Something in the Heir (It's Reigning Men, #1) (21 page)

“Have a great life, Adrian,” Emma whispered, fighting the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.

Adrian dabbed at her eyes with his sleeve.

“We’ll be in touch, soon.”

“No, really,” she said. “It’ll only make it harder for me. Best to just let it go. Or if you feel strongly about staying in touch, you can always keep me on your Christmas card list.”

Serena came around the corner and called to Adrian. “They’re waiting for us. We need to go.”

As they walked toward the waiting car, Adrian leaned in and gave Emma one last kiss, leaving their audience — not the least of which was her parents — to wonder what was up with the two of them.

Emma cupped her hand and waved a tiny goodbye as the snow began to fall more heavily. As soon as Adrian got in the car, she ran back into the house and took to her room for the rest of the day.

~*~

“K
nock knock!” Caroline walked into her friend’s bedroom as dusk was settling in. December could be so bleak, getting dark as early as it did.

“Thought I’d give you a little time to pout in peace before I came to pull you out of your purple funk,” she said, plunking herself down next to Emma, who was lying on her stomach, face down in her pillow. “Although with this room I should call it a pink funk. Let’s go, girl. Up and at ‘em!” She tugged to no avail on her friend’s arm, only hearing a low grunt in response.

She then reached down and tucked a hank of Emma’s hair behind her ear. “Hey. Psst. You there?”

“No one’s home. Go away.” Emma’s muffled voice could barely be heard through the pillow.

“C’mon, Ems,” her friend said. “Talk to me.”

“Don't wanna talk. Wanna sulk.”

“You’re doing a fine job of that I can see.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Your mom is making spaghetti for you,” she said with a little sing-song to her voice. “She knows how to lure you out: woo your stomach.”

“Not hungry.”

“Geez, for someone who wasn’t going to fall for any man, particularly one so decidedly unavailable, you sure did a good job of not holding up your end of that bargain to yourself.”

Emma rolled over. “Urgh! I didn’t fall for him!”

“Oh, really? So that’s why you’re sprawled out like a cadaver on your bed all day, unwilling to speak to anyone and acting like a lovelorn tween? If you didn’t fall for the guy, you sure as hell at least tripped a bit.”

“Oh, hush up,” she grumbled. “I’m not a lovelorn anything and I haven’t tripped or stumbled or anything of the sort. I think I’ve just got a touch of allergies.”

Caroline smiled. “It’s December, you nut! What are you allergic to, Christmastime?”

“All right. Fine,” Emma said. “Maybe I’m just a little sad.”

Caroline sat up taller on the bed. “Good! We’re making progress! Acknowledging your feelings is the first step. Now tell me what makes you sad.”

“Winter.”

Caroline nodded her head. “Yup. Winter can be sort of gloomy. But it’s Christmas! We’ve got a bunch of parties you’re going to shoot coming up, so that should be fun.”

Emma sighed. “I’m so bored with that stuff. So we get to go to some stodgy old doyenne of society’s sprawling mansion for a fancy schmancy party with a bunch of old codgers we don’t know who try to pinch your butt because they think they’re still frat boys. Big deal.”

“But they pay really good!”

“I guess that’s not such a bad thing, considering I’ve got a mortgage to meet. And since that’s about all I’ll ever meet at this point, I’m guaranteed be alone for the rest of my life anyhow. Alone with my bills.” She started crying and Caroline tried to get her to stop bawling and talk but instead Emma just choked and gasped in between tears.

“Do you suppose I should bring your mother in here to help you? Would that make you feel better?”

“Noooooo,” Emma cried. “She’s not that kind of mother. She’s more like a better wife than comforting mom. Which doesn’t mean she’s a bad mother, but she’s not the mother who comes in and helps when I’m crying.”

“So I should leave her to her spaghetti sauce then?”

“Definitely,” Emma said as she nodded her head and wiped her tears. “And I’ll just wallow a little longer if it’s all the same to you.”

“Hey,” Caroline said, grabbing Emma’s chin with her pointer finger and looking her right in the eyes. “You know things will work out, right?”

Emma nodded slowly. “Yeah. Maybe not how I’d choose in my alternate universe. But whatever will be will be.”

“Precisely.”

“Besides, he was never mine, anyhow.”

