Waking Up in Vegas (8 page)

Claus clapped Max on the back and headed for the door. “If you need anything, just ring the bell. The housekeeping staff are standing by. Your wish is their command.” He paused in the doorway, suddenly serious. “I can’t believe I nearly forgot… you know the Waldburg rings?” he sucked in a breath, clearly unsure what to say next.

Max nodded to him to go on.

“My father told me one of the rings went missing more than thirty years ago and hasn’t been seen since.”

Max nodded more slowly this time. He and Rik had been given the remaining rings on their eighteenth birthdays. The third ring had already been long gone by that time. In fact, the missing ring had become something of a family legend.

Or perhaps not a legend but another family secret.

“Rebekah thinks she might have seen it. She has a young woman working for her who has a ring like yours and Rik’s.”

A shiver chased down Max’s spine. There’d been rumours about what had happened to the third ring, each more implausible than the last. Was it possible it might finally be found and the mystery solved?

Though he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know the answers. His family already had more skeletons in the closet than he’d ever suspected and he didn’t think he could deal with any more right now.

“Thank you for letting me know,” he said.

“See you later.” Claus’ cheerful farewell was a world away from the cabinet ministers’ formal bows. Max stretched his shoulders and felt a little of his tension dissipate.

He didn’t have time to go unravelling family mysteries anyway. He had a coronation to prepare, a mutiny to quell, and a frenzied media to suppress. That was enough for this week, thank you.

The royal family’s private apartments were naturally on the farthest side of the castle from the town, in the wing that overlooked the sloping vineyards rather than the river. It was quiet here, reminding Max far too much of the quiet of his grandfather’s sprawling, comfortable farmhouse back in Napa and making sleep even more impossible.

He gave up tossing restlessly in the enormous bed, threw off the sheets and began to dress. Usually when sleep eluded him, he burned off his frustrations in the gym. But unlike the palace at Neustadt, this castle had no private gym. He’d have to walk off his mood instead.

He threw on dark jeans and a black shirt and headed out.

The main entrance was well guarded and Security was no doubt under strict instructions to provide him with a bodyguard wherever he went. Since Max had no intention of being tailed as he walked, especially in this dark mood, he went downstairs to the kitchens instead. A single bulb burned low in the vast, empty kitchen.

There was a small unsecured casement window in one of the old pantries that overlooked the service lane leading to the now disused coal sheds. As kids, he and Rik had used it as an escape route out of the castle. Max prayed the window hadn’t been fitted with bars anytime in the last twenty years.

It hadn’t.

He slid open the window, holding his breath as the mechanism squealed in protest, then he leaned out to check the coast was clear. The lane was empty, so he squeezed out through the opening. It wasn’t as easy as it once was, but he managed to wriggle through and caught a low-hanging branch of the ancient tree that shielded the lane. At least the drop on the other side was shorter than he remembered.

He pushed the window shut, leaving enough of a gap so he could pry it open when he returned, and strode whistling down the deserted cobbled street, hands in his pockets, feeling free for the first time in months.

For the first time since he’d made that mad dash from Las Vegas.

A brisk wind blew between the buildings. Closer to the town square, the streets were more brightly lit and less eerily quiet, but many of the buildings were in darkness, the residents tucked in behind their shuttered windows for the night.

Waldburg was a sleepy town. Its one and only night club seldom stayed open past midnight. But it was a balmy summer’s night and the town’s population had doubled in anticipation of the coronation, or so the Minister of Tourism had informed him this morning. So he wasn’t entirely surprised to see a couple of restaurants around the town square still lit up, music playing, and people milling about the central fountain.

None of the revellers paid him the least attention. Clearly no one expected the nation’s new Arch Duke to be wondering the streets alone late at night.

Rebekah’s family café was closed though. The red and white striped awning was new, the painted sign on the windows fresh, and the tables and chairs outside had been packed away for the night, but it hadn’t changed.

A dim light burned inside, the kind of light that might be left on at night for security. As he was about to turn away, a figure crossed in front of it. Good, they were still up. Perhaps Claus and Rebekah would invite him in for a friendly drink. He was tired of being alone.

He hurried across the square to knock on the café door. There was no answer, so he tried the handle. The door opened. Security didn’t seem an issue for the locals.

