found herself smiling as she sat. “What girl doesn’t? We all dream of happy endings, a prince on—” She skidded to an awkward halt.
His laugh wasn’t the shared, chummy thing it had always been; it held an edge of hardness, blackness. “Well, it seems some of us will have our dreams, doesn’t it, Your Highness? And some of us will return home.”
Her brain felt as if it was knocking against her skull. “Stop it,” she burst out, squashing the childish urge to cover her ears. “I didn’t ask for this to happen.”
The look he gave her was, unbelievably, one of betrayal. As if she’d done this to him. “You’re not exactly complaining, are you? During the conference Charlie looked at you, and you nodded. You’ve made your choice—Your Highness.” He sketched a mocking bow with a hand and his head. “Is this enough respect, or should I genuflect, prostrate myself in front of your magnificence?”
Taken aback by the unaccustomed ferocity in him, she stared. This wasn’t the Toby she knew, her dearest friend and confidante for so many years. “What did you want me to do, turn my back on my brother when he needs me, refuse to help a country torn by war? Should I go home and leave Charlie to rebuild the nation and face the threat of Orakis alone?”
“Let’s not forget the tiara, the title and the fifty-odd-million euros with your name on them, Your Royal Highness.” The words were hard, bitter.
“Yes, the fifty million was the clincher,” she shot at him, her voice shaking. “Money’s all I’ve ever cared about. That’s why ten million’s already spoken for—I’ve got a lot of designer dresses and shoes to buy. I’ve always wanted to be rich and famous—the way I’ve chased fame shows that, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know, Your Highness. Maybe this is your replacement for the Australian Ballet. Maybe wearing a tiara and fifty-thousand-dollar dresses, marrying a rich and handsome Grand Duke and having your face on all the glossies and postage stamps is all the compensation and revenge any woman could ever need. They’ll wish they’d accepted you now, won’t they?”
“If you don’t know the answer to that, you never knew me at all.” She got to her feet, her heart hurting more than her head at this point. “I’m leaving before we say things we’ll both regret.”
He muttered something beneath his breath. Then he blew out a frustrated sigh. “I’m not exactly stating my case to my best advantage—I know that—but all this has knocked me sideways, Giulia. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Join the club.” She started to shake her head, but it hurt too much. “I wake up every morning and think I’m going to be in my bedroom at home in Ryde. This can’t be my life. Then I open my eyes and I’m still here.”
He was silent for a moment or two. It stretched out. Then he said quietly, “Do you want to be home in Ryde?”
She stared at him. “How could you know me for so many years and not know?” She sighed and rubbed at the top of her head and over her temples.
“I should have known you’d have one of your headaches after everything you’ve been through today.” He switched off the lamp at the table, and pushed the second chair to face his. “Come and sit. Put your feet up.”
By force of long habit, and because the pain was making her dizzy, she sat on the chair, kicked off her shoes and put her feet in his lap. When he used his thumbs on her pressure points, she blew out a sigh. “Better than the best medication available.”
He didn’t laugh at the old joke, but kept up the pain-relief technique he’d given her for years. When her body slumped, indicating the pain was subsiding, he said, “You need to talk, Giulia. You only get headaches when you feel overburdened.”
“You think?” But she was too relieved at the dissipation of pain for the sarcasm to hold weight. “I wonder why? This morning, before you arrived, the royal doctor confirmed that Theo Angelis will never resume his official duties. So, after a few weeks of knowing who he is, Charlie’s going to be the next King of Hellenia. He’s not ready for it; he still doesn’t want it. Thanks to Orakis making trouble with the people and the press, he’s also officially engaged to Jazmine, but…”
“But our beloved brother blew it with his new fiancée within minutes.” His thumbs lessened the pressure, began moving in softer circles. “He was overwhelmed by the questions thrown at him during the press conference, confused by all the sudden changes to his life, and he hurt Jazmine.”
“And all I did was hide.” She sighed. “I should have been there for him, for both of them. Theo Angelis asked me to step up, to do what I’ve been trained for, but when it all got too hard Charlie was the one who got it right.”
“Don’t blame yourself. Charlie’s been trained to react in emergency. It was as much his firefighter’s instincts that helped him today as the lessons in royal protocol.”
“My job should have helped me handle the spotlight too.”
Toby smiled. “I have no doubt you’ll handle it soon enough. You can dance in a spotlight as Giselle or a swan princess—you’ve arranged concerts with fifty squabbling children—but facing a hundred yelling strangers as yourself was a shock to you. For Charlie and me, it’s a different matter. We’re ourselves when we wade into the fray.” As his thumbs created miracles on her feet, his fingers caressed the sensitive skin beneath her ankles.
She wanted to answer him, but couldn’t. Oh, what he was doing to her? “Hmm,” she murmured, in pure, sweet relief.
Don’t think about it. Wanting him goes nowhere but back to the years of hopeless love—no, lust—for my best friend…
But if I married him, as he said he wants, he’d be my husband; lust is acceptable. He’d make love to me…
Oh, the poor, pathetic fool: a kiss that lasted only moments and she was already back in over her head, wanting what she couldn’t have, for far greater and deeper reasons than the one inescapable fact that he didn’t truly want her.
“Do you think he knows he’s crazy about her yet?”
His voice broke in on her thoughts, tumbling around in her head like day-old clothes in the dryer needing washing again to clear the old, stale smell of hopelessly lusting after the only man she’d ever truly wanted. She risked a soft laugh, and her head only hurt a little. “Not at all—he’s in Costa denial. He’ll hang onto it as long as he can. He still wants to go home, but we all know he won’t.”
“He’ll work it out sooner or later.” His fingers moved like butterfly wings up her ankles, to her calves, and she forgot everything but the delicate magic of his touch bringing her body to life.
“Hmm…” She moved a little, lost in the movement of his fingers.
Soft, circular motions to the back of her knees, more sensual than medical. “And you’re officially a princess.”
“Don’t want to talk about it,” she sighed. Just touch me.
“Why is this Orakis such a threat, Giulia? Why does everyone let him get away with his violent and publicity-grabbing antics? Why isn’t anyone putting a stop to it?”
She gave another sigh, but not one of contentment. The back of her right eye throbbed. She sat up, severing the connection between them by putting her feet to the floor. She rubbed the bone beneath her brow, and said it because she knew he wouldn’t stop until he knew what caused her stress.
“Because he’d be the king now if the people hadn’t deposed his family a few centuries ago. He’s a charismatic man, by all accounts—he has about twenty percent of the country under his sway—and he wants what his family lost. He can gain that through marriage to a princess. He and his followers will cause more strife if they don’t get what they want. And now Jazmine’s taken.”
Even