Waking up in Vegas

Chapter Six



The sound of footsteps in the café startled Phoenix and she nearly dropped the wine glasses she’d been unpacking from the dishwasher.

“Who’s there?” she called, turning to face the intruder. A man leaned in the darkened doorway, and for a second, her heart jumped. Then reason kicked in. She must be imagining things. Clearly a long day on her feet had taken its toll. She set down the glasses and rubbed her eyes.

“Phoenix?”

There was no denying the voice, though. Her hands started to shake.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

For a mad moment, she wondered how he’d managed to track her down. But of course he hadn’t. This was a coincidence and nothing more.

Destiny, a small voice whispered. She shook her head. She didn’t believe in destiny. She believed in making her own destiny.

“Cleaning up.”

He leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his arms over that broad chest. “I meant what are you doing in Waldburg?”

She steadied her voice. “I heard there was going to be a coronation and thought it sounded like fun. What are you doing here?”

His smile was more mocking than amused. “I’m here for the coronation too.” He pushed away from the doorjamb. “I asked you to wait for me.”

“I didn’t think you’d come back.”

“I’m a man of my word and you didn’t even give me a chance to prove it. Exactly how long did you wait? Two hours, three?”

Even in this dim light she could see that the usual amusement was absent from his eyes. There was a new expression there, hard and cold. His shaggy hair was cut short and neat, and he looked more formidable than the surfer boy he’d appeared when they first met.

This wasn’t the careless, happy-go-lucky Max she’d met in Vegas. He was serious and intense, and there were worry lines in his forehead that hadn’t been there before.

How could he have changed so much in two months? Surely her leaving couldn’t have changed him that much? She cleared her throat. “Twelve.”

“Twelve hours.” He walked slowly closer and she backed against the counter top. There was nowhere else to go.

“I tried to call. Your phone was off.” Again. “And I wasn’t going to sit around waiting for you to deign to call.” At least not after the first eight excruciating hours of waiting.

“It might interest you to know that twelve hours after I left I was still in mid-air. Most airlines discourage the use of cell phones mid-flight.”

“And I tried to call the vineyard where you said you worked, only they said they’d never heard of you.”

His jaw tightened. “My grandfather’s very protective of me.”

“No kidding.” She crossed her arms over her chest. He had a cheek putting her on the defensive. Okay, so he had explanations for not taking her calls. And she had been hasty. Didn’t mean she had to cut him any slack. “Did you get your family business sorted?”

“More or less.”

More or less? What kind of an answer was that? He knew everything there was to know about her, for heaven’s sake. He’d insisted they were soul mates but he still wouldn’t give her straight answers. She set her hands on her hips. “What did you do with the divorce papers?”

He frowned. “What do you mean? I left them right where you did – on the dresser.”

“I mailed them to you at the vineyard and asked you to file them because I was going abroad.”

His expression changed, softened. “I haven’t been back to the vineyard. I came straight here from Vegas.”

That would explain the more than twelve hour flight. She rubbed her eyes again. Was this really happening or was this all a dream? If it was a dream, she wasn’t sure she wanted to wake up. Even if he was angry with her, he was here. And he hadn’t deserted her. He had tried to contact her. He’d planned to come back for her.

Maybe she shouldn’t have ditched her cell phone when she left the States.

No, she couldn’t think that way. She’d done them both a favour by taking off. They would have ended sooner or later anyway, and the abruptness of his departure had saved her from a fate worse than death.

Except he hadn’t filed the papers. She bit her lip. “So that means we’re still married.”

“It would appear so.” He smiled grimly.

She had no idea if he was pleased by the idea or not.

She shouldn’t be, but she was. She hadn’t known until this moment, when the joy surged through her, how much she’d missed him. It wasn’t only the chemistry she’d missed, though there was that too.

The chemistry was particularly hard to ignore right now, there was so much of it zipping around the neat little kitchen.

But of course it was stupid to hope. After her lack of trust in him and the way she’d run out on him so quickly, surely he wouldn’t still want to stay married to her?

“Well now that we’re both here, I suppose we could get divorced here in Westerwald?” she suggested tentatively.

