The Prince's Second Chance Read online

  “How did you know where I lived?”

  “I called your editor.” He’d expected a downtown address and had been surprised to find himself driving toward the outskirts of the city. He’d been even more surprised to pull up in front of a modest but well-kept two-story home on a quiet cul-de-sac.

  It was a house made for a family, and it made him wonder if Gabriella had one. It wasn’t unreasonable to expect that she’d married and had children at some point over the past sixteen years, even if she still looked more like a centerfold fantasy than a suburban mom.

  He cut off his wandering thoughts before they could detour too far down that dangerous path, but cast a quick glance at her left hand and found that it was bare.

  As bare as the long, slender legs that seemed to stretch for miles beneath the ragged hem of cutoff shorts she wore low on her hips. As bare as the sexy, curve of her shoulders peeking above the neckline of her peasant-style blouse. As bare as—

  Gabriella’s soft groan drew his attention back to their conversation. “You called Alli? Thanks. As if I didn’t get enough of an interrogation after your appearance at the office yesterday, now you contacted her for my home address.”

  He cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortably aware of her nearness, of the soft feminine scent that had always clouded his senses when he was near her. “I didn’t realize that would be a problem.”

  “As if that would matter to you,” she muttered.

  “Can I come in?”

  “No.”

  Her response—immediate and definitive—had him lifting his brows. “Do you really want to take the chance of someone spotting me standing on your doorstep?”

  “If you didn’t want to announce your presence to everyone on the street, you should have driven something a little more inconspicuous than an Aston Martin.” But she did, reluctantly, step away from the door so that he could enter.

  Of course, she didn’t move any farther into the house than the foyer, and she faced him squarely, arms folded across her chest. The open-concept design allowed light to spill into the entranceway from the east-facing windows, and it surrounded Gabriella now, giving her an almost ethereal appearance. Although the dark scowl on her face spoiled the illusion somewhat.

  He glanced around, appreciating how the sunny yellow walls complemented the terracotta floor. Her furniture was simple in design and neutral in color, with bold splashes of turquoise, lime and purple used as strategic accents.

  “Nice place,” he told her.

  “Thank you,” she responded stiffly. “But since I don’t think you stopped by to compliment my décor, why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”

  “Because I can’t figure you out.”

  “I don’t know why you’d bother to try,” she told him.

  Her tone was dismissive, and yet, he couldn’t forget the flare of awareness he’d seen in her eyes when he’d touched her arm the night before, confirming that she’d felt the same jolt that had shaken him to the core.

  It had been like that between them since the first time they’d met. But he wouldn’t have expected that there would be anything left of that long-ago connection, not after so many years, and especially not considering the way their relationship had ended.

  He’d been young and scared of the feelings he had for her, and he’d treated her badly. He had no excuse for his behavior—and no reason to expect that she’d forgiven him, which made the absence of any mention in the gossip column of his argument with Allegra all the more puzzling.

  “You could have completely skewered me in today’s paper,” he noted.

  Her brows rose. “Because you stomped all over some poor woman’s heart? That’s hardly news.”

  “I didn’t realize how badly I’d stomped on yours,” he said.

  She waved a hand dismissively. “Ancient history.”

  “Is it?” He took a step closer, watched her eyes narrow, darken.

  “Yes,” she said firmly.

  But he could see the pulse point at the base of her jaw, and it was racing.

  “I never forgot about you, Gabriella. And I don’t think you forgot about me, either.”

  “How could I when your face is plastered on the tabloids on an almost daily basis?”

  “You’re not going to give me an inch, are you?”

  “I’ve already given you a lot more than I should have.” She slipped past him and reached for the handle of the door. “Now I have things to do and I’d really like you to go.”

  But he wasn’t ready to leave. Not yet. “Who was the guy you were with last night?”

  “Newsflash,” she said. “I’m the reporter, you’re the object of the public’s curiosity. Therefore, I get to ask the questions and you get to smile and look pretty.”

  “Who is he?” he asked again.

  She sighed. “Rafe Fulton.”

  The name didn’t mean anything to him, but he wanted to know more than the man’s identity—he wanted to know what the man meant to her. “Boyfriend?”

  “Yes.”

  He frowned at that, but before he could say anything else, footsteps sounded overhead.

  Gabriella’s gaze shifted to the stairs. “You really have to go now.”

  He didn’t particularly want to hang around to meet the boyfriend, but he was baffled by Gabriella’s sudden and obvious desperation to get him out the door. Was her boyfriend the possessive type? Would he disapprove of her having a conversation with another man? Would he—Cameron’s blood boiled at the thought—take out his displeasure on Gabriella?

  “Gabriella—” He reached for her hand, found it icy cold.

  She tugged her hand from his grasp, wrenched open the door. “Please, Cameron. Just go.”

  The footsteps were coming down the stairs now. Not the heavy tread he’d anticipated, but light, quick steps.

  “What’s for breakfast, Mom? I’m starving.”

  Cameron froze, his mind spinning.

  Mom?

  “I’m making French toast as soon as Gram gets back from the market with the eggs,” Gabriella called, then hissed at him, “Please go. I don’t want to explain your presence here to my daughter.”

