The Playboy Prince (3 page)

She hadn’t resisted when he’d poured them both wine from a very expensive bottle, even though it was only a little past noon. She didn’t suppress the telltale flutter of her heart when Philippe leaned back in his chair, his eyes glinting ice-blue, and said, “So tell me about yourself, Ella.”

She took a sip of wine; it was rich and velvety. “There’s not much to tell.”

“There’s always something.”

“What do you want to know?” she asked, hearing a flirtatious, provocative note in her voice. From the silver flare in Philippe’s eyes, she knew he’d heard it, too.

“Where did you grow up?”

“Connecticut.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Boyfriend?”

She hesitated only a second, her heart starting to beat hard. “No.”

Philippe smiled faintly and took a sip of wine. “Why did you only complete one year of university?”

She nearly choked, surprised by the sudden switch in the direction of his questioning. “My mother got sick,” she said after a moment. “And my dad wasn’t around. So I left school to take care of her.”

She saw the shadows gather in Philippe’s eyes, the downturn of his mouth, and she knew he sympathized. In different ways they’d both obeyed the call of duty, and paid its price. “I’m sorry,” he said. She just nodded, her throat tight.

“What about you, Prince Philippe? Why didn’t you ever want to be king?”

He shrugged. “I suppose because I never thought I would be.”

“What were you going to do instead?”

“Teach history at the Sorbonne.” For a second she thought he was joking, but then his mouth twisted wryly and he said, “Surprised you again, I see.”

“You did,” she admitted. “You’re an academic?”

He shrugged, the movement drawing her gaze to his powerful shoulders. “Not anymore.”

“Do you regret it?”

He didn’t answer for a long moment, just swilled the wine around in his glass. “I see no purpose to regret,” he said finally. “Life is what it is.”

“Yes, but—”

“Come.” He threw his napkin on the table, a smile playing about his mouth. “Are you finished? Because I have always wanted to go skating at Rockefeller Plaza.”

“Skating—”

“Do you skate?”

“A little—”

He held out his hand and she took it, his fingers closing around hers. “Then let’s go. It’s time for part two of our date.”

She felt a jolt reverberate right through her. “This isn’t a date!”

Philippe’s smile turned positively wolfish as he drew her from the table. “Oh yes, it is.”

Chapter Ten

It was a date. How could Ella deny it, when Philippe held her hand as they walked toward Rockefeller Plaza, when he’d poured her wine at lunch and asked if she’d had a boyfriend? Of course it was a date. A wonderful date, a date that had her heart beating hard and her mouth drying and nameless hopes welling up inside her. And yet…

It wasn’t going to go anywhere. It was just one day. One date. And by this time tomorrow Chase would have returned and Philippe would be all about business, and then she’d never, ever see him again.

Which was good, she told herself quickly, because no matter how charming Philippe was now, the tabloids didn’t lie that much. The photos she’d seen were real. He was still a playboy with a woman on each arm, frequenting the casinos and clubs of Europe’s most glamorous cities. Not the kind of guy she should ever fall for. Not to mention the whole royalty thing, which put him right out of her league anyway.

“Why are you frowning so much?” Philippe asked. She heard laughter in his voice as she turned to him, and she frowned all the more.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” He touched his thumb to the middle of her forehead. “And you have a little indent there. A worry mark.”

“I was just thinking,” she said, and he shook his head.

“You’d better stop. Thinking is dangerous.”

“Says the academic.”

“Dangerous at least for today. Let’s just enjoy ourselves, Ella.”

She nodded slowly, realized he was setting down the rules. Today was about enjoyment, pleasure, fun. Of course he didn’t want anything else from her. So why should she worry about tomorrow? “Okay,” she said, and he squeezed her hand.

A few minutes later they were both on the ice. Ella hadn’t been ice-skating in years, maybe even decades, so she was wobbly until Philippe slid his arm around her waist. She felt the warm strength of him against her, and with the support of his arm she matched his long, easy glides.

“You skate like you’ve been doing this forever,” she said. Philippe grinned.

“Remember that mountain home I grew up in?”

“Yes—”

“It had a lake.”