“Not going to happen.” His eyes weren’t just hard. They were cold, blue steel. “Whether you like it or not, there is no way you and I are getting divorced. Not now and not in this country.”

He’d said there hadn’t been a divorce in his family in over three hundred years. A strange suspicion formed itself in her mind. “Is divorce illegal in Westerwald?”

He laughed, but it had a bitter sound. “You should read the newspapers sometime. Or are you that self-centred that you don’t give a damn about anything that happens in the world around you?”

Ouch. Well, she couldn’t say she hadn’t earned it. She lifted her chin. “Care to enlighten me?”

“I hoped by now you’d have remembered.”

There it was again. That black hole where her memories should have been.

Thanks to Google she now knew more than anyone needed to know about amnesia. She also knew that certain drugs, like the sedative she’d been prescribed, had amnesiac qualities. Nice of the doctor to fill her in on the potential side effects. Or maybe he had. In the wake of her father’s death she’d been too wrapped up in packing up their lives and sorting practicalities to pay much attention. Her father’s affairs had been a mess, which hadn’t come as much of a surprise.

But all the knowledge in the world didn’t mean a thing. She still had no memory of the day they met. Still couldn’t remember her own wedding. How sad was that?

Frustration boiled over. “Do you think I haven’t tried? I don’t remember! I even went to see a hypnotist in Paris. It didn’t work. I still have no idea what possessed me to marry you.”

He grinned and for a second she glimpsed the old Max she’d known and loved before the grim, hard exterior reasserted itself.

She shook her head. There was no point in hanging on to anger. She needed to move on. “So if we can’t get divorced, what do we do now?”

“Are you going to stick around a while this time?”

She met his gaze head on and unflinching. “That depends.”

He arched an eyebrow. “On what?”

On whether she could resist the temptation to be seduced by him all over again. Even this new, harder, meaner Max was making her pulse jump more erratically than a rock star on speed.

She sighed. “It’s late and I’m too tired for games. Tell me what you want from me.”

He stepped close, so close she had to look up to meet his gaze. He placed a hand on the counter top on either side of her, hemming her in. “I want the same things I always wanted.”

She sucked in a deep breath. His eyes flashed fire, but it was no longer anger that burned him up. Her body responded, with a yearning so strong she had absolutely no say in the matter. Seems when it came to Max, she never had any say in the matter. Her hormones led her all the way.

She lifted her face to his, ready when his mouth crushed down on hers, and met his hunger with a matching hunger of her own.

She’d craved this for so long. He tasted as good as she remembered, and his touch was still as compelling. He lifted her up onto the counter, and she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him as close as two bodies could get fully clothed.

He slid his hands into her hair, angling her head. His tongue penetrated deeper, and she moaned. She’d never wanted anything in her life as much as she wanted this man. Craved him, like a junkie craved drugs.

Her body throbbed with unmet desire. She grew wet in the juncture of her thighs. Her hands moved beneath the soft fabric of his t-shirt, sliding over skin stretched taut over hard muscle, her nails raking his skin.

Max broke their kiss and gently pulled away. His eyes were clear again, the hardness almost gone. He held her gaze for a long moment, and then brushed his thumb over her bruised lips.

“It seems you want the same thing I do.”

She cast a glance around the compact, clinical kitchen. She still hadn’t finished emptying the dishwasher or made the fresh lemonade for tomorrow. To hell with it. She’d worry about it in the morning. “Your place or mine?”

Max scooped Phoenix off the counter and set her back on her feet. He couldn’t exactly take her back into the castle the way he’d come. Talk about a passion killer. And there was no way he was going to walk her in through the main gate at this hour, or her name would be all over the papers before breakfast.

But if she was booked into one of the town’s guest lodges or bed and breakfasts…also not an option.

He felt like a horny teenager all over again. The one difference was that the French academy where he’d studied had been a whole lot easier to break into unnoticed than a fortified medieval castle that had withstood many sieges. “Where are you staying?”

“In a little apartment that belongs to Rebekah’s husband. It’s built right into the town wall.”

