Not Fit for a King? (15 page)

He settled her on the chaise and she lay still with her eyes closed, her lashes black crescents against her pallor. “Do you feel faint?” he asked.

She nodded.

“A little.”

“What can I get for you?” Tears seeped from beneath her lashes. “Nothing.” Zale summoned a footman. “Brandy and water,” he said crisply.

The footman returned quickly and Zale carried the snifter of brandy to Emmeline. “Drink. It’ll help.”

She sat up, brushing away tears and took a sip, gasping a bit as the alcohol burned her throat.

He waited for her to take another sip before standing up. “How do you feel now?” he asked.

“Better.”

But her teeth were chattering and she was still too pale.

Zale slipped his coat off and draped it around her shoulders before moving to stand in front of the fireplace. He stared into the cold hearth. “You didn’t recognize them,” he said bluntly. “You still don’t know who they are.”

She lifted her head, looked at him then, her blue eyes shadowed. “No. I don’t.”

“And you shook Stavros’s hand. He’s a childhood friend.”

“I … embarrassed you.”

“No. That’s not the issue. I just don’t understand. How can you not know them?”

She didn’t answer, her head hung in shame.

But he didn’t want shame. Nor did he want an apology. He wanted answers. “Are you on something? Taking something? Pills … uppers, downers, pain medicine?”

“No.”

“Diet pills, or an appetite suppressant?”

“No.”

“Snorting anything? Smoking anything?” Her head jerked up and she gave him a horrified look. “No!” “Then what?” His voice throbbed with emotion. “What the hell happened in there?”

“I’m tired, Zale. Confused. I haven’t been sleeping much lately—”

“That doesn’t hold up. You always travel. You are a globetrotting royal, never long in the same place.”

“But there’s been so much stress. We’ve had problems and the wedding is just days from now—”

“I don’t buy it. Not from you. You are Emmeline d’Arcy. You thrive on stress. So tell me what happened in there. Tell me why you’re acting like this.”

“I’m telling you but you’re not listening.”

“No. What you’re telling me are lies. I can see it in your face. You haven’t told me the truth yet. And I want the truth.”

Hand trembling, she reached for the brandy, took another sip and then set the glass back down. “Maybe you should sit.”

His temper flared. “I prefer standing.”

She nodded once, a small nod that said nothing and yet everything. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“Please,” he groaned impatiently. “Spare me the theatrics.”

Her chin lifted and she looked up at him, expression blank. For a long moment she said nothing and then she shrugged. “I’m not Emmeline.”

Z
ALE
gritted his teeth. Not Emmeline? It was ridiculous. She was being ridiculous.

“This isn’t a good time for drama,” he said, striving to stay pleasant, and trying not to think of the three hundred and fifty guests in the ballroom awaiting their return. “We’re throwing a party. A huge fundraiser. Until now it’s been quite a success. Let’s sort this out so we can return—”

“I’m not Emmeline,” she repeated flatly, no emotion anywhere in her voice, her expression equally vacant. “I’m Hannah. Hannah Smith.”

Again he felt that need to laugh but then he saw her face and finally understood she wasn’t joking. She was serious.

Zale abruptly sat down. “What do you mean you’re not Emmeline?”

“I’ve just been pretending,” she whispered, hands clenched into a fist in her lap. “I was doing Emmeline a favor. I was only supposed to be her for a few hours while she went to see friends, but she never came back, and I got onto the plane and then I was here.”

He stared at her in shock.

She’d lost her mind. She needed help. “I’ll get you a doctor,” he said gently. “We’ll get you care—”

“I’m not sick,” she interrupted, her voice low but steady. “Just very foolish. Inexcusably foolish. And I don’t expect you to forgive me, but it’s time you knew the truth.”

She looked up at him, eyes bright, cheeks finally taking on some color. “I’m an American. I work in Dallas as a secretary for an Arab sheikh named Makin Al-Koury—”

“I know Sheikh Al-Koury. He just hosted the Palm Beach Polo Tournament.”

“I organized the event.” She drew a quick breath. “And that’s where I met Her Highness, Princess Emmeline d’Arcy. We were mistaken for each other so often that she requested a meeting with me. The princess needed to take care of something and asked for my help—”

“To impersonate her?”

She nodded. “Her Highness said she would never be able to leave without a disguise, and so she left the hotel as me.” “Where was she going?”

“I don’t know. She never told me. She just said she needed to take care of something and she’d be back in a few hours.” Hannah laced and unlaced her fingers. “But she never returned that day. Or the next. So here I am.”

They never returned to the ballroom. The Amethyst & Ice Ball finished without them.

Instead Zale had Emmeline escorted back to the Queen’s Chambers, his tuxedo jacket still draped across her shoulders. He headed to the parapet where he walked the tower for half an hour.

He didn’t believe her. Couldn’t.

Emmeline wasn’t Emmeline but an American secretary named Hannah Smith? Impossible.

