Going Royal 02 - Some Like It Scandalous (14 page)

Waiting for her to say no?

Did she even want to say no?

She slid forward and flipped open the boxes. Spinach and mushroom on alfredo sauce for her and pepperoni and sausage with red sauce for him. Her crust was thin. His crust was thick.

I
can do this.
We can do this.
“What’s our theme?”

His expression softened and his smile grew. He slid off his shoes and started rolling up his sleeves as he joined her on the sofa. “Action-adventure.”

She burst out laughing. “Okay.” She grabbed the wineglasses and held them while he opened the bottle and filled each glass halfway—with white wine. White didn’t go with the red sauce, but she didn’t like reds—wine or sauce. So they’d always gone with white.

“To new adventures.” He held his glass up.

“And big explosions.” Their glasses clinked together and she took a swallow of the wine. Her stomach rumbled as he lifted up a piece and served it to her on a paper towel. She grinned and nudged him. “Fire it up.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He pointed the remote at the screen and the sound system echoed with the opening theme music. She leaned back and mirrored his pose, feet up, wineglass in one hand and pizza in the other.

Chapter Nine

The next two days fell into a comfortable pattern. Anna peppered him with questions on safe topics—the foundation, their scheduled launch and the office installation on the fourteenth floor. They avoided the landmines—why she’d left, why he hadn’t told her the truth and how much he wanted to rip her clothes off. It worked for them. His security reported two phone calls made—one to Florida and another to the local police station. She’d checked on her ex-fiancés. Neither call lasted longer than five minutes. That she’d made them at all grated.

They ate breakfast together every morning, a silent vigil over coffee punctuated by rustling newspapers as she stole his Italian and French ones first each morning. Her language skills were rusty, but passable. Despite clearing his schedule, a dozen issues cropped up throughout the day that often needed his attention immediately. He hated being pulled away—even from the illusion of being together. Every night, when she headed off to her bedroom, he would brood.

Brood and consider following her. He always nixed the idea. Taking it slow seemed to be working—so slow it would stay. She didn’t pull away when he touched her, and she leaned against the back of his chair when he walked her through the spreadsheets for funding. Better still, she touched his arm when pointing out something or arguing her point.

It was all so very civilized—and familiar.

Armand increased the speed on the treadmill and ran faster. His morning runs in the Los Angeles canyons had long since been ixnayed by Peterson and his detail. Too many openings for someone to take a shot at him. The gym helped him curb the need for the run and running took the edge off his need for Anna.

But only barely.

Sweat trickled down his arms and his lungs burned. He pushed himself faster. He couldn’t outrun his past, he couldn’t outrun his title, so all he could do was burn off the frustration of having her within arm’s reach and not touching her.

The door behind him opened and he caught sight of the woman preoccupying his thoughts out of the corner of his eye. She walked in, dressed all in spandex and an oversized Yale sweatshirt. She tossed a towel onto the treadmill next to him and fired it up—to walk.

He forced a grin. “Warming up?”

“They told me I couldn’t go to the park.” She said it with straightforward calm. Maybe too much calm. “Or the beach. Or my own gym... So here I am...”

She walked steadily and he dropped his run back a notch. The burn in his lungs precluded talking, and he’d much rather talk.

Even if his body preferred other physical activities.
Better to be patient...patient...
Maybe if he chanted it, he could convince his libido to participate in the long-term plan rather than the short-term gains. Sex, however, had never been a problem for them. He missed the feeling of her loose and sated, sprawled against him, and the easy laughter that followed.

The intimacy of being together...

“At least the view here is good.” She wasn’t looking out the windows to the city below—in fact, she stared at him.

Is she flirting?
God help him, he wasn’t certain. He slowed his pace down another half mile per hour as she began to pick hers up. His lungs expanded in relief, but his pulse continued erratically. Normal considering her nearness.

“It’s a good gym. The staff added some of the video game systems with aerobic workouts if you prefer.” Not that she ever liked those classes. She did the grunt work with him, running, lifting and stretching. Her form perfect.

“This is good.” Her cheeks pinked as she jogged. “You don’t listen to music anymore?”

