Page 23 of Prince She Shouldn't Crave
No decisions needed to be made right now. She could think about it a little later. Gabrielneededher, just as Cilla had said. Today, she had a job to do and would do it the best way she could, with dedication and focus. Lena checked her mascara and wiped away a few smudges, then began walking to the official vehicle. As she rounded the corner of the building what she saw in front of her brought her to a halt.
On an expanse of grass were a group of men kicking a football in the sunshine. Workers, she guessed, on a lunch break. They laughed as the ball was passed around, though that wasn’t what caused her to stop. It was Gabriel, at the edge of the grass. Standing, watching.
To others, his expression might have seemed impassive, but she knew him better now. The corners of his lips barely turned up. The intent way he stared at the men, as if getting ready to spring into action. She stood back, watching the tableau in front of her. She’d seen him, of course, in her research. The young man leading his country to a junior world championship win. The photos then, showed a person not yet grown into himself. Still tall, yet somehow rangier. Less bulk on him.
He’d grown into himself now, in every way.
The men on the grass were clearly in competition of some sort, friendly as it was. One team manoeuvred the ball around, trying to score a goal, whilst others shouted at each other in a friendly kind of banter. They were all young, fit. Some were muscular. But Gabriel was the one who held her attention. She couldn’t take her eyes from him. Yet there was something abouthowhe watched. It almost looked nostalgic, the way he was so solid whilst the action swirled in front of him. In that moment she didn’t think. She raised her phone, set her camera app to video, and pressed record.
One of the men aimed for the goal close to Gabriel. Missed. The ball speared towards him. His leg shot out and he stopped the ball dead with one foot, in a way that even her untrained eye could tell was with an uncommon kind of skill.
The men on the grass looked at him, and everything paused, as if the world held its breath. Then almost as if out of muscle memory, he started forwards, kicking the ball in front of him. Lena was transfixed by the brilliance of it, as he cut through the men trying to intercept him, to take the ball away. It was as if they were nothing more than mere irritations as he weaved between them, heading for the goal at the opposite end of the grass. Time slowed as she watched him dodge his assailants’ attempts to tackle him. Then, in a moment almost even beyond her explanation, faced with a wall of men all joined together against him, their own teams forgotten, he lined up the ball and kicked. It flew, curved through the air in a sharp arc and hit the back of the goal net as Gabriel watched.
The men around him exploded in whoops and cheers, running towards him. Here, on this patch of grass, they were all equal. Lena forgot what she was doing, caught up in the sheer thrill of the scene in front of her. Then after a few moments it was as if he came back into himself. Gabriel turned. If she’d been asked, she would have said his expression was one of pureelation. A smile like she’d never seen before, splitting his face. Warm, true, joyous.
One that speared right into the heart of her, and in that moment, shesawhim. Not His Royal Highness, Prince Gabriel, but Gabe Montroy, the man. It hit her as sure and true as if he’d kicked that football right into her solar plexus.
Something about him had changed. He seemed…more. As if he’d grown out of himself, shed an unwanted skin and somehow come alive. So unlike the man she’d met at her job interview. It was as if he’d become another person entirely. Sure, there was an ego about him. He’d be ruler of his country one day and would always carry that naturally superior demeanour with him, but this was something else.
Heat crept over her, that awareness again. Not of him as her employer or a future king, but of him as a man. Everything about him seemed larger than life. The way he fitted his clothes. His shoulders, broad and strong under his suit jacket. He seemed to become like some mythical figure. A god. His hair gleaming golden in the sunshine. All of him burnished. Beautiful. She stopped recording as he was feted by the other men. She didn’t know if Gabriel could speak their language, but it didn’t matter. Something about this moment seemed universal.
She took pleasure in simply watching as the men gave him the ball again and again in different positions on the expanse of grass, watching him kick goal after goal. Always the same perfect arc. Hitting the back of the net every time. She took a few still shots and some of the men had pulled out their phones too. Did they know who they played with? They had to be aware he was someone important. It was written all over him in the fit of his clothes, the way he held himself. You couldn’t mistake him for anything other than a leader, yet in this moment there was a camaraderie. Prince or pauper, it didn’t matter.
