A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember Read online

Risk her heart. Oh, sure, she’d told herself she’d risked plenty of times, and that no man had ever really been interested.

  A big fat lie.

  She’d never risked at all. She’d always simply sabotaged any kindling relationship before she could get hurt.

  No longer. She was going to leave, she was going back to her life, but she wasn’t running away, and she wasn’t going to always wonder. She was going to tell Kyle the truth.

  That she’d fallen in love with him.

  That he was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  That she hoped he came and visited her sometime, not only so she could feel whole again, but so that she could have another heart-stopping, screaming orgasm like only he’d given her.

  Well, she thought with a guilty glance at Amelia, maybe she’d keep that last part to herself.

  Amelia lifted a brow.

  Definitely, she’d keep that last part to herself. “Kyle.” Oh, man, she was starting to sweat. Who would have thought opening her heart would be harder than putting on pink satin? “I—”

  “No, I’ve got to go first,” he said. “I—”

  “Wait. Why do you get to go first?”

  “Because I started first,” he said, not so reasonably. “Annie, don’t take this wrong, but I’m trying to do something here.”

  “Well, so am I.”

  “Children,” Amelia broke in, stepping between the two of them as they came together nose to nose. “Let’s not squabble. I’m sure we can settle this reasonably. After all, you’re both after the same thing.”

  Annie’s breath clogged in her throat. “Amelia, I know you’re always right—”

  “Oh, dearness, I do like a sentence that starts that way,” Amelia said with a smile.

  “But—”

  “Now Annie, you know how I feel. Butts are better—”

  “—covered than discussed,” Annie said with her in unison. She had to laugh. “Yes, I know. But—”

  “Stop.” Kyle lifted a hand to his head as if afraid it was going to fall off. “Please, just stop.” He took Annie’s shoulders and lifted her clear off the ground so that they were indeed nose to nose. “Answer this. Do you care about me?”

  His eyes were dark, deep and full of many, many things, but it was the uncertainty that reached her. So much so that she reached out and cupped his face. “After last night, I should be insulted you have to ask.”

  “I don’t mean physically, damn it. I know you care about me that way.” Before she could take offense at his confidence, he was solemn again. “I mean do you care about me…emotionally.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I care very much.” I love you, you ignorant fool. “In fact, that’s sort of tied into what I wanted to say to you.”

  “Shh, he’s not done,” Amelia admonished, still standing right beside them, unabashedly eavesdropping. “Let the poor man finish.”

  “Thank you,” Kyle said, not taking his eyes or hands off Annie.

  “No problem. She’s terribly impertinent, always has been.”

  “I can see how that must have been a huge problem,” Kyle said.

  “Must have been?” Amelia laughed. “Oh, my dear. She still is.”

  “Hey! She is still standing right here and has ears,” Annie said indignantly, waggling her toes, which were still a good six inches off the ground.

  “Get used to it,” Amelia advised Kyle as if Annie hadn’t spoken. “And, oh, she’s getting her temper up now, isn’t she? She might as well be a redhead, really, for all her ability to control it.”

  “Amelia!” Annie glared down at her friend, at the woman who’d been a mother to her since her own had perished. “I love you, but I’m afraid you’re fired.”

  “This is the sixty-seventh time you’ve said that in our time together,” Amelia said, unconcerned, studying her fingernails. “And for the sixty-seventh time, your father pays me, not you.”

  Annie tipped her head back and sighed loudly.

  Kyle’s eyes sparkled. “So, impertinent princess, can I finish now?”

  “Oh, please. By all means, finish. Heaven forbid I try to have a say in my own life.”

  His hands tightened on her. His voice came sure and strong. It was only the flicker in his eyes that gave away his nerves, and caused hers. “Andrea Katrine Fran Brunner, will you m—”

  “Excuse me,” Amelia interrupted. “You have to say Your Serene Highness when addressing Annie formally.”

  Kyle nodded. “Sorry. You’re right.” He turned back to Annie. “Your Serene Highness, Andrea Katrine Fran Brunner, will you m—”

  “No. I’m sorry.” Amelia shook her head and tapped a finger to her lower lip. “You forgot the ‘of Grunberg’ part.”

  “Okay.” Before Kyle turned back to Annie, he paused. “Is that all?” His voice was a little tense now.

  “Yes. Please proceed.”

  “Amelia.” Annie spoke in an oddly calm voice given that she could hardly get a word out past the lump in her throat, not to mention the hope bouncing like popcorn off the walls in her stomach. “I mean this in the nicest way. But shut up.”

  “Shutting up,” Amelia said obediently.

  As if she’d ever been obedient!

  “Kyle,” Annie said, still watching Amelia. “Put me down.”

  He actually did, but he didn’t take his hands off her. “I have to tell you, Annie. I’m getting a little frustrated here.”

  “Join the club. Now.” She drew a deep breath and looked into his beautiful eyes, because God help her, she had an inkling that this could be better than even her wildest dreams. “Go ahead. I promise to kill the next person who interrupts you.”

  “Not if I beat you to it.” He ran his hands down her arms to their fingers, which he entangled. “Okay, here it is, Annie. I love you. I don’t know how it happened. I sure never meant for it to, but from the moment we took on Jimmy together, things haven’t been the same for me.” He blew out a breath. “And now that I’ve said it out loud, I feel a little weak, so could you say you feel the same way before I pass out?”

  He loved her. “I’m sorry,” she finally managed, her voice thick. “I didn’t hear anything past the I love you part. Do you think you could repeat it?”

  He actually tried. His brow was furrowed with stress, his body tight with strain, but he tried. If she hadn’t already loved him, she would have fallen in love right then and there. “I said, I never meant for this to happen,” he repeated. “But—”

  “I meant the ‘I love you’ part.” She slipped her fingers into his hair because she had to touch him. She probably had to touch him for the rest of her life.

  “I love you,” he said hoarsely, dropping his forehead to hers. “I want to go with you to Grunberg. I want to be with you in your setting for a change, away from all this…this…”

  “Pink satin?”

  “Yes. God, yes.”

  “But Grunberg isn’t America.”

  “You have cops there?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Then I can make a living. But first I want to just be, Annie. For a little while I just want to be. With you. I want to marry you. Do you think that’s something I can talk you into?” He pulled a small box out of his pocket and opened it, revealing a beautiful solitaire diamond.

  “Like I said.” She managed a smile in with her tears. “All I heard was ‘I love you.”’

  “Is that a yes?”

  “I love you back, Kyle.”

  “Is that a yes?” he pressed.

  “So you really thought I rescued you?”

  “Annie.”

  “Yes.” She threw herself at him and kissed his face everywhere she could reach. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Next to them, Amelia buttoned closed her satchel and nodded in triumph. “A job well done,” she decided, even if she said so herself.

  Epilogue

  GRUNBERG WAS GLORIOUS. Green and lush and perfect, it allowed for more adventure than a man could ever want.