Chapter 18
My good friends. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that sometimes the juiciest royal revelations don’t happen under chandeliers.
Picture this: torrential rain, a washed-out road, and your ever-devoted royal correspondent stranded in a quaint inn with none other than Prince Maximilien.
When I received worrying family news, he didn’t grin his way past it.
He simply showed up. He was thoughtful, helpful, and kind.
The kind of prince anyone would want sailing to her rescue, looking dashing on a white horse.
Perhaps the storm revealed more than washed-out roads. Perhaps it revealed a side of Max the world hasn’t seen before, and one this correspondent isn’t quite sure how to dismiss.
Yours in sogginess,
Fabiana Fontaine xx
#StormboundWithaPrince
#MadMaxOrMrDarling
Max
I grip the steering wheel as we take a hairpin turn, descending the hill in increasingly treacherous conditions as though we’re crawling under the obstacle course’s net.
We’ve been stuck behind a truck for the last handful of kilometers with no opportunity to overtake, and the rain seems to be becoming increasingly persistent with each passing minute.
After learning the trains weren’t running, driving had seemed like the logical plan. But now, seeing the debris on the road from the storm, the wind whipping around the car as the rain falls, I’m not so sure.
Fabiana has been trying to get a hold of her grandmother, but thanks to the patchy service in the mountains, and the impact of the weather, she’s not had any success. The tension sparking from her is like a fireworks display, the love she has for her grandmother clear.
“Hello? Nona? Oh, thank goodness I’ve got a hold of you!” She says in a rush.
Her eyes flash to mine and I give her a thumbs up.
“Mr. Beckman told me what happened. Are you okay?” There's a pause as she waits for her grandmother’s response.
“I'm on my way…Yes, of course I have to come…
Because I love you and you're hurt…” She pauses again, listening, and then turns to me.
“I'm with him right now, as it happens. He's driving me back to the city because the trains aren't running.”
There’s another pause, and then she glances at me before she looks away, murmuring, “It turns out I was wrong.”
I bite back a smile as I follow the truck around another corner, the windscreen wipers doing double time.
She was wrong about me. In one short week, she’s seen more of who I really am.
Yes, she shut me down last night. But there was something in her eyes, in her shallow breathing, that told me she wanted to kiss me as much as I did her. A fire, burning bright.
She has her reasons. She’s meant to be working with me, reporting on ‘the real Max’. But what I feel for her goes way beyond that, and as we sit side by side, Toffee sleeping on her lap, I can’t help but hope that she can see I’m worth the risk.
Because it feels to me that she is.
“You were doing what? Nona, at your age?... No, of course. I'm very pleased Mr. Beckman is a wonderful dancer, but maybe try doing something less physical next time? Like playing bingo, or watching a movie…”
I chuckle. Fabiana's grandmother sounds a lot like her granddaughter. A go-getter.
“Nona? Hello?” She looks at her screen. “Dang it. We’ve been cut off.”
“At least you got a hold of her.”
“Can you believe she was out dancing with our neighbor?” she says, but there's a lightness in her tone that wasn't there before.
Talking with her grandmother has set her mind at ease.
“Why can't she go dancing?”
“Because she's old,” she protests.
“How old?”
“She’s seventy-one.”
“So, you’re going to give up dancing by that age?”
“Maybe?”
I let out a laugh.
“What?”
“I'm not much of a dancer—you’ve said so yourself in at least one article—but I fully intend to keep on doing everything I do right now for as long as my body will let me.”
“You've been planning for your retirement? I suppose you are twenty-seven,” she teases.
“Not exactly planning, but you get one life, and you need to live it. It sounds to me that your grandmother has been having some fun while you've been away.”
She waves her hand in the air. “Oh, he's just our neighbor. He promised to check in on her for me. She's alone right now and she’s not used to me being away for this long.”
“Ah.”
“What does ‘ah’ mean?”
“Does your nona dance with all her neighbors?”
She snickers. “I don't think so.”
“Then perhaps they were on a date?”
“A date?” she guffaws. “Not likely.”
I shoot her a sideways glance. “Because she's seventy-one?”
“Well, yes, that, but also because Mr. Beckman’s our neighbor.”
“And neighbors don’t date.”
She opens her mouth to respond, and then closes it again, her eyebrows pulled together.
“I might be wrong,” I say.
“You are,” she says with more confidence than I suspect she’s feeling, by the look on her face.
I slow the car as we drive past an ancient Medieval town wall, crumbling but still intact, and enter a quaint village. The car bumps over the cobble stone streets, passed the solid stone buildings, and I spot a little café with a green and white striped awning through the rain.
