Chapter Eight
CHAPTER EIGHT
“My God,” Gabriel muttered. “You really are awful at this.”
“I know,” Michel groaned. He dropped his head back on the sofa and threw his forearm over his eyes.
“How can you not get her number?” His cousin sounded as frustrated as Michel felt.
“I panicked.” He sat upright and buried all ten fingers into his hair. “She said yes and I just panicked.”
“Didn’t you want her to say yes? Why would you panic when you got what you wanted?”
“She got this look on her face as soon as she said it. As though she was torn. As though a part of her already regretted her decision.” Michel frowned, remembering her conflicted expression. “I was terrified she might change her mind if I stayed. So I threw some bills on the table, grabbed my things, and took off.”
“Took off?” Something like horror dawned on Gabriel’s face. “You didn’t actually run, did you?”
“I walked fast.” His voice broke on the last word. “Very fast.”
“I need a drink just listening to that story.” His cousin stalked to the wet bar and filled two tumblers with cognac. “We both need a drink.”
Michel didn’t realize he’d neglected to get Emma’s number until he was back in his suite. Grinning like a fool, he’d texted Gabriel to tell him why dating apps were inferior to good old-fashioned serendipity. Then he wondered whether he should text Emma to see if she’d gotten home safely. He wasn’t sure whether that might seem too forward since they hadn’t gone on their first date yet. He was halfway through typing his question about proper dating etiquette to his cousin when the realization hit him. It was as though someone had struck a gong in his head. Even his teeth seemed to reverberate from the enormity of his blunder.
Michel groaned again and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. Thank God his cousin came over to get him drunk in his time of need. But there had been a tense moment when his cousin first arrived at the hotel…
Sophie had stepped close to Gabriel and snarled, “Do not let Prince Michel leave this suite. Understood?”
“Understood,” his cousin had answered, studying her face with somber eyes.
She’d glared at him for a long moment as though she had more to say, but then she’d stormed out without another word.
“What the hell is going on with you and Sophie anyway?” Michel let the cognac burn its way down his throat.
“Absolutely nothing.” His cousin tilted back his drink. “This was the first time she even looked at me since you two came to LA.”
“Exactly. Why is that?”
Gabriel glared at him for a moment, his jaw clenching, then he visibly willed himself to relax. His signature sardonic smirk returned to his face when he said, “We’re not here to talk about my love life. We’re here to talk about yours. Or more precisely, the lack thereof.”
“Wanker,” Michel muttered. He needed to sort out the mess he’d made with Emma before he could give proper attention to the fact that his cousin had called the situation between him and Sophie his love life .
“She must be on social media.” Gabriel unlocked his mobile and looked expectantly at Michel. “What’s her name?”
“Emma.”
“Does Emma have a last name?” His cousin employed the gentle, patient voice of an adult speaking to a lost child. Where is your mummy?
“Of course she has a last name,” Michel said with utter disdain.
“Well, what is it?”
“I. Don’t. Know.” He stood from the sofa to refill his glass and returned with the entire bottle. “I never asked her.”
Gabriel raised his eyes to the ceiling and sighed ponderously. “Do you know her profession, by any chance?”
“No, but that is one of the many questions I plan to ask her on our date.” Michel courteously refilled his cousin’s empty glass before pouring his own drink.
“What date?”
“Shut up,” he said with the maturity and dignity befitting the future king of Rouleme. “I’ll camp out at the café if I need to. She’s bound to show up again.”
“So your best chance of seeing her again is if she decides to go on another one of those arranged dates—”
“Matseons.”
“—after she agreed to go on a date with you?” Gabriel doggedly finished.
“It doesn’t matter,” Michel mumbled, refusing to feel as foolish as he sounded. “She never likes any of those men anyway.”
“But she likes you? Are you sure about that?” His cousin crossed his arms over his chest. “What happens when she discovers that your left nostril is ever so slightly wider than your right nostril?”
“I beg your pardon.” Michel stalked to the gilded mirror dominating one of the walls. “My nostrils are completely symmetrical.”
Gabriel laughed himself hoarse, tipping over to his side on the sofa. Michel calmly withdrew his mobile from his pocket and hit Record on the camera app.
“How undignified of you, Professor Laurent.” He tsked. “Your students will be thrilled to see the great Sphinx undone like this.”
His cousin shot to his feet and lunged for Michel when he realized what was happening. “Stop filming before I kick your skinny arse.”
