While Zoe was finishing her masterpiece, Dottie took several pictures at different angles with her phone. “You’ll have to show these pictures to your daddy. Now I think it’s time to put our shoes on and go back to the palace. I’m hungry and thirsty and I bet you are, too. Here—let me brush the sand off your little piggies.”
Zoe looked at her. “What?”
“These.” She tugged on Zoe’s toes. “These are your little pigs. Piggies. They go wee wee wee.” She made a squealing sound.
When recognition dawned, laughter poured out of Zoe like tinkling bells. For just a moment it sounded like her little boy’s laughter. Emotion caught Dottie by the throat.
“Mrs. Richards?” a male voice spoke out of the blue, startling her.
She jumped to her feet, fighting the tears pricking her eyelids, and looked around. A patrol boat had pulled up on the shore and she hadn’t even heard it. Two men had converged on them, obviously guards protecting the palace grounds. “Yes?” She put her arm around Zoe’s shoulders. “Is something wrong?”
“Prince Alexius has been looking for you. Stay here. He’ll be joining you in a moment.”
She’d done something wrong. Again.
No sooner had he said the words than she glimpsed the prince racing down the steps to the beach with the speed of a black panther in pursuit of its prey. The image sent a chill up her spine that raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
When he caught up to them, he gave a grim nod of dismissal to the guards, who got back in the patrol boat and took off.
“Look what I made, Daddy—” His daughter was totally unaware of the byplay.
Dottie could hear his labored breathing and knew it came from fright, not because he was out of shape. Anything but. While Zoe gave him a running commentary of their beach adventure in her inimitable way, Dottie put the bucket and shovel in the bag. When she turned around, she discovered him hunkered down, examining his daughter’s work of art.
After listening to her intently, he lifted his dark head and shot Dottie a piercing black glance. Sotto voce, he said, “There are pirates in these waters who wait for an opportunity like this to—”
“I understand,” she cut him off, feeling sick to her stomach. She’d figured it out before he’d said anything. “Forgive me. I swear it won’t happen again.”
“You’re right about that.”
His words froze the air in her lungs before he gripped his daughter’s hand and started for the stairs.
“Come on,” Zoe called to her.
Dottie followed, keeping her eyes on his hard-muscled physique clothed in a white polo shirt and dark blue trousers. Halfway up the stairs on those long, powerful legs, he gathered Zoe in his arms and carried her the rest of the way to the patio.
“The queen is waiting for Zoe to have lunch with her,” he said when she caught up to him. “A maid is waiting outside my suite to conduct you back to your room. I’ve asked for a tray to be sent to you. We’ll talk later.”
Dottie heard Zoe’s protests as he walked away. She gathered up the other bag and met the maid who accompanied her back to her own quarters. Once alone, she fled into the en suite bathroom and took a shower to wash off the sand and try to get her emotions under control.
No matter how unwittingly, she’d endangered the life of the princess. What if his little daughter had been kidnapped? It would have been Dottie’s fault. All of it. The thought was so horrific, she couldn’t bear it. The prince had every right to tell her she was leaving on the next flight to Athens.
This was one problem she didn’t know how to fix. Being sorry wasn’t enough. She’d wanted to make a difference in Zoe’s life. The princess had passed every test with flying colors. Dottie was the one who’d never made the grade.
After drying off, she put on a white linen dress and sandals, prepared to be driven to the airport once the prince had told her he no longer required her services. As she walked back into the bedroom, there was a knock on the door.
Dottie opened it to a maid who brought her a lunch tray and set it on the table in the alcove. She had no appetite but quenched her thirst with the flask of iced tea provided while she answered some emails from home. As she drained her second glass, there was another knock on the door.
“Hector?” she said after opening it. Somehow she wasn’t surprised. He’d met her at the airport in Athens for her helicopter ride, and would deposit her at Hellenica’s airport.
“Mrs. Richards. If you’ve finished your lunch, His Highness has asked me to take you to his office.”
She deserved this. “I’m ready now.”
By the time they reached it, she’d decided to leave today and would make it easy for the prince. But the room was empty. “Please be seated. His Highness will be with you shortly.”
“Thank you.” After he left, she sat on the love seat and waited. When the prince walked in, she jumped right back up again. “I’m so sorry for what happened today.”
He seemed to have calmed down. “It’s my fault for not having warned you earlier. There was a kidnapping attempt on Zoe at her preschool last fall.”
“Oh, no—” Dottie cried out, aghast.
“Fortunately it failed. Since then I’ve tripled the security. It never occurred to me you would take Zoe down that long flight of stairs, even if it is our private beach. We can be grateful the patrol boats were watching you the entire time. You’re as much a target as Zoe and you’re my responsibility while you’re here in Hellenica.”
“I understand.”
“Please be seated, Mrs. Richards.”
“I—I can’t,” she stammered. Dottie bemoaned the fact that earlier during the testing, he’d called her Dorothy and had shown a teasing side to his nature. It had been unexpected and welcome. Right now those human moments out on the patio might never have been.
He eyed her up and down. “Have you injured yourself in some way?”
“You know I haven’t,” she murmured. “I wanted to tell you that you don’t need to dismiss me because I’m leaving as soon as someone can drive me to the airport.”
His black brows knit together in a fierce frown. “Whatever gave you the idea that your services are no longer required?”
She blinked in confusion. “You did, on the beach.”
“Explain that to me,” he demanded.
“When I swore to you that nothing like this would ever happen again, you said I was right about that.”
His inky-black eyes had a laserlike quality. “So you jumped to the conclusion that I no longer trusted you with my daughter? Are you always this insecure?”
Dottie swallowed hard. “Only around monarchs who have to worry about pirates and kidnappers. I didn’t know about those incidents and can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been for you. When you couldn’t find us today, it had to have been like déjà vu. I can’t bear to think I caused you even a second’s worry.”
He took a deep breath. “From now on, whether with Zoe or alone, don’t do anything without informing me of your intentions first. Then there won’t be a problem.”
“I agree.” He was being much more decent about this than she had any right to expect. A feeling of admiration for his willingness to give her a second chance welled up inside her. When their eyes met again, she felt something almost tangible pass between them she couldn’t explain, but it sent a sudden rush of warmth through her body, and she found herself unable to look away.