Finding Chris Evans: The Royal Edition (10 page)

Cristopoulis closed in another inch, careful not to startle LeeAnn. She still wasn’t looking at this the right way, but she didn’t have the benefit of his queen to put her heart into painfully obvious perspective. She only had him.

It would have to do.

“I don’t think I’ve been clear enough,” he said, and LeeAnn blinked at him, as if she’d gone off to somewhere else, her obligations and her to-do list weighing on her more heavily than her yearning to explore what lay beyond the next ridge.

She smiled, and shook her head. “You’ve been very clear. And I do appreciate it—I do. A ticket to Garronia would be the vacation of a lifetime. I know that. But I—” her smile went a little lopsided, and she drifted a hand over the bench next to her. “I haven’t had the luxury of truly imagining I could do something like that for a very long time. It takes a little getting used to the idea for an innkeeper from Minnesota. Even if she doesn’t bake.”

“But you’re
not
an innkeeper from Minnesota, LeeAnn.” The words came out of his mouth with such assurance that she blinked. “You’re a woman with a heart as big as these north woods you know so well, who became an innkeeper with all this responsibility simply because you felt it was the right thing to do. People were counting on you, yes. Important people. But those same people would want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” she said, automatically.

“You are. I know you are.” He reached out for her hands and she let him take them, and nothing felt more right. “But you could be happier, don’t you think? You could let yourself fall into those travel posters you have on your walls, walk down those streets with your own feet and see those skylines with your own eyes. And then if you want to come back to Minnesota, you’d find your way back, no?”

Her hands were gripping his now, and something clicked in his mind that he hadn’t expected, but which seemed so obvious to him now, gazing into her eyes. Swans didn’t fly alone. And neither, he realized suddenly, did he want LeeAnn to suffer that fate. Not when he could be with her. “I’d travel with you, if you’d like. We could see the world together.”

LeeAnn’s eyes filled with sudden tears, but she shook her head. “You can’t promise me that, Cris,” she said. “You have your life to lead in Garronia, or Greece, or wherever you want to be.”

“I do,” he said. “But what if where I most want to be…is with you?”

LeeAnn couldn’t help herself. She tried to laugh, but it came out as a half-sob. This gorgeous man—a stranger—was filling her mind with incredible dreams that couldn’t be true. Wouldn’t be true, she knew, after a little while. That simply wasn’t how life worked. People went their separate ways, plans were disrupted, dreams derailed. And that wasn’t a bad thing, necessarily. Troubles made you strong.

But here, standing with Cristopoulis Matretti staring at her so intently, LeeAnn could almost believe in the magic of his far-off country, almost believe that he really did want to fly away with her. That they’d be able to take a journey of a lifetime—together.

He didn’t waver, and she managed a wobbly smile. “I read a dozen articles about you, Cris. You could travel with anyone in the world.”

“Excellent,” he smiled broadly. “Then I choose you.” He squeezed her hands. “Where shall we go first?”

He bounced on his toes, and it struck her he did that a lot. How had she not noticed it before? All the little tells that betrayed his athletic background—the early morning workouts, the healthy food choices, the easy camaraderie with his men.

No, not his men. His
bodyguards
.

The gulf between them yawned wide again. “Cris…”

“No. No second thoughts yet, not when you were doing so well. You must think about all the possibilities, not all the reasons to say no, you see?” He finally drew her close, and dropped a light kiss on her brow.

“This is ridiculous,” LeeAnn said, and he chuckled.

“Leaving my country to hide in the Minnesota wilderness was ridiculous. Deciding it was a good idea to slug my coach was also ridiculous. This thing between us, whatever it is, this is not ridiculous.”

He held her out again, studying her. “It is completely up to you, LeeAnn. I can make one call, today, to delay my plans. Or I can leave and make arrangements for you to come to Garronia when you are ready—as long as that’s not too long from now.”

“You don’t even know the Donaldsons will buy.” LeeAnn freed her hands from his and placed them on either side of her head. “Buy! What am I talking about? Even if there is a purchase plan in place, it will take time. Months, certainly, to manage everything.”

“Months, I cannot wait.” Cris frowned at her, then his expression cleared. “I tell you what. You contact Jake or his father, and let them know you are interested, but tell them you are taking a trip, yes? Then when you come back you will consider their offer, when they make one.”

“
If
they make one.”

He winked at her. “Oh, they’ll make one. Jake says his father would buy up the inn for the storage barn alone.”

“The…” she stared at him. “How could they possibly know about that?”

“Apparently, your grandfather was very secretive about what he kept in that place, and when Jake told his father and grandfather about the motorcycle, it merely served to whet their appetites. His grandfather apparently is on a rampage over the barn—he thought it’d been emptied long ago. Now it’s all they can do to keep the old man from staging a nighttime reconnaissance mission to see the place with his own eyes. All the better for you to take this trip, then. To keep them hungry.”

“A trip.” LeeAnn’s voice didn’t sound like her own. “A chance to fly away.”

“To fly wherever you want to go, be whoever you want to be.” He squeezed her hands. “So it is settled then. You will come to Garronia and sample what the world has to offer you, or at least our little corner of it. And then you will make your decisions.”

LeeAnn bit her lip, but in truth she could find no good reason to say no. “I’ll need time to plan,” she hedged.

“Of course,” Cris agreed. “You can take all the time you need, as long as you eventually end up in Garronia on a beautiful sun-swept day. After that, you’ll understand. The country will work its magic on you, and you’ll never be the same.”

She lifted a brow. “Uh-huh.”

“I’ve seen it happen before!” he insisted despite her skepticism. “You’ll step off the plane and feel the sunshine on your face and the Mediterranean breeze in your hair, you’ll hear the laughter of happy people, and you’ll think ah! I am home.”