Max knew the place. “Definitely your place.”

He waited in the kitchen while Phoenix locked the café’s front door, then he followed her out the back door into a narrow alley.

The massive stone walls of the town had once been the castle’s outermost line of defence, and the wide battlemented walkway above was still popular with the tourists. These days the town sprawled beyond the walls and down to the river, but within the encircling walls lay the oldest part of town, cobbled streets that remained relatively free of traffic, with tiny shops and offices below street level and narrow passages that ended in surprising courtyards.

Claus’s apartment lay at the end of one of those narrow passages. The courtyard was mercifully dark, lit only by the waxing moon. He climbed the rickety wooden staircase behind her, to the first floor apartment that was built right into the town wall.

The apartment was even smaller than her Vegas motel suite. A single room dominated by an enormous and sturdy-looking wooden bed – he grinned at that – an old-fashioned dresser, a kitchenette area separated from the rest of the room by a pale linen drape and a single door that he presumed led to a bathroom.

He closed the door behind them and for a moment they both stood, awkward and aware of the silence humming between them.

She pulled out her hair band and shook her shoulder-length hair loose. Beneath the bright electric light, he noticed that her hair was streaked with a subtle mix of red and blonde highlights, and it had grown out since he’d last seen her. With her shoulders thrown back, and the tight jeans and fitted tee, she looked more than ever like some young rock groupie. Streetwise, savvy, and yet somehow brittle beneath the attitude.

Phoenix cleared her throat. “Can I get you some coffee? Or wine?”

He closed the space between them, catching her in his arms. “The only thing I want is you.” He said it like a prayer.

Then he lowered his head and kissed her. It was a slow burn, a volcano building inside him. The kiss that started gentle grew wild and fevered. Her arms wrapped around his waist, clinging to him and the blood thundered in his veins.

He’d dreamed of kissing her like this every night for the last two months.

He slid his hands over the smooth, soft skin beneath her shirt, lifting it up. He broke the kiss only long enough to rip the shirt over her head. She wore a bra of scarlet lace, skimpy enough that he could appreciate her shoulders, which were more tanned than he remembered, with strappy bikini tan lines. Tan lines she’d gotten on some Spanish beach, while she’d been partying it up without him, no doubt.

A dark, feral emotion gripped him. She was his wife. And he intended to remind her of it in the best way possible.

He stepped her backwards, then onto her back on the bed and she gasped as he knelt over her, his erection pressing hard and insistent against her thigh. He stripped off his shirt, caught the sharp intake of breath she couldn’t hide and smiled.

He didn’t bother with niceties and he didn’t bother taking it slow. He peeled off her jeans and slid his fingers into the crotch of her matching lace panties. She writhed against him and he grinned when he saw she was as desperate for this as he was.

He moved the lace aside and bent his head down, intending to let her feel just a little of the torment she’d put him through these two months.

When her breath came in short gasps, her skin flushed all over, and she was within moments of finding her release, he withdrew. She cried out in frustration and struggled up on her elbows.

“Tell me you missed me,” he said.

“Of course I did.” Her eyes were wide and guileless.

“Tell me you were a fool to leave without waiting for me. You were a fool to doubt me.”

“I was a fool. Now get inside me.”

He grinned, victory tasting as honeyed in his mouth as she had. He stripped off his jeans and boxers and joined her on the bed. As he moved inside her, her tight, hot flesh encased him and he let go of the last of his anger and frustration in the sheer joy of coming home.

Her eyes fluttered open as he stroked a hand over her hair.

“Don’t let me sleep,” she mumbled.

“Why not? You said you were tired.”

“I’m afraid that if I wake, I’m going to find out this was all a dream. Or worse, that I’ll wake up with no memory of today.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We haven’t had a drop of champagne. And I’m not a dream. I’m here and everything’s going to be alright.”

She’d made him a believer. Any doubts he’d had about their destiny, about the possibility of Happy Ever Afters, was banished now she was back in his arms. He didn’t feel old or alone anymore. He felt like a man who could do anything and be anything.

“I need some coffee.” Phoenix slipped out of bed, with a flash of a smile for him. “Now can I get you anything?”