“Too distracting.” Not that she wasn’t. For the first time he wished they faced a mirror rather than a window—at least he could watch her face without risking tripping by turning his head constantly.

“So what do you do? Run and plan how you will dominate the world?” The words were light and the tone teasing. His mouth curved upward automatically.

“Actually, I try not to think at all.” Truth resonated through the words. He tried diligently to block out all distractions—his schedule, his commitments, his loneliness—and just run.

She stumbled a step and put her hand on the bar to catch herself. “Do you want me to go?”

“No.” The swift reply left his lips before his brain fully processed her question. The last thing he wanted was for her to go.

“Okay.”

They ran in silence. He slowed down and she sped up until their feet hit in perfect rhythm.

“Anna—”

“Charlie—”

They spoke at the same time and laughed as they tripped over each other. “You called me Charlie.”

“Yeah.” She bit her lip. “You’re still Charlie.”

The fist locked around his heart loosened and he sucked in relief and hope with the next lungful of air. He missed his Anna. He missed being
her
Charlie.

“I’ve missed you.”

The admission should have knocked him off his stride, but it only served to flood more adrenaline through his system. “I’ve missed you too.” And he wasn’t too proud to admit that.

They jogged silently again. The pleasant burn in his thighs ran down to his calves. The steady thump of her cadence next to him pushed him further.

“You were going to say something...” She panted between the words and he nudged the speed a little slower and waited for her to do the same.

“I wanted to say I liked having you here.”

“I didn’t think I would—like it.” Her brutal honesty made its appearance. “I kept thinking that you would hate me and I would be angry and it would—” She grimaced. “I’m oversharing, aren’t I?”

“Never.” He laughed. “It’s one of your more endearing qualities.”

“I don’t hate you.” The words were said so quietly that he actually hit the stop button on the machine and turned to look at her.

She continued to jog until he hit the button on her treadmill.

“Say that again.”

Riding the belt backward, she stepped off and put her hands on her hips, gulping air. Sweat gleamed on her face. Her flushed cheeks added to the sparkle in her eyes. “I don’t hate you. I don’t think...I ever hated you. I told myself I did. A lot.” She panted, but she didn’t look away.

So many responses came to mind and he frowned. “I didn’t like not telling you the truth—about my title. But I never hid who
I
am.”

Her gaze dropped to her feet and she licked her lips. “When they showed up that night... When I found out...I was...”

Tucking a finger under her chin, he nudged her gaze back up to him. “Just say it—all of it. I can—I need to hear it.”

Two days of skirting Pandora’s box was over, maybe they needed to lance the wound and let it pour out. His regrets tangled with a slow, lingering anger that curdled in his gut. But burying it didn’t make it go away.

Tongue rubbing against her upper lip, she studied him. “I didn’t understand why I didn’t know. Why would you keep it so much a secret? Why—why I had to be kept in the dark? And if you could lie about that...”

“What else did I lie about?” He finished the thought for her and nodded. They were fair—if hard—questions. Grabbing his own towel and a bottle of water, he jerked his head toward the mats. “You need to stretch so you don’t cramp up.”

She trailed after him and it wasn’t until they were sitting, legs stretched and the toes of their shoes touching, that he broached the answer. “I didn’t tell you—I didn’t tell you when I first saw you because I just wanted a date. You were beautiful, sassy and funny—God, you were funny. I liked being around you—even when you said no.”

“I only said no for a week,” she pointed out, leaning into a stretch over her right knee.

“It was a dreadfully long week.” Stalking her schedule, putting himself in her path, learning what she read, what she liked, where she preferred to study—even drinking the terrible java from the coffeehouse she worked in. He followed her stretch and leaned over his left knee, bringing them nose to nose. “And what I wanted was a date—someone who wanted me, not my title. The point of a U.S. university was to fly under the radar. Not announce myself.”

He never intended the lie to last. Hell, he didn’t intend the lie.

“So why did you call yourself Charlie?” Confusion clouded her gaze and he sighed.

“Anna, I never introduced myself to you as Charlie.” He transferred his stretch to his right leg and straightened his foot when she flattened her shoe to his.

