Rich, Rugged And Royal. Catherine Mann

      She’d barely come to grips with dating a rich guy, given all the bad baggage that brought up of her dead husband. A crooked sleaze. She’d been dazzled by Nolan’s glitzy world, learning too late it was financed by a Ponzi scheme.

      The guilt of those destroyed lives squeezed the breath from her lungs all over again. If not for her son, she might very well have curled inside herself and given up after Nolan took his own life. But she would hold strong for Kolby.

      “Answer me,” she demanded, hoping.

      “This isn’t the place to talk.”

      Not reassuring and, oh God, why did Tony still have the power to hurt her? Anger punched through the pain. “How long does it take to say damned rumor?”

      He slid an arm around her shoulders, tucking her to his side. “Let’s find somewhere more private.”

      “Tell me now.” She pulled back from the lure of his familiar scent, minty patchouli and sandalwood, the smell of exotic pleasures.

      Tony—Antonio—Prince Medina—whoever the hell he was—ducked his head closer to hers. “Shannon, do you really want to talk here where anyone can listen? The world’s going to intrude on our town soon enough.”

      Tears burned behind her eyes, the room going blurry even with her glasses on. “Okay, we’ll find a quiet place to discuss this.”

      He backed her toward the kitchen. Her legs and his synched up in step, her hips following his instinctively, as if they’d danced together often … and more. Eyes and whispers followed them the entire way. Did everyone already know? Cell phones sang from pockets and vibrated on tabletops as if Galveston quivered on the verge of an earthquake.

      No one approached them outright, but fragments drifted from their huddled discussions.

      “Could Tony Castillo be—”

      “—Medina—”

      “—With that waitress—”

      The buzz increased like a swarm of locusts closing in on the Texas landscape. On her life.

      Tony growled lowly, “There’s nowhere here we can speak privately. I need to get you out of Vernon’s.”

      His muscled arm locked her tighter, guiding her through a swishing door, past a string of chefs all immobile and gawking. He shouldered out a side door and she had no choice but to follow.

      Outside, the late-day sun kissed his bronzed face, bringing his deeply tanned features into sharper focus. She’d always known there was something strikingly foreign about him. But she’d believed his story of dead parents, bookkeepers who’d emigrated from South America. Her own parents had died in a car accident before she’d graduated from college. She’d thought they’d at least shared similar childhoods.

      Now? She was sure of nothing except how her body still betrayed her with the urge to lean into his hard-muscled strength, to escape into the pleasure she knew he could bring.

      “I need to let management know I’m leaving. I can’t lose this job.” Tips were best in the evening and she needed every penny. She couldn’t afford the time it would take to get her teaching credentials current again—if she could even find a music-teaching position with cutbacks in the arts.

      And there weren’t too many people out there in search of private oboe lessons.

      “I know the owner, remember?” He unlocked his car, the remote chirp-chirping.

      “Of course. What was I thinking? You have connections.” She stifled a fresh bout of hysterical laughter.

      Would she even be able to work again if the Medina rumor was true? It had been tough enough finding a job when others associated her with her dead husband. Sure, she’d been cleared of any wrongdoing, but many still believed she must have known about Nolan’s illegal schemes.

      There hadn’t even been a trial for her to state her side. Once her husband had made bail, he’d been dead within twenty-four hours.

      Tony cursed low and harsh, sailor-style swearing he usually curbed around her and Kolby. She looked around, saw nothing … Then she heard the thundering footsteps a second before the small cluster of people rounded the corner with cameras and microphones.

      Swearing again, Tony yanked open the passenger door to his Escalade. He lifted her inside easily, as if she weighed nothing more than the tray of fried gator appetizers she’d carried earlier.

      Seconds later he slid behind the wheel and slammed the door a hair’s breadth ahead of the reporters. Fists pounded on the tinted windows. Locks auto-clicked. Shannon sagged in the leather seat with relief.

      The hefty SUV rocked from the force of the mob. Her heart rate ramped again. If this was the life of the rich and famous, she wanted no part.

      Shifting into Reverse then forward, Tony drove, slow but steady. People peeled away. At least one reporter fell on his butt but everyone appeared unharmed.

      So much for playing chicken with Tony. She would be wise to remember that.

      He guided the Escalade through the historic district a hint over the speed limit, fast enough to put space between them and the media hounds. Panting in the aftermath, she still braced a hand on the dash, her other gripping the leather seat. Yet Tony hadn’t even broken a sweat.

      His hands stayed steady on the wheel, his expensive watch glinting from the French cuffs of his shirt. Restored brick buildings zipped by her window. A young couple dressed for an evening out stepped off the curb, then back sharply. While the whole idea of being hunted by the paparazzi scared her to her roots, right here in the SUV with Tony, she felt safe.

      Safe enough for the anger and betrayal to come bubbling to the surface. She’d been mad at him since their fight last weekend over his continued insistence on giving her money. But those feelings were nothing compared to the rage that coursed through her now. “We’re alone. Talk to me.”

      “It’s complicated.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. Normal traffic tooled along the narrow street. “What do you want to know?”

      She forced herself to say the words that would drive a permanent wedge between her and the one man she’d dared let into her life again.

      “Are you a part of that lost royal family, the one everybody thought was hiding in Argentina?”

      The Cadillac’s finely tuned engine hummed in the silence. Lights clicked on automatically with the setting sun, the dash glowing.

      His knuckles went white on the steering wheel, his jaw flexing before he nodded tightly. “The rumors on the internet are correct.”

      And she’d thought her heart couldn’t break again.

      Her pride had been stung over Tony’s offer to give her money, but she would have gotten over it. She would have stuck to her guns about paying her own way, of course. But this? It was still too huge to wrap her brain around. She’d slept with a prince, let him into her home, her body, and considered letting him into her heart. His deception burned deep.

      How could she have missed the truth so completely, buying into his stories about working on a shrimp boat as a teen? She’d assumed his tattoo and the closed over pierced earlobe were parts of an everyman past that seduced her as fully as his caresses.

      “Your name isn’t even Tony Castillo.” Oh God. She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, suddenly nauseated because she didn’t even know the name of the guy she’d been sleeping with.

      “Technically, it could be.”

      Shannon slammed her fists against the leather seat instead of reaching for him as she ached to do. “I’m not interested in technically. Actually, I’m not interested in people who lie to me. Can I even trust that you’re really thirty-two years old?”

      “It isn’t just my decision to share specific details. I have