The figure in the kitchen moved again. A woman, with hair tied up in a swinging pony tail, carrying a tray of wine glasses that refracted the light as she moved. For a moment, as her silhouette caught the light, his heart seized. Not Rebekah. But could it be possible?

The blood slammed through him and he knew that it was.

Not the third ring at all. Just the one he’d left behind in a bland motel room in Vegas.

Thank you, Destiny. He grinned, his faith restored for the first time in months.

The sound of footsteps in the café startled Phoenix and she nearly dropped the wine glasses she’d been unpacking from the dishwasher.

“Who’s there?” she called, turning to face the intruder. A man leaned in the darkened doorway, and for a second, her heart jumped. Then reason kicked in. She must be imagining things. Clearly a long day on her feet had taken its toll. She set down the glasses and rubbed her eyes.

“Phoenix?”

There was no denying the voice, though. Her hands started to shake.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

For a mad moment, she wondered how he’d managed to track her down. But of course he hadn’t. This was a coincidence and nothing more.

Destiny
, a small voice whispered. She shook her head. She didn’t believe in destiny. She believed in making her own destiny.

“Cleaning up.”

He leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his arms over that broad chest. “I meant what are you doing in Waldburg?”

She steadied her voice. “I heard there was going to be a coronation and thought it sounded like fun. What are
you
doing here?”

His smile was more mocking than amused. “I’m here for the coronation too.” He pushed away from the doorjamb. “I asked you to wait for me.”

“I didn’t think you’d come back.”

“I’m a man of my word and you didn’t even give me a chance to prove it. Exactly how long did you wait? Two hours, three?”

Even in this dim light she could see that the usual amusement was absent from his eyes. There was a new expression there, hard and cold. His shaggy hair was cut short and neat, and he looked more formidable than the surfer boy he’d appeared when they first met.

This wasn’t the careless, happy-go-lucky Max she’d met in Vegas. He was serious and intense, and there were worry lines in his forehead that hadn’t been there before.

How could he have changed so much in two months? Surely her leaving couldn’t have changed him that much? She cleared her throat. “Twelve.”

“Twelve hours.” He walked slowly closer and she backed against the counter top. There was nowhere else to go.

“I tried to call. Your phone was off.” Again. “And I wasn’t going to sit around waiting for you to deign to call.” At least not after the first eight excruciating hours of waiting.

“It might interest you to know that twelve hours after I left I was still in mid-air. Most airlines discourage the use of cell phones mid-flight.”

“And I tried to call the vineyard where you said you worked, only they said they’d never heard of you.”

His jaw tightened. “My grandfather’s very protective of me.”

“No kidding.” She crossed her arms over her chest. He had a cheek putting her on the defensive. Okay, so he had explanations for not taking her calls. And she had been hasty. Didn’t mean she had to cut him any slack. “Did you get your family business sorted?”

“More or less.”

More or less? What kind of an answer was that? He knew everything there was to know about her, for heaven’s sake. He’d insisted they were soul mates but he still wouldn’t give her straight answers. She set her hands on her hips. “What did you do with the divorce papers?”

He frowned. “What do you mean? I left them right where you did – on the dresser.”

“I mailed them to you at the vineyard and asked you to file them because I was going abroad.”

His expression changed, softened. “I haven’t been back to the vineyard. I came straight here from Vegas.”

That would explain the more than twelve hour flight. She rubbed her eyes again. Was this really happening or was this all a dream? If it was a dream, she wasn’t sure she wanted to wake up. Even if he was angry with her, he was here. And he hadn’t deserted her. He had tried to contact her. He’d planned to come back for her.

Maybe she shouldn’t have ditched her cell phone when she left the States.

No, she couldn’t think that way. She’d done them both a favour by taking off. They would have ended sooner or later anyway, and the abruptness of his departure had saved her from a fate worse than death.

Except he hadn’t filed the papers. She bit her lip. “So that means we’re still married.”

“It would appear so.” He smiled grimly.

She had no idea if he was pleased by the idea or not.

She shouldn’t be, but she was. She hadn’t known until this moment, when the joy surged through her, how much she’d missed him. It wasn’t only the chemistry she’d missed, though there was that too.

