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Otherwise, he wouldn’t be saying goodbye...would he?
“I’m so sorry. But I swear I didn’t know there was bad blood between them until Dean told me when we were on our way to a Christmas party—”
“You went to a Christmas party with Dean Suminski? He’s in Grennady?”
“No, we’re in New York.”
Eva gasped. “What are you doing in New York?”
“It is a long, long story, Princess.” Kristen fell to the huge king-size bed, realizing how odd this whole thing sounded. But, one step at a time, it had all made sense.
Even her feelings for him.
Inch by inch, he’d shown himself to her, and inch by inch she’d fallen for the man she genuinely believed he was deep down inside.
“I’d intended to start this explanation off with an apology for overstepping, but I now know I more than overstepped. It just seemed wrong that we never approached Suminski Stuff. So I found Dean in Paris.”
“Paris?”
“I called in a favor to get the name of his hotel, and he agreed to give me five minutes in the limo ride to his airstrip, but that didn’t work out. So I was going to fly to New York to have time with him while we were in the air, but his friend was on the plane, waiting for him. He told Dean his stock was being downgraded.” She sucked in a breath. “His company’s in trouble. He intends to fix it. But he has to get his latest game series to beta testers the first of the year to prove Suminski Stuff is still viable. Anyway, we were having dinner tonight with Mrs. Flannigan, a woman who owns a huge brokerage firm, who told him to get his staff somewhere quiet and peaceful and get this project done.”
“Dinner tonight? Are you dating this guy?”
She winced. “Yes.” And it had been her idea because she hated the way everyone misinterpreted him, but more because she’d wanted to date him for real. She liked him.
“You may see it in a newspaper. So, yes, we were sort of dating. But we did it so the press wouldn’t think he’d paid me to go to the Christmas party because he sort of had.”
“Kristen!”
“It’s not what you think. In exchange for me being his date for an important party, we signed an agreement for him to provide the first hundred-thousand-dollars’ worth of computers when I start my schools.”
Eva’s voice softened. “So you’re leaving us to start your charity?”
“That was the point of the dinner with Mrs. Flannigan—”
“Is this Minerva Flannigan?”
“Yes. She’s the first of my board of advisors.”
Eva’s voice softened. “She’s got a great business mind. She’s the perfect choice to be on your board of advisors.”
“And of course I want you on the board too, Princess.”
Eva laughed. “My ego is not so fragile that you need to pamper me.”
“But I really do want you on this board.”
“Then I am honored.”
“But I’m also not going anywhere yet. Dean Suminski and his staff will be in Grennady tomorrow evening, our time. He needs office space. Though I could easily get it for him if I had a couple of weeks, he needs it tomorrow and I don’t have that kind of clout.”
“Okay. Getting a company like Suminski Stuff into Grennady could be really good for us. Alex has been a ruler too long to let a ten-year-old problem keep him from doing the right thing, but that doesn’t mean we’ll poke the bear. As long as we keep Alex away from Dean Suminski everything should be fine.”
“But he expects to be dealing with the royal family.”
“And he will. He’ll deal with me. I have some thoughts on how to get office space. So I’ll make some calls.” Princess Eva paused. “And, Kristen?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful with this guy.”
Kristen laughed. “Right.” But remembering the way he’d kissed her shot that odd longing through her—even though she knew he had no intention of seeing her again. The way he said goodbye proved that. And she should be glad. Rich guys didn’t marry commoners. They used them. Hadn’t one heartbreak been enough?
She was smarter than to long for something that made no sense.
