think I love you,” he said, taking in all her rumpled glory and smiling. “I know I’ve missed you like crazy. It’s so good to see you again.”
She gazed into his warm blue eyes and melted. She knew he was kidding, that this was his way of joking about emotions instead of dealing with them. But she also knew he was recognizing the ties between them and ready to embrace them, just like it used to be.
Still, she had to wonder if he remembered that last night as clearly as she did. He had done nothing to indicate it. As far as she was concerned, she hoped he had a touch of amnesia. That night had been a crazy rush of pain and grief and anguish and they hadn’t handled it very well. Best to forget it. If they could.
She gave herself a moment to really look at him. Pellea had found him a striking uniform to wear to the ball, but he’d taken off the jacket and pulled open the shirt, displaying some gorgeous skin and manly chest hair. Now he looked less than formal. She shook her head at the sight, but despite everything, she enjoyed seeing him. She always did.
“How did you get away from Pellea?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t easy. The woman was watching me like a hawk.”
She sighed and sank into a chair, gesturing for him to sit on the couch across from her. “She’ll probably be calling me any minute to organize a search party.”
He moved her discarded jacket and dropped down onto the arm of the couch, then leaned toward her. “You won’t give me up, will you?” he said with a puppy-dog look.
“Are you kidding?” she told him crossly. “Of course I will. I’m not risking my job so that you can play hooky.”
He laughed. “Good point.” Then he frowned. “What is your job exactly?”
“I’m the queen’s personal assistant. I do whatever she needs to get done but doesn’t have time to do herself.”
It was a good job and she was proud of it. As a single mother without anyone to count on but herself, she was lucky to have it. If she ever lost it, for any reason, she would be in real trouble. There weren’t many good jobs for women in Ambria right now and the queen was a wonderful woman to work for. With a two-year-old of her own, Pellea understood the problems Kayla had to face and was ready to give her a lot of leeway.
“Ah,” Max said, “impressive. Quite another level from the job you had in Trialta.”
She smiled, thinking of it. “Selling T-shirts to tourists from a kiosk on the beach. Yes, I didn’t get much chance to show my skills and talents at that one.”
But it hadn’t mattered then. Her days were spent waiting for Eddie to come back from a flight, and her nights were filled with wine, music and friends. For a few months, life had been carefree and exciting. But you had to pay for everything, one way or another, and she’d been paying the price ever since.
Max was staring at her as though he could see what she was thinking. “And yet, here you are, barely two years later, assistant to the queen.”
She gave him a look. “I do have a university education, you know.”
He appeared surprised. “No, I didn’t know. When did you get that?”
She smiled. “Long before I first met you.”
“No kidding.” He frowned, thinking that over. “That’s more than I’ve got. And they think they want me to be a prince.”
Her smile wavered a bit. It was true. From what she knew of his background, he might have a bit of trouble. He’d never been shy about it. While sipping drinks in the sidewalk cafés of Trialta, he’d regaled them with tales of his childhood living on the streets, always making it sound hilarious rather than tragic. But she’d often thought the raw tattered ghost of deprivation lingered in the shadows of his eyes.
He’d had a rough childhood. Any breaks he ever got he’d worked hard to achieve. That was very different from what most royals experienced. The newspaper accounts had filled in some of the parts of his background she hadn’t known before, but she didn’t know how accurate they were.
“From what I’ve read in the newspapers and magazines, they seem to think that you were spirited off on the night of the rebellion,” she said to him musingly. “When the Granvilli family attacked and burned the castle—when your parents, the king and queen were killed, and all the DeAngelis royal children went into hiding.”
She shuddered just thinking of it. Those poor kids!
“Do you know how you escaped? Do you have any idea who it was who saved you by carrying you off that night?”
His shrug was careless, as if he didn’t know and didn’t really care. “Whoever they were, they didn’t take very good care of me. By the time I was seven or eight, I was fending for myself on the streets. Before that, there were various strangers—at one point I think I was staying with a pickpocket who tried to teach me his tricks. But as far as I know, nobody was around for long at anytime. There’s no one I can claim.”
It broke her heart to think of a child being abandoned like that. She knew from his stories during their Trialta days that he’d been taken in by a fisherman for a while, but the man was cruel and he eventually ran away. It wasn’t until his late teens when he was given a corner to sleep in and a job cleaning the chapel that he met a wonderful older man—a pastor—and his kindly wife, who made it their business to see that he was clothed and had a safe place to stay.
The pastor had a hobby of flying ancient aircraft—planes from twentieth century wars. Pretty soon he was teaching Max the ropes, introducing him to aviation, and after that life was much brighter. Max joined the Ambrian Air Force as soon as he was old enough. And that was pretty much all she knew.
“And no one ever guessed you were one of the lost princes,” she murmured, looking at him wonderingly.
He laughed shortly. “Did you guess?”
She spread her hands out. “No.”
“Neither did I. That shows you how long the odds were.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “How horrible for you to be treated like that as such a young child. I’m glad the Granvillis are paying the price for their treason now.”
He stirred restlessly. “That’s life. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.”
“And sometimes they pull the chair out from under you, just when you think they’ve given you a throne to sit on.”
He grinned at her appreciatively. “A cautionary tale, Kayla? Reminding me not to count on anything?”
She nodded. She couldn’t help it. She’d always been a cautious one. Her only times of going crazy had involved marrying a flyer and then letting grief make her lose all control when he died. “Count no chicks before they hatch.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Wisdom as well as beauty.”
“Nice of you to notice.” She rose, feeling a little too nervous to sit for long. “Would you like a drink? Iced tea? A cup of coffee?”
“A beer?” he suggested, following her to the little kitchenette.
“I think I have one.” And she did, ice cold and ready to drink. She pulled it out of the refrigerator and popped the top for him.
He took a long sip, sighed with satisfaction and leaned against the counter, looking at her. “So what have you been doing all this time?” he asked her. “You didn’t come straight here from Trialta did you?”
“No. I’ve been here for less than a year.”
“And what were you doing before that?”
She hesitated. Her heart was thumping in her chest. It was time to come clean. She had to tell him. He would find out soon enough anyway. And if he thought she were trying to keep it from him, he might think …