Searching For Her Prince by Karen Rose Smith Page A

never told her details of his work. He’d never given her specific names of companies he was working with or thinking about buying. Was that because he thought she might use the information to further her own future? To get herself a better job?
    On a deeper level, he had never told her what it had been like to be separated from Shane when they were kids. Yet he’d already told Amira how difficult that had been. He could see himself sitting down with Amira, explaining a merger he wanted to accomplish and letting her bat ideas back to him. And now this conversation they were having…
    “I guess I didn’t trust her any more than she trusted me. I don’t know why. I never told her about Mother and Dad’s fights. Or the affair Dad had that broke up my parents’ marriage.”
    “Maybe you both were trying to be what you thought the other person wanted.”
    “This is heavy stuff before breakfast,” he said gruffly, and went over to the window to look out at the backyard where a wooden swing hung from the tall oak. That swing had been there since he was a child.
    Following him to the window, Amira stood veryclose, her elbow brushing his. “What do you see out there?” she asked, seemingly out of the blue.
    “I see—” He stopped before he said Shane’s name. “I see my brother and me climbing the tree, shimmying to the top branches. I can hear our mother telling us we were going to break our necks, and see Dad putting up a ladder against the tree just to be on the safe side.” He pointed to a patch of land in the rear corner. “See that area that looks like it’s overgrown with vines?”
    Amira nodded.
    “Every June my mom and my brother and I would pick strawberries. When Dad came from the city on weekends, we’d make ice cream on the front porch and put the strawberries over it. I guess it’s silly now to think about that, but I do often.”
    “That’s because you were happy then.”
    Turning away from the window, he left the past and found the present. “I haven’t been happy for a long time. I’ve been busy—not happy.”
    “And you haven’t been involved with anyone since Rhonda?”
    “No. After she died, I decided personal relationships carried too high a price. Being responsible for another person’s life and happiness is just too great a burden.” He still believed that even now. That’s why he’d wanted Amira to come and spend this week with him. He wanted to be happy without the responsibility of thinking about the future…because there could be no future between the two of them.
    After she studied his face, she quietly said, “I know loving can sometimes be a burden. But when I hear my mother talk about my father, I know she would have given up anything for that love. Seeingher with Harrison now, I can tell she’s found love all over again and the two of them complete each other’s lives.”
    Brent shook his head. “I only see heartache when two people connect. My family broke up because my father turned to another woman and my mother found out. Because they couldn’t repair their marriage, they separated me from my brother. Rhonda and I cared for each other, but apparently not deeply enough.”
    He paused for a moment, then asked very soberly, “What does it take to make a successful relationship? What kind of love do you have to have? I don’t know, Amira. Most of the time I believe men and women are supposed to be ships passing in the night. It’s much easier that way. Last night you asked me if I brought you here to seduce you, and I got angry because you put it into words. I did bring you here for that. But I promise you now, if you stay, we’ll become friends before anything else happens. I don’t want you to have regrets when you go back to Penwyck.”
    Gazing into her eyes, he could see what her answer would be before she said it. “I’ll stay.”
    He knew it took courage for her to make that decision. She was going against an upbringing that would make staying alone