The Princess and the Player

She saluted saucily to cover the sharp spike of hurt that she never could seem to stop no matter how many times she told herself this was just how he was. “Yes, Father.”

Escaping to her room, Bella took a long shower but it didn’t ease the ache from the showdown with Rafael.

Why did she still care that her father never hugged her or told her he was proud of her? Not for the first time, she wondered if the frosty temperature in her father’s demeanor had caused her mother to leave. If so, Bella hardly blamed her. She hoped Adela had found happiness.

Happiness should be the most important factor in whom you married. The thought solidified Bella’s resolve. If her father wanted a match between the Montoros and the Rowlings, great. Bella would comply—as long as the Rowling was James.

She’d rather see where that led than try to force a match with the right brother.

Why shouldn’t she be allowed to be as happy as Rafe and Gabriel?

* * *

The loud, scornful whispering at the next table over started to annoy James about two bites into his paella. Couldn’t a bloke get something to eat without someone publicly crucifying him? This time, the subject of choice was his lack of a decision on whether to take a spot on Alma’s reserve team.

The two middle-aged men were in complete agreement: James should be happy to have any position, even though Alma wasn’t a UEFA team. He should take his lumps and serve his penance, and then it would be acceptable to play for a premiere club again, once he’d redeemed himself. Or so the men opined, and not very quietly.

The paella turned to sawdust in his mouth. He was glad someone knew what he needed to do next in his stalled career.

Playing for Alma was a fine choice. For a beginner. But James had been playing football since he was seven, the same year his father had uprooted his two sons from their Guildford home and moved them to the tiny, nowhere island of Alma. Football had filled a void in his life after the death of his mother. James loved the game. Being dropped from Real Madrid had stung, worse than he’d let on to anyone.

Of course, whom would he tell? He and Will rarely talked about anything of note, usually by James’s choice. Will was the perfect son who never messed up, while James spent as much effort as he possibly could on irritating his father. James and Will might be twins but the similarities ended there—and Will was a Manchester United fan from way back, so they couldn’t even talk football without almost coming to blows.

And Will had first dibs on the woman James hadn’t been able to forget. All without lifting a finger. Life just reeked sometimes.

Unable to eat even one more bite of the dish he’d found so tasty just minutes ago, James threw a few bills on the table and stalked out of the restaurant into the bright afternoon sun on the boardwalk at Playa Del Onda.

So much for hanging out at the beach where fewer people might recognize him. He might as well go back to Del Sol and let his father tell him again how much of a disappointment he was. Or he could swallow his bitterness and get started on finding another football club since none had come looking for him.

A flash of blond hair ahead of him caught his eye. Since Bella had been on his mind in one way or another since he’d met her the day before, it was no wonder he was imagining her around every corner.

He shouldn’t, though. She’d been reserved for the “right” Rowling, the one who could do no wrong. James’s black sheep status hadn’t improved much. Frankly, she deserved a shot at the successful brother, though he had no clue if Will was even on board with the match their father had apparently orchestrated. When Bella mentioned it yesterday, that was the first he’d heard of it. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t legit.

The woman in front of him glanced into a shop window and her profile confirmed it. It was Bella.

Something expanded in his chest and he forgot why he wasn’t supposed to think about her. Unable to help himself all of a sudden, James picked up his pace until he drew up alongside her. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Tilting her head down, she looked at him over the top of her sunglasses and murmured something reassuring to the burly security detail trailing her. They backed off immediately.

“James Rowling, I presume?” she said to him.

He laughed. “The one and only. Getting in some shopping?”

“Nope. Waiting around for you to stroll by. It’s about time. I was starting to think you’d ordered everything on El Gatito’s menu.” She nodded in the direction of the restaurant he’d just exited and leaned in to murmur, “I hope you skipped the cat.”

She’d been waiting for him? The notion tripped him up even more than her wholly American, wholly sexy perfume, for some odd reason.