“Wine would be good.”

While she moved to the kitchenette to set the kettle on and open a bottle, he sat up against the heavy wooden headboard to watch her. She returned with a steaming mug and a glass of dark red wine for him. He breathed in the bouquet and took a sip. “Pinot noir. Local.”

“You can tell all that from one sip?”

He patted the bed beside him and Phoenix perched warily, like a deer poised to run. He suppressed a smile. She’d never been good with morning afters, but this one was a vast improvement over that first morning.

He glanced towards the window that overlooked the town and the river. The moon had started to set and dawn wouldn’t be far behind. He wouldn’t be able to stay much longer.

But he wasn’t yet ready to leave.

“Tell me what you’ve been doing since you arrived in Madrid.”

Her eyes widened. “How did you know I was in Madrid?”

Shit. He thought quickly. “I tried to find you. I called everyone who knew you. I spoke to your boss, your landlady, your friends.” Which was all true, though none of them would tell him a thing. Could tell him a thing, it had seemed.

She glowered. “Khara should have kept her mouth shut.”

He breathed a mental sigh of relief. Khara had some discretion, at least. Just as well, considering her brother had helped him procure the wedding license and might be able to put face and name together.

Phoenix looked down at the hands laced in her lap. “I’m sorry. I haven’t thanked you yet for the money.”

“If I’d known you were going to use it to run away from me, I wouldn’t have left it.” He reached out a hand and laid it over hers. “Was our marriage so bad that you couldn’t wait to get away?”

She looked up quickly, her dark eyes wide and luminous. “Of course not. You were…” She swallowed whatever she’d been about to say. “I was ready to settle down with you and become a farmer’s wife, for heaven’s sake. It was as if I saw my life flash before my eyes: the SUV, the 2.4 children, the dog, and the white picket fence. I should thank you for leaving. You saved me from my own stupidity. I came so close to giving up everything for you, even my dreams.”

“My pleasure.” His dry tone couldn’t have been more apparent. He hoped his pain was less so. She didn’t love him as much as he loved her. She hadn’t loved him enough to want to share her dreams with him.

She’d run away without giving him a chance, because she’d seen life with him as dull and stifling. How much worse would it be now, when she discovered that the life he could have offered her before, a life of ease in which they could have done anything they wanted, gone anywhere they wanted, was no longer possible? He was tied to Westerwald now. He had duties here, responsibilities. All those dull, stifling things she avoided.

He had no doubt she’d run again. What could he possibly do or say to change her mind? Whatever it was, he had to figure it out, and quickly.

“Tell me about Spain.” He leaned back against the headboard and took a gulp of wine. The taste was raw and a bit too young. He made a mental note to schedule a meeting with the cellar master.

Her face lit up. “It was beautiful. The cathedrals, the art, the music.”

He’d wanted to take her there himself, show her places he’d visited and loved, and explore new places with her. Instead, she’d done it alone. His jaw tightened. It cost him a great deal of effort to keep his voice light. “Have you been there all this time?”

“Oh no. From Spain I travelled through France, and spent a few weeks in Paris.” She relaxed as she talked. Unconsciously, she leaned against the headboard beside him. They sat and talked, just as they had in Vegas.

She told him of her adventures, of the things she’d seen, and they shared reminiscences of Paris. His glass slowly emptied.

She moved to re-fill it, but he stopped her. The government might be on hiatus but that didn’t mean he was. He had a day scheduled full of meetings and couldn’t afford a muddled head.

Phoenix sank back against the headboard beside him. “You’ve let me ramble on. Tell me what you’ve been up to. Have you been here in Westerwald all this time since you left?”

She still had no clue, but that couldn’t last forever. In a town infected with coronation fever it would be only a matter of time before she discovered the truth. But tonight he wanted to keep things as they’d been, pure and simple. Uncomplicated.

It was selfish, but he hadn’t had a day free of complications since he’d left Vegas, and he craved it now. And perhaps if he could remind her how much fun they’d had together…how right they were together.