  Daughter.

  She wasn’t trying to get rid of him for the benefit of an angry husband or possessive lover, but because she didn’t want him to meet her child.

  Except that the voice he’d heard didn’t sound like that of a pre-schooler or even a pre-teen, but more like that of an adult.

  “Mmm, I love French toast,” the voice replied.

  And then she stepped into view and he saw that his assessment had been right. Gabriella’s daughter wasn’t a little girl, but a young and stunningly beautiful woman with her mother’s dark tumbling curls and distinctly feminine curves. She was dressed similarly to her mother, too, in shorts and a T-shirt, with the addition of a sling around her neck to help support the arm that was encased in a neon-yellow cast.

  Except for the cast, looking at her was like looking at Gabriella sixteen years ago, and the realization nearly knocked him off of his feet.

  “Whoops.” The girl stopped in mid-stride when she spotted Cameron standing in the foyer beside her mother. “Sorry—I didn’t realize you had company.”

  “It’s okay,” Gabriella said pointedly. “Cameron was just on his way out.”

  He ignored her, focusing instead on her daughter, who was eyeing him with unbridled curiosity.

  As she drew nearer, he saw that the child’s eyes were lighter than her mother’s—more hazel than brown.

  More like the color of his own eyes.

  His gaze flew back to Gabriella.

  She tilted her chin, as if daring him to ask. But he didn’t need to ask.

  In that moment, all of the pieces fell into place.

  A long-ago conversation. Tear-filled eyes looking to him for answers. Desperate panic. Fierce denials. Reassurance. Relief.

  He’d worked hard to forget her, to forget what they had been to one anoth
er, but she hadn’t been able to forget. She’d lived with the reminder of their long-ago affair every day for the past sixteen years.

  The girl standing in front of him was that reminder.

  Gabriella’s daughter was his daughter, too.

  Mi Dios. He was a father.

  As his gaze lingered on the beautiful young woman, he couldn’t help but think: Lord, help us both.

  Chapter Four

  “Hey, aren’t you—” Sierra’s sleepy brain woke up in time to halt the impulsive flow of words. She had almost asked her mother’s visitor if he was one of the royals, but thankfully she realized how ridiculous the question was before she embarrassed herself by asking it.

  She shook her head but still couldn’t shake the feeling that she recognized him from somewhere. “Sorry, for a minute I thought you looked…familiar.”

  “I am Cameron Leandres,” he said, and bowed.

  Sierra held back a snicker.

  Was this guy for real?

  Then the name clicked, and her head suddenly felt so light, she thought that she might faint.

  “Then you are—ohmygod—you’re Prince Cameron?”

  “I am,” he agreed, in the same casual tone.

  Sierra’s gaze flew to her mother, who seemed neither surprised nor impressed by this revelation.

  Of course, her mother worked in the newspaper business and she’d been covering the “Around Town” section while Alex was on vacation. She knew everyone in the country who was newsworthy. Obviously she would have recognized him immediately. But that still didn’t explain what the heck the guy—the prince—was doing in her house. And wouldn’t Jenna just die when she heard about this?

  “And you are obviously Gabriella’s daughter,” Prince Cameron noted.

  “Sierra Vasquez,” she responded automatically, wondering if she was supposed to bow or curtsy.

  She glanced at her mother again, as if for guidance, and noticed the stiffness of her posture, the deepening of the faint lines that bracketed her mouth. Whatever had brought this member of the royal family to their door, it was apparent to Sierra that Gabriella wasn’t pleased by his presence.

  “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Sierra.” The prince’s comment drew her attention back to him and further piqued her curiosity.

  Before she could say anything else, her mother interrupted.

  “Thanks for the information, Your Highness,” Gabriella said. “I’ll be sure to pass it along to Alex when he returns from his vacation.”

  “There’s no need for such formalities between old friends, Gabriella,” the prince chided.

  Old friends?

  Sierra felt her jaw drop.

  She turned to her mother, noted the spots of color that rode high on her cheeks, a telltale sign that she was either embarrassed or angry. Because she used to rub elbows with royalty? Or because she didn’t want Sierra to know that she used to rub elbows with royalty? It made her wonder how long her mother had known the prince—and just how close they used to be.

  Curiosity was eating away at her, but she didn’t dare ask her mother those questions. At least not right now.

  “What happened to your arm?”

  It was the prince who spoke again, his tone was casual and friendly, as if he was unaware of the tension in the room. Or maybe he was just unconcerned about it.

  She glanced cautiously at her mother, because she knew Gabriella was still angry about the events of the previous day. “Car accident.”

  He frowned. “You can’t be old enough to drive.”

  “Your Highness—” Gabriella began to interject again, with obvious impatience.

  “Not yet,” Sierra responded to his statement. “My best friend was driving.”

  “I hope no one was badly injured.”

  She shook her head, lifted her arm slightly. “This was the worst of it.”

  The crunch of tires on gravel was unmistakable through the open window, evidence that her grandmother had returned from the market.

  “Go help with the bags, Sierra,” her mother said.