There weren’t two Emmelines in the world, and Emmeline d’Arcy was such a rare beauty, so distinctive that there couldn’t be another woman who looked like her.

Or moved like her.

Or smiled like her.

Which meant that Emmeline wasn’t well, and he needed to get her away from Raguva, away from the pressures of the
palace, far from the wedding preparations and all the attention that came with both.

She needed rest and medical care and he’d make sure she got the help she needed.

Back downstairs he gave instructions for his jet to be prepared for an early morning departure. He sent for Krek and told his butler that he needed a suitcase packed. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone … one week, two. See to it that Her Highness’s maid packs for her, too.”

Krek stood there a moment looking confused. “Pack another suitcase, Your Majesty?”

“No, Krek. She just needs one.”

“But Her Highness went downstairs with a small suitcase a little while ago. Her maid found this on the floor in the living room. She must have dropped it on the way out.” The butler reached into the pocket of his black pin-striped trousers and withdrew Emmeline’s phone. “Perhaps you could give it to her when you see her?”

Zale took the phone, turning it over in his hand. The infamous phone. The source of so much tension.

Silent, gut hard, chest tight, Zale flipped the phone open to scroll through her in-box. Text from Emmeline.

Text from Emmeline.

Text from Emmeline.

His chest squeezed tighter. He drew a rough, unsteady breath as Krek quietly left. For a moment Zale wanted to hurl the phone across the room but instead he sat down in the nearest chair to read the messages. He went back to the very beginning and read them all, incoming as well as outgoing since he had time, because Emmeline, or Hannah, or whoever she said she was, wouldn’t be going anywhere. The palace gates were always locked, and no one came or went without Zale’s knowledge and permission.

Just as Krek said, Hannah had packed a suitcase, and changed into traveling clothes, but she couldn’t get out of the palace.
The gates were locked. The palace guard stood at attention. They refused to even make eye contact with her. She tried to persuade one guard and then another to open the gates but each one stared straight ahead as if she wasn’t even there.

Hannah gave up pleading and sat down on the palace’s front steps. It was a clear night, a cool night, and she was growing cold but she’d rather freeze to death on the steps than go back inside.

She was beginning to think she’d freeze to death, too, when Zale’s very deep voice spoke on the top step behind her. “Hannah Smith, you have some explaining to do.”

Her stomach plummeted. Goose bumps covered her arms. Slowly she rose knowing that this next conversation with Zale would be horrendous.

She was right. He grilled her for hours, repeating the same questions over and over. It was three-thirty in the morning now and Zale was growing angrier by the minute.

“It’s illegal what you’ve done,” he said harshly after she finally fell silent, worn-out from talking, exhausted from trying to make him understand. “You’ve broken too many laws to count. You didn’t just impersonate Princess Emmeline, you committed fraud as we well as perjury.”

She stared at him dry-eyed, her body trembling from fatigue. “I
am
sorry.”

“Not good enough.”

“How can I make amends? I want to make amends.”

“You can’t,” he answered brusquely. “And the more I think about it, the more certain I am that I should have you arrested. Locked up. Let you sit in jail for a couple of years—”

“Zale.”

But he couldn’t be placated. “What sort of person are you? Who does what you did?”

“I was never supposed to come here. I’d never agreed to come—”

“But you did.”

Hannah’s shoulders twisted helplessly. “I kept thinking that
any moment Emmeline would show up. Any moment she’d return and we’d switch places again and that would be that.”

“What you did was a crime! It’s a serious offense to enter the country under false pretenses, use a fake identity, interfere with state business. Any one of those would earn you a stiff prison sentence, but all three together?” He shook his head. “How could you do it?”

“I don’t know.” Hannah felt horrible, beyond horrible. “And there isn’t a good excuse. I was stupid. Beyond stupid. And I knew I was in trouble once I got here but I didn’t know how to put a stop to it. I liked you immediately. Fell for you hard—”

“Please don’t go there.”

“It’s true. I fell for you at first sight. And I knew you weren’t mine. I knew you belonged to Emmeline but she wouldn’t come, and yet she wouldn’t let me leave.”

“So you decided to just stay and play princess, thinking no one would ever find out the truth?”

She bit her lip, unable to defend herself. Because yes, that’s what she’d naively hoped.

Stupid, stupid, Hannah.

The silence hung between them, tense, agonizing, and then Zale turned away, making a rough sound in his throat. “To think I nearly fell in love with you. A fake. An impostor! My God, I even took you to my bed—”

“You can’t blame me for that. You wanted to sleep with me, too!”

“Yes, because I thought you were mine. I thought you were to be my wife. I had no idea you were an American girl getting her thrills pretending to be my fiancée.”

“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t want to betray you or Emmeline—”

“But you did, and you did come to my bed, and you enjoyed it.” He went to her, tangled his hand in her hair and forced her face up to his. “Didn’t you?”

