The Keys' Prince (The Royal Heirs) (6 page)

Forget about her cover being blown tomorrow or later in the week. It would be a lot sooner than that. Stella had totally forgotten about the tabloids’ mobile apps. They were already exploding with Breaking News alerts that Kristianico’s Prince Adonis, one of the Top 10 Most Eligible Bachelors in the World, had been spotted in St. Armand’s Key with a mystery woman and what looked to be the mystery woman’s grandmother.

“I can’t believe they’re saying I’m your grandmother,” Auntie Elo harrumphed, tossing her phone onto the ottoman at the foot of her chair.

“You could be my grandmother, and you know it,” Stella said. “You were my mother’s oldest sister.”

“That’s right. I was her oldest sibling, not her mother, for cripes’ sake,” Auntie Elo said getting up from her chair, collecting her phone then planting a kiss on the top of Stella’s head and Dario’s, too. “I’d better go claim one of these bedrooms before I’m too old to walk that far.”

“Sleep tight, Auntie Elo. Love you,” Stella said and blew her a kiss, choosing to ignore her last comment lest she got her even more worked up.

“Love you too, darling. Sweet dreams,” Elo said, taking her leave, but not without first turning back toward Stella with her fingers crossed.

Stella looked at Elo, imploring her with her eyes to stop it before Dario saw what she was doing. Fortunately, Elo got the drift and disappeared.

Stella laughed all to herself and shook her head, as frustrated as she was amused by her aunt’s ways. One of the things she’d always loved about Elo was that no matter what they were facing because of Stella’s legacy, Elo found some way to lighten the mood.

Stella had loved her mother dearly—Auntie Elo’s youngest sister Grace—but she’d never had a sense of humor. Perhaps if she had, the life of being Odysseus Anastas’ wife wouldn’t have been too much for her.

Grace had died of an accidental overdose twenty-six years ago, when Stella was eighteen. She’d been found by her personal maid in the bathroom of their Paris apartment. At the time, Stella had been on holiday at their seaside mansion in Ibiza with her Auntie Elo. Auntie Elo had never left her side since.

If it hadn’t been for her aunt’s unwavering support and love, and her sense of humor, most of all the humor, Stella wasn’t sure she would have recovered as easily from her mother’s death. And there was no way she would have had the strength to assume the leadership of her father’s dynasty, following his death, less than one horrible year later. Her eighteenth and nineteenth years had been nothing but total heartbreak.

Sometimes still, Stella couldn’t believe how long her parents had been gone. There were days when she had a hard time remembering what it was like to have a family to share life with. Harder still to believe was that she’d been controlling her father’s fortune—and increasing it—for more than two decades, soon to be three.

Stella missed both of her parents, but especially her father. She missed him most at times like this when he’d know exactly what to do and already have their people working on it.

She looked out at the calm waters of the Sarasota Bay, surrounded by the city’s downtown skyline. Spot lit palm trees and landscape lighting sprinkled the shores and illuminated the multi-million dollar homes nestled into the beachfront properties.

Her father would have enjoyed the view from here—the third story, covered veranda of this incredible home. Amore del Mar (Love of the Sea)—the name the house had been christened with—was a property her father would not only have approved of but one he would have probably purchased on the spot.

“It appears that I’m screwed,” Dario said, snapping Stella out of her temporary pity party. He’d been scrolling through the stories coming into their phones every few minutes from various celebrity-reporting sites, while she was doing her best to ignore them. “At least the press hasn’t figured out who you are.”

“It won’t be long,” Stella said.

Her guise had worked for almost four months in The Keys, so she supposed she should be thankful for the reprieve, short-lived or not.

“I don’t know. You might have them fooled. I sure didn’t recognize you at first,” Dario said. “Even after you introduced yourself, I wasn’t completely sure. You look so different.”

“I look a lot better than I used to, right?” Stella asked, knowing without asking that it was true.

“I’m not saying that at all,” Dario said, reaching for her hand, an apologetic plea coming from his eyes. “Yes, you definitely look healthier and more physically fit. Happier too, I think, if I’ve accurately interpreted your press shots over the years.”

“No need to feel bad about what you said. I get it. And it’s true. I do look a lot better. And yes, these last few months I’ve been the happiest I’ve been for a long, long time,” she said, secretly thrilled that Dario had been following her life all of these years. She’d certainly followed his.

She’d lost over fifty pounds and worked with a trainer and yogi to get fit. She’d gone to an all-natural, organic diet with virtually no white sugar or flour and very limited amounts of meat and animal products in general. She couldn’t believe how much better she felt from the changes she’d made.

She’d also relocated to Sarasota and set up Neptune’s Treasures, a venture she could once only imagine following through with in her wildest dreams. She’d never done something like that, just because she wanted to. She’d finally found the guts to live the way she wanted to live and not solely in the ways expected of her.

For the first time, instead of doing nothing but pouring over every detail of her father’s businesses, Stella was living life on her own terms, exploring things that truly gave her joy.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t good at running international businesses. In some respects, she was even better than her father had been. But she didn’t enjoy it like he did.

Come to think of it, in the end, shortly before his death, Stella wasn’t sure he enjoyed running the empires he’d created. If he had to do it all over again, she wasn’t sure that he’d have taken the same path. She so wished she’d had the opportunity to ask him about that.

Like her father, Stella loved the seas and oceans and everything related to celebrating their treasures. So setting up a coastal lifestyle and gift shop was her heaven on earth.

Her father’s tastes, however, went far beyond gifts from the sea beautifully wrapped in small boxes. He paid homage to their mutual interest by buying homes on many of the most beautiful beaches in the world. And he’d left every single one of them to Stella. But they weren’t her homes. They never had been nor would be. They were his.

