The Princess and the Billionaire Read online

  You have a lot to learn about Perreault, Mr. Bronson, she thought. Second daughters didn’t attend meetings with businessmen from America, no matter how important those businessmen thought they were.

  Bertrand turned to Isabelle. “Tell Juliana to make her apologies, then come to the library. Our guests can amuse themselves for an hour, I have no doubt.”

  She noted the disappointment on Bronson’s face and enjoyed it. “It’s been... interesting,” she said, sweeping past him with all the aplomb at her command.

  “We’ll do it again,” he said.

  “I doubt that,” she murmured as she reached the staircase, then paused. Looking back over her shoulder, her gaze was caught and held by the telltale pink lipstick smudge near the left corner of his mouth. Smiling, she turned and hurried down the stone steps. She hoped he had the devil of a time explaining that smudge to Greta VanArsdalen.

  * * *

  Daylight was cruel to the castle, Daniel noted as he followed a middle-aged parlormaid up a back staircase to his room on the second floor. Much as the uncompromising sunlight pointed out each wrinkle on the pleasant woman’s face, it also highlighted the castle’s considerable problems. Chunks of stone were missing from the walls, the lighting was quixotic at best, and puddles of rainwater had him hopscotching his way down the hallway. The air was damp and downright cold, and he wondered if the slightly lopsided windows at the landing kept out any but the gentlest of alpine breezes. Daniel wasn’t given to romantic flights of fancy, but he could almost swear he heard the clanking of armor in the distance.

  “Your room, m’sieur.” The parlormaid swung open the heavy oak door and stepped aside.

  Bronson found himself reaching for his pockets but stopped before he made a total ass of himself. The place looked so much like a broken-down old hotel that he’d almost tipped the woman. “Thanks,” he said, smiling.

  The woman nodded. “I wait to take you back to the library.”

  “Not necessary. That I can find.”

  She hesitated. “The castle is large, m’sieur. It is so easy to get lost.”

  It took some effort, but he convinced her he’d be able to find the library without a guide. Truth was, he could have found his room on his own as well, but the help here seemed to think outsiders couldn’t find the bathroom without a map. He could be as dense as the next guy, but at least he had a good sense of direction. His problem had to do with the opposite sex. If someone could hand him a map to help him understand women, that would be something he could use.

  Admit it, he said to himself. The little princess really had you going for a while down there. He was a sap, a fool. Hell, he was an asshole for letting himself get taken in like that by a kid. And that’s all she was, a kid. A girl. Yeah, she had the body of a woman, but he could see she was still wet behind the ears when it came to the battle of the sexes. She still believed in fairy tales, happily-ever-after, and that love triumphed in the end. Maybe it had something to do with growing up in a castle, surrounded by every romantic cliché Walt Disney had ever dreamed up.

  Still, there was something about Isabelle’s words that had reached down into Bronson’s gut to a place he’d long forgotten. I’ll love him until the day I die.... He blinked, startled by the clarity of the voice inside his head. Sweet, throaty, part English boarding school, part Parisian boîte. The starry-eyed little princess with the midnight eyes thought she was in love with a guy who wasn’t half good enough for her.

  Had anyone ever said that about him? He couldn’t remember. He’d been so busy making money that he hadn’t paid a hell of a lot of attention to things like falling in love. But listening to Isabelle, seeing the look in her eyes as she watched that Malraux kid with her sister, he’d felt a stirring of something that wasn’t lust. Lust, at least, he could understand. It was something he was familiar with.

  What Isabelle had triggered in him was more complicated. He felt sorry for her. He understood her. He could see what was happening even if she couldn’t, and if there was any way at all that he could spare her the inevitable, he would. He had the strangest feeling that they were somehow kindred spirits and that notion disturbed him even more than the fact that he might not cut a deal with her father.

  “You’re losing it, Danny,” he said aloud, grabbing his portfolio and heading for the door. Let the little princess chase after lover boy. There wasn’t anybody alive who hadn’t had his or her heart broken at least once. It came with the territory.

