Wedding Vows: Say I Do: Matrimony with His Majesty / Invitation to the Prince's Palace / The Prince's Outback Bride

As they started to leave she heard Jules say, “You’re lucky. Nobody ever gets to stay in this apartment.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t know. Mother says it’s a secret,” Jules explained.

“Why don’t you just ask Dad?”

Vito shook his head. “Mother said it wasn’t our business.”

“Then I’ll ask him when he gets back from Italy.”

Darrell thought she heard the word “cool” come from Jules before the outer door closed.

She walked around the room, stopping to smell the gorgeous white roses that gave off a heavenly perfume.

Not even Isabella had slept in here?

Whatever the reason, Alex had taken Phillip to his heart, breaking rules only a king could do if he wanted to.

He’d risked causing what could be an insurmountable problem in his coming marriage to the princess in order to claim him and make up for the last twelve years.

A man like that didn’t come along very often in life. Isabella could have no conception of how lucky she was.

Before Darrell fell apart over her feelings for Alex, she phoned Rudy and asked him to have a car waiting for her. There was a famous art gallery in the center of the main shopping district she wanted to visit. Anything to get her mind off of Alex, who would be spending tonight with Isabella. The images of the two of them entwined together while he convinced her their marriage would work made Darrell writhe in pain.

She grabbed her purse and flew out of the apartment. If her bodyguard thought she was having some kind of nervous breakdown, he’d be right!

Alex had just finished shaving when his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID and clicked on. “Mother?”

“I’m on my way to your apartment. You can’t leave for San Ravino until we’ve talked.” The line went dead.

He rushed to get dressed. By the time he’d shrugged into his suit jacket, she was at the door. The dogs preceded her into his living room. After shutting the door he leaned against it, waiting…

“Oh, Alex—he’s so much like you when you were that age, I can hardly believe it!” There were tears in her voice as well as her eyes.

Gratified by her response, he drew in a deep breath and walked toward her. “I see you and father in him, too. And Chaz…”

She nodded. “Yes. He has a way of expressing himself like your cousin. He and the boys could be brothers.”

“So now you know why I had to bring him with me.”

“I understand it,” she whispered, “but your uncle won’t.”

He tautened. “We can thank God Uncle Vittorio and Aunt Renate are away on a trip. I agree he would go into a black rage knowing what happened on that vacation in Colorado years ago.

“Perhaps now you understand why it was imperative I announced paternity before their return from the cruise.”

His mother stared at him while streams of unspoken thoughts passed between them. “Yes,” she eventually agreed in an unsteady voice. Her wet eyes gazed at him for a long time. “But you might have done it to the peril of the monarchy.”

Lines darkened his face. “I love Phillip.”

She let out a weary sigh. “How could you not? But you can’t expect Isabella to take him to her heart.”

He grasped her hands. “She’s making a gallant effort.”

His mother shuddered. “I can’t imagine how she’s going to get past this, Alex. It’s not just the reality of Phillip. You brought his mother with you. How painful for Isabella to have to live with the fact that you were intimate with the woman staying under our roof.”

He let go of her hands to rub his chin where he’d nicked himself with the razor. “It’s asking a lot of Isabella, but so far she’s handling it. I’ll find out how well when I see her tonight.” After checking his watch he said, “I have to go.”

“Wait—”

His gaze swung back to hers. “What is it?”

“Since Ms. Collier is Phillip’s mother and has worked her way into the castle, how do you know she won’t make trouble for you and Isabella?”

Alex had been waiting for that salvo. “If that had been her intention, she would have surfaced years ago instead of this week. Even then she couldn’t go through with telling me I had a son. I had to fly to Colorado in order to pry it out of her.

“At that point she still begged me not to act on the knowledge. When I brought her and Phillip back with me, she asked me again to turn the plane around because she knew what would happen if I didn’t.

“Darrell is still suffering over it. If you knew her as I already do, she’s frightened of hurting Isabella, so you don’t have to worry about her causing problems.”

“Listen to you defend her!” Her voice shook. “She’s gotten to you the way she did once before. You were obviously so taken with her, you gave her the ring your cousin had made specially for you. Now that she’s found you, she has decided to enamor you all over again.”

Darrell didn’t have to try. Whatever had driven them into each other’s arms today, it hadn’t been planned, not on either of their parts. His heart almost failed him remembering the lushness of her avid mouth opening to the pressure of his.

“By claiming Phillip so readily, you’ve allowed her to believe anything’s possible!” his mother exclaimed. “The more I hear about this woman, the more I don’t trust her.”

He moved to the door, then looked back at her. “If I didn’t know something you still don’t know, I wouldn’t trust her, either.”

“What more could there be?”

It was time for the whole truth.

“Phillip’s birth mother was named Melissa Collier.”

That caught his mother’s attention in a hurry.

“She died of an aneurism after giving birth to Phillip. Her sister, Darrell, adopted him. The only reason Darrell came looking for me was to help her unhappy son and honor her sister’s dying wish that he get to know his father.

“In point of fact, Darrell had no prior knowledge of my existence until two weeks ago when she had the ring traced and saw a picture of me on the Internet. She noticed the strong resemblance to Phillip and jumped to the only conclusion she could.

“Therefore you’re going to have to reassess your thinking about her. She has no designs on the man who impregnated her sister.” In fact she had every reason to despise him, which made what happened up in the mountains even more remarkable.

If ever anyone looked shell-shocked, it was his mother. “This is unbelievable.”

“But true. And you have to admit Darrell’s done an amazing job of raising her sister’s son.”

His mother made a cry like she’d been mortally wounded. “I’ll grant you he’s a fine boy, but what you’ve just told me alarms me even more.”