1
Indonesia.
Land of gathered magical isles. Paradise of sun and surf and shining sea and wooden huts on stilts. Cultural panacea of temples and balmy tropical weather and flowers as big as my torso.
Alex and I are on the beach, soaking ourselves beneath the afternoon sun.
I have never been so relaxed in a long, long time. We totally deserve it. We have toiled long into the week, cutting down trees, gathering logs and coconut fronds to help make the villagers a wooden community hall on stilts – and it was worth every drop of our sweat. I never realized giving back to the community would be so rewarding. In all my life, I never gave anything back. I was too busy surviving.
The little inlet we are on is shielded from the village by a thick cluster of trees – tall slender coconut trees with their large fanlike leaves and the thicker rainforest ones with gnarled roots the size of elephant trunks.
We are completely isolated. We are not in a five-star resort and waited upon by liveried waiters ferrying trays of cocktails and salted peanuts. This is an honest-to-goodness village with real villagers. Beyond the little huts are paddy fields, nourished by irrigation and the toil of bare brown hands.
We have been here for over a month. We’ve made love frequently, sometimes three times a day, and lived the simple village life. Alex calls it “immersing ourselves in living anthropology”. I call it “having a damned good vacation”.
I have never been out of the country on vacation before. This is a first. While Alex takes time to “work out what he really wants in life”, I immerse myself in the role of loving girlfriend.
“So,” I say, fingering his well-muscled forearm and the major vein that snakes across it. “Have you decided if you want to go home?”
Home for Alex is his family’s official state palace in Moldovia. Of course, they have an official summer palace as well as a winter palace, not to mention numerous chateaus and mansions around the globe for spring and fall vacations – though I’d honestly die if I had to keep moving for every season.
“If it were up to me, I’d never go home,” he says.
His face is turned towards me and he’s smiling. I’ll never get tired of watching him. He has a countenance you can gaze at forever, with his amazingly vivid jewels of blue-green eyes and the little depression in between his brows – which gives him a ‘devil may care’ edge.
This is a man you’ll have to reckon with, it says, despite his obvious Greek god looks.
I still can’t believe he’s mine. And I still can’t believe I’m here . . . with Prince Alexander Vassar, who ran away from home because he didn’t want to marry the Lady Tatiana of Nuernberg.
I say, “You’ll have to go home sometime. I’ll bet the Moldovian tabloids are burning up with speculations on your whereabouts.”
They don’t know about me, of course.
“It’ll be old news soon,” he says affably. “They’ll always find something else to print.”
“Is your father OK with you being here?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, it isn’t as if I didn’t email him about where we are . . . it’s my responsibility, of course.”
He’s also Moldovia’s heir to the throne, he fails to mention.
“Any word from him?”
“Other than that one terse email three weeks ago which said ‘If you don’t come back within the week, I’m disinheriting you?’ Nah. Radio silence.”
To be honest, I’m a little worried about Alex. He’s a little outwardly cavalier about the whole thing. He doesn’t have normal parents. He doesn’t have a normal life. He can’t just up and dump all his responsibilities. He will have to pay for this little escapade somewhat. And because I love him, I don’t want anything bad to happen to him.
Yes, I’m aware I said the ‘L’ word.
Not to his face though.
I haven’t told him. I haven’t dredged up the guts to tell him yet. Maybe I’ll email him one day and maintain radio silence until he digests it.
He watches my fingers trailing a path down his forearm, and he suddenly grabs my hand with a lightning quick movement.
I’m caught.
He smiles as he rolls on top of me. I’m now lying on my back upon the soft, white sand. His weight presses down on my bikini-clad body. He smells of sweat and sea salt upon the tropical breeze.
“God, you’re beautiful, Elizabeth Turner.”
“You’re likewise, Prince Alexander Vassar.”
“Cut the prince crap,” he growls.
He dips down his head to kiss me. His shoulder-length hair falls to the front, fanning his face. I kiss him back – slow, searching, loving, languorous. I love the feel of his silky lips on mine, and the feel of his equally silky hair on my fingers.