The chemistry was particularly hard to ignore right now, there was so much of it zipping around the neat little kitchen.

But of course it was stupid to hope. After her lack of trust in him and the way she’d run out on him so quickly, surely he wouldn’t still want to stay married to her?

“Well now that we’re both here, I suppose we could get divorced here in Westerwald?” she suggested tentatively.

“Not going to happen.” His eyes weren’t just hard. They were cold, blue steel. “Whether you like it or not, there is no way you and I are getting divorced. Not now and not in this country.”

He’d said there hadn’t been a divorce in his family in over three hundred years. A strange suspicion formed itself in her mind. “Is divorce illegal in Westerwald?”

He laughed, but it had a bitter sound. “You should read the newspapers sometime. Or are you that self-centred that you don’t give a damn about anything that happens in the world around you?”

Ouch. Well, she couldn’t say she hadn’t earned it. She lifted her chin. “Care to enlighten me?”

“I hoped by now you’d have remembered.”

There it was again. That black hole where her memories should have been.

Thanks to Google she now knew more than anyone needed to know about amnesia. She also knew that certain drugs, like the sedative she’d been prescribed, had amnesiac qualities. Nice of the doctor to fill her in on the potential side effects. Or maybe he had. In the wake of her father’s death she’d been too wrapped up in packing up their lives and sorting practicalities to pay much attention. Her father’s affairs had been a mess, which hadn’t come as much of a surprise.

But all the knowledge in the world didn’t mean a thing. She still had no memory of the day they met. Still couldn’t remember her own wedding. How sad was that?

Frustration boiled over. “Do you think I haven’t tried? I don’t remember! I even went to see a hypnotist in Paris. It didn’t work. I still have no idea what possessed me to marry you.”

He grinned and for a second she glimpsed the old Max she’d known and loved before the grim, hard exterior reasserted itself.

She shook her head. There was no point in hanging on to anger. She needed to move on. “So if we can’t get divorced, what do we do now?”

“Are you going to stick around a while this time?”

She met his gaze head on and unflinching. “That depends.”

He arched an eyebrow. “On what?”

On whether she could resist the temptation to be seduced by him all over again. Even this new, harder, meaner Max was making her pulse jump more erratically than a rock star on speed.

She sighed. “It’s late and I’m too tired for games. Tell me what you want from me.”

He stepped close, so close she had to look up to meet his gaze. He placed a hand on the counter top on either side of her, hemming her in. “I want the same things I always wanted.”

She sucked in a deep breath. His eyes flashed fire, but it was no longer anger that burned him up. Her body responded, with a yearning so strong she had absolutely no say in the matter. Seems when it came to Max, she never had any say in the matter. Her hormones led her all the way.

She lifted her face to his, ready when his mouth crushed down on hers, and met his hunger with a matching hunger of her own.

She’d craved this for so long. He tasted as good as she remembered, and his touch was still as compelling. He lifted her up onto the counter, and she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him as close as two bodies could get fully clothed.

He slid his hands into her hair, angling her head. His tongue penetrated deeper, and she moaned. She’d never wanted anything in her life as much as she wanted this man. Craved him, like a junkie craved drugs.

Her body throbbed with unmet desire. She grew wet in the juncture of her thighs. Her hands moved beneath the soft fabric of his t-shirt, sliding over skin stretched taut over hard muscle, her nails raking his skin.

Max broke their kiss and gently pulled away. His eyes were clear again, the hardness almost gone. He held her gaze for a long moment, and then brushed his thumb over her bruised lips.

“It seems you want the same thing I do.”

She cast a glance around the compact, clinical kitchen. She still hadn’t finished emptying the dishwasher or made the fresh lemonade for tomorrow. To hell with it. She’d worry about it in the morning. “Your place or mine?”

Max scooped Phoenix off the counter and set her back on her feet. He couldn’t exactly take her back into the castle the way he’d come. Talk about a passion killer. And there was no way he was going to walk her in through the main gate at this hour, or her name would be all over the papers before breakfast.

But if she was booked into one of the town’s guest lodges or bed and breakfasts…also not an option.

He felt like a horny teenager all over again. The one difference was that the French academy where he’d studied had been a whole lot easier to break into unnoticed than a fortified medieval castle that had withstood many sieges. “Where are you staying?”