“Ah.”

“You’re not bad yourself, though,” he said, and before she could respond he’d spun her in a neat circle, and she let out a little scream.

“Philippe—”

“I think that may have been the first time you’ve willingly said my Christian name.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” she confessed.

He laughed softly, drawing her to him so she had to tilt back her head to look up at his smiling face. “Now you’re getting the idea.”

“Is thinking really so bad?” she asked, and heard how breathless she sounded.

“Sometimes.”

“Like when?” Her lips parted as she waited for his answer, and his eyes darkened to a stormy gray. He reached up and touched her chin with his finger, angling her head below his.

“Like now,” he said, and kissed her.

Chapter Eleven

His lips were warm and soft on hers. Ella opened her mouth as he deepened the kiss, his arms coming around her as his tongue slid into her mouth. She trembled, not from cold, but from the overwhelming desire that washed over her in a tidal wave of sensation.
Too much
. She pulled away and Philippe smiled down at her.

“We shouldn’t—”

“Why shouldn’t we?” he asked, sounding amused. Ella just shook her head, her brain on overload.

What was she doing? Forget the whole one-day, one-date thing, because that wasn’t what she did. Who she was. Especially not with a man like Philippe. She pulled away and started skating toward the exit. He caught up with her easily, taking her arm as he drew her to the side.

“Let go of me—”

“Ella, what’s wrong?” She shook her head again, and Philippe frowned. “It was just a kiss.”

“Exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not— I don’t—” She felt ridiculously prudish, yet she couldn’t help who she was. Couldn’t keep herself from knowing that a fling—or even a kiss—with a prince was not in her nature.

Gently Philippe put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “You don’t what?”

“I don’t do the not-thinking thing,” she blurted. “I can’t switch my brain off and just have fun with you, accepting that’s all it is. I’m sorry, because you’re charming and handsome and I have had fun, but I think it’s time we called this all to a halt.”

Philippe gazed down at her seriously and Ella stared back, feeling ridiculous yet determined.

“You’re lovely when you’re all worked up,” he said, and she pulled away from him.

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I’m serious, Philippe—”

“So am I. I’ve enjoyed today more than any day in recent memory—”

“Even more than the all-night beach party in Cannes?” she snapped, hating that she was going there yet needing to at the same time.

Philippe’s expression froze. “I thought we were going to leave the tabloids and gossip magazines out of this.”

“That’s kind of hard when you’re in them so often.”

“And you believe everything you read?”

She lifted her chin. “Are you telling me those stories aren’t true, Philippe, at least in part?”

He hesitated, and she saw the answer in his eyes. “They are true,” he said heavily, “in part. But that doesn’t mean I want them to be.”

“Oh, poor little prince who has to go party all night long,” she mocked, angry with him as well as with herself for getting drawn in to this ridiculous argument.

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right. And I don’t want to.”

She shouldn’t care what he did, who he was. But it was already too late; she cared far too much. All those years of guarding her heart and living for work, and then this happened in the space of a single day.

She turned away and headed once more to the exit. “This date is over.”

Chapter Twelve

Philippe watched Ella skate rather erratically over to the exit and then stomp toward a bench to remove her skates. She looked utterly furious…and yet also forlorn. They’d been having such a lovely time. How had it come to this end, and so quickly?

He watched her fumble with the laces, her fingers obviously frozen, and with a kind of exasperated sympathy, he made his way over and sat down next to her. “Let me help you.”

“I don’t need—”

“Ella.”

She shrugged and stretched one foot out, her face set in stubborn lines. Philippe worked at the knot, feeling tension thrumming through Ella’s body. And he knew with a sudden, sharp insight that this wasn’t just about today, or about him. Their one day. One date. “Ella,” he said as he slipped the skate from her foot, “who hurt you?”

She glanced up at him, eyes wide with both shock and alarm. “What?”

“Someone hurt you, didn’t they? A man. A man, I suspect, a bit like me, at least on the outside.”

She shook her head slowly, her eyes still wide, and he just waited. Finally she whispered, “How did you know?”

