“Pancakes sound like heaven,” she admitted.
The rain hadn’t let up, so they made a run for it, holding hands and laughing like a pair of kids.
Sitting at a booth toward the back, Sean pushed away the newspaper that had been left on the table, the one that had Princess Carlyne Fortier’s face plastered across the front page.
They both blinked like owls in the garish, obnoxiously bright café, which was decorated in equally eye-squinting red vinyl and checked floors. But the scents coming from the kitchen had Sean’s mouth watering.
Until he caught a good close look at Carly for the first time since they’d left Sam’s party.
“I’m going to have bacon, too,” she said, scanning the menu, oblivious to his sudden stillness. “Tons of it. Crispy,” she added with a grin that slowly faded when she realized he was staring at her. “What?”
His heart had stopped, but now it started up again with a funny rhythm that hurt with each beat, so he was mildly surprised to find he sounded so normal. “Where are your glasses?”
Her hand went immediately to her face, which turned ashen beneath the dirt and makeup. “I don’t know.”
He stared at her because it wasn’t just the glasses, it was…
“I…must have lost them when we were changing the tire,” she said, her words picking up speed as she went. She scooted to the edge of the booth and started to get up, but he put a hand on her wrist to stop her.
“Your eyes.” He had to pause to take a deep breath. Something awful was happening as he stared at her, something so beyond his comprehension that his brain refused to put it together for him. “One is blue, like always. The other is…green. Carly, your eyes are different colors.”
She closed her eyes, and when she answered, her mouth trembled. “I didn’t realize I’d lost a contact, as well.”
“They’re really…green?”
Her eyes opened, but at the look on his face, she covered her mouth with a shaking hand and nodded. Belatedly, her other hand went to the top of her head.
“Too late,” he whispered hoarsely. “I can see the blond poking out from under the wig I didn’t know you wore.”
A funny sound escaped her, one that told him exactly how miserable she was, but since he felt worse, had to feel worse, he didn’t sympathize. “Why are you wearing a wig? And why do you need both glasses and contacts?” But he knew, God help him, he knew. He grabbed the newspaper, holding it up to compare the two faces, one so poised and elegant, one so grim and miserable. “You’ve purposely disguised yourself.”
“Sean-”
“Coffee, folks?” Their waitress appeared and smiled at them, oblivious to the tension humming between them. “Or would you like to order?”
Order? He wanted to throw up. He tossed the paper aside. “We need a minute,” he managed to respond.
“Of course.” The woman started to walk away but glanced at Carly.
Her double take might have been comical if this nightmare hadn’t been happening to Sean.
“Why, I don’t believe it! It’s you! You’ve been hiding out here on the west coast? Oh, I knew it!” She let out a happy little squeal. “I told Marge just this morning you weren’t any junkie in rehab. So…are you enjoying your stay?”
The clues had been there all along, of course. Her desperation for a job that supposedly had nothing to do with needing money. The way she always looked when she saw her reflection in a mirror-so utterly surprised.
And then of course, the whopper-her secrecy about her past.
“I’m an idiot,” he muttered.
The woman he’d just made wild love to, the one clenching the menu, with her wig falling off and her eyes mismatched, winced. “Could we have a moment, please?” she asked the waitress.
“Of course!” Grinning, she bent close to Sean. “I won’t tell a soul about your little romantic tryst,” she promised in a stage whisper. “Honest.”
When she was gone, he looked right into one green and one blue eye and said, “You’re looking like quite a different woman than I started out with tonight. Princess.”
She closed her eyes, both of them, and looked so miserable, so hurt and vulnerable that he hurt, too. But he didn’t want to hurt. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t ever hurt again. So he found his anger and let it override any sympathy he might have had. “Don’t tell me. You’re suffering amnesia. You’ve forgotten your real name.”
Her eyes flew open. “I never forgot anything.”
“Except to mention it to me.”
“Oh, Sean.” In spite of the multicolors, her eyes softened. “I wanted to tell you.”
“Please.”
“I did! I was going to tell you tonight, after the party.”
“Before or after I made you come half a dozen times in the sand?”
She looked at the table, a flush working its way up her face. “I didn’t know we were going to do that.”
He jabbed a finger toward the paper. “How I didn’t see it is beyond me. So what were you doing here? Was I your latest charity case? Screw a lonely architect? Make his week? What?”
“No!” She shook her head. “God, Sean, it wasn’t like that.”
From the counter, there came a clatter of a tray being dropped. The three waitresses in the café, one of them theirs, were all on the other side of the Formica counter, unabashedly eavesdropping.
So much for secrecy.
Sean stood and tossed a few bills on the table.
“Sean? Where are you going?”
If he hadn’t known she was a liar, he might have believed the note of total panic in her voice. “Home,” he said wearily.
“You’re just going to leave me here?”
Princess Carlyne, or what he knew of her anyway, was a strong, independent, very capable woman. Carly Fortune wasn’t so different. Look at what she’d managed to do to his life in only a few weeks. “I think you can manage,” he said.
“I want to go home with you.”
“No.”
“You have my things.”
Well, hell. “Fine.” Purposefully distancing himself, he stood back to let her go first. He didn’t touch the small of her back as they walked out of the café he’d never forget. He didn’t so much as smile when she looked at him over her shoulder. He did hold open the car door, but he did it politely, and he didn’t kiss her as she got into the car, though she was close enough, and just an hour ago he would have.
She tried to stop him, put a hand on his arm. He quivered at her touch and shrugged her off.
“Sean-”
“I don’t want to hear it, Carly. Or should I say Princess?” Disgusted with both of them, he shoved the door closed.
They drove home in utter silence. His life would never be the same, and the pathetic thing was, he had no one to blame but himself.
11
MRS. TRYKOWSKI greeted them with a smile that faded as soon as she saw Sean’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Thank you for tonight,” he said, ignoring her question. He pulled some money out of his pocket, but the older woman shook her head, refusing to take it.
“I don’t want money for watching your darling niece.” Slowly, she divided a glance between Sean and Carlyne, who wanted to die of mortification because she knew exactly how she looked.
Like a circus performer.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Trykowski said with a sigh. “The jig is up, huh, dear?”
Carlyne gaped at her. “You knew?”
“I have eyes in my head, don’t I?” Turning to Sean, she lifted a finger and wagged it in his face. “And if you search your heart, you’ll realize it doesn’t matter, Seany, my boy. She’s still a ten, and she’s still the one for you. So don’t you go doing something stupid now.”
“Wait. She’s the one who lied, and you’re getting mad at me?”
“You’re the male, aren’t you?” With a secret smile aimed at Carlyne, she left.