“She must be something else.”
“Y’know? She really is,” he said tightly. “And she’s going to stay safe.”
Memories flew around him like a cloud of mosquitoes. Nagging. Irritating. He couldn’t stop them. Never had been able to make them fade. And that was as it should be, he told himself. He’d made a mistake and someone had died. He should never be allowed to forget.
“Garrett,” Griffin said quietly, “you’ve got to let the past go.”
He winced and took another drink of his beer. As twins, they had always been finely attuned to each other. Not exactly reading each other’s minds or anything—thank God for small favors. But there was usually an undercurrent that each of them could pick up on. Clearly, Griffin’s twin radar was on alert.
“Who’s talking about the past?” Bristling, Garrett pushed haunting memories aside and told himself that Alex’s situation had nothing to do with what had happened so long ago. And he would do whatever he could to see that it stayed that way.
“Fine. Be stubborn. Keep torturing yourself for something that you did. Not. Do.”
“I’m done talking about it,” Garrett told his brother.
“Whatever. Always were a hard head.”
“Hello, pot? This is kettle. You’re black.”
“Hey,” Griffin complained, “I’m the funny one, remember?”
“What was I thinking?” Garrett smiled to himself and sipped at his beer.
“Look, just keep me posted on this. Let me know what her father has to say and if you need backup, call.”
“I will,” he promised, even though he knew he wouldn’t be calling. He didn’t want backup with Alex. He wanted to watch over her himself. He trusted his brother with his life. But he would trust no one with Alex’s. The only way to make sure she stayed safe was to take care of her himself.
Alex couldn’t sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes, her mind dredged up images snatched from her memories of the day. Mostly, of course, images of Garrett—laughing, teasing his nieces, carrying a sleeping baby…and images of him as he leaned in to kiss her.
Oh, that kiss had been…well, way too short, but aside from that, wonderful. She could still hear the water sloshing against the boat, the singing from the pirates and feel the hot wind buffeting their faces. Still feel his mouth moving over hers.
It had been, she told herself with a small smile, magic.
She picked up her hot tea off the room service cart and stepped onto the balcony of her suite. A summer wind welcomed her with the cool kiss of the sea. She stared up at the night sky then shifted her gaze to the ocean where the moon’s light danced across the surface of the water, leaving a silvery trail, as if marking a path to be followed. In the middle of the night, everything was quiet, as if the whole world was dreaming.
And if she could sleep, Alex knew her dreams would be filled with Garrett.
She took a sip of the tea and sighed in satisfaction.
Alexis knew she should feel guilty for having left Cadria the way she had, but she just couldn’t manage it. Maybe it was because of the years she had spent doing all the “right” things. She had been a dutiful daughter, a helpful sister, a perfect princess. She was always in the right place at the right time saying the right things.
She loved her father, but the man was practically medieval. If it weren’t for her mother’s restraining influence, King Gregory of Cadria would probably have had his only daughter fitted for a chastity belt and tucked away in a tower. Until he picked out the right husband for her, of course.
Alex had had to fight for every scrap of independence she had found over the past few years. She hadn’t wanted to be seen only at state occasions. Or to christen a new ship or open a new park. She wanted more. She wanted her life to mean something.
And if that meant a twenty-eight-year-old woman had to run away from home—then so be it.
She only hoped her father would eventually forgive her. Maybe he would understand one day just how important her independence was to her.
Nothing had ever been hers. The palace deemed what she should do and when she should do it.
Even her work with single mothers in need, in the capital city of Cadria, had been co-opted by the palace press. They made her out to be a saint. To be the gently bred woman reaching out to the less fortunate. Which just infuriated her and embarrassed the women she was trying to help.
Her entire life had been built around a sense of duty and privilege, and it was choking her.
Shaking her head, she tried to push that thought aside because she knew very well how pitiful that sounded. Poor little rich girl, such a trying life. But being a princess was every bit as suffocating as she had tried to tell little Mia earlier.
Mia.
Alexis smiled to herself in spite of her rushing thoughts. That little girl and her family had given Alex one of the best days of her life. Back at the palace, she had felt as though her life was slipping away from her, disappearing into the day-to-day repetitiveness of the familiar. The safe.
There were no surprises in her world. No days of pure enjoyment. No rush of attraction or sizzle of sexual heat. Though she had longed for all of those for most of her life.
She had grown up on tales of magic. Romance. Her mom had always insisted that there was something special about Disneyland. That the joy that infused the place somehow made it more enchanted than anywhere else.
Alex’s mother had been nineteen and working in one of the gift shops on Main Street when she met the future King of Cadria. Of course, Mom hadn’t known then that the handsome young man flirting with her was a prince. She had simply fallen for his kind eyes and quiet smile. He kept his title a secret until Alex’s mother was in love—and that, Alexis had always believed, was the secret. Find a man who didn’t know who she was. Someone who would want her for herself, not for who her father was.
Today, she thought, she might have found him. And in the same spot where her own mother had found the magic that changed her life.
“I can’t feel guilty because it was worth it,” she murmured a moment later, not caring that she was talking to herself. One of the downsides of being by yourself was that you had no one to talk things over with. But the upside was, if she talked to herself instead, there was no one to notice or care.
Her mind drifted back to thoughts of her family and she winced a little as she realized that they were probably worried about her. No doubt her father was half crazed, her mother was working to calm him down and her older brothers were torn between exasperation and pride at what she’d managed to do.