“Because your reaction was, I have to say, just a little over the top. There’s more going on here than just our one date.” He undid the laces of her other skate and slipped it off. “So tell me.”

She looked down, her hair slipping from its chignon and falling in front of her face. But he could still see the smooth roundness of her cheek, her skin flushed petal-pink with cold.

“It’s not a very interesting story,” she said quietly, and his heart gave a little lurch.

“It’s interesting to me.”

“Classic boy-dumps-girl story, I’m afraid,” she said, trying to sound light and failing miserably. “It’s been told a thousand times before—”

“Not to me.”

Sighing, she looked up, a tiny smile curving her lush mouth. “You are very persistent.”

“And you’re freezing. Let me buy you a hot chocolate and you can give me all the details.” He took her by the hand, gratified when she didn’t resist. Yet as he led her toward the café by the side of the rink, he wondered why he was making such an effort with this woman. Why he cared so much.

He’d started today understanding it could only be that: one day. He was a prince, about to be king, and he had royal duties. A life elsewhere. There couldn’t be more between them, and he’d known from the moment he’d met Ella Jamison that she was not someone to be toyed or trifled with, not like the other women he’d dated. So why was he still here?

Because he wanted to be. Because Ella Jamison was so different from any other woman he’d ever met, and he wasn’t ready to let her go yet.

Even if, all too soon, he would have to do just that.

Chapter Thirteen

Ella cupped her hands around her mug of hot chocolate and wondered where to begin her story. She couldn’t believe she was telling Philippe any of it, and even more amazing, that she wanted to. She didn’t talk about her disastrous relationship—if she could even call it that—with Charles to anyone. She’d bottled it up and poured herself into work, into proving herself in a different—and far safer—arena.

Yet now she wanted to let it out. To him.

“We met here in the city,” she began haltingly. “I was working as a PA for one of the larger architectural firms. Chase Bryant was, too—he took me with him when he started his own company.” And rescued her from the humiliation of being publicly jilted and the endless heartache she’d wallowed in. “His name was Charles, and he was one of the up-and-coming architects. Charming, a tad flashy—”

“And you think I’m like him?” He sounded bemused and just a little insulted. Ella cracked a smile.

“Well, you’re very flashy. In any case, he swept me right off my feet.” And onto her back, although she wasn’t about to tell Philippe that. “We dated for two years. Everything seemed great at first—and then it began to change.
He
changed. With me, he was so fun and charming…” She shook her head in memory. “But with other people he was someone else entirely. Hard and ambitious. And disapproving of me. Almost as if he didn’t like me.” She swallowed, her gaze sweeping downward. “Then he started to try to make me into a different person, into someone more like him. He’d tell me what to wear, what to read, even what to think.”

“He sounds like an ass.”

“Well.” Her smile wobbled as she glanced back up at him. “I suppose he was, and I was wrong to go along with it. I was just so star-struck, so determined to keep him.” She swallowed hard. “So I changed. I was desperate to change for him.” She shook her head, the memories souring inside her. “I never want to do that again.”

“I wouldn’t want you to.”

“Anyway.” She let out a sigh and took a sip of hot chocolate. “It all ended rather abruptly. I learned he’d been cheating on me the whole time with a variety of secretaries and temps. Even then I might have forgiven him—that’s how low my self-esteem was at that point—but he dumped me first.” If she was trying to sound wry and not hurt, Ella knew she’d failed. “He claimed I wasn’t right for his image. He ended up dating another architect, someone who was going places, since I obviously wasn’t.” With her one year of college and her broken dreams. She simply hadn’t been good enough for him.

“That must have hurt,” Philippe said quietly. He reached over and covered her hand with his own. Ella felt the warmth and strength of him, knew he understood about broken dreams. She never would have expected a man like Philippe to get it…but then she hadn’t really known what kind of man he was.

“It did hurt,” she said quietly. “But what hurt most is that I didn’t see through him. I wouldn’t. I wanted to believe in the fairy tale, so I just closed my eyes and ignored every warning sign.” She shook her head. “I will never be that stupid again.” In fact, she was never going to risk her heart again—and certainly not with Philippe. Not, she reminded herself, that he was even asking her to.