island in the Mediterranean and have a quiet ceremony on the beach and an intimate reception at the royal palace,” Eric offered as an alternative.
The future bride and groom swiveled their heads in his direction.
“Could we?” Scott asked.
“You said it was a small wedding?”
“Fifty-two guests,” his friend confirmed.
“We’d need to charter a plane but otherwise, there shouldn’t be any problem. So long as there’s nothing going on at the palace on that date, we could fly everyone in a few days early for a brief vacation on the island, then have the wedding as planned on Saturday.”
Fiona glanced from Eric to Scott and back again. “That sounds awfully expensive,” she said, but the sparkle was back in her eyes, revealing her enthusiasm.
“It would be my wedding gift to you,” Eric told her.
“A Crock-Pot is a wedding gift,” she said. “What you’re offering is…a dream.”
He shrugged. “You make my best friend happy. If this makes you happy, it’s a fair trade.”
Her smile was radiant. “Then I’ll say ‘thank you.’ But we’ll stick with Scott’s plan to hold a formal reception back here in a few months and just have immediate family for the ceremony in Tesoro del Mar. And Molly, my maid of honor, of course.”
When Molly arrived at the ranch, she was both surprised and immensely relieved to learn that the crisis had already been diverted.
“I didn’t think anything could be more romantic than being married at Harcourt House,” Fiona gushed, all smiles instead of tears now. “But a wedding at a royal palace might just top everything else.”
Molly sank down onto the arm of a chair. “A royal palace?”
“Scott’s in the other room with Eric now, confirming the arrangements.”
The butterflies were swarming again.
Eric. The best man. The friend of Scott’s that Fiona had been talking about for months who somehow had access to a royal palace. Could it be—
No. It wasn’t possible. She’d just been so unnerved by the realization that her baby’s father was a prince that she was jumping to conclusions. Because as much as her cousin had talked about the best man, Fiona had never mentioned that he was royalty. Molly definitely would have remembered that.
She managed to smile. “So where is this royal palace?”
“It’s on an island in the Mediterranean called Tesoro del Mar. I’d never even heard of it before I met Eric, and I didn’t even know he was a prince until a few days ago. Scott said they’ve been friends for so long he doesn’t think about the fact that Eric is in line for the throne, but I nearly fainted when I found out. Can you believe the best man at my wedding is a prince?”
“Unbelievable,” Molly agreed,