Along Came A Prince (30 page)

Linda laughed. “You’ll
need more time than what you’ll have this afternoon to cover all of Vegas.”

“Be sure you’re
not late for the wedding,” Helen cautioned.

“And miss seeing
my best bud all nervous waiting for you at the altar?” Clay asked. “There’s not
a chance of that happening.”

“Your day may come
sooner than you think, and then we’ll see who the nervous one is,” Sam said.

“Hey, Stacia, do
you think my day will ever come?” Clay smiled at her with a smile so big it
seemed to challenge all the blinking, neon lights on the whole Las Vegas Strip.

She didn’t know what
to say. His huge smile was in direct contrast to the way he’d been acting since
he had picked her up. She looked out the window. “Hey, look, there’s the
Bellagio.” She hoped that was a big enough distraction to avoid answering his
question.

It was. Silence
filled the limo, but only for seconds. Then the excited conversation took over
once more. She glanced at Clay, and he winked at her. She grinned at him, and
thought Helen was right when she’d told Stacia the old Clay was back.

When the limo reached
the Bellagio, the tuxedo-clad driver followed the driveway until he stopped in
front of a white, European-designed villa. One glance out her window, and Stacia
felt as if she was about to step into a painting of an authentic English
countryside estate. The beauty of the flowers was accented by blue skies up
above and lush, green landscaping on the ground, all centered around the
picture-perfect villa. The scene was magnificent! It was a painter’s
dream-come-true in her opinion.

The chauffeur hopped
out of the limo and opened the door for his first two passengers. “Your keys
are inside, sir.” He opened the trunk and asked Sam which luggage was his, and
then carried the suitcases up to the door, opened it and set them inside.

Stacia noticed Sam
hand the driver a tip, and from the size of the bill, it was a very generous
offering.

Hal and Linda were
dropped off next, and the procedure was repeated. When they rounded the next
corner, Stacia figured they had arrived at her villa.

“I’ll get out
here,” Clay told the driver. “Just take my bags to my villa. And thanks.” He
reached into his pocket and handed the driver another tip, just as large as
Sam’s.

Stacia thought
everyone in Vegas must be rich. From the guests to the casino owners to the
people hired to do their particular jobs. Tipping seemed to be a way of life
here. Only the sand in the desert was dried up. The money tree seemed to be
very much alive.

 As the driver
guided the limo down the driveway and took off to chauffeur the next set of new
guests, they were finally alone standing in the center of, what seemed to
Stacia to be, paradise. Even her prince was at her side.

“What now,
Stacia?” her prince asked.

Quit dreaming,
Stacia. Reality has returned.
“Do you want to go gamble by yourself and not
be bothered with me?” she asked, not willing to push herself onto Clay.

“Is that what you
want?”

She shook her head.
“I’d rather talk.”

“Okay, let’s do it
then.” Clay began to walk toward the door.

She followed, and
when they reached the door, he opened it for her.

Before she could
take one step inside, the scent of fragrant flowers welcomed her. The sight of
huge arrangements of fresh, cut blooms placed artistically around the room
created a garden effect. Exotic orchids and Birds of Paradise blended
beautifully with the red, pink and white roses and hydrangeas dressed in their
blue and pink blossoms. The flowers’ rainbow colors and heavenly perfumes
created eye pleasure and an essence nothing else on earth could match.

“It’s gorgeous,”
she exclaimed and turned to Clay. “It reminds me of SwissDen.”

“You’re right,” he
said and then was silent again.

Stacia couldn’t seem
to get her fill of the beauty of the flower display. She circled the room in
her enthusiasm, stopping to touch some of the petals and bending to smell
others.

“You’re gorgeous
too,” Clay remarked quietly.

She stopped and turned
around. His mood had changed. She could tell. The old Clay was back again. One
compliment based on three words had changed everything. But would it last? She
didn’t know, but it was a good beginning at least.