Most of the memories she had of the limited time she’d spent in many of them weren’t happy ones. Her mother was an alcoholic and drug addict. Her jet-setting father, even though he loved his daughter, preferred to spend his time with and emotions on the women he entertained around the world. Stella learned at a young age to put very different spins on homes that were supposed to be paradises on earth. They weren’t her personal paradises. They were simply places in which she could try to hide from the lonely and sad realities of her childhood.  

But here, on beautiful Lido Beach and on Sarasota’s other wonderful keys and beaches, Stella had created a home. For the first time, she was where she wanted to be and was making her own memories filled with a soul-satisfying bliss that belonged to just her and the sea.

“Perhaps we’re overreacting and this will blow over in a day or two,” Dario said, forever the optimist.

“That’s about as likely as the home we’re now hiding out in being available for any amount less than twenty million,” Stella said.

Now that she controlled billions of dollars worth of her father’s properties, she knew the value of this tropical treasure.

“My security chief says that it’s currently the most expensive home in Sarasota, listed for seventeen million,” Dario said.

Located at the fancy, north end of Casey Key, the home sat on two and a half walled acres, with its own private beach on one side and the bay on the other. At just over ten thousand square feet, with six bedrooms, six baths and two half baths, it was an Italian masterpiece with rows of arched windows and covered loggias.

The rooms were all huge—several between thirty-five and forty feet long. In fact, the his and hers master baths were bigger than most condos. There was an elevator, a billiard room, a nine car garage, a summer kitchen, an infinity pool, two docks in their own yachting lagoons, and an outdoor living room that had two-story ceilings and a massive stone fireplace facing the bay, which they were now enjoying.

“Seventeen, huh?” Stella asked, actually thinking that, because of the view and private beachfront, it could come in for a lot more than that. “In other parts of the world, it would sell for possibly as high as forty mill.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how many homes do you have now?” Dario asked, tossing his phone onto the coffee table and putting up his feet, careful not to knock over the large candle holders and artfully arranged bowls of seashells in the center of the table. “I always wondered if you’d kept them all.”

“I’ve still got way too many,” Stella said, picking at the tassels on the gilt-edged damask pillows lining the back of the sofa she’d curled up on. “I’m actually going to sell most of them. It’s a shame that they remain empty most of the time. Well, I suppose they’re not empty. As you know, we have a full staff at each one to keep up with daily operations.”

As part of any deal she made to sell or lease the properties, Stella would make sure to secure each employee’s future. If things didn’t work out for any of them with the new owners, they would always be able to get employment from her other business interests. If you worked hard and were loyal to the Anastas family, you and your family were taken care of. That was one of her father’s business practices that she was proud to carry on.

“There are large villas and estates in Ibiza, apartments in Paris, London, Geneva and New York. Ski villas in St. Moritz. A skyscraper on Park Avenue. Several islands off of the coast of Greece and estates in Argentina and Buenos Airies. And then there are the yachts. A few of those,” Stella said, feeling the familiar twist in her gut trying to reconcile how much she had when compared to most people.

“How do you ever manage so many properties? We’re down to three personal homes we shuffle between. But the properties now owned by Kristianico itself are vast and quite complicated. Much more so than when you and I were together. Managing them is a total nightmare. We’ve got casinos, hotels, museums, restaurants and shops, all of which feed our kingdom’s coffers.”

“It’s exactly on account of the nightmares that I’m selling,” Stella said. “It’s insane for one person, even with the help and resources you and I have, to try to keep so many properties thriving. Our money and time can be better spent elsewhere.”

“I can’t sell though,” Dario said, sighing.

The crackling embers snapping and popping in the fireplace seemed to echo his angst.

“The success of our properties keeps our people from having to pay taxes.”

“Still no taxes, huh? If my father was alive, he’d still be doing business with your family,” Stella said and laughed. “As you probably remember, he was all for flying the flags of convenience. Whichever countries offered him the most for the least, he created companies there.”

“I just hope I can keep it going, and I think I can. I’ve got some innovative ideas to modernize Kristianico and boost our tourism. But, without an heir, my ideas really won’t matter,” Dario said, rising to give the fire a poke.

Even though the fire did need stirring, Stella saw the look on Dario’s face. Trying to reconcile his place in Kristianico without an heir would require a much longer walk than to the fireplace and back. Maybe that’s why he’d come to Sarasota, she thought. Long walks on the beach had always helped him find answers, too.

“What does your ability to rule your country and try your ideas have to do with you having an heir?” Stella asked, knowing how much the people of Kristianico loved their prince and embraced his ideas and efforts. “Other than the line of succession of course.”

“Our treaty with France says that, if for even one day, we don’t have a member of the Adonis family on Kristianico’s throne, the state reverts back to French rule.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten about that little caveat,” she said, not sure how she could have spaced something that important. But it had been twenty-five years since she’d been involved way too deep in Kristianico’s constitutional trickery.

“Not good for my family obviously, but even more importantly, it’s not good for our people. They’d be forced to pay French taxes and no longer have any say in the future of Kristianico. All of my ideas would be long forgotten and abandoned in favor of whatever the French government fancied.”

“No wonder your family is trying to help you make babies,” Stella said, for some reason, thinking that Dario’s father had already completed his negotiations with the French to change the line of succession requirements.

“I know. And I suppose, in a way, I can’t blame them,” Dario said, sighing heavily and taking a place next to her on the sofa.

Stella stretched her legs and reached for a blanket in the basket full of them next to the coffee table.

The palm trees outside the outdoor living space swayed in the gusty breeze blowing across the bay, many of them bent over to their sides as if they were doing a half moon yoga pose.