  Maybe it would even do her good.

  Chapter

  Five

  “Good to have you home,” said the customs inspector at JFK as he handed the passport back to Daniel. “The Jets always lose when you’re out of town. You sure you didn’t take their whole offensive line with you?”

  Daniel laughed and slipped the leather passport case into the breast pocket of his trench coat. “Defense,” he said, reaching for his bag. “That’s the real name of the game.”

  “Amen to that,” said the inspector with a sage nod of his head. “You got some clout in this town, Mr. B. Why don’t you see what you can do to get us some new talent?”

  ‘We’ve got the talent,” said Daniel as he headed for the door. “The thing is, we don’t know how to use it.”

  A slicing wind blew off Jamaica Bay, swirling the gum wrappers and cigarette butts into whirlpools in the rainswept gutter. A toddler squalled at his mother’s feet while she argued with a skycap. The sound of her voice was all but drowned out by the roar of a 747 climbing into the sky beyond the airline terminal. The damp air smelled of salt water and jet fuel with a measure of plain old air pollution thrown into the mix just to remind him that this was New York.

  Home.

  Dirty, noisy, hard to love but even harder to forget. He was glad to be back where he belonged.

  A black Lincoln Town Car with the license BRON-CO idled at the curb outside the International Arrivals Building. A gray-haired man stood next to it, its door flung open, while he engaged in animated conversation with a Russian émigré cab driver who’d apparently just missed clipping the left front fender.

  Daniel nodded toward the cabbie, then turned toward the Lincoln’s driver. “Problems?”

  “Guy needs to get his eyes examined,” the gray-haired man shot back. “God damn menace on the road.”

  Daniel eyeballed the Lincoln. “I don’t see any damage.”

  “No thanks to him. If I didn’t have the reflexes of an eighteen-year-old, he’d have creamed me.”

  Daniel approached the cabdriver, who was watching them with the fierce intensity of a cossack warrior. “You okay?” he asked.

  The driver nodded, casting a suspicious glance over Daniel’s shoulder. “He shot out in front of me like a—” He fumbled for the English words, then launched into a burst of Russian that didn’t require a translator to be understood.

  Daniel knew all about his father’s kamikaze driving skills. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a pile of francs, British pound notes, and a serious array of dollars. Peeling off a twenty, he handed it to the guy who grunted his thanks and climbed back into his cab.

  “You’ve gotta stop picking fights, Pop,” Daniel said, walking back to the Lincoln and flinging his bags into the backseat. “Especially when you’re driving this damn hearse.”

  His father tossed him the car keys and climbed into the passenger’s side. “Everybody’s a critic. I don’t hear any thanks for picking up your sorry butt.”

  “Thanks,” said Daniel, starting the engine and adjusting the mirrors. Sometimes he wondered why his old man bothered to keep Ted on retainer. More often than not, Matty drove himself wherever he needed to go.

  Matty pressed a button and brought his seat to a reclining position. “So how’d it go?”

  “It didn’t,” Daniel said, pushing into the flow of traffic. “Bertrand doesn’t believe in progress of any kind. I probably blew it when I handed him the specs on the project. He’d rather drink brandy and talk about the good old
days.”

  “I told you he wasn’t going to budge.” Matty’s sphere of interest extended far beyond the city limits. “Bertrand’s the kind of guy who’d be happiest living a hundred years ago.”

  “He practically is.”

  “Beautiful country.”

  “That’s not a country, Pop, that’s an E-ticket ride at Disney World.” He started to laugh. “Can you believe their goats wear little bells around their necks? I thought I was listening to the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’!”

  “Atmosphere,” said his father. “If they could bottle the stuff, they wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in.”

  “Yeah, well, I couldn’t even convince him to put in a ski lift.”

  “What about Malraux?”

  “If Honore has his way, the place’ll be the Las Vegas of the Alps. He barged in on our meeting, and Bertrand just smiled and invited him to sit down.”