He stood stone-still
gazing at her like Cinderella’s prince at the ball when he first saw his
princess. Clay’s smoky, brown eyes captured hers, and she knew she couldn’t
break their hold. She didn’t want to. Fluttery feelings floated around inside
her. It felt like butterflies had joined their flower party.

“You have no idea of
the picture you create standing there,” Clay said. “You and the flowers
together. And you are completely irresistible. You take my breath away.” He placed
his hands on the sides of her face and held her close as he scattered kisses wherever
there was an available space.

She wrapped her
arms around him and hugged him closer to her, and just when she thought his tingling,
tantalizing kisses couldn’t get any better or hotter, they did as he found her
lips where the sexiness of his kiss exploded into passion. The beauty of the
flowers, of the suite, and of the trip were forgotten. Just as when he’d kissed
her before, she wanted more and more.

All too soon, the
kiss ended. No ‘more’ appeared in the horizon. He stepped back and stood as he
was before, arms straight at his side. He looked as if he wanted to say
something. She settled for glancing around the room. A doorway, which led into
an exquisitely designed bedroom, teased her to venture there. Would he follow
her?

She noticed the
large, side windows and walked toward them to see what the sunny afternoon in Vegas
had to offer from the inside out. More beauty was her conclusion after looking
outside at the green topiary trees and the blue water of the pool. The desert
flowers and yellow and pink hibiscus growing wild outside matched the beauty of
the ones inside, only these were nature’s gift.

Clay followed her,
stood next to her and interrupted her thoughts. “You did it again, you know.”

She was puzzled.
“What?” she asked and turned toward him.

“I have no resistance
when it comes to you. I tell myself we have things to discuss and straighten
out between us before we kiss. I make the rules and then I break them. Because
just the slightest touch of your finger or the look in your eyes, and I forget
everything I promised myself, and all I want is to tempt you and show you how
much I love you. It’s a wild desire I want you to feel too, from the tip of your
head to your toes and everywhere else.”

Well, you
certainly got your wish with that. Kiss me again.

“And I wanted to
apologize to you.” His voice was low and sincere.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry for
acting like a jerk the last time we talked on the phone. I didn’t mean to hurt
you or shut you out of my life, but I know I did both. The only thing I can say
in my defense is I had some problems that took time to resolve. Can you forgive
me?”

She hesitated.
What did she want more, romance and its trimmings…or an apology? No choice
there. However, there was only one decision to make. Stacia smiled. “You know I
can, but I just assumed there was someone else.” She complimented herself on
her acting, not her choice.

“What’s that all
about?” He looked perplexed.

“Well, after all,”
she said, trying to explain. “We haven’t known each other very long, and even
though I have strong feelings for you, my background isn’t like yours at all. I
don’t know how your parents feel about me, if they even approve of me. I keep
remembering the night in London, and the way your mother talked about me on
your speaker phone. You are royalty. I’m not, and I know nothing about what
royalty expects. The world might accept us, but what about your parents?”

 Clay didn’t
hesitate with his answer. “I may be a prince, but the woman I marry will be my
princess, and I will share everything with her. My life, my love…and my
parents.”

She was stunned. “Where
did you ever come up with that reasoning?”

“Isn’t it good
enough for you? Does it sound like a line?”

“No. It sounds
like something I heard when Josie regressed me,” she admitted.

“I’m not a snob,
Stacia. I knew someday I’d fall in love, and that, and only that, would be my
number one criteria for choosing a wife. The second requirement would have to
be that she loved me as much as I loved her.”

She sat down on
the sofa, tucked her legs under her, and reflected on what he’d just said.
Well,
I would certainly fill your second requirement. I am so in love with you.
She
wished she could speak her thoughts out loud, but instead as usual, she turned
to her talent of changing the subject. “I can’t get over you saying what I
heard in meditation. Aren’t you amazed?”

“No. If you can
think of it, why can’t I?” He joined her on the sofa, crossed his arms and
slouched down on a pillow, propping his feet up on the coffee table.

“You make it sound
easy.”

“And you can’t?”
Clay asked.

