Royally Claimed. Marie Donovan
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of passionfruit liqueur for her mother, who liked sweeter drinks.
A masculine laugh, full of joy and amusement rang in her ears. For a second, she thought she had fallen into the past again. But there it was again.
Not daring to breathe, she turned slowly, almost hoping she was just imagining it. She looked across the tables and saw him. The apple fell from her hand and clunked into the bin.
Frank stood across from her. She put her hand to her throat in shock. His raw masculinity at age twenty had matured into solid manhood, his shoulders broader, his arms thicker. His dark hair curled over his ears, one wave falling over his forehead. His face had hardened but his dark eyes crinkled with amusement.
Frank was leaning on a vegetable stand, listening to an older man who was obviously telling a funny story, thanks to the amused faces of the surrounding shoppers. Frank clapped the older man on the back and turned away, a smile on his face.
He saw her. The smile vanished, leaving a stunned expression to match hers. Instead of freezing, he moved. Toward her.
She panicked. What could she say to him? What would he say to her? She took a step backward, automatically searching for an escape.
But Frank was coming, cutting around the customers and tables with the grace she remembered. He stopped next to her. “Julia?” he asked, his voice full of disbelief. Good, so she wasn’t the only one.
“Frank, well, my goodness! How in the world are you?” Her tone had enough sugar to frost a wedding cake. Light and friendly, light and friendly, she decided.
He didn’t cooperate with her game plan and reply in an equally frothy manner, saying, What brings you back to the Azores? Or Gee, Julia, how many years has it been? Instead, he stood silently staring at her. Almost as if she were a ghost popping up through the floor.
“Frank?” She touched his forearm and he jumped as if she’d shocked him. She was shocked too and jerked her hand back.
Oh, no. Why that futile spark of attraction, after all these years? She looked away desperately.
“Julia. Your husband is here with you?” He casually scanned the crowd but his question was far from casual.
“My husband?” She wasn’t thinking clearly, all the warning bells in her head distracting her, telling her to run away before she got hurt again. “No.”
“No, he is not here, or no, you have no husband?”
“Oh, Franco,” she whispered. He no longer fit his boyish nickname.
“Tell me, Julia. Which is it?”
“I have no husband.”
Triumph flared in his eyes, quickly banked into a neutral expression. She resented it. As if she were a prize horse unexpectedly put up for auction.
“What about you? Any wife?” She meant it for turnabout, but he took it for interest, his mouth curling into a victorious smile.
Maybe it was interest. Oh, of course it was. She was dying to know if there was a Duchess Mrs. Franco Duarte, or whatever they were called in Portugal these days. She’d never quite picked up the naming system that could leave a person with four last names.
“No wife. Yet. I am here on business with Benedito.” As if summoned by his name like Rumpelstiltskin, the wizened old man popped up at Frank’s elbow.
“Bom dia, senhorina.” He bowed at the waist, his eyes sparkling with unabashed curiosity. Julia could well imagine why. She was probably pale as a ghost and Frank looked like the cat who’d swallowed the canary.
“Hello.” Someone had to act with normalcy, so she extended her hand to the elderly Portuguese, who bowed over it almost as if she were a princess.
“Senhorina.”
“Senhorina Julia Cooper, may I present Senhor Benedito Henriques Oliveira. Benedito, this is Senhorina Julia Cooper, whom I met here a long time ago.”
The old man’s eyes sharpened as he gazed between them. “A long time ago?”
“When we were younger,” Frank answered evasively.
“Then you must talk!” Benedito practically shoved Frank at her. “Go to lunch! Don Franco, I will pick out those paint colors you wanted and have them mixed.” He ducked away into the crowd as Frank let out a yelp of dismay.
“Paint colors?” Julia asked.
Frank gave up trying to spot his assistant and sighed. “We are here to fix up the villa.”
“The villa.” She was swept back in time again, to the stone building overlooking the sea on Frank’s private island. “Why?” She immediately regretted showing any interest. It was his own business, even if he were setting it up for a bachelor pad.
“A honeymoon.” He watched her closely.
“Ah.” Of course Frank would have moved on. It wasn’t as if he’d pined for her all these years. “And when is the happy event?”
“Two months, roughly. The wedding is in June.”
Oh, the bitter irony. Over ten years since their separation and then she arrived two months before his wedding. “Well. May I congratulate you and the future duchess?”
He gave her a slow smile. “The wedding isn’t mine.”
FRANK DIDN’T FEEL THE slightest bit guilty about taking advantage of Julia’s state of confusion to guide her into a cozy back table at a local café. She’d tried to hide her shock and then relief at finding out he wasn’t the lucky groom, but Frank could still read her emotions, even after all these years.
“Would you like some wine?” He held the bottle over her glass, ready to pour. It was a variety they used to drink together.
She held up a hand. “Just water, please.”
“All right.” He ordered a bottle for her and filled her glass when it arrived. She drank eagerly, as if her throat were dry, then twirled the stem between her fingers. She looked all around the café—anywhere but at him.
“Julia,” he began, not sure what to say. Why did you leave me when we were college students? sounded more than a bit whiny and pathetic. “How have you been?”
“Fine.” She gave him a polite smile.
He tried again. “You finished your nursing degree?”
“Yes, and after a couple years, I went back to graduate school. I’m a nurse practitioner now and have taken some classes toward my doctoral degree.”
“Good for you.” Pride for her, misplaced or no, swelled his chest. “You always were the smartest woman I ever met.”
The compliment broke through her polite shell and she snorted in disbelief. Now that was more like the old Julia he remembered. Or was it the young Julia he remembered? This woozy sense of past and present was mixing him up. “Why do you make that noise?”
“What?”
“You don’t believe me.” He shook his head. “Do you remember me as a liar?”
She pursed her lips. “Surely you’ve met smarter women than I.”
“No, and just to prove it, all of them would have said ‘smarter women than me.’”
“Good grammar doesn’t make you smart.”
He shook his head. “You always were terrible at accepting compliments.” Like how her dark hair shone in the sun, her hazel eyes sparkling like his estate’s premium sherry.
“I was not!”
“Argumentative, too.”
“I am not—” She stopped arguing when he started to laugh. “Frank, that is not