“It’s no secret that he liked you, you know,” her friend said. ‘But his life is complicated. He’s not like normal people, who can just pick and choose who they are with.”

“But he acted so darned normal
,
I could almost forget he wasn’t!” Emma said. “That’s the problem. If he was some hoity-toity, snooty royal thingamabob, then it would be easy to just ignore it. But he was just like you and me, only famous.”

“And richer than God.”

“But sweet.”

“With an amazing wardrobe, I bet.”

“But I liked his surfer clothes.”

“He must have too,” Caroline said. “After all, he took them home with him. And I can’t think he’ll have much use for board shorts in Monaforte.”

“Except when he summers on the Mediterranean,” Emma said, tears threatening to resume.

“Where he’ll have no choice but to remember that wonderful vacation he had with none other than Emma Davison.”

“Lucky me.”

“Exactly right, young lady,” she said. “You’re incredibly lucky! So a dumb boy left you. Big deal. You are your own boss, lady. You’re queen of your world! You don’t need a useless prince!”

“But what if I want a useless prince?”

“I’ll buy you his latest CD.” She poked her friend in the ribs. “Now c’mon. There’s a pot of spaghetti with your name on it. And I’m hungry.”

A
drian
and Serena raced into the palace in search of Queen Ariana, and found his brother Zander kicking a soccer ball around the Great Hall.

“Dude,” he said, nodding hello to Serena while holding up his hands in surrender. “Don’t blame me. Blame that mother of yours.”

Adrian looked confused. “What do you mean ‘that mother of yours’? She’s yours too.”

“Yeah, well, once you see her you’re probably going to disown her like I did after she made me lie to you.”

Adrian blanched. “What do you mean?”

“Sorry, Ade,” he said. “But she forced my hand. She’s so ticked at me still about that whole Vegas thing. She’s holding it over me like the Sword of Damocles.”

“So she made you lie to me to get me to come home?”

Zander shrugged. “They don’t call her the queen for nothing.”

“Queen indeed,” Adrian said, finally piecing the puzzle together. “Somehow she’s confused her imperial entitlements with some mistaken belief she has carte blanche to mess with our lives. Excuse me, I need to find the great manipulator and set her straight once and for all.”

He scaled the grand spiral staircase two steps at a time with Serena on his heels, and followed the Corridor of Elders down to her dressing room, where he found Lady Sarah placing one of the queen’s many bejeweled crowns atop her well-coiffed head.

“Mother?” Adrian scowled and crossed his arms. “Near death, I see?”

“Adrian!” His mother stood up and reached out to give her son a two-cheek kiss. “And finally we see the whites of your missing-in-action eyes.”

“What the hell are you all about?” He glared as he snapped at her. “I was summoned home immediately because you were in such poor health, and here you are glowing in Gucci and ready to please your masses?”

His mother fanned her face. “Yes, well, I was feeling a bit off, but I seem to have gotten over it. Sarah, is my driver ready?” she said, trying to give herself a quick escape plan.

But Adrian would have none of her toying with him and grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to him. “And this was more of your stupid game to get me to marry Serena? Because you truly believe she’s so desperate to marry into the Firm? Well I’ve got news for you, Mother. She wants no more to do with me than I with her! Your plan backfired from both ends.”

“Of course she wants to marry you, dear,” his mother said. “You two have been fated to be betrothed since childhood.”

Adrian rolled his eyes. “In your fantasy world, perhaps. But if you don’t believe me, ask her yourself.”

Serena appeared from around a large mother of pearl and mahogany screen.

“Serena, dear,” his mother said. “So lovely to see you two together.”

Serena glanced over at Adrian while her mother made herself look busy tidying up the queen’s make-up in order to avoid the fallout of what she knew was about to be revealed.

“Yes, your majesty,” Serena said, curtsying.

“Adrian is speaking some nonsense but I’m sure you can clear all of that up.”

“Well, to be honest,” she said, her voice trembling a bit. “The thing is, you see, I’ve become engaged to someone else.”

“Engaged?” Ariana said. “Why, that’s impossible, dear. Your mother and I had this all planned out.”

“I’m afraid you forgot to clear your plan with the two principals, Mother,” Adrian interjected. “It does you no good to orchestrate this mad scheme of yours when your unwitting victims had other things in mind.”

Ariana stood, arms crossed, glancing back and forth between Adrian and Serena.

