The Prince

Søren smiled and answered in English. “I’ve heard rumors of knocking. I never believed them.”

“I had a lovely evening planned.”

“Now you have a new plan. I called. Irena answered, not Juliette.”

“Juliette is gone.” Kingsley sat on the bed next to Sadie and scratched her ears.

“Gone. Where has she gone?”

“Haiti. She left today.” He kept scratching Sadie, refusing to meet Søren’s gaze.

“You never let Juliette go to Haiti alone.”

Kingsley raised his chin. “Special circumstances.”

“How special?” Søren pulled his legs off the bed and set his feet on the floor. With one movement Søren signaled their conversation had ceased to be of the casual variety.

“I saw a ghost.”

Søren raised his hand and mindlessly rubbed his bottom lip with the tip of his thumb. Kingsley bit his own bottom lip in a sympathetic response. Those lips…both cruel and sensual…the damage they’d done to him he couldn’t even begin to calculate. And yet he craved them as much now as he had a lifetime ago.

“I don’t believe in ghosts and neither should you, Kingsley.”

“Why not? I’ve been in love with a ghost for thirty years.” Kingsley strolled over to the armchair and sat on the ottoman between the other man’s knees.

Søren narrowed his eyes at him. “The body’s not even cold yet. Eleanor’s been gone one day and you’re already trying to get me into bed again?”

“Again?” Kingsley laughed and rolled his eyes. “Always. Are you surprised?”

Søren shrugged. “Not really. Tell me about your ghost.”

On the nightstand lay a folder. Almost reluctantly, he picked it up and carried it over.

Søren eyed him for a moment before taking the black file folder from him and opening it. He studied the contents before closing the file again and looking back at Kingsley.

“It’s us at Saint Ignatius. Eleanor has a copy of this photograph. What of it?”

Kingsley took the file and opened it. Thirty years disappeared in that foot of space between his eyes and the photograph he gazed at. Thirty years gone in a heartbeat.

Kingsley still remembered the day it was taken. His closest friend at St. Ignatius, a native Mainer named Christian, had gotten a camera for Christmas and decided some day he would work for National Geographic. The first animals he’d stalked with his lens were his fellow students. That day, the day the photo had been taken, Kingsley and Søren had disappeared into the woods by the school and had argued. Underneath his school uniform Kingsley’s body had sported bruises and welts over nearly every inch of his back and thighs. The only marks visible were two small fingertip-shaped bruises that remained on his neck from the act that had ended the fight.

“I have a copy of the photograph, too,” Kingsley confessed. “I’ve kept it all my life.”

“And?” Søren crossed his ankle over his knee and waited.

“And…” Kingsley slid the photo out of the file and turned it over. On the back someone had inked their initials. The white of the celluloid had faded and yellowed. “This isn’t my copy. This is the original.”

Søren narrowed his eyes at Kingsley. “The original?”

Kingsley nodded. “I received this in the mail yesterday. No note. No letter. No return address on the envelope. The photograph in the folder and nothing else.”

Søren said nothing for a moment. Kingsley waited.

“Postmark?”

“New Hampshire—your home sweet home.”

Søren came slowly to his feet and walked to the window. Pushing back the curtains, he gazed out onto the Manhattan skyline. Kingsley would have written the man a check for a million dollars then and there to know what he was thinking. But he knew Søren too well. Money meant nothing to him. Secrets were a far dearer currency.

“It isn’t Elizabeth,” Søren said. Kingsley stood next to him and watched his gray eyes watch the city.

“Are you certain of that?”

“What possible motive would she have for this? For stealing Eleanor’s file from your office? For sending you that photograph?”

“You know Elizabeth better than I. She’s devoted her whole life to helping abused children.”

“And?”

“You and your Little One? How would she feel if she learned about you two?”

“Eleanor is thirty-four.”

“She wasn’t thirty-four when you fell in love with her. I know you did nothing wrong with her. I know you kept her safe and protected her even from yourself, even when your own pet begged you not to. But would Elizabeth see it that way?”

Søren exhaled and furrowed his brow.

“No. No, Elizabeth would not. She’d assume the worst, assume I was like our father.”

“Your sister is even more damaged than you are, Père

Stearns. She would destroy you first and not even bother to ask questions later.”

“Possibly. But she certainly wouldn’t go to these lengths to do it, not when a phone call would suffice.”

“Elizabeth would do everything in her power to destroy you if she knew about you and your pet. But yes, this doesn’t seem to be her style. Or your pet’s.” When he said “pet” Sadie lifted her massive head and stared at him with worshipful devotion. If only all the women in his world were so easy to control…