‘As if you haven’t had me checked out already?’ She nodded her chin towards the tall man standing a few metres behind him. And the other beyond.
Yes, with wires in their ears and guns under their jackets, his plain-clothes security detail were as obvious as his fully uniformed soldiers standing guard at the palace.
‘I’m checking you out now,’ he murmured.
He couldn’t resist. He studied her far too intently for far too long.The faint mottling on her skin and the slight parting of her full lips gave her away but she defiantly held his gaze. This electricity? She felt it too.
‘So what have you learned?’ she asked.
That she was more beautiful than he’d have believed. That something in her attitude made him tense. Yet at the same time he felt an impossible urge to trust her. And he wanted to learn her secrets, her past, her future, what drew her laughter or tears. And her taste. The desire to discover her taste gnawed deep. None of which he could say.
But during his hesitation she paled and swallowed. Hard. His curiosity only deepened.
‘I’m not going to be in the country permanently,’ she suddenly said before he could answer. ‘Amalia heard me playing at the back of the café on my break. She asked me to show her my mandolin. I said yes before I knew who she was.’
So it was a mandolin? He nodded. But he found it most interesting that her priority was to inform him that she wasn’t sticking around. Was she a threat? One part of him most definitely thought so. ‘But you know who she is now.’
‘My boss told me the other day when he arrived early. Until then we’d been alone,’ she acknowledged. ‘We sit out the back early, when it’s quiet. She’s less visible. She has an officer with her, you know. In fact, she has three.’
‘I do. I also know she’s been visiting daily. That’s why I’m here now.’
Unmistakable resentment flared in her eyes. ‘Because her meeting with me is a problem?’
‘That’s what I’m here to decide.’ He drew a breath. Personal information wasn’t something he ever shared but this was different. ‘Amalia’s parents died in a train crash seven months ago. She was with them and was injured too. Badly.’
‘Yes. She told me.’
‘She did?’ As far as he was aware Amalia hadn’t spoken to anyone about the accident that had killed her mother and stepfather and left her with a limp that might be life-long. Certainly not him—their interactions had begun as stilted and degenerated into simply uncommunicative. So he’d engaged a tutor and a therapist. But Amalia hadn’t confided in either of those or any other palace staff. Elsie was the only person he’d seen her engage with much at all.
Elsie looked at him. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
Her voice had that edge he’d heard when she’d sung before—a fragment of the tune echoed in his head and made him think of grace and sanctuary. He tensed.
His loss.
Her acknowledgement was an unexpected balm on an old wound and an irritant to it at the same time. He pushed the sympathy away. Carlos might have been his father, but Felipe hadn’t seen him in more than a decade. He’d chosen to leave and Felipe had chosen not to think of him. Because Carlos had run away with his lover and her daughter to Canada and they’d never returned to Silvabon. While Felipe’s mother—shamed and blamed by his grandfather, King Javier, for the marriage breakdown—had also left the palace, emotionally broken.
Felipe had become heir to the throne and recipient of his grandfather’s deep focus and iron-fisted instruction. Now Amalia was as alone in the palace as he’d once been and he didn’t want her to suffer the—
Felipe mentally counted to ten, slowly, deliberately, pushing all that back. But he regarded Elsie Wynter as he did. Because he couldn’t turn away.
She’d paused; the emotion in her clear eyes was now concern. But there was more than that empathy. There was an echo of grief that he recognised. She’d lost someone too. He wondered who and when and how and again that desire to know her almost consumed him. This sudden fascination? Not normal for him. Not okay.
Yet she was still, exuding a quiet serenity that encouraged confidences. He lowered his gaze to avoid the startling clarity of hers but got caught by her mouth. It was slightly wide and her lips were pillowy and he suddenly thought of mussed-up sheets and husky laughter. It was a thought so out of place that he flinched.
Felipe never flinched. Ever.That was when he knew Ortiz was right. She was a security risk. To his peace of mind. To his mastery over his own body. And he had to leave.
‘She wants to keep learning the mandolin,’ Elsie said softly, slaying his intention to go in a millisecond. ‘She’s extremely musical. But I’m sure you know that already.’
Actually he didn’t. He’d had no idea she was even interested. When he’d first met Amalia, having flown her privately from Canada a few days after the accident, she’d been in hospital. She’d missed the rest of the school year recovering. This summer she was catching up on her studies with a private tutor and still working on her physical strength.
‘You could get a music teacher to come to the palace if you don’t want her out here,’ Elsie suggested.
‘Why can’t you come?’ he said before thinking.
The ‘thinking’ took only another millisecond anyway. Amalia needed distraction. She’d chosen Elsie, chosen this interest. Music was fine—wholesome even. If they were in the palace grounds then his overzealous security team could relax. And besides—
Elsie’s lips parted, colour stained her cheeks, and the look in her eyes?