  It was obvious that she was being sent out of the room so that her mother could finish her conversation with the royal visitor in private, and Sierra was itching to know why. What business had brought the prince to their home? And why was her usually composed and level-headed mother so obviously flustered by his presence?

  “I think you’re forgetting which one of us has the broken arm,” she responded, hoping for a brief reprieve.

  “Now,” Gabriella snapped.

  Sierra’s brows lifted in response to the unexpectedly sharp tone. Her mother was definitely unnerved, and as much as she wanted to hang around and hear the rest of the conversation between them, the sound of the back door opening prompted her to do as she was told.

  Gabriella breathed a silent sigh of relief when Sierra finally exited the room. She knew she’d only been granted a brief reprieve, that her daughter would have plenty of questions for her later. And she would face them later. But right now, she had to face the prince, who wasn’t likely to be nearly as patient nor understanding as Sierra.

  “So how old is she?” Cameron asked.

  Gabriella crossed her arms over her chest. “My daughter is none of your business.”

  “Unless she’s my daughter, too.”

  He’d kept his voice low, his tone even, but she couldn’t resist glancing toward the doorway through which Sierra had disappeared to confirm her daughter was not within earshot. “She’s not.”

  “How old is she?” he asked again.

  She lifted her chin. “Fifteen.”

  “When’s her birthday?”

  “What gives you the right to barge in here and ask me all these questions?”

  “Her birthday,” he said again.

  Her reply wasn’t a date but a directive, and he responded to her crude words with a casual lift of his brows. His unruffled demeanor only irritated her further. Of course, he could afford to be cool—he didn’t have anything to lose.

  “Look, Your Highness—”

  “I don’t remember you ever being as hung up on my title then as you seem to be now,” he mused.

  She hadn’t even known he had a title when they first met. If she had, she probably would never have got up the courage to even speak to him. But to her, he’d just been one of a group of college kids who regularly came into the restaurant on Friday nights. Maybe he was a little more handsome than the others, a little more charming. And he was the only one whose smile made her heart beat faster.

  Even not knowing that he was royalty, she’d known that he was out of her league. Not just because he was older and more sophisticated, but because it was obvious that his family had money while her family worked for those with money. If Gabriella wanted to go to college someday, as she’d intended to do, she would have to earn the money to pay for her education. Which was how she ended up serving wood-oven pizzas and pitchers of beer to spoiled frat boys like Cameron and his buddies.

  “Obviously I wasn’t as discerning then as I am now,” she said coolly.

  “Ouch,” he said, but smiled after he said it.

  It was the same smile that had always made her knees a little bit weak. So easy and natural, so completely charming and utterly irresistible—at least to a seventeen-year-old girl. But she wasn’t seventeen anymore and there was too much at stake to let herself to succumb once again to his considerable charms.

  “Cameron.” She used his name this time, and was rewarded with another smile.

  “Isn’t that much better, Gabriella?”

  His pronunciation of her name was as sensual as a caress, and she felt something unwelcome and unwanted stir inside of her. “What would be much better,” she told him, “would be for you to leave so that I can enjoy the rest of the day with my family.”

  “But we have so much to catch up on,” he insisted.

  Despite the casual tone, she knew the words weren’t an invitation but a threat.

  “
Another time,” she offered.

  “You’re only delaying the inevitable,” he warned her.

  She knew that might be true. But she also knew that “the partying prince” had a notoriously short attention span, and she was confident that he would soon forget about her and Sierra and this impromptu visit entirely.

  “I’ll be happy to meet with you at a mutually convenient date and time,” she lied.

  “All right,” he finally said. He pulled a BlackBerry from his jacket pocket and scrolled through some data, no doubt checking his calendar. “Next Saturday afternoon. Two o’clock in front of the Naval History Museum.”

  “I’ll have to check my schedule,” she told him.

  His gaze narrowed. “Next Saturday at two o’clock,” he said again. “If you’re not there, I’ll come back here. And I won’t leave until all of my questions have been answered.”

  “I’ll be there,” she agreed, because she knew that she had no choice. And because she was hoping that, at some point in the coming week, something more important would come up and he would forget. Gabriella knew she wouldn’t forget. Because nothing was more important to her than her daughter—and keeping the secret of Sierra’s paternity.

  Cameron didn’t want to wait a whole week to get the answers he sought. But he wasn’t entirely sure he trusted Gabriella to tell him the truth, and he knew that if he had some time, he could uncover some of the answers himself.

  By Thursday afternoon, he had the most important one. As he stared at the copy of the birth certificate in his hand, his gaze focused on the date that confirmed his suspicions. Sierra Katarina Vasquez was born on June fifteenth—nine months after the weekend he and Gabriella had spent together on the northern coast. Which proved that Gabriella’s beautiful fifteen-going-on-sixteen-year-old daughter was also his daughter, even if the father was listed as “unknown” on the registration of her birth.

  The sight of that single word had filled him with burning fury. He was as stunned as he was incensed that she would deny the role he’d played in the creation of their child. But his anger faded almost as quickly as it had built, as snippets of a long-ago conversation filtered through his memory.