“First my nostrils and now my arse.” Michel pocketed his mobile and grinned. “You really must stop insulting me, my dear cousin. Your reputation as the Sphinx will be ruined if I accidentally leak this video.”
“Fuck you,” Gabriel muttered, dropping back down on the sofa. “Just delete the damn thing.”
“I will… as soon as you agree to stake out the café on the afternoons I have lectures,” he bartered.
Michel wasn’t about to allow this mortifying faux pas to derail his plans to get to know Emma. Not when the brief conversations he’d had with her enchanted him. She was refreshingly frank, unquestionably intelligent, and funny as hell. And the contradiction between her confidence and shyness intrigued him, enough to make him forget everything but the need to spend more time with her.
He’d never met anyone like her. She made him feel like a different man—maybe the man he would be without the weight of the crown. He had to get his first date with her. If his intuition proved correct, he would do everything in his power to secure the next date with her, then the next, until he convinced her to spend a lifetime with him.
“Christ.” His cousin shook his head. “Why do I have to suffer because you’re an utter failure at dating?”
“I’ll make an excuse to send Sophie over to you.” Michel swirled his drink, observing his cousin from the corner of his eyes.
Gabriel went eerily still for a moment, then gave him a firm nod. “I can take next Wednesday.”
Sophie and Gabriel? Michel slowly lowered himself onto an armchair next to his cousin. Very interesting. Perhaps there was more than one happy ending on the horizon. Filled with hope and determination, he raised his glass, and his cousin mirrored his movement before they both downed their drinks.
Michel cracked one eye open at the insistent nudging against his arm. He promptly squeezed his eye shut when the sunlight streaming into his bedroom pierced his brain like a white-hot laser.
“The least you could have done was bring Antoine with you,” Sophie said. “I am not your personal assistant. It isn’t my job to wake you up for school.”
Michel sat up with a start, then grabbed his head with both hands. “God. What in the…”
Sophie picked up the empty cognac bottle from the floor with a grimace. “You boys have outdone yourselves.”
“Where is Gabriel?” he rasped.
He reached for the water decanter on his nightstand and drank straight from it. He wasn’t at the palace. No one would be horrified by his poor manners. As for Sophie, she was made of sterner stuff.
“He left as soon as the sun came up.” Sophie scoffed. “At least he had the sense not to leave in the dead of night.”
“You don’t have to worry about him.” Michel gingerly swung his feet off the bed. “He’s smart. He can take care of himself.”
Without responding, Sophie walked out of his room and returned, pushing a room service cart. She removed the lids off the plates, revealing piles of soft scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast.
“You can pour your own coffee, Your Highness,” she said, pushing a thermal carafe toward him. “If you didn’t refuse the butler assigned to your suite, I wouldn’t have to serve you food at all.”
“And risk him catching you call me Your Highness ?” He massaged his pounding temples. “This—my time here, my anonymity—is important to me, Sophie. More than you know.”
“I do know,” she said, her face softening with sympathy. With an awkward cough, she made a show of checking her watch. “If we leave here in an hour, you’ll make it to your lecture on time.”
“Thank you.”
His royal guard responded with a grunt and stepped out to the living room with long, confident strides. Alone with his breakfast, Michel poured himself some strong, dark coffee and gulped it down like the nectar of life. Then he dug into his breakfast like he hadn’t eaten in a fortnight.
Once the coffee cleared his head and the hearty food settled his stomach, Michel took a hot shower to wash off the last traces of hard drinking. Other than a faint headache behind his eyes, nothing remained of his hangover as he pulled on a white dress shirt and cinched his sleeves with the cuff links he’d tossed on the nightstand.
Dressed in a pale gray suit with a burgundy tie, Michel headed for USC with Sophie. Once they arrived on campus, she melted away into the crowd of students and staff, and he got to be just your average visiting professor—someone who blended in with everyone else. It wasn’t real and it wouldn’t last, but he’d be damned if he didn’t enjoy every minute of his reprieve.
He smiled at some wide-eyed students who recognized him—as Professor Chevalier, of course—and nodded at a familiar faculty member as he passed her on his way to the Center for International and Public Affairs. But for the most part, he walked through the sunlit campus without notice. It was fucking glorious.
And after his lecture, Michel intended to enjoy his glorious reprieve by blending in at the hotel café until Emma showed up again.