“Physically yes, unless you count hungover. He looked terrible when I showed up this morning.”
“So, he’s really taking the accident hard.”
“Of course he is. He and Glen have been obsessed with this dream of theirs for five long years. And as you said, he blames himself for what happened.” Brooke’s breath came out in a ragged sigh as her reaction to what she’d learned finally caught up with her. “He’s not coming back.”
“Sure he is. If anyone can convince him to not give up it’s you.”
“I can’t. There’s a bunch of other things going on.”
“What kind of other things?”
“Turns out there are problems at home and he has to go back and marry someone.”
“What?” Theresa screeched. “He’s engaged?”
“Not yet, but he will be soon.”
“Soon? How soon? Does he have a girlfriend he’s going to propose to? Is that why he broke your heart?”
“No.” Brooke knew she wasn’t being clear, but was having a hard time explaining what she still struggled to grasp. “Nothing so simple. Theresa, he’s a prince.”
Silence. “I’m sorry, a what?”
“A prince.” Her reaction was beginning to settle in. Brooke swiped away a sudden rush of tears as her ears picked up nothing but the hiss of air through the phone’s speaker. “Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here, but this damned international call has gone wonky. Can you repeat what you said.”
“Nic is a prince. He’s second in line to the throne of a small European country called Sherdana.”
Her breath evened out as she waited out her best friend’s stupefaction. It wouldn’t last long. Theresa was one of the most pragmatic people she knew. It was part of what kept them friends for so long. Opposites attract. Theresa needed Brooke’s particular variety of crazy to shake up her life, and Brooke relied on Theresa’s common sense to keep her grounded.
“You’re kidding me, right? This whole phone call is some sort of setup for one of those wacky reality shows where people get punked or filmed doing stupid things.” She paused and waited for Brooke to fill in an affirmative. When Brooke remained silent Theresa sighed and said, “Okay, you’d better give it to me from the top.”
* * *
Nic sat in the small den off the living room, his laptop on the love seat beside him, his thoughts lingering on Brooke and her crazy notion that they should say goodbye and gain closure by spending the next few days in bed together. Had he done a good enough job convincing her that wasn’t going to happen when he desperately wanted to make love to her again? During their five months together, she’d learned all she had to do was crook a finger and he was happy to abandon his work in favor of spending hours in her arms. Nic growled as he pondered his susceptibility to her abundant charms. He was fighting a battle with himself and with her. In a few hours she would return, refreshed and ready for the next skirmish and he’d better have his defenses reinforced.
With a snort of disgust, Nic turned on the computer in the den and cued up his email. She’d claimed there were dozens of unanswered emails, but the inbox was empty. It took him fifteen minutes to find them among the folders where he shunted the messages he didn’t wish to delete and restore the settings to the way he liked them. Brooke was a disaster when it came to anything involving technology. Glen had found his sister’s deficiency funny and endearing. Nic just found it exasperating. Like so many other things about her.
She was always late. In fact, her sense of time was so skewed that if he needed her to be somewhere, he usually built in a cushion of thirty minutes. Then there was her inability to say no to anyone. This usually led to her getting involved in something she needed to be bailed out of. Like at Griffin’s annual team picnic when she’d agreed to take all the kids for a nature hike and then got lost. It had taken Nic and Glen, plus a half dozen concerned parents, to find them. Of course, the kids all thought it was the best adventure they’d ever been on. Brooke had kept them calm and focused, never letting them know how much trouble they were in. Later, when he’d scolded her for worrying everyone, she’d simply shrugged her shoulders and pointed out that nothing bad had happened. She just didn’t think about the consequences of her actions. And that drove him crazy.
As crazy as the way she leveraged her lean, toned body to incite his baser instincts. Whenever she took a weekend break from school and came to visit, he found it impossible to concentrate on the Griffin project. She hung out in his office, alternating between cajoling and pouting until he paid attention to her. Most days he held out because eventually she’d grow tired of the game and let him get back to work. Unfortunately before that happened, he had to endure her flirtatious hugs and seemingly innocent body brushes. Usually by the time she headed back to San Francisco on Sunday afternoon, he was aroused, off schedule and in a savage mood.