The game, such as it was, seemed to have wound up. Gabe shook hands with the workers, and they slapped him on the back. Made noises of disappointment about him having to go. She hadn’t wanted to disturb anyone because they had plenty of time, but she still walked over to him, attracted like iron filings to a magnet. Watching as the workmen resumed their day and Gabe stood, distant and apart from it once more.
There was something about the moment that seemed poignant. Her heart beat an unsteady, excited kind of rhythm at what she’d witnessed. At the sheermasteryof him. He loomed so large right now, it was as if she were dwarfed. Then Gabriel focussed on her, and Lena noticed his breathing was a bit heavy, his shirt clung a little with perspiration from a workout in the bright sunshine.
‘Y-you’rereallygood,’ she blurted out, the words spilling from her lips as the heat rose in her cheeks.
The corners of his mouth curled into a lazy smile, blinding and bright. Brimming with a magnificent kind of confidence in his own ability. He slid off his sunglasses and pinned her with his blue gaze that seemed to burn hot like a pilot light.
‘I know,’ he said. Winked.
And Lena went up in flames.
Gabe had always had a sense of place in the world, an awareness that he’d one day be King. Yet he’d somehow forgotten himself. Forgotten the boy he’d once been, filled with excitement at life and what lay ahead. The camaraderie of his team, whereas of late he’d felt so alone. The joy of a perfect kick, watching the ball curve and hit the back of the net. Ofwinning.
Of course, he’d won at life. He was a prince. He had all the privileges that his position entailed. Still, every day, someone wanted to carve a piece from him. The criticism, thebarbs. Sometimes veiled, often not. Whilst he’d always carried a healthy sense of ego about what he could achieve for his people, he was only human. This moment just passed was simple, pure, and if he had to describe it, exhilarating. He didn’t have to think, he simplywas. It was as if he’d never walked away from the field. The memory of it came back to him. Made his blood pump hard and hot. He felt too big for his own skin. Alive again, as he hadn’t been in years.
Especially with the way Lena was looking at him. He’d felt her gaze, as palpable as a caress. Now? Her cheeks carried a subtle blush, her eyes glittering. Pupils big and dark in the fathomless blue of her irises. Hair long and flowing round her shoulders like a river of dark silk that he craved to bury his fingers in to see if it was as soft as it looked.
He’d known she was watching him, and he’d wanted to perform for her. Driven to show her who he’d once been. Or perhaps, who he truly was when you stripped Prince Gabriel to his essence, and all that was left was the man.
‘I—I had no idea.’ That slight flush washed over her cheeks again.
The way she looked at him. He wanted to take her in his arms again, yet this time, to kiss her. Stake a claim, because he’d seen the way the workmen had looked at her. The admiration, the desire. Lena Rosetti was an exquisite woman and a man would have to be dead inside not to notice. He wasn’t dead, not any more. He’d never felt more alive. As if he were King of the whole world.
‘It’s not hidden. I thought your research on me would have turned it up.’
‘It did. It’s just seeing it for real. That was…something. Why did you stop if you were that good?’
Because he’d been young and foolish and had felt untouchable. He’d become involved with someone he shouldnever have trusted, and in the end that was the deal his parents had made with him. They’d dealt with the threats they never wanted to see the light of day. That he might be a hero on the football field, but he had trouble reading. In exchange, he went to work in the royal family. Who would challenge the story of a young man turning his back on everything he loved to serve his people?
If he thought hard about it and how his parents had behaved since, it was as if they didn’t trust him. Neither did some of the press, not any more, though for spurious reasons. The bitter truth was that for so long he hadn’t trusted himself. Questioned his own abilities because too much in his family had been unspoken. There were the frowns and thin-lipped disappointment of his parents when his school results had come in, yet they’d never asked why, only told him to try harder, as if he’d been lazy. In those times he’d wondered how he would ever be able to run a country when he had trouble making out words on a page. If he was seen as a failure…
The cut of his nails into his palms brought Gabe back from those thoughts into the present. He unclenched fists he didn’t remember tightening. No. Heknewhe was trustworthy and didn’t really care what other people thought of him, but deep in his soul he craved for someone who mattered to believe it. To trust him, and for him to trust them.
‘I had a duty. I did what was expected of me. The burdens of my station.’ Or so his parents said. Yet why did their children always have to be the ones that carried that burden for the crown?
