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Last night Graydon had shown up late, one suitcase in his hand. When Roger opened the door to him, Graydon had asked for a place to stay, and Roger had sleepily pointed him toward a bedroom. When he got back into bed with Lexie he hadn’t bothered to tell her who was at the door. She’d assumed it was one of his racing buddies and gone back to sleep.
Early the next morning she’d gone downstairs to see a morose Prince Graydon leaning over a bowl of cereal.
It took only moments of conversation to figure out that they were both going to drop bombshells on Toby during the wedding. Not only had Lexie returned early, but she was going to tell her friend that she was engaged to marry her boss. As for Graydon, his unexpected presence was going to be more than enough to shock Toby.
“Roger bought this for me in Paris,” Lexie said of her pink dress with the white embroidery overlay.
“It’s very pretty. Nice ring too.”
Lexie held up her left hand and looked at the five carat engagement ring Roger had given her. “I would have said I’d never like a ring like this. It’s too gaudy, too flashy, but …”
“But it’s like Roger?”
“Yes,” Lexie said. “I seem to be wearing him on my finger.” When she looked at Graydon, there was a small frown on her face.
“Are you concerned about telling Toby of your engagement?” he asked.
“No, not really. I think she’ll say she knew it was going to happen.”
“Probably,” Graydon said. “She is a very perceptive person.”
Lexie couldn’t bear to see his misery and she had an idea of how to help him. She had a feeling Roger could help. She stood up. “I better go. You’ll be all right here alone?”
“Perfectly,” Graydon said, then reached out and took Lexie’s hand in his and kissed the back of it. “Toby will be very happy for you.”
“I wish you two could—” She broke off, gave Graydon a smile, then left the big living room.
Upstairs, she told Roger that he needed to talk to Graydon. “Those two have serious problems.”
“Not like us, you mean?” Roger asked, grinning. “It took a while but I grew on you.”
“Like a fungus,” Lexie said and moved away from his grasp. “Just be nice to him, that’s all I’m asking.”
“I’m very nice all the time.”
“If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t send you downstairs to help the guy.”
“So what am I supposed to say to him?”
“I don’t know. Boy things. But be gentle. The poor man is in pain.”
Downstairs, Roger looked at Graydon. They were alone in the living room, both of them wearing tan breeches and short coats. Graydon had on slippers that his ancestor had worn while Roger had on tall boots. Roger offered Graydon a drink, but when it was refused, he couldn’t help thinking how differen
t the brothers were. Rory always had a laugh, but Graydon could depress a clown. So how did you talk to a future king?
“Oh, the hell with it,” he said and sat down across from Graydon, drink in hand. “Lexie wants me to baby you but I can’t take your gloom anymore. You can’t give up. Do you hear me? You can’t. Just look at what I did. I wore Lexie down. It took me years but I did it. This whole trip that she thinks just happened took a lot of work on my part. I got my little sister to lie for me so Lexie would go to France with her. Then she had to be so boring that Lexie was ready to jump off a building.” Roger took a drink. “To get my sister to help, I had to promise the kid that Bobby Flay would cook at her next party. Anyway, I showed up in France wearing a cast when there was nothing wrong with my arm and I got Lex to go on a driving trip with me.” He leaned forward to look hard at Graydon. “You know what I did? I let Lexie drive. You know it’s True Love when you hear the grind of the gears of a V12 overhead cam engine and you don’t say a word about it.” He paused to let the horror of that image sink in. “If you give up just because a woman says she won’t marry you, you lose the right to call yourself a man.”
Graydon gave Roger a look of great patience. “In this instance, there are extenuating circumstances involved.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Roger said. “You’re going to be crowned king. So what? We all have handicaps. Mine is that girls think I’m useless. They think I’m pretty and rich but of no real value. Part of why I like Lexie is because she makes me do things. So what’s this Toby girl do for you?”
“She keeps me from believing that I actually am a prince.”
“And you’re going to give that up because …? Why are you giving her up?”
“For a country?” Graydon’s voice was sarcastic.
Roger gave a scoffing laugh. “I don’t know a lot about history but I think miserably unhappy men don’t make good kings. You think about it. Are you a man first or a king first?” He drained his glass, set it down, and left the room.