“You did, you said—”

“I said,” he interrupted smoothly, “‘Would you like to get coffee with me after work?’”

She frowned.

“And then you said...”

“‘I just served coffee, you think I want to drink it?’” Her wistful smile tied a bow around his heart.

“And I responded, ‘Then let me buy you dinner...whatever you want.’”

“I said ‘no. I had to study.’” Her lips pursed and she straightened.

“To which I said, ‘pizza then—and maybe a bottle of wine...’”

“‘No wine. Just water. I said study, not get laid.’” Her lips twitched.

“But you agreed to dinner.” He raised his brows.

“Yes, I agreed to pizza. You offered to bring it over to my dorm room and I was in an all-girl dorm and guys weren’t allowed, so we met downstairs on the quad and had pizza and water and studied under the tree.” She chewed her lower lip.

“Before I left you pulled out a twenty.” Exasperation resurfaced at this, as it always did. “You wanted to split the cost of the pizza. That way it wasn’t a real date.”

She blushed. “You wouldn’t take the twenty until I said ‘my name is Anna Novak and I don’t freeload. A date means promises and I’m not promising you anything—especially when I don’t know your name.’”

He nodded slowly and extended his right hand out to her. “‘Charles Dagmar, a pleasure to meet you.’”

Anna froze, the smile fading completely from her lips. He watched the memory crash over her and he waited, hand extended. She took his hand in hers, and her fingers trembled. “Hi, Charlie. Nice to meet you.”

“And you never called me anything else.”

“Charles is your middle name.” She gripped his hand tightly.

“Armand was too European—not that the accent wasn’t a clue—but Charles westernized my name. Armand Andraste came with an entourage. Charles Dagmar was just a college student.” He leaned down and kissed the back of her hand. “But Charlie was the guy lucky enough to get you to say yes to pizza and Charlie was who I wanted to be.”

“I named you Charlie.” The wonder in her voice had him tugging her hand and she slid forward, rising up onto her knees. She cupped his cheek and stared into his eyes.

“Yes, you did. Charlie was never a lie—Charlie wanted you and—”

The door opened with a hard knock and a cough. “My apologies, Your Highness. But you’re needed on the phone immediately. It’s the FBI. And your brother’s plane landed thirty minutes ago. We expect his arrival at the tower within the next two hours.”

He grimaced and closed his eyes, but when he opened them the look in Anna’s eyes told him she already retreated. “We are not done with this conversation.”

If it were anyone but law enforcement, he would have sent the security guard away. Kissing her hand again, he rose and helped her to her feet. But still he lingered.

“Go.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m not going anywhere—except maybe downstairs to meet with Kate and my team.”

He tugged her closer again and kissed her—one hard, long, unsatisfying closed-mouth-against-her-lips kiss. “Later,” he promised and forced himself to let her go and follow the guard out.

* * *

“Earth to Anna, come in, Anna.” Becca Sampson knocked on the desk. The recent renovations gave everyone a cubicle to work in, but the setup was a large circle so no one was actually behind a wall. Kyle stood just inside the entrance and a second guard was a few feet away. Despite gaining security clearance, she would not be alone on any floor save the penthouse—and she just skipped asking them why that was.

She knew the answer.

Charlie wanted privacy with her and privacy they would have. A far cry from those days in Norway when she hadn’t managed to get five minutes with him without interruption.

“Yes? Sorry, I’m...distracted.”

“If I were dating a prince, I wouldn’t be working so you’re already three steps ahead of me.” Becca breezed across the subject and laid out a brochure. “This is the mock-up I’m working on, but we need to talk to some of the kids that were handpicked to receive the first round of scholarships. I think we should get photographs and stories from each of them and feature them prominently in the center of a series of brochures.”

Anna rubbed the back of her neck and studied the layout. They broke down the benefits of the scholarship program on one side and the requirements for application on the other. “We need this to be more prominent.” She tapped the line about ideals and goals. “Grades will factor into where they go to school, not whether they qualify for the scholarship. Move the GPA requirement to last on the list.”