“I’m getting seriously pissed off at you. You know that, right?”
“Yes. I realize that. And we’re even. Because I am becoming pretty damn brassed off at you.”
Dead silence on the line. And then, very flatly, “I think I should hang up before I say something I’m bound to regret.”
“Yes. I agree. Go back to sleep, Sydney.”
“Hah. Fat chance of that.” Click. And silence.
“Goodbye,” he said furiously, though it wasn’t in any way necessary, as she had already hung up.
He put down the phone and then he just stood there, staring blindly at an oil painting of a pastoral scene that hung over the sofa, wanting to strangle someone. Preferably his bride.
A tap on the outer door interrupted his fuming. “Enter.”
His secretary, Caroline, appeared to inform him that Her Sovereign Highness and Prince Evan wished to speak with him in the Blue Sitting Room of their private apartment.
In his parents’ private rooms, they didn’t stand on ceremony.
His mother embraced him and told him she forgave him for running off and marrying his Texas bride without a word to the family beforehand. His father congratulated him as well and said he was looking forward to meeting Sydney and her son. Prince Evan said nothing about the secret Rule had finally shared with him a few weeks before. Rule was grateful to see that his father, at least at this point, was keeping his word and telling Her Sovereign Highness nothing about how Rule had come to meet his bride in the first place.
And when his mother asked him about that, about how he and Sydney had met, he told her the truth, as far as it went. “I saw her going into a shopping mall. One look, and I knew I wanted to kno
w her. So I followed her. I convinced her that she should have lunch with me and after that, I pursued her relentlessly until she gave in and married me. I knew from that first sight of her, getting out of her car, settling her bag on her shoulder so resolutely, that she was one of a kind.”
His mother approved. She’d more or less chosen his father that way, after seeing him across a room at a Hollywood party during a visit to the States. “You did have us worried,” she chided. “We feared you would fail to make your choice before your birthday. Or that you would marry our darling Lili and the marriage would not suit in the end.”
Rule had to keep from gaping. “If you thought that Liliana and I were a bad match, you might have mentioned that to me.”
His mother gave a supremely elegant shrug. “And what possible good would that have done? Until you met the right woman, you were hardly likely to listen to your mother telling you that the perfectly lovely Lili, of whom you’ve always been so fond, was all wrong for you.”
Rule had no idea how to reply to that. He wanted to say something angry and provoking. Because he felt angry and provoked. But that had more to do with his recent conversation with Sydney than anything else. So he settled for saying nothing.
And then his mother and father shared a look. And his mother nodded. And his father said, “I hope you’ll be having a private word with Liliana soon.”
At which point he went ahead and confessed, “As it happens, I’ve already spoken with her.”
His mother rose abruptly. Rule and his father followed suit. She demanded, “Why ever didn’t you say so?”
Yes. No doubt about it. To strangle someone or put his fist through a wall about now would be extremely satisfying. “I did tell you. I told you just now.”
“When did you speak with her?” his mother asked.
He glanced at his wristwatch. “Forty-five minutes ago.”
“You told her of your marriage?”
“Yes.” His parents shared a speaking glance. “What? I shouldn’t have told her?”
“Well, of course you needed to tell her.”
“Then I don’t understand what—”
“Is she alone now?”
“I have no idea. Solange Moltano answered the door to me. I’m assuming she’s still there, in Lili’s apartment.”
“The Moltano woman will never do. Lili will need someone to talk with, someone to comfort her.”