“Why in the world would you become engaged to someone else?”

Serena, furrowing her brows, looked a bit confused by the question. “Because I’m in love with him, your majesty.”

“Love? What’s love got to do with it?” Her voice rose a notch or two in ire.

“It has everything to do with it,
Mother dear
.”

“Marriage is so much more than love. Why, look at your father and me—”

“Indeed,” said a deep voice from nearby. “Look at your mother and me.”

Crown Prince Enrico turned the corner to stand before his wife, shaking his head. “Lest you forget, my dearest Ariana, we, too, married for love.”

“Yes but—”

“No yes buts, love,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “At the end of the day, we married for love. Which is how it should be, and will be for these two as well.” He spread his arms out, motioning toward Adrian and Serena. “I only wish I’d gotten wind of your harebrained scheme before it went this far, Ariana. I know you meant well, but really, darling.”

His wife wrinkled her forehead and pouted. “It wasn’t harebrained in the least! These two were made for each other!”

Adrian and Serena looked at each other and began to laugh.

“Begging your pardon, your highness,” Serena said. “But Adrian is just about the last person I’d want to marry.”

Adrian lifted one eyebrow as he lowered the other. “I’m that bad, am I?”

“Heavens, no! I didn’t mean that to be rude,” she said. “It’s not you at all. But I’ve no interest in living your kind of lifestyle, always being under a microscope. I value my privacy too much.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Have we convinced you, mother?”

“I was only after your best interest, Adrian,” she said, sighing. “I wanted to be sure you ended up with someone who valued our way of life and who is steeped in our traditions, someone willing to carry the torch.”

“Adrian’s choice for a partner is his and his alone,” Enrico said. “Even if he selects someone you don’t like, Ariana, it’s his decision and you must live with it.”

He reached out and grabbed her hand in his. “But I have a feeling that he’ll select someone we both adore. He is our son, after all.”

Adrian only wished that his father’s all-encompassing acceptance would extend to someone beyond the borders of their humble state, but he suspected a crazy American photographer didn’t exactly qualify.

“I
f
I have to photograph one more bejeweled political patroness yukking it up on Santa’s lap I’m going to slug somebody,” Emma groused to Caroline.

“Seriously, did you see that old gal, the one whose face was so Botoxed she could barely open her mouth, let alone smile?”

“Yes! The one who looked like she was trapped in a wind tunnel, her face was so stretched back from all the surgical lifting?” Emma said. “Just because you’ve got gobs of money doesn’t mean you have good sense. Does she really think she looks better trying to pretend she’s an ingénue when she’s a matron? Whatever happened to aging gracefully?”

“Meanwhile if they’re so hot on Santa, they should realize he’s old! He doesn’t want some young thing!” Caroline said.

“I beg to differ with you. Did you see him pawing at that twenty-something woman in the really tight, really short red spandex cocktail dress with the Mrs. Claus fur trim on it? I’m not sure who was more trashed, Santa or her.”

Caroline pointed a thumb toward the door in the far corner of the hotel ballroom. “Looks like a match made in heaven,” she said as the not-so-saintly Saint Nick slipped out the back door with the young woman. ‘Maybe Santa wasn’t as old as we thought?”

“Ugh,” Emma said. “I’m kind of tiring of seeing everyone, even Santa Claus, finding their mate.”

“I hear ya, girl. But if you’d lower your standards like me, maybe you’d find someone.”

“But I did find someone,” she said. “And I didn’t even have to reduce my principles to do so.”

“Shame he was unattainable.” Caroline frowned. “But that friend of his. He was pretty hot.” She shook her hand like she’d just burned her fingers.

Emma just stared at her, somber. “Have you met a man who you wouldn’t consider hot, under the right circumstances?”

Caroline thought for a minute, scratching her chin in contemplation. “Yeah, that dude in the Santa suit. Not for one minute did I consider a holiday hook-up with him. But then again I hate white beards.”

Emma smacked her in the ribs. “You are such a weirdo. Come on, let’s get out of here. We can go have a drink somewhere. Preferably somewhere not so seasonably cheerful. I’ve got nothing to celebrate, thanks.”

“Awwww, cheer up, grasshopper,” her friend said. “Things will get better. Besides, I thought you didn’t fall for Adrian.”