“I guess you’re
more in tune with Josie’s line of thinking than I am. She says it’s all out
there for anyone to tap into.”

“Is it too hard
for you to believe two people in love can think the same thing?”

“I suppose not.”
With all the bizarre things happening to her since she met him, that seemed
like a simple question with a simple answer. “Of course they can,” she rephrased.

Clay exhaled a
sigh and uncrossed his arms. “Well, here goes,” he said. “I’d like to explain
why I was a jerk.” He smiled at her, then turned serious. “The first night at
your condo, when I flew over to bring you to SwissDen, I began to have what
turned out to be a recurring dream, like what you were having also. I saw myself
sitting at a table writing in a book. I was starving and in pain. I had
headaches and cramps in my stomach. But strangely enough, what I felt in my
heart was the strongest pain of all.”

“Were you having a
heart attack?”
Stacia was surprised how much his symptoms sounded just like
Mark’s in her dreams. An eerie feeling rushed through her. It felt like déjà vu
but it went deeper than that. It was almost like she was a ghost watching a
séance happen.

“I thought I was having
a heart attack at first, but I didn’t have pain when I was awake. This dream kept
coming back every few days. Then I dreamed death was dancing in front of me,
and I saw the face of someone who was going to die. Before I could recognize
who it was, I woke up, and I never could figure out whose face I’d seen. I
obsessed about it, and that’s when I started to withdraw from you. I couldn’t tell
you what was going on. I figured maybe you were right. We weren’t meant to be
together. I was afraid I might die, but I was more scared of losing you. How
could I tell you I thought you might die?” He stood up, stretched his arms
toward the ceiling, and then sat down again.

“Then who do you
think
it will be? Your dreams match mine. I’m certain if I marry, disaster will
strike. We both know I’m the most likely candidate in your scenario.”

Clay reached over
and put his arm around her. “You’re not going to die, Stacia, and neither am I.”

“How do you know
that? How can you be sure?”

“Because I have
faith in our destiny together. We’ve had enough bad things happen in our lives
in a short period of time. We’re due for many years of happiness.”

“I’d like to
believe you, but I can’t. Josie told me I lacked faith, and perhaps I do, but
when you know something, you just know it.” Stacia remained very still, her
hands folded in her lap. She didn’t know how to express her feelings. They were
jumping all around inside her. She couldn’t tell how she even felt. Frustrated,
she guessed. How could he think she wouldn’t be there for him? It astounded
her.
She looked up at Clay. “I don’t understand how you could cut me out
of your life that fast. One day you claim to love me, and the next you don’t
want me around you. Am I just someone who turns you on fast and off the same
way?”

Clay held out his
hands in a defense mechanism. “Stop, Stacia. How can
you
even ask me a
question like that?” He shook his head back and forth in a state of total
disbelief. “You know that’s as far from the truth as anything can be.”

She looked down
and fiddled with her fingers, clenching them together and unclenching them before
she could answer. “I know.” And she did. “I’m sorry.” And she was deeply sorry.
“But we went through the stalking together, and I was afraid I was going to die
any minute then, and we both believed that was a possibility.”

“That was
different. I felt in control like I could help prevent it from happening. It’s
not like thinking a dream, or nightmare, might come true. There’s nothing you
can do about that except believe it or don’t believe it. If you do believe it,
you live in fear, which is what happened to me. And when things got to the
point that I couldn’t take it anymore, I remembered what Josie had told me the
night I met her. She said to learn what’s inside me, I should learn to meditate.
I figured this dream was going on inside me, so if I meditated, maybe I’d discover
what it was all about.” He took a deep breath.

“And…?”

“And my love for you
had everything to do with this. I felt like a drowning man with nothing to hang
onto except
water
. No one could save me. I had to save myself, and somewhere
in my deep depression, I did. Or rather Sedona did.”

“Sedona?” Stacia
laughed. “Don’t tell me you learned to meditate?”

“Why do you think
that’s funny?”

He didn’t seem to
see the humor in that thought. “I think it’s strange we were both doing the
same thing at the same time but not together.”