Her jaw tightened and she stared up at him in mute fury. Zale saw the blaze of anger in her eyes and he welcomed it.
Good, let her be angry. Let her hurt. Let her feel a tenth of his pain and shame.

To be tricked like that.

Played for a fool.

He’d never forgive her. Never.

Zale released her, disgusted with her, him, all of it. “So where is Emmeline now?” he demanded, taking a step away. “Why isn’t she here?”

Hannah shook her head. “I don’t know. She never said.”

He turned his back on her, walked across the room toward the windows. The drapes had not been drawn against the night and the lights of the walled city twinkled below. “I have to call her father. Tell him what’s happened. We’ll need to let our guests know the wedding is off.”

She knotted and unknotted her hands. “Can I do something?”

“Yes. You can go.” He spoke without turning around, keeping his back to her. “I want you gone first thing in the morning, and I never want to see you again.”

Hannah left before daybreak. This time the palace guard allowed her to leave and she walked through the palace gates and out onto the cobbled streets, her footsteps unsteady.

The worst had finally happened. Zale had found out the truth. He knew who she was now, knew Emmeline wasn’t coming, and now she was free to return to her own life, resume her work, see her friends.

This is what she’d wanted. This is what her goal had been. And yes, she was sad now—shattered, actually—but eventually she’d be okay. Hannah knew she was tough. Resilient. And maybe one day if she was lucky, she’d fall in love again.

Reaching the old city center, Hannah went to the train station to purchase a ticket and discovered she didn’t have enough money to get across Raguva much less out of the country as she’d left her credit cards in her hotel room in Palm Beach. She’d need her father to wire her money and get one of the
secretaries at the office in Dallas to overnight her passport to her.

Hannah reached into her coat pocket to call her dad but her phone was missing. She searched the rest of her pockets before opening her small suitcase to check there. But no, nothing, which meant she must have left the phone at the palace or dropped it while walking into the city center.

Her heart fell as she imagined returning to the palace, only to be confronted by Zale.

She couldn’t handle seeing him again. Couldn’t handle his disappointment and anger.

Last night she’d felt like Cinderella at the ball—a beautiful princess dancing with the handsome king—and just like the fairy tale, today she was no one. She’d been tossed into the streets.

Exhausted, Hannah closed her suitcase and got to her feet and stood in the middle of the train station, wishing she had a fairy godmother who could come wave a magic wand and make everything good again.

But fairy godmothers didn’t exist, and real life women like Hannah Smith had to sort out their problems and mistakes on their own.

Only her plight hadn’t gone unnoticed. An old gentleman working at the station ticket counter left his booth and approached her, speaking a mixture of broken English and Raguvian. “Do you need help?”

She nodded, hating the lump in her throat. “I need to find a hotel, something cheap, for a night or two until my father can send money.”

He pointed to a building across the street. “Nice and clean,” he said, with a sympathetic smile. “And not too much money. Tell them Alfred sent you.”

She shot him a grateful smile. “I will, thank you.”

He nodded and watched her hurry across the plaza to the small hotel tucked into the stone building on the other side of the cobbled street.

The woman at the front desk seemed to be waiting for Hannah at the front door. She ushered her in and got her registered at the small reception desk in minutes before personally showing Hannah to her room, explaining through gestures and smiles how the small ancient television and room thermostat worked.

When Hannah told her she needed a phone to make a collect call to the United States, the woman handed Hannah her own from her dress pocket.

But the phone operator couldn’t reach Hannah’s father for him to accept the collect call. They tried twice before Hannah gave up.

“You can try again later, as many times as you need,” the front desk clerk assured her. “I will be here all day.”

Hannah did try three more times, but each time she had the operator try to place the collect call, her father’s answering machine picked up.

By the end of the day, Hannah had resigned herself to the fact that she’d be stuck in Raguva at least another day. If not longer.

For the first twenty-four hours after Hannah left, Zale wanted revenge. He fantasized about hunting Hannah down and making her suffer as he was suffering.

He was still angry the second day after she’d left, and plotted her downfall, but now when he imagined doing something to her, he was doing something to her body. Something … pleasurable.

He hated himself for even thinking of her, much less desiring her.

The fact that he could imagine taking pleasure in her body baffled him after everything that had happened.

Why was he even thinking about her? How could he want her? She’d manipulated him and played him and he should hate her.

He didn’t. He couldn’t. Not when he loved her.

Zale ran a hand through his short hair, knowing he’d only been in love once before. It’d been six years ago when he’d lived in Madrid. She had been young, brilliant and vivacious, a breathtaking Spanish beauty, but when his parents had died he’d retired from football and ended their love affair, moved back to Raguva and never once looked back.

Zale knew how to move on without looking back. He knew how to be ruthless, relentless, hard.

And he’d force himself to be ruthless and hard now.

She was gone. And there would be no forgiveness. No second chances.