The Prince

Kingsley glanced at the photograph one more time. Elizabeth, Søren’s sister…a beautiful woman even at age forty-eight. Beautiful but broken. No, far more than broken—shattered. Kingsley had been in her presence only a few times, and he’d met French soldiers—war veterans, men who’d liberated death camps and watched the Nazis put Paris under their heels—with fewer ghosts in their eyes than Søren’s sister. If she’d merely been raped by her father as a child, she might have survived without the damage she carried inside her. But she’d turned her darkness onto her own brother. When she’d ceased to be a victim and become a perpetrator herself…there was no telling what such a broken soul was capable of. Kingsley knew broken souls—he possessed one of his own, after all.

“Who else then?” he asked, sliding between the window and Søren. Søren glared down at him. Kingsley only grinned and waited for him to move. He didn’t.

Søren stood in silence. Kingsley knew not to speak, knew not to rush the answer. It would come in time. Patience. Søren always rewarded patience. Eleanor had learned that as a girl. Had she tried to force his hand, Søren would have walked away from his obsession with her. She seduced and teased, challenged and defied, but all the while she waited, wanting answers but never demanding them. Until the day Søren told her everything and gave her everything. And then she’d had the audacity to walk away from it all. Søren laid out feasts for her that she merely picked at, while Kingsley lapped up the crumbs that fell to the floor.

“It’s not Elizabeth,” Søren said again. “But she might know something. After all, Lennox is entirely populated by Elizabeth and her two children. If it was postmarked from there, then…”

“Then what, mon père?”

Kingsley waited, hoping Søren would say exactly what he wanted him to say. Eleanor gone. Juliette gone. Just the two of them once more. It could be perfect again, like it was when they were boys in school together. If only Søren would say what he needed him to say.

“Then we should go talk to her—you and I.”

Kingsley nodded. “Oui.”

Perfect.

SOUTH

At moments like these Wesley wished he was as fluent in profanity as Nora. A good “fuck” would have summed up his feelings pretty well right now. From the look on his father’s face Wesley could tell that this wasn’t the first time he’d heard the name Nora Sutherlin. But how did his dad know who she was? Two types of people knew that—erotica readers and kinky people. Wes didn’t like to think his father fell into either of those camps.

“Um…Dad?”

“J.W....where’s Bridget?”

Wesley glanced down at Nora. He hadn’t quite told her about Bridget yet.

“I don’t know. At her house, I guess. We broke up.”

Wesley’s father gave him that look—that skeptical, eyebrow-half-cocked look that never boded well for anybody on the receiving end.

“When? You two were out here on the porch a week ago, laughing so loud I thought I’d have to turn the garden hose on you both to cool you down.”

Wincing, Wesley immediately stopped looking at Nora. Last thing he wanted was to see the expression on her face at that piece of news. But she must have taken it well, for Wesley felt her palm on his lower back. She gave him a quick pat before sliding her hand into the rear pocket of his jeans. As much as he liked having her hand on his Levi’s, her groping his ass might not be the best way to say hi to Dad tonight, given the mood he was in.

“We broke up after that. It wasn’t working. It—”

“Mr. Railey, I’m sure this is kind of a shock to you, me showing up out of nowhere,” Nora said, pulling her hand away from Wesley and taking a step forward. “The whole thing’s something of a shock to me, too. But Wes and I have known each other a long time. And—”

“My son is twenty years old, Miss Sutherlin. He hasn’t known anybody for a long time.”

Wesley watched Nora plaster a smile on her face. He’d seen that smile before. She usually used it on men she was trying to con into performing for her. That smile had gotten her out of more speeding tickets than Wesley could count—two on this trip alone. He wished he could communicate telepathically with Nora. The first thing he’d tell her would be stop smiling. Trust me on this.

“I feel like we’ve gotten off to a bad start, Mr. Railey,” Nora continued. “Can we talk inside for a few minutes? Wesley used to work for me back in Connecticut. He—”

Wesley’s father started forward at a leisurely place. Nothing new with that. Jackson Railey was well-known for doing everything at a leisurely pace. Back when he was a kid, Wesley had thought it meant his father was the laid-back sort, never in a hurry, never rushing himself or anybody else. As he got older, got smarter, he realized his father moved slowly because he liked making people wait for him. He’d make his mind up in a second, but make you wait a minute for the answer. He’d spend hours on something that should take only minutes, to prove he had the time and money to waste…even if nobody else did.

“I know who you are, Miss Sutherlin.”

Wesley’s heart raced harder with every step his father took closer to Nora. Things had started out ugly and were getting uglier by the second.

“A fan? How nice.” She kept smiling.

“Not quite, madam.”