The Forgotten Prince, page 1
THE FORGOTTEN PRINCE
The Wedding Series
Book 7
Patricia McLinn
The Wedding Series
Prelude to a Wedding
Wedding Party
Grady’s Wedding
The Runaway Bride
The Christmas Princess
Hoops (prequel to The Surprise Princess)
The Surprise Princess
Not a Family Man (prequel to The Forgotten Prince)
The Forgotten Prince
More romance by Patricia McLinn
Marry Me Series
Wedding of the Century
The Unexpected Wedding Guest
A Most Unlikely Wedding
Baby Blues and Wedding Bells
Seasons in a Small Town
What Are Friends For? (Spring)
The Right Brother (Summer)
Falling for Her (Autumn)
Warm Front (Winter)
Wyoming Wildflowers Series
Wyoming Wildflowers: The Beginning (prequel)
Almost a Bride
Match Made in Wyoming
My Heart Remembers
A New World (prequel to Jack’s Heart)
Jack’s Heart
Rodeo Nights (prequel to Where Love Lives)
Where Love Lives
A Cowboy Wedding
A Place Called Home series
Lost and Found Groom
At the Heart’s Command
Hidden in a Heartbeat
Copyright © Patricia McLinn
ISBN: 978-1-939215-58-1
EPUB Edition
www.PatriciaMcLinn.com
Cover Design: ArtbyKarri.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Epilogue
The Wedding Series
Also by Patricia McLinn
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
She was going to pretend she didn’t remember him.
Karl saw that even as he approached the knot of officials and onlookers surrounding her.
He’d spotted her the second she’d walked in to this VIP lounge at Marco Polo Airport outside Venice, Italy. Narrow black skirt that should have been understated, but wasn’t on her. Simple white blouse unbuttoned just enough to catch attention, not enough to demand it.
Harmon Reed.
The woman of his dreams. Or nightmares, depending on how you looked at it.
All these years and she shows up in his life here, of all places. And now, of all times.
He’d been surprised — and a few other things — as he’d watched her breeze in, connect a device, and begin tapping away at it without the slightest hesitation.
Hesitation had never been her style.
He’d been deciding between catching her eye and the far, far smarter course of raising the newspaper in front of his face so she wouldn’t see him, when the stir began. More accurately, he was wondering why the hell he hadn’t already raised the newspaper.
The disturbance didn’t start right away. Even when it did, it started small.
One of the women who worked behind the desk approached where Harmon sat and asked a quiet question. Harmon tried to carry it off with a high-handed wave before she resumed typing rapidly. The woman didn’t buy it, taking out her phone and hitting numbers while standing right beside Harmon’s shoulder, like a dog who’d found a coyote in among the herd.
If she got herself out of this, he decided, he would strategically retreat behind the newspaper — no more debating — and figure it was all good.
The incident escalated, voices in Italian and English rising, words coming faster.
Uniformed airport security arrived. Passport demanded and supplied. In between, she kept typing. Then came this official in civilian clothes who wrapped a hand around her arm and drew her upright out of her chair, even as she strained to reach her device.
That’s when Karl stood and started forward.
He was still some distance away when the ring of spectators parted for an instant and their eyes met. The flicker in her hazel eyes disappeared almost before it happened.
But he’d seen it. And he knew.
She’d seen him coming toward her and had decided in that instant to play the I-don’t-remember-you game.
If that wasn’t just like her.
The never-need-a-hand-even-if-I’m-drowning, stubborn as a mule female.
He should turn and walk away.
It would be the smarter thing to do. Far, far smarter. On so many levels, from international relations to his personal sanity.
He reached the group.
“What’s the problem here?” he asked the official who still had a hand wrapped around her arm.
Karl didn’t like that hold on her arm. But he wasn’t going to let that interfere with accomplishing what needed to be accomplished. He kept his tone mild enough not to ruffle feathers yet firm enough to make it clear he expected to be answered.
“Nothing to concern you, sir.”
His assigned handler hurried forward from wherever he’d discreetly disappeared to when they’d arrived at the lounge. “Your — Sir. What problem have you? What may I do to assist you?”
Handler wasn’t the title this guy used — this guy or any of the others he’d been assigned over the past year or so. Here the official term translated to something like host, guide, and easer of all things. But Karl figured handler covered it. One of them always appeared when he hit Europe, no matter where. He could have shaken them, but that would have made a lot of people unhappy, from this guy expecting a good tip, on up. Way up.
