Chapter 7 #2
Yes, I’ll admit, they’re a couple of good-looking guys. Objectively, there’s no denying that. But Greek statues come to life? Male perfection? From what I understand of Prince Max he’s about as flawed as they come. Arrogant, rude, shallow as a puddle.
Even if he does look particularly sexy with his torso taut with muscle, glistening in the late-morning sun.
Not that I’m staring or anything.
It’s my job to observe him. To learn everything I can about him.
But there's nothing professional about the way my pulse quickens as I watch him. I have to consciously remind myself to breathe. Because if I’m honest with myself—truly, truly honest—seeing the prince’s muscles ripple, his jaw held in strong determination, does things to me.
Things I shouldn’t be feeling for a man I’m not only meant to be working with, but a man I actively dislike.
Well, at least I did actively dislike him before I began to see glimpses of someone beneath the suave, playboy exterior. Glimpses of someone real.
Dang it! I'm supposed to be immune to this man’s charms, not standing here like some lovesick teenager ogling the popular boy.
Get it together, Valentina.
I’ve been so focused on Max, I’ve barely noticed Chase, until his movement catches my eye, snapping me out of whatever trance the prince has put me in.
Reality hits me like a sharp slap to the cheek. I'm wasting time admiring the view—because as much as I hate to admit it, I am most definitely admiring it—when I should be getting my story.
They're right there in front of me, only three levels down.
This might be my only real chance today.
“Bye, ladies.” I dash across the floor, heading to the door.
“Where are you going? They haven’t started stretching yet!” Pippa calls out after me.
“Out!” I call back as I fly around the corner, and down the stairs, nearly tripping over my own heels as I traverse the expansive staircase that leads to the ground floor.
Once there, I call on my childhood palace knowledge to locate my nearest exit, bolting through it and out into the gardens.
I gulp in air, my heart hammering from more than the exertion as I search the gardens for the two Greek statues in motion.
I come to a stop, and my heels sink into the grass.
Dang it! I pull them off, hopping on one foot and then the other before I clutch my shoes in one hand and dash around a fountain in hot pursuit.
It’s not until I reach the veggie gardens and fruit trees at the back of the kitchens when I let out a defeated breath. They’re nowhere to be seen. Somehow, those half naked exercisers slipped through my fingers.
A couple of gardeners have stopped to stare at me, and I give them a brief, embarrassed wave before I smooth back the hair that’s loosened from its ponytail and pad across the grass in my now dirty bare feet.
A brown bundle of fur bounds over to me.
“Hello, Toffee,” I coo despite myself, leaning down to pet her, and she plants her dirty paws on my skirt once more.
My dry-cleaning bill is going to bankrupt me in this place.
“Oh, hello,” a woman’s voice says warily, and I look up to see Princess Amelia. She’s in a pair of dungarees over a T-shirt, her long dark hair in a messy bun on top of her head, holding the hand of one of her children.
I drop into a curtsy. “Your Royal Highness.”
She waves her hand in the air. “Don’t bother with all that here. I’m Amelia, and this is Jamie.”
I smile at the toddler’s rosy cheeks, his hair lighter than his mother’s but with her beautiful brown eyes. “Hello, Jamie. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”
“Toffee!” he replies, pointing at the puppy and showing no interest in this frazzled woman in the garden.
“What happened?” Princess Amelia asks as she slides her gaze over me.
“I was, err, chasing someone.”
Her eyebrows ping up to meet her hairline. “In a skirt suit?”
I shrug. “Needs must, I suppose.”
“It was my brother, wasn’t it.”
I press my lips together. As much as I don’t love what Max is doing, I’m not going to rat him out to his sister.
“He’s always been the naughty one. Wonderful but naughty.”
“Mama,” Jamie says, pulling on her arm.
“I must go. I promised Jamie he could feed the chickens.”
“Do you want me to take Toffee?”
“No. She needs the run, and Max has been trying to train her. Between you and me, he’s not very good at it.”
I smile as I watch Jamie try to reach for the dog, who’s too busy sniffing the ground to notice.
As she moves away, I rush after her. “Amelia, can I say something?”
“What?”
“About what happened with you and that reality show.”
“If you’re going to tell me you had nothing to do with it, I already know. The inquiry told us as much.”
“Thank you,” I reply. It’s always played on my mind that she and her husband, Ethan, thought I was part of the plan to illegally film their every move. I may have said many things about the royal family over the years, but I’ve never gone to those kinds of lengths.
Her eyes dance when she smiles. “Now go, find that brother of mine and tell the country what he’s really like.”
I return to the palace and march up the stairs to the PR office in my bare feet, where I’m met with more curious gazes from the palace staff.
Prince Max may have eluded me once more, but it’s my job to spend time with him, and I’m not going to let him get the better of me.
By the afternoon, I've had words with a confused Ronan, who provided me with what is Prince Max’s actual schedule, and after freshening up in my room, I head to his office. Apparently, he’s reviewing some documents there after lunch.
He’s not getting away with this. I’m not just some mouse for him to toy with his big cat paws. I’m a serious journalist, here to document his life. Here to do him and his family a favor.
Doesn’t he realize I could publish horrible things about him? Tell the country he’s worse than a man-child? Worse than a himbo?
And you know what? I might just do that.