“Remember I told you my brother Rik was destined to take over the family business? Well something happened, and he had to go away.” Max wasn’t even sure exactly where his brother was now. Rik had stopped taking his calls. “So I had to step in and take over.”

She frowned. “That’s not fair, is it? You had your own life.”

“We also had responsibilities, people who relied on us.” He shrugged. “I’ve made my peace with it.” He intertwined his fingers with hers. “There’s only one thing I haven’t made peace with and that was losing you.”

She swallowed, looking down at their hands. “I missed you too. I didn’t tell you that just to get laid.”

“Will you promise me you won’t disappear in the next twenty four hours?”

She nodded. “I think I can manage that.”

“There’s something we need to talk about. What time do you get off work tomorrow?”

“You mean today?” She grinned. “Same time, same place.”

“I’ll meet you back here at midnight, then.”

“You’re leaving?” The wary look was back in her eyes. He was learning to recognise it. He should have known she’d bolt the moment he left Vegas. For a full week she’d shied away from him, as if she’d been too scared to let him close.

The only time she hadn’t been on edge, as if about to make a run for it, had been the day they met. That relaxed, easy-going Phoenix had to be in there somewhere, under all those layers of skittish, hard-edged cynicism. Beneath the fear.

This time he wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to run. The last two months without her had been unbearable. He’d known loneliness before and it didn’t scare him, but living with her, though it had only been one week, had changed him. Living without her was a torture he didn’t intend to inflict on himself ever again.

And soon Phoenix would realise that too. Destiny had brought them together again – and who could deny destiny?

“I have an early meeting, but I’ll be back. Will you trust me this time?”

She grinned. “I’ll give it a try.”

He brushed a kiss over her lips, a cursory touch that was more promise than passion, and swung his legs off the bed. He had to hurry if he was going to get back in through the pantry window before the kitchen staff showed up for work.

He paused in the doorway. “Don’t go flashing that ring of yours around. It might get you into trouble.” He paused. “It might get us both into trouble.”

What the hell did that mean? It had almost sounded like a threat.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Phoenix rolled over and buried her face in the pillows. His scent lingered on the pillow and she breathed it in. Tonight had been better than any dream. And for the first time in as long as she could remember, sleep overcame her with no trouble at all.

The little café was doing a roaring business. Phoenix hustled between the tables, taking orders, chatting to the customers, ringing up bills, while Rebekah presided over the ice cream counter. In this summer heat wave the home-made, family-recipe ice cream was their biggest seller.

It was late by the time business finally slowed enough for them to put up their feet and tally up the day’s earnings.

“I don’t know when I last felt this tired.” Rebekah flipped the sign on the door (which said ‘closed’ in four different languages) and sat at one of the tables outside the café. The cool breeze outdoors came as a relief after the stifling heat of the café.

It was dark already and the town square was packed with people. A live band played at the pub across the square, eighties hits spilling out into the brightly lit square.

Phoenix set down two icy beers on the table and took a seat beside her. Rebekah sighed in satisfaction as she sipped her beer. “Coronations evidently make for good business. I’ve never seen the town this full, even for the annual music festival in September. Now all we need is for Maximilian to find his one true love and marry, and we’ll be able to beat the recession blues once and for all.”

What was with the people of this country? Did they all believe in fate and true love? Next, there’d be fairy godmothers and flying carpets. “Who’s Maximilian?”

“Our soon to be Arch Duke.” Rebekah eyed her over the rim of her beer bottle. “You’ve been smiling all day. What gives?”

“Can’t a girl just be happy?” Phoenix grinned. Rebekah was right, she couldn’t stop smiling.

“That’s not just happy. That’s an ‘I got laid last night’ look. So who’s the lucky guy and where did you meet?” Rebekah propped her feet up on an empty chair. “And where do you even get the energy to go out picking up guys with the hours I’ve been working you this week?”

Phoenix rocked back on her chair. “Actually I think he did the picking up. I don’t remember. We met in Vegas a few months ago… That night’s a bit of a blur.” To say the least.

“He’s American?” Rebekah sighed. “Isn’t that typical! You travel half way around the world to meet someone from back home.”