Hey, if they wanted this guy to walk him from his arriving flight to the VIP lounge and then on to his departing flight, fine. He’d go along. As long as they didn’t bother him at home.
“I asked this gentleman what the problem was.” Karl nodded toward the official in the suit.
His handler frowned at the man. “You must—”
“This does not concern you,” the official repeated. This time he barely tacked on the “sir.” Possibly because he was annoyed at the interference. More likely because his charge kept shifting her weight unexpectedly, causing him to jerk forward and back, and side to side. Looked uncomfortable.
What was she up to?
“Afraid it does concern me,” Karl said without emotion, “since this lady is a member of my party.”
“Your party?” she muttered low enough that the official didn’t hear.
But she’d given herself away. There’d be no cause to mock a stranger with that question or that tone. Especially a stranger in the VIP lounge, being treated with obvious deference. It only made sense because she did recognize him.
“Your party?” said his handler in confusion. “But…?”
“Yes.” He’d learned long ago not to volunteer unnecessary details. No phrases about forgetting to mention she was coming. No explanations about arranging to meet her here. One flat word.
“Ms. Reed is in your party?” the official asked with not quite a sneer.
“Yes.”
So she was using her real name. Someone up to real trouble wouldn’t use their real name. He had to bank on that, and hope like hell he was right, since it wasn’t just himself he was putting on the line here. With Harmon, though…
And it could be she still used Reed, while her legal name was her husband’s. But he’d have heard if she — He shut off that line of thought. Needed to keep his attention on this situation, not get distracted.
“Why does she not say—?”
The official’s question was drowned out by a spate of animated Italian from the handler. Karl caught enough words here and there to know it was about him and his position. The official wasn’t silent, not by a long shot, but after four or five exchanges he seemed to be winding down.
Then a new woman from behind the desk came over and gave a curt nod to the first woman, who retreated quietly. This woman had more clout. Body language proclaimed that all around — hers, the first woman’s, the handler’s, even the security official’s.
More rapid Italian. He thought the p hrase she kept repeating translated to “ready for departure.” His handler started saying it, too.
The official was done for, though not ready to submit. He said something insistent to the handler, who argued back.
Reluctantly, the handler turned to him. “I am most sorry, sir. This … this man you see here of a name I will discover asks if you will please verify your responsibility for this — the lady. Ms. Reed.”
At that moment, she plunged sideways, freed herself from the official’s hold, reached a fingertip to the device, tapped it decisively, then relaxed.
The official had the opposite reaction. His now-empty hand balled into a fist as he stumbled after her.
Karl stepped between them, looking down at the official. “Yes. I verify my responsibility.”
The official wasn’t stupid. His eyes showed that he recognized that he stood on the threshold of real trouble.
The handler and the woman from behind the desk broke into more rapid Italian. The official pivoted on his heel to start away, but the handler proved his worth by holding on to him and demanding “passaporto.” The official half tossed it to him as if it were of no consequence, leaving without a backward glance.
The handler caught it on the fly. “Your flight is prepared, Your Hi — sir. Now. We must go now. I will—” He darted back to where Karl had been sitting.
Karl said a quiet “grazie” to the woman, who smiled, bowed her head, and returned behind the desk.
The addition to what had been his party of one busied herself with turning off her device and slipping it into a cross between a duffel bag and a purse.
Before she’d finished, the handler was back, indicating with gestures and bows that they should precede him.
She raised her eyebrows at the cowboy hat the handler presented him.
Those arches hiked a bit higher when he put the hat on, but she said nothing. Even fell in step as they exited the VIP lounge and started along a hallway.
He knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
Neither of them said a word or looked toward the other until a sign overhead indicated the hallway would branch off soon.
“Thanks, but I can take it from here, uh, cowboy.” Looking straight ahead, she spoke too low to be overheard by the handler behind them.
He replied at the same volume. “Don’t be stupid as well as stubborn, Harmon.”
“Do I know you?”
Another mistake. She didn’t look at him. That would have been the natural reaction of a surprised person.
“Yes.”
He tightened his hold on her arm. From the corner of his eye he saw her wince. He was pretty sure he hadn’t put his hand in the same place the official had held, but just in case, he released that hold.
On the other hand he knew who he was dealing with, so he shifted his hand to the small of her back and reached across with his other hand to hold her wrist. It would appear solicitous to an observer, but it gave him even better control.
