The bellhop knocked lightly on the suite door. There was no sound from within.
Lindsay felt frozen with such excitement she thought she would throw up.
The bellhop knocked again. She heard approaching footsteps. Then, slowly, the door was pulled open. He stood there, dressed in dark slacks, white shirt, open at the neck, and he was smiling at her, and he was so beautiful she couldn’t see anyone else. There was a small St. Christopher medal on a gold chain around his neck. He motioned to the bellhop to place the bags just inside the door. He gave him a tip. He closed the door on him. She watched every move he made, listened to his fluent French, saw his charm, extended even to the bellhop, saw the man respond to his natural magnetism.
He turned to Lindsay and his smile widened. “You’re here,” he said. He held out his arms to her and she was quickly pressed against him, just the way she’d dreamed. She couldn’t believe it. He was holding her and he was glad to see her and his body was warm and inviting, molding to hers. He was touching her hair, her back, his breath was sweet and warm on her face.
He set her away from him then and looked her up and down, in silence, for a good two minutes. She stood very still and tall, for her grandmother had sworn that if she ever hunched her shoulders to try to minimize her glorious height, Gates would, quite simply, strangle her. Lindsay stood five-foot-ten… well, five-foot-ten and two-thirds, truth be told exactly.
“My God,” Alessandro said.
She smiled tentatively.
“You’ve become more than I had believed you would. In another two years you will be a very beautiful woman.”
She laughed, and poked his arm, just like a kid would, she thought, and wanted to curse herself out, but it was funny, this ridiculous sweet flattery of his.
“I was a dog two years ago,” she said a shade too loud because she was disconcerted. “I’m just not so gross now.”
“Nonsense,” he said, and hugged her to him again, kissing her cheek. “A pity that you had to grow up. But here you are, nearly as tall as I am.”
She resisted the urge to hunch forward.
“No, no, I’m not criticizing, cara. It pleases me. All little girls have to grow up. I like your height. With your sister I have to bend over, and I get a crick in my neck. Yes, a tall girl is very pleasing.”
“Where is Sydney?”
The prince looked away. He shrugged. “She isn’t here.”
Lindsay felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. Now she’d have to leave. It wasn’t fair. After all this time—it wasn’t fair. He wouldn’t want her here without Sydney. She wanted to cry. She wanted to kill her selfish sister. Damn her for doing this.
“She left for London this morning,” the prince said after a tense moment.
“But why didn’t she want to see me? She knew I would be here this afternoon. Why?”
“I’m sorry, Lindsay. She did want to see you. But she also wanted to get away from me more. Don’t take it personally. I will be honest with you. Sydney doesn’t much like me anymore, and that’s what makes her do hurtful things like this. You probably heard from your father that she is now working again. In a career! I am rich; I can take care of her, buy her everything she wants, but she claims she wants to be independent of me. I begged her not to, I pleaded with her to remain at the villa, to be my hostess, to become friendly with all the longtime associates of my family, to become pregnant again, but she refused. Ah, sweet Lindsay, I shouldn’t speak of these things. Please forget them. Believe me, I swear Sydney didn’t leave here because of you.”
He saw the blatant worship in her incredible eyes, the anger all funneled toward her sister, and he smiled wearily. “You’re a good girl, Lindsay. Come, let’s put your luggage in your room and then you and I can go exploring. This is Paris and there’s so much for me to show you. There’s no reason to cut your visit short, is there?”
She looked at him and smiled as she nodded happily.
Lindsay tried not to think about what he’d said. Sydney didn’t like him now? Why, for God’s sake? Did that mean they were getting a divorce? Her mind boggled at that thought. If so, then he would be free. That brought her up short. Jesus, she was only eighteen years old. The prince was thirty-one or two. He wouldn’t marry her. It was stupid. She was a kid to him, nothing more. She was his young sister-in-law, nothing more. She was nothing at all.
But if he and Sydney did divorce, then would she never see him again? The thought brought tears to her eyes.
“What’s the matter, cara? What is this, tears? You don’t like the escargots? Come, tell me what’s wrong.”
What could she say? Lindsay stared dumbly at him across the small table outside Les Deux Magots. The French were loud, she thought, as others’ conversations assaulted her ears. So many people, and they were all out on this beautiful mild April evening. He’d called her darling in Italian.
“Here, have some more wine.” She didn’t want any more. She’d rarely drunk wine in her life, and it was making her feel dizzy. She was afraid she’d throw up. She handed him her glass that was still half-full. He grinned and filled it to the rim.
“Drink it up, Lindsay.”
She did, knowing that it pleased him. She wanted to see him smile, to forget, even for a few moments, about Sydney and the hateful things she’d done to him.
“Tell me about school,” he said, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest and his legs at the ankles. “Do you and the other girls tell each other about your dates? Do you tell each other about how talented the boys are? Do you compare your boyfriends’ physical endowments?”
She shook her head.
“Come now, you do have boyfriends?”
“No. Maybe when I go to college. My friend Gayle says that’s when you’re supposed to…”
“Supposed to what? Ah, my dearest little love, you mean that’s when you’re supposed to lose your virginity?”
She couldn’t speak; she nodded. His love. It was all the wine. She wasn’t hearing him right. “I—I’ve never even met a boy I wanted to even, well, to kiss.”
It was as if he sensed her embarrassment and quickly backed off.
It began to rain.
They walked through the rain, uncaring, oblivious, the prince with his arm around her, holding her close to his side, getting her even wetter. They laughed a good deal. She felt such adoration for him, such complete devotion, and she guessed he realized it. She didn’t care.
When they reached the suite, he didn’t try to hold her in more conversation. He gave her a chaste kiss on her forehead and gently pushed her into her bedroom. She didn’t want the evening to end, but she realized she was drunk, not serious drunk, but dizzy, and wiped out with jet lag. She smiled and giggled a bit when she brushed her teeth in the bathroom. She pulled her cotton nightgown over her head and climbed into her bed. The room shimmered around her like a mirage in the desert. She felt soft and warm and the dizziness was part of the sweetness of her mood. What a wonderful evening, better than anything she could have fantasized. The best evening she’d ever have in her whole life. He was perfect and warm and so tender. Yes, perfect, and maybe tomorrow would be the same.
She wondered where he would take her tomorrow. This evening they’d wandered through Montmartre and he’d told her wicked stories of the artists who’d lived there at the end of the last century. La Belle Epoque, it was called, and he told her how one artist had painted himself making love to his model and how his wife had come to his showing, seen it, and set it and him and his model on fire. The painting had sold for a stunning sum just three years before here in Paris. Some Japanese had bought it, he said, laughing.