My belly grumbles, right on cue.
“Breakfast?” I offer, and Fabiana grins, nodding her head.
“I haven’t eaten today. I’m so hungry.”
I back the car into a parking space and reach across her to open the glove box.
“What’s that?” she asks as I pull out a plastic bag.
By way of answering, I slap on a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses. She takes in my disguise, and snort laughs, instantly throwing her hand over her mouth, her eyes dancing.
“What?” I ask, a smile busting out across my face at the sound. “Nice snort, by the way. Very ladylike.”
“Snorting is perfectly ladylike, thank you. And no Hawaiian shirt this time, Your Royal Highness?” she teases.
I shake my head, smiling at the memory of how I’d turned up in the Malveauxian town of Monteluce in a Hawaiian shirt and fake mustache to visit Amelia. “Hey! That was a great disguise,” I protest.
“Oh, of course it was. Absolutely no one knew who you were,” she deadpans.
Sadly for me, Amelia, and Ethan, everyone did know who I was.
“So, was it the yellow Ferrari that gave you away do you think? Or the fact you looked like an off-duty prince in a Hawaiian shirt and fake mustache?”
I laugh, enjoying our easy banter. Her wit, once so acerbic and judgmental, is now warm and teasing, and as we sit in the car in the water-drenched town, the rain drumming on the roof, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else but here with her now.
“Okay, so maybe that wasn’t my finest hour, but when you’re recognized almost everywhere you go, you’ve got to at least try to fly under the radar. Hence the disguise.” I hold up the plastic bag.
She throws her gaze over my cap and glasses. “Sunglasses on the wettest day of the year.” She shakes her head.
“Just the cap?”
“Just the cap.”
“Here.” I pull another baseball cap from the bag and position it on her head, and she pulls her ponytail through the back. She’s giving off a cute and sexy girl next door vibe, and if it wasn’t for my belly reminding me I haven’t eaten today…well, as much as I want to kiss her right now, I can’t.
I clip a leash on Toffee’s collar and climb out of the car, immediately noticing the sweater stops short of my belt, exposing a line of skin.
Fabiana raises her eyebrows at me, her lips twitching.
“You’re the one who chose this top.”
“And you’re the one making it look so fetching,” she teases.
I hold an umbrella aloft for Toffee to sniff and do what she needs to do beside a tree, and then the three of us dash inside the café. Instantly the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and baked goods hits my senses, and my belly rumbles once more in approval.
The place is almost empty but for a couple of elderly men sipping espresso, and a woman knitting at a table on her own at the back.
“Is it okay if I bring my dog in here?” I ask a man in his sixties behind the counter, his beard salt and pepper, his hair balding.
He throws his gaze over my pink sweater and cap. “Of course. We can have a bowl of water brought out for him.”
“She might want something to eat, too.”
The man’s bushy eyebrows pull together. “Bacon?”
I’m pretty sure bacon isn’t usual canine fare, but Toffee would be more than happy to break with tradition. “She would love that. Thank you.”
“Take a seat. Anywhere you like,” he says.
We thank him and then find a table by the window. Toffee instantly gets her leash tied in knots around the leg of my chair and then gives up and lies down.
“Do they know if your grandmother’s broken her ankle?” I ask.
“She’s being x-rayed soon. She’s in good spirits, considering.”
“I’m glad to hear it. We’ll be there in a few hours, if the weather plays ball.” I peer out at the storm, which shows zero signs of letting up.
“I hope so, although I’m not as worried as I was, now that we’ve spoken.”
“And she’s got her Mr. Beckman.”
She twists her mouth. “Hmm.”
“What looks good to you?” I ask as I scan the menu.
“All of it?” she suggests, her face lifting in a smile.
“I’m going to start with coffee and a ham and cheese croissant.”
“No baked beans?”
I snicker. “Definitely not.”
She places her menu back on the table. “Sounds good to me. I’ll have the same.”
The man from behind the counter approaches our table, accompanied by a woman of about the same age. Both of them are looking at me, an all too familiar look on their faces. I know what’s coming next.
“Cover blown,” I say under my breath.
“What do you mean?” Fabiana asks as the couple arrives at our table.
The woman urges her husband toward us.
“Err, my wife has something to say,” he mutters, looking thoroughly uncomfortable.
“We are honored to have you in our little town, Your Royal Highness,” the woman says, dipping into a curtsy.
“I knew I should have worn the sunglasses,” I murmur to Fabiana, and she shakes her head, smiling.