“Um…:” she tried to concentrate on the person she had been speaking to less than thirty seconds ago but her mind drew a blank. “I’m not sure,” she said, unconsciously leaning against his strong body for support.
“You need to get to bed,” he said.
His words woke her up. “Yes. I’m very tired,” she clarified.
“Sam, can you wait a moment?” Max said from a few feet away.
Sam stopped and turned towards her brother. It was now or never, she thought. She had to slip away from him or fall more under his magic spell. “I’ll see you both later,” Marabeth said and quickly slipped her hand out from Sam’s arm. The two men started talking about a discussion Max had been involved in earlier in the evening and Marabeth walked away, leaving Sam with her brother and her escape complete.
Slipping between the covers that night, Marabeth yawned with fatigue. But her mind was still active regardless of how tired her body was. She replayed the kiss with Sam over and over, wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t heard those people talking so closely to the veranda.
Nothing, she told herself emphatically, punching the pillow in frustration. She would have come to her senses. Marabeth knew herself and she just wasn’t the type of woman who would let things like that get out of hand. She was conservative and careful. She had never acted rashly in her life.
So why was it that Sam seemed to spark things within her that made her lose her control? It had happened several times now and she didn’t like it.
Marabeth rolled over and pulled her pillow over her head. She wanted to fall asleep and forget about her lack of decorum earlier in the evening. It was just too embarrassing and she didn’t want to deal with it now.
Chapter 3
“Are you serious?” Marabeth asked her secretary several weeks after the formal ball for Sam. “Why would all of my appointments be canceled?”
Stacy, a very efficient personal assistant, typed up some information on the keyboard. “Apparently it was done by security,” she replied, looking up, hoping it wasn’t because of their new Minister of Defense. Over the past few weeks, each time the new minister’s name came up, Marabeth seemed to become agitated and started mumbling under her breath. Stacy thought it was rather odd, but didn’t say anything about her boss’s behavior.
Marabeth shook her head. “There has to be some mistake. I’ll call Manny and see what is going on. This will be fixed soon,” she said and went back into her office. Marabeth pushed her long red hair off of her shoulders impatiently as she sat down at her Queen Ann desk and dialed the number to the head of security. “Manny, I just found out that all my appointments have been canceled by your office. Can you fix this?” she asked sweetly, knowing that Manny was a very nice man in his late fifties.
She listened for a moment and the sweetness disappeared. “I understand,” she said and hung up the phone. “I can’t believe it!” she said, gritting her teeth. “What right does he have to cancel all my appointments?”
“Who?” Stacy asked, walking into her office and handing Marabeth several letters. They were requests for help or Marabeth’s appearance at some charity function. Having Princess Marabeth show up at any function was a guarantee of success for the event. Everyone in the kingdom loved to see her with her fiery red hair, beautiful smile and soft, blue eyes. She was the darling of the press and all the subjects of Cordova loved her, even wanting her autograph as if she were some sort of movie star.
“That obnoxious, horrible, irritating new Minister of Defense!” Marabeth snarled angrily. She couldn’t ever remembering being this angry in her life.
Stacy cringed for a moment, noting Marabeth’s fury, just as predicted. “I don’t understand why he makes you so angry,” Stacy said, getting a dreamy look on her face. She looked like she was melting as her body relaxed at he thought of the new minister. Stacy’s body leaned against Marabeth’s desk, her shoulders drooped and her head lolled to the side slightly as she looked at Marabeth curiously. “Have you really looked at the man? He’s amazingly gorgeous. And so charming! I can’t imagine him being obnoxious.”
Marabeth snorted in disbelief. Was every female under this man’s spell? Stacy was at least fifty years old, married and with a grandchild on the way. How could she be awestruck by a man who was as annoying as Sam?
Slapping a folder onto her desk from her filing cabinet, she shook her head in exasperation of her secretary’s fascination. “Well, all my appointments outside the palace were canceled by his direct order,” Marabeth explained, trying to maintain a degree of professionalism and courtesy when she really wanted to go pummel the man for doing this to her.
“I’m sure he had his reasons. My husband is already feeling the benefits of his changes in the military,” Stacy said.
Marabeth knew that Sam was making some great changes in the military and had done so more quickly than anyone had thought would be possible. Morale was up and that meant a safer defense which was all good and wonderful. But the man still irritated her personally. “Yes, well, your husband is a military man. I’m not. I don’t think he has the right to do this to me and my schedule.”
Stacy bit her lip, hesitating slightly before stating, “Isn’t palace security underneath the Ministry of Defense?”
“Yes, but they’ve never intervened in Manny’s domain before. There’s no reason he should be doing so now,” Marabeth said, picking up the phone, determined to force the issue with the great man himself if that was necessary.
“Who are you calling now?” Stacy asked, laying the letters on Marabeth’s desk.
“The Minster of Defense,” Marabeth replied as if the answer were obvious. “I have a full day planned and I don’t intend to change that simply because he’s arbitrarily demanding that I do so. I’m going to have a little chat with our new and reputedly improved Minister of Defense. He’s going to regret this day, I’m telling you!”
Stacy ignored Marabeth’s angry tone, instead continuing with her fantasy starring Sam as her hero. “Wow! I’d like to have a cozy conversation with him,” she whispered, a dreamy look in her eyes.
Marabeth wanted to rant and scream at the man, not converse rationally with him so she didn’t understand Stacy’s response. “Why on earth would you want to do that?”