Brenda Harlen - The Prince's Royal Dilemma

“I know.” He looked away. “I mean, I know now, but I didn’t realize how bad they were.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Dr. Marotta said they’d been getting better, that you were helping Damon deal with the loss.”

“I don’t know that anything can really help.”

“You can,” he insisted.

She just shook her head.

“It’s not just Damon’s nightmares,” he continued. “Alexandria is hardly eating and Christian barely speaks without the words having to be pried out of him.”

“What do you think I can do?”

“You could come back,” he said.

“No.” She turned away from him again, but not before he saw the shimmer of tears that filled her eyes.

“Just like that? You won’t even think about it?”

“I have another job now.”

“The man who answered the door—”

“Luke Kerrigan,” she told him.

“You work for him?”

“What did you think, that I’m just here to sleep with him?”

He knew she was baiting him, and still the thought filled him with inexplicable fury. While she switched off the burner beneath the whistling kettle, he took a deep breath, forced his hands to unclench and calmly said, “I’ll talk to Mr. Kerrigan. I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.”

“You mean you’re going to pull rank.”

“I’m going to do what’s best for my brother’s children.”

“What about Luke’s children?”

“I’m sure they’ll miss you,” he said solicitously. “But I doubt that they’ve formed the same kind of attachment to you in a week and a half that my niece and nephews have in the past four years.”

Lara was tempted to laugh, but she was afraid that if she gave in to the emotions that were swirling inside her, tears and rage wouldn’t be far behind. “Am I supposed to thank you for finally acknowledging that fact?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t expect you to thank me at all. But I do expect that my visit has raised questions in your mind and that you’ll want to come back to the palace to at least check on the children.”

“You’re wrong. I don’t want to come back to the palace.”

She pulled cups and saucers from the cupboard, mindless of the delicacy of the china as she banged them together. So much for keeping a rein on her emotions. But honestly, the prince seemed to have an innate talent for pushing her buttons, and his unapologetic manipulation infuriated her. Though at least some of her anger was directed at herself for being tempted by his offer.

Why would she even consider what he was asking?

She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

And she was going to tell him just that.

She hadn’t heard him get up but when she whirled around to face him again, he was standing directly in front of her. She chose not to step back—she wouldn’t retreat again.

“I don’t want to return,” she repeated. “And you have no right to come here now and ask this of me.”

“I know,” he admitted, and touched his hand to her arm. “I’m asking anyway.”

It was little more than a stroke of his fingers against flannel, but she felt the heat of the contact sizzle through her veins. She would have thought, after the way he’d treated her, she’d have gotten over her silly infatuation. But all it took was a simple touch, and she was in danger of melting in a puddle at his feet.

Then she glanced up and found his gaze locked on her, and all the air seemed to back up in her lungs as her heart pounded furiously inside her chest. There were flecks of gold in his eyes. She’d never noticed that before. Had never been close enough to him to notice. And though she knew she shouldn’t be this close to him now, she couldn’t seem to move away.

It wasn’t until the prince dropped his hand that she managed to breathe again. And she knew that Tanis was right—Lara was never going to fall in love with anyone else so long as her heart remained enamored of Prince Rowan.

She swallowed and took a step back. “I can’t.”

But her shaky whisper was drowned out by the ring of his cell phone. With a quick apology, Rowan pulled the instrument out of his pocket and connected the call.

Lara was reaching for the teapot when he held his cell toward her. She glanced up at him questioningly, warily.

“It’s Alexandria.”

She took the phone, cursing herself again when the brush of their fingertips made her heart skip and her knees quiver. “Lexi?”

“Lara!” The joy in the child’s voice was unmistakable. “I know Uncle Rowan promised to talk to you, but I wasn’t sure that he would do it today. Are you really coming back? Tonight? We’ve missed you so much, Lara. Damon woke up screaming again but settled down when I told him you were coming home. He’ll try to be really good if you come back. We all will.”

As she listened to the little girl ramble on, panic and love warred inside of her. After having her heart ripped out once already, how could she possibly go back to them? How could she not?

“Mrs. Harris came the day after you went away,” Lexi continued. “But she’s really old and she wears ugly clothes and she never smiles. Christian said she was probably around when there were still dinosaurs, and I know that was like a billion years ago.”

Lara wasn’t surprised that Rowan had hired another nanny, but it was a balm to her bruised ego that the children hadn’t shifted their allegiance so easily.

“She makes us do lessons all the time. We hardly ever get to play in the garden anymore ’cause she makes me wear dresses so that I’ll learn to be a proper lady. But I’d rather be like you, Lara,” the little girl said loyally. “’Cause you’re pretty and fun.”

Though the backhanded compliment made her smile, Lara couldn’t help but wonder if she had given the children too much latitude while they were in her care. But it seemed to her that they had so little time to actually be children and the rest of their lives to be royal.

Pushing aside both yearning and regret, she finally managed to end the conversation without making any promises and handed the phone back to Rowan.

“Did you give her permission to stay up past her bedtime to make that call?” she asked him.

“I didn’t set it up,” he said. “But the truth is, if I’d thought it would sway your opinion, I might have.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed you were the type to fight dirty, Your Highness.”

“But you really don’t know anything about me, do you, Miss Brennan? Because if you did, you’d know that when I must fight, I fight to win.”

She poured the tea, though she knew neither of them was going to sit and drink it. “If I agree to go back with you, I need some assurance that you aren’t going to change your mind again.” As she feared he might do after he found out the truth about her background.

“You have my word.”

“I don’t want your word—I want a contract.”

Rowan wasn’t accustomed to being challenged, and he certainly wasn’t used to having his word questioned.

He took a moment to pretend to consider her request, though the truth was, he would have promised her almost anything to secure her agreement to return to the palace. But when she swept her tongue over her lips—moistening them, tempting him—he hesitated, wondering again about the wisdom of acquiescence. The children needed Lara. He had finally, reluctantly, acknowledged that fact. But he needed to find a wife, and having Lara back at the palace could be a major roadblock in that path.

“A legal agreement would help clarify our respective expectations,” she pointed out.

He nodded, because he couldn’t renege on his promise to Lexi any more than he could renege on the promise he’d made to Julian and Catherine to raise their children as they would have done. “I’ll put my attorneys on it first thing in the morning.”