He entwined his fingers with hers. “And I will see you standing there, surrounded by sunshine and laughter, and I’ll know that I am home too.”

His eyes widened as he looked down at her.

“But no!” he murmured softly. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m not,” LeeAnn managed. “I…I just don’t know what to say.”

“Then you should always say yes,” Cris said, his smile infinitely tender. “And when you are ready—whether next week, next month, or tomorrow, all you need to do is contact me. I will come back to Haralson, and we will fly to my homeland. The two of us together, like the swans you love so much.” He leaned down to kiss her. “I must only ask one thing.”

LeeAnn sighed as he cradled her close, unable to imagine the world he was laying out before her. So much had yet to still be determined—the sale of the inn, the assurances to her staff, the money and the paperwork...

But she didn’t have to focus on any of that. She only needed to say yes to taking this trip with Cris. This trip, and performing whatever favor he needed of her. One small step was all that was required, and she could start her life over again.

She’d taken that step toward Haralson when her father had needed her. Now, five years later, she was taking a new step toward all those dreams she’d put on hold.

When Cris didn’t continue right away, LeeAnn glanced up at him. “What is it?” she asked, searching his eyes. “This favor you need—is there anything wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, nothing,” he said, and in his expression was one of almost wonder, so clear and incandescent it took her breath away. “You’ve made me happier than I’ve ever been.”

True joy blossomed inside LeeAnn. It couldn’t be real, shouldn’t be real, yet somehow, she believed him. Believed that two people could come together at exactly the right moment when everything was possible, and take a chance on that possibility, together.

“Then anything you want,” she said. “I’ll try to do.”

“Excellent,” he said. Then he released a long sigh. “Because the moment we set foot in Garronia, you’ll be expected to meet the queen.”

Epilogue

LeeAnn stared at the gorgeous expanse of water as the plane made its final descent toward Garronia’s international airport, her hands spasming on her knees as she tried to take it all in.

Beside her, Cris chuckled, reaching over to squeeze her left wrist. “Are you surprised?”

“It’s so—blue,” she said, staring at the water—then the sand, then the sweep of forest that sprang up around the small, white-walled city with its bursts of sudden color in the streets. “I’ve never seen anything that blue before.” She glanced back at him, suddenly shy. “Then again, I’d never seen the ocean before this trip.”

“And our ocean, it is the bluest of them all,” he grinned, nodding to her as they touched down. “You can use your phone again, if you think you’ll have gotten an email.”

“I—might have, you’re right.” She keyed on her international phone, waiting for it to connect. Fully two months had passed since Cristopoulis had met her at Swan Cottage, and her life had become a whirlwind. Despite his urging to speak to the Donaldsons, she’d gone first to the property manager, in order to understand what she really had in Werth Inn. Mr. Prentiss had helped her put together a purchase plan that, as Cris had predicted, the Donaldsons didn’t have any intention of haggling over. They hadn’t formally made a bid on the inn, but she suspected that was only because they wanted her to take her vacation first.

Winter had come in fast and hard to Minnesota, but this year, LeeAnn had barely noticed. She’d been in constant communication with Cris, who’d sent her link after link to places they could travel. With the proceeds of the inn she would have enough to spend a year exploring the world—and then?

Well, and then…she truly didn’t know. But she was more than ready to see what that year brought her.

As if reading her thoughts, Cris leaned forward, dropping a kiss on her temple. “I will never tire of seeing you smile.”

The plane was emptying, and they stood as well, LeeAnn watching with bemusement as Cris took her bag from her. “I can carry that myself, you know.”

He shook his head. “There are many things you must get used to in Garronia,” he said, gesturing her to move up the aisle. “This is but the first.”

Then they stepped out into the sunshine. The plane was a small commuter out of Athens, and instead of emptying into a terminal, a long staircase extended to the tarmac. LeeAnn looked around as they reached the ground, marveling at the crystal blue skies, the soft breeze, everything clean and warm and—perfect.

A long black sedan approached the airplane. While the other passengers continued on, Cris stopped, angling her to the right to face the limousine.

“This, I’m afraid, is the second,” he said, as the limo stopped and its driver exited to open the rear passenger door.

A woman emerged from the vehicle then, her dark hair pulled back in a thick chignon beneath a stylish hat, her crisp linen dress and heels exquisite as she strode forth ahead of a phalanx of guards. But it was her flashing eyes and radiant smile that captured LeeAnn the most—the woman’s expression as bright with happiness as any she had ever seen.

“That’s the queen?” she whispered, awed. “And she’s your
aunt
?”

“She’s my aunt,” Cris confirmed, and he turned to her then, ignoring the woman one last moment as he raised LeeAnn’s hand to his lips. “The one person on this earth who knew I was in love with you, before I even knew it myself.”

LeeAnn had no time to react to his words before the queen was upon them, reaching out her hands to enfold her in a warm embrace.

“LeeAnn Werth!” Queen Catherine exclaimed in a rich Mediterranean accent. She stood back and regarded LeeAnn with patent approval. “Welcome to Garronia. And now you must tell me
everything
about how you captured my nephew’s heart. From the very beginning!”

And having no other option than to tell the whole story—about the swoon-worthy European businessman who’d appeared out of nowhere to stay at her inn, his equally mysterious coworkers who never left his side for long, and the day Ellie Mittelstadt came striding onto her front porch, turning everything upside down—

LeeAnn did exactly that.

Finding Chris Evans:
The Rockstar Edition
By Erin McCarthy

Get a sneak preview of the next novella in the Finding Chris Evans mini-series!