I’ll give him one last chance, and then that’s it.
With my jaw clenched so tight I might crack a molar, I arrive at his office a handful of minutes early.
It’s a stunning room, with wood paneled walls, the obligatory high ceilings, and a large desk.
I make my way over to the fireplace, where I squat behind one of the high-backed leather chairs.
I have a clear view of the entrance, and I’m ready.
This is what that man has reduced me to: hiding behind furniture like some oversized kid.
I push out a frustrated breath. I'm supposed to be documenting his daily life, providing intimate access to the real Prince Max. My career cannot become a series of failed ambush attempts with Ledonia’s most elusive prince.
And I’m going to do my darndest to make sure it isn’t.
Finally, after my knees begin to cramp, Prince Max appears.
He saunters into the room as though he owns it, looking all relaxed in his post-shower pair of slacks and white polo shirt that does everything for his broad shoulders—and absolutely nothing for my mental state.
Really, for a guy who’s successfully led me down the garden path today, he sure looks relaxed. He’s humming a tune as he sets some papers out on his desk.
I spring to my feet, my knees creaking in protest, and his eyes land on mine. With more than a touch of satisfaction, I watch his expression shift from relaxed to something rather closely resembling trapped prey.
“Ms. Fontaine.”
“You’ve sent me on quite the royal goose chase today, Your Royal Highness,” I say in a clipped tone that leaves him in no doubt of my displeasure.
“I did?” he asks as though it comes as a surprise to him.
“Did you purposely send me to the wrong location this morning?”
“The wrong location?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Please don’t play coy with me. You sent me a schedule from last month and I waited in the Blue Drawing Room for half an hour. You’re well aware I need access to you to do the job your father is paying me to do.”
“Perhaps the schedules got mixed up.”
I raise my brows. “Perhaps?”
“These things happen.”
“Admit it,” I spit. “You did this on purpose.”
“Are you being a little paranoid?”
I throw my hands on my hips and glare at him.
He raises his palms in the air. “Okay, I admit it. I had a schedule from last month sent to you.”
“What?” My jaw drops open. He did send me on a wild goose chase!
“I was being childish.”
“You said it,” I scoff. “You need this more than I do,” I bluff, because a broken-down house and a pile of bills tell me otherwise.
“I suppose you’re right. I wasn’t playing fair.”
“Damn straight you weren’t.”
The corners of his mouth twitch. “What will you do with me now you’ve caught me?”
Is his tone…flirty? Because it sure sounds like that to me.
It’s so wrong on so many levels.
It’s also a little thrilling, in a totally messed up, inappropriate way.
Man. Talk about mind games.
My heart is drumming from both anger and something else I’m not going to label. “Is that an apology, sir?”
He shrugs as though what he’s put me through today is no big deal. “It’s as much as an apology as I’m likely to give you.”
I twist my mouth.
“All right. I’m sorry I did that to you. It was wrong and I should know better. Shall we start again?”
“Why? Do you have a schedule in your papers dating back to 1992?”
“I wasn’t even alive in 1992. And no, I’m all out of old schedules.
” His lips curve into a smile, and in an instant, I know exactly why all those women swoon over this man.
Why his poster has been plastered across teenage girls’ bedroom walls for years.
Why he gets away with his crazy party boy antics.
He’s not only handsome, but he has a way about him that can only be described as charming—when he’s not scowling at me and treating me like the enemy, that is.
Or maybe especially then, in an Elizabeth Bennet bantering with Mr. Darcy kind of way. But then I am dealing with the playboy prince here, the heir to his brother’s Prince McHottie badge.
Max has flirted his way across the globe virtually since he hit puberty, winning people over with his good looks, boyish charm, and easy-going nature.
The nation has always been enthralled with the youngest royal sibling, a chubby toddler causing havoc at garden parities; cute as a button as a little boy in a straw hat and tie on his first day at an elite private school; growing into a handsome teenager who began to understand his attractiveness to the opposite sex; a scruffy but nevertheless undeniably hot student during his Cambridge days, all messy hair and thick sweaters; and more recently, a dashing young man in his formal military uniform.
Of course, as a royal correspondent, I needed to reflect the country’s fondness of him, remarking on how well he’d grown up, how he’d deservedly become Ledonia’s new “McHottie”.
Just as I had with his older brother, Alex, I acted as though I’d swooned along with the rest of the nation.
I talked the two brothers up as though they were something special, when in reality, they were simply born lucky—both to be Ledonian royalty and to win the gene lottery for good looks.
I’ve always known better. Alex and Max and their sisters may not have been the members of the royal family to destroy my family, to take away everything I’d ever known.
They might not have been the ones to prosecute my father, to force him to flee Ledonia.
But their parents have blood on their hands, and that’s something I can never forgive them for, no matter how charming they may be.
“Can we agree that we’re both going to act like adults and put your game-playing aside to work together?” I stretch my hand out toward him.
He looks down at it, and I wonder if he’s going to keep me hanging. But then he takes my hand in his, and the touch of his skin sends a strong but nevertheless unwanted bolt of electricity right up my arm and across my chest.
“No more game playing, Ms. Fontaine. You have my word,” he says, his eyes dark and intense.
I swallow. Something just shifted between us, and suddenly this coming month has become so much more complicated, and I have a sinking feeling our handshake just changed everything.