“Really, I can—”
“I don’t care what you think you can do. What you’re going to do is walk quietly beside me and get on an airplane. We’re being watched and soon we’ll be watched and listened to. Don’t blow this.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.”
“I don’t want—”
“Tough.”
She tried to pull away as they reached the intersecting hallway. He held on.
“I have to get to—”
“You’re making this side trip first. You’re not making a liar out of me this time, Harmon.”
Her only reaction after that was a slight bobble in her step when she saw the Bariavak royal seal.
Not bad since he still felt like falling flat on his face when he saw it, and he’d been dealing with this for more than a year.
“Welcome, Prince Karl,” the attendant named Raya said with a smile.
Harmon didn’t even blink. So, not only had she recognized him, she knew his present circumstances.
He greeted Raya, quietly asked her to double the tip for the handler, and said Ms. Reed was joining them today.
He shook hands with the handler, who turned pink with either delight or embarrassment.
While Raya dealt with the tip and welcomed the unexpected guest, he said hello to the two pilots and had confirmation that it should be as smooth a trip as it could be over the mountains that surrounded Bariavak.
Strapped in across the aisle from where Raya had guided Harmon, he settled back, adjusted the brim of his cowboy hat so it covered his eyes and went to sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
Asleep.
Not pretending. Not faking.
Truly asleep.
She used to watch him sleep. Sure and solid and reliable. He’d always been able to sleep—
Nope. No memories. Not that far back, anyway.
Back to the scene in the VIP lounge was okay.
She’d had it handled. Or she would have in the end. It’s why she’d changed out of her flats and slacks into these heels and skirt. Bad for some places, perfect for Italy. She hadn’t even started to use the weapons in her arsenal when he’d strode in.
She didn’t appreciate being claimed that way, like a piece of lost luggage, or being shanghaied away from her destination for this entirely unnecessary detour.
She really didn’t appreciate not being able to tell him that she didn’t appreciate it.
She wanted to put a dent in that cowboy hat. Possibly in the head below it.
Instead, she smiled at the attendant pretending not to study her.
She buttoned the next higher button on her blouse, then settled herself into the comfortable seat, hoping for some sleep herself.
*
“No,” Karl ordered. “Don’t say anything.”
She’d barely opened her mouth. Besides, they were outside the tiny airport for heavens’ sake, well away from the royal jet, out of earshot of anyone else. Walking across a small parking lot that could be anywhere in the world, at least anywhere that boasted a backdrop of erratic mountain peaks jostling each other for their piece of the sky.
The guy with the luggage cart — all Karl’s, since her bag was on its way to London and she never let anyone handle her tote — had already reached an ordinary pickup truck and was putting the luggage in the back.
“This is Bariavak’s idea of royal transportation?” She had to say something, since he’d told her not to.
“No. This is my buddy, Mirche, leaving me a truck to drive.”
“Mirche? Army nickname?”
“Nope. What his parents named him when he was born here in Bariavak. Means world peace.” There was a twist in his voice that made her suspect Mirche wasn’t the most peaceful guy.
Without releasing her elbow, he tried to tip the guy, who’d finished stowing the two bags and intersected with them a few yards from the truck.
“No, no, no.” The man held up protesting hands.
“For Mina’s birthday,” Karl said.
The man smiled all over his face. “You remember, Prince Karl? You remember such a thing?”
“I do. And you better remember it, too, Franc.”
They chuckled as comrades. The man accepted the tip and trundled away with his cart.
Karl escorted her to the passenger door, opened it, waited for her to climb in — not easy in these heels and skirt — closed the door, locking it with the key pad as he went around the front to get in the driver’s side.
“Really? Locking the door?” she said as soon as he got in.
“No telling with you. Didn’t want you high-tailing it down the street.”
“I still could have unlocked it and—”
“Fine. I wanted to cut down your head start.”
She sighed. “You wouldn’t have had much trouble catching up. Not with these shoes and skirt.”
He gave her a look from the corner of his eye that she couldn’t read. Was he remembering the time they’d raced back to her car after — No, no remembering. Especially that.
He started the engine and backed out of the parking spot.
“Hey,” she protested. “Why are we leaving the airport? I thought you just wanted a private place to yell. We can’t leave. I need to get on the first plane to—”
“No planes until tomorrow. You’ll have to stay overnight at the hotel.”
“Look, whoever you are—”
He made a noise that an optimist might take for amusement. She doubted she’d ever been that optimistic.
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