Phoenix wasn’t sure why she didn’t correct her. Perhaps because she wanted to keep Max to herself a little longer. Her dirty little secret.

“He’s only half American and he’s the real reason I’m here. I’d never heard of Westerwald until I met him.”

“Not surprising. Aside from wine and fairy tales, we’re not known for much. But there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.”

“Have you never wanted to see more of the world?”

Rebekah smiled. “I’ve travelled. We are right in the heart of Europe, after all. But why would I want to live anywhere else? This is home. It’s part of who I am.”

Phoenix had never been in one place long enough for it to become a part of her. She wondered how that would feel. Home. For her, home had never been a place, it had been people. Or rather a person, until her father died, casting her adrift.

Then she’d met Max. That week he’d lived in her little apartment, she’d lost that sense of rootlessness. Perhaps that was why she’d married him. A way to get over her grief.

She swigged from the bottle of beer, and screwed up her eyes as a memory forced its way up to the surface. “My…” What was he? She could hardly call him her husband, even though it was true. Lover might be more accurate, but she didn’t want Rebekah getting the wrong impression of her. She started again. “My boyfriend told me a tale I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.”

“Oh?”

“About a ruler who got divorced and caused such a scandal that he started a war.”

“That would have been Arch Duke Willem back in the late 1600s. He was beheaded right here in this town square.”

“The story’s real?”

“Of course. Aren’t all the best stories real? Every school child in Westerwald learns about the civil war. But the part of the story I always loved the most was how a beautiful sorceress cast a magic spell on the royal family when the war was over. From that time on every member of the family would be destined to find true love with the one they marry, and live happily ever after.”

It might as well be fairy godmothers and flying carpets. Phoenix rolled her eyes. “They didn’t seriously teach you that in school?”

Rebekah shrugged. “Maybe not, but it’s still fact. There hasn’t been a divorce in the royal family in over three hundred years.”

A chill shivered down Phoenix’s spine. Max was a common enough name. Probably as common here as Michael or Christopher were back home. And there must be more than one family in Westerwald that hadn’t had a divorce in centuries, because it couldn’t possibly be her Max.

Besides, Arch Dukes were old men, not gorgeous hunks. And Princes didn’t go around seducing waitresses. Even if they did, they sure as hell didn’t marry them.

She shivered again.

“Are you cold?”

Phoenix shook her head. The evening had turned into one of those gorgeous summer nights, with stars bright in the clear sky, and the air balmy. Not as sweltering hot as Vegas, or muggy like LA, but perfect. Westerwald really was a fairy tale kingdom.

“If you want, I’ll close up here tonight and you can go home to your husband.”

“No point going home early. There’s a reception dinner for the tourism council at the castle tonight that Max is hosting, so Claus is working late.”

Phoenix shook off that odd feeling. “You’re on a first name basis with the Arch Duke?”

“We were at school together as kids and I have a hard time thinking of him as anything but Max. Claus says he prefers it, anyway. Apparently he hates all the bowing and scraping.”

The chill down Phoenix’s spine escalated into an avalanche. “I don’t suppose you have a picture of him anywhere?” Her throat felt scratchy and choked.

“Sure, I must have.” Rebekah swung her feet to the ground and headed back into the cafe. She emerged only moments later with a French tabloid magazine in her hands, flicking through the pages.

Unable to breathe, Phoenix took the magazine from Rebekah’s outstretched hands. She let out the breath she’d been holding. “Wow!”

Rebekah grinned. “He’s quite a hunk, isn’t he?”

If you think he looks good here, you should see him naked.

To cover the shake that had started in her hands, she set the magazine down and sat on them. She needed time to think. Hell, what she needed was more alcohol.

“Since your husband and my…” soon to be dead husband “…boyfriend are busy until late, I think you and I should go out partying. After all, it’s a Friday night.”

The pub across the square seemed to be doing a pretty good trade. And the music spilling out into the square was loud enough and fast enough to drown out the sudden, clambering thoughts that she wasn’t yet ready to deal with.

Rebekah clapped her hands in delight. “Great idea. Let’s have some fun!”