  Matty’s face darkened. “Sorry to hear that SOB is still on the scene. After that problem in Singapore, I had him pegged for some jail time.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. His type never gets caught. It’s a law of nature.”

  “How about his son? Last I heard the kid was in Cannes, squiring some Italian widow with unlimited funds.”

  Daniel’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know about the widow, but he’s sleeping with one of the prince’s daughters.”

  Matty glanced at him. “Best way to get power is to marry it. When Bertrand dies, Malraux’s kid’ll be sitting pretty.”

  “Not that pretty,” said Daniel, trying to keep his tone even. “He’s seeing the younger daughter—” He hesitated, now knowing exactly why.

  “Never last,” said Matty sagely. “Malraux isn’t going to waste a son on the second daughter.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  His father cast another glance in his direction, this one more curious than the last. “I hope she knows there’s no future in it.”

  Daniel shrugged. She was young and more naive than he’d have thought possible. “She’s a princess,” he said. “She’ll land on her feet.” He merged left around a tow truck.

  “Might as well toss the specs into the circular file,” Matty said. “You don’t want to tangle with Malraux.”

  “The hell I don’t. That’s the kind of bastard I live to beat.”

  “You don’t beat men like that, Danny. You just slow them down for a while.”

  Traffic slowed to a crawl, and he looked at his father. “What’s with you, Pop? I’ve never heard you talk like that before.” He’d inherited his fighting genes from his old man.

  “A feeling,” Matty said after a moment. “Can’t put my finger on it, but something’s telling me a ski lift in Perreault isn’t worth bumping up against Malraux.”

  * * *

  The first snows came to Perreault in early November—heavy, drifting snow with frigid Siberian winds that sent the old men scurrying into the cafés in search of warm brandy and memories of their younger days.

  Prince Bertrand opened the doors to his chalet high up in the mountains, thus officially declaring the start of ski season. The fact that they had to cross the border to actually ski seemed odd to everyone but him.

  Family business kept Eric traveling through most of the month. He sent Isabelle an enormous bouquet of roses for her birthday, but it was still no substitute for the comfort of his presence. Her father hosted a small party in her honor, but it appeared to Isabelle that most of the guests were more interested in the menu than the occasion.

  Honore Malraux, however, showered her with attention. He was flirtatious, albeit in his courtly fashion, and extremely apologetic for sending Eric away on so many business trips. Honore saw to it that she never lacked for a dance partner, and if it seemed that he held her a trifle closely, she chalked that up to her lack of sophistication.

  “That dark sweep of hair,” he mused, his tone light and uncomplicated, “those devastating eyes. You are your mother come back to life... even more beautiful, if that is possible.”

  She had heard those words before, of course, but always couched in disapproving tones. “I know so little about my mother, Honore. Not even Maxine will say more to me than I can discover for myself in old newspaper clippings.”

  “Come,” he said, sweeping her toward the library. “We will talk.”

  “I want to know everything,” she said minutes later as she sat down opposite him. “How she spoke, how she walked, the music she liked to listen to...” She waved her hands in the air. “I want to know it all.”

  “She loved Bach better than Beethoven,” Honore began, “but she loved American jazz most of all...”

  Two hours later Isabelle dried her eyes and impulsively hugged Honore as they left the library. “That was the most wonderful birthday gift anyone has ever given me.”

  Honore’s handsome face beamed with pleasure. “Je suis votre serviteur.” The traditional phrase of obeisance. He kissed her left cheek and then her right. “Isabelle.” His voice had a different note, strange yet oddly familiar.

  She took a step backward. For one terrible instant she had the insane notion that he was about to kiss her. The expression on his face shifted, then his features settled back into their normal pattern. She felt almost giddy with relief. What a goose she was to even think such a thing.

  “Life will be good to you, I promise,” Honore said as they walked together to the ballroom. “No matter what happens, you must remember that.”