“In a little apartment that belongs to Rebekah’s husband. It’s built right into the town wall.”

Max knew the place. “Definitely your place.”

He waited in the kitchen while Phoenix locked the café’s front door, then he followed her out the back door into a narrow alley.

The massive stone walls of the town had once been the castle’s outermost line of defence, and the wide battlemented walkway above was still popular with the tourists. These days the town sprawled beyond the walls and down to the river, but within the encircling walls lay the oldest part of town, cobbled streets that remained relatively free of traffic, with tiny shops and offices below street level and narrow passages that ended in surprising courtyards.

Claus’s apartment lay at the end of one of those narrow passages. The courtyard was mercifully dark, lit only by the waxing moon. He climbed the rickety wooden staircase behind her, to the first floor apartment that was built right into the town wall.

The apartment was even smaller than her Vegas motel suite. A single room dominated by an enormous and sturdy-looking wooden bed – he grinned at that – an old-fashioned dresser, a kitchenette area separated from the rest of the room by a pale linen drape and a single door that he presumed led to a bathroom.

He closed the door behind them and for a moment they both stood, awkward and aware of the silence humming between them.

She pulled out her hair band and shook her shoulder-length hair loose. Beneath the bright electric light, he noticed that her hair was streaked with a subtle mix of red and blonde highlights, and it had grown out since he’d last seen her. With her shoulders thrown back, and the tight jeans and fitted tee, she looked more than ever like some young rock groupie. Streetwise, savvy, and yet somehow brittle beneath the attitude.

Phoenix cleared her throat. “Can I get you some coffee? Or wine?”

He closed the space between them, catching her in his arms. “The only thing I want is you.” He said it like a prayer.

Then he lowered his head and kissed her. It was a slow burn, a volcano building inside him. The kiss that started gentle grew wild and fevered. Her arms wrapped around his waist, clinging to him and the blood thundered in his veins.

He’d dreamed of kissing her like this every night for the last two months.

He slid his hands over the smooth, soft skin beneath her shirt, lifting it up. He broke the kiss only long enough to rip the shirt over her head. She wore a bra of scarlet lace, skimpy enough that he could appreciate her shoulders, which were more tanned than he remembered, with strappy bikini tan lines. Tan lines she’d gotten on some Spanish beach, while she’d been partying it up without him, no doubt.

A dark, feral emotion gripped him. She was his wife. And he intended to remind her of it in the best way possible.

He stepped her backwards, then onto her back on the bed and she gasped as he knelt over her, his erection pressing hard and insistent against her thigh. He stripped off his shirt, caught the sharp intake of breath she couldn’t hide and smiled.

He didn’t bother with niceties and he didn’t bother taking it slow. He peeled off her jeans and slid his fingers into the crotch of her matching lace panties. She writhed against him and he grinned when he saw she was as desperate for this as he was.

He moved the lace aside and bent his head down, intending to let her feel just a little of the torment she’d put him through these two months.

When her breath came in short gasps, her skin flushed all over, and she was within moments of finding her release, he withdrew. She cried out in frustration and struggled up on her elbows.

“Tell me you missed me,” he said.

“Of course I did.” Her eyes were wide and guileless.

“Tell me you were a fool to leave without waiting for me. You were a fool to doubt me.”

“I was a fool. Now get inside me.”

He grinned, victory tasting as honeyed in his mouth as she had. He stripped off his jeans and boxers and joined her on the bed. As he moved inside her, her tight, hot flesh encased him and he let go of the last of his anger and frustration in the sheer joy of coming home.

Her eyes fluttered open as he stroked a hand over her hair.

“Don’t let me sleep,” she mumbled.

“Why not? You said you were tired.”

“I’m afraid that if I wake, I’m going to find out this was all a dream. Or worse, that I’ll wake up with no memory of today.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We haven’t had a drop of champagne. And I’m not a dream. I’m here and everything’s going to be alright.”

She’d made him a believer. Any doubts he’d had about their destiny, about the possibility of Happy Ever Afters, was banished now she was back in his arms. He didn’t feel old or alone anymore. He felt like a man who could do anything and be anything.