  An attractive Swedish industrialist claimed her as soon as they reached the entryway, spiriting her onto the dance floor before she could ask Honore exactly what he meant.

  * * *

  Eric came home a few days before Christmas. He seemed charmingly uncertain in her company, the way she imagined a man would seem when he was about to propose marriage to the woman he loved.

  When her father summoned her to the library on the morning after Christmas, Isabelle knew there could be but one reason: Eric had asked for her hand.

  As soon as she entered the room she became aware that her father had been drinking. Not a great deal, for Bertrand never did anything to excess, but enough so that the room held the slight bouquet of warm brandy. His pipe rested on the small mahogany table to the right of his leather chair, next to a copy of a Maigret mystery novel and a stack of unanswered correspondence.

  “I know I’m late, Papa,” she said, kissing him on the forehead, “but I was embroidering a cape for Maxine to wear to church on New Year’s Day and—well, one thing led to another and before I knew it, it was eight o’clock.” She offered up her very best smile and perched on the arm of his chair, ignoring the chair next to him. “You do forgive me, don’t you?”

  The corners of his mouth lifted in a quick smile, but that smile came and went long before it reached his eyes. “There is nothing to forgive, Isabelle. This is a talk between a father and his daughter, not a military engagement.”

  She rolled her eyes comically. “I do not think Yves would agree with your assessment. He chided me in the hallway for keeping you waiting.”

  Bertrand chuckled, but Isabelle was quick to note that the furrows between his thick brows grew deeper. A chill ran up her spine once again, and she slid from her perch on the arm of the chair and claimed the seat next to him.

  He pointed toward the decanter of brandy on the side table. “Please help yourself.”

  Isabelle shook her head, then took a deep breath. “I’d be happy to pour for you.”

  “Later, perhaps.” His eyes met hers, then he looked away toward the window. “There is a matter of great importance—”

  “Oh, Papa!” She leaped to her feet, her apprehension vanishing. “I know what you’re going to say!”

  “Isabelle, please sit down. This is—”

  “About Eric, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then I do know what this is about! How could I not when—”

  “Isabelle! Sit down.”

  With exa
ggerated movements, she sank back into her chair. How like Papa to rely on tradition and ceremony. She could barely suppress a smile. “You were saying, Papa?”

  He glanced toward the bar. “Perhaps a touch, if you would.”

  Moments later, she handed him his snifter, then sat down again. This was not going as she’d imagined it would. She waited as he took a long drink of cognac.

  “You have been seeing Honore’s son, have you not?”

  She nodded. “I have.”

  His eyes closed for a moment. “And you’re fond of him?”

  She nodded again. “Oh yes.” Say it, Papa! Just say it so I can shout my happiness to the entire world!

  “I only wish it could be different.”

  “What?” She must have missed something.

  He leaned forward and reached for her hand, but she had the arms of the chair in a death grip. “This is very difficult, Isabelle. I only wish there were another way—an easier way to tell you.”

  The air in the room grew thin, and she struggled to draw a breath. A twisting mountain road—the black sheen of ice—she’d lost her mother that way years ago. Dear God, she couldn’t lose Eric...

  She lowered her head, unable to meet her father’s eyes. “Say it. If something’s happened—if he’s dead—please say it.”

  “Dead?” She looked up to see incredulity in her father’s eyes. “The boy is fine.”

  Relief was as painful as anxiety had been. “Then what is it?” she asked, exasperated. “If he’s come to ask for my hand in marriage, why don’t you just say so?”

  “Because he hasn’t asked for your hand, Isabelle. He has asked for your sister’s.”

  * * *

  Three weeks later, on a cold January afternoon, the wedding of Juliana and Eric took place at the Cathedral of San Michel.

  This is real, Isabelle thought. Not a dream. Not the product of a fevered mind. The scent of flowers, the angelic voices of the choir, the expectant hush from the guests crowded into the cathedral—it was all happening now, in this place, at this moment in time.