A Princess Next Door (Rothman Royals Book 1) (6 page)

I turned away from him, feeling like I’d just been struck—by
nothing more than a brief conversation.

“Hey,” Jack said, sounding urgent and grabbing my arm to
swing me back around to face him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.” His voice broke strangely. “Please don’t
lie to me.”

My eyes had blurred over with tears, which was such an
inappropriate reaction. I swallowed hard and tried to speak naturally. “I’m
glad your life has been laid out in clear lines and easy answers. I am glad,
and I love that you think that way. But mine hasn’t. I…it just hasn’t.”

Jack’s features twisted, as if he were feeling something
deeply. “Then tell me about it. Amalie, please tell me about it. I’m never
going to understand if you keep it to yourself.”

He looked so much like he wanted to know, like he was almost
pleading for me to tell him.

There was no way I could resist, even if it did change
everything, even if Jack would never look at me the same again.

“My family…” My voice cracked, so I tried again. “I’m
actually…”

I was actually going to say it this time. I wasn’t going to
get scared and change my mind. But a flash came from beside us that broke into
my stilted announcement.

Both of us looked in surprise at the photographer who stood
a few feet away, taking our picture. Another photographer was approaching too,
also taking photos of me and Jack.

It was the most unexpected thing, and the mingling students
and faculty around us, who’d left the art exhibit like us, were all now staring
in our direction.

“What the hell?” Jack muttered, scowling at the photographers.
He took a step forward, clearly intimidating.

I grabbed for his hand, suddenly terrified. I knew why they
were taking my picture, although I had no idea how they’d happened to stumble
upon me like this. “Jack, no. Let’s just get out of here.”

Jack’s face was twisted with annoyance, outrage, and
questions that hadn’t yet been asked. But he put his arm around me and started
to walk.

Before we’d taken two steps, Hans was there, my bodyguard
always lurking in the background. He held the photographers back as Jack
hurried me down the block to where he’d parked.

The photographers followed, trying to get past Hans.

It wasn’t anything like the swarm of paparazzi that follows
real celebrities, but it was definitely out of place on campus, and it made us the
center of attention in a way that caused my belly to sink in dread.

Jack eyed me silently when he turned the car on, but he
didn’t waste time in conversation. He pulled away from the curb, and I was so
upset and disoriented that I pulled out my phone and dialed Victoria. When she
didn’t answer, I called Henry instead.

There had to be a reason those photographers had known who I
was and cared enough to take pictures. My brother or sisters would know.

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked, when Henry picked up
on the third ring.

My brother wasn’t a big talker, and he didn’t ask for
further information. “What do you think? Mother’s been plotting again.”

I almost choked on the knowledge, although in the back of my
mind I’d known it couldn’t be anything else. Of course, my mother had done
this. “But she was always so careful about our privacy. She wouldn’t want this.”

“Not unless it helps to get you back home.”

“I can’t believe she wants me chased by the paparazzi.”

“She doesn’t. She just doesn’t want you anonymous there any
longer.”

I felt sick and hurt and angry and terrified by what Jack
was going to say, when we finally had a chance to talk.

“Was it bad?” Henry asked, in a different tone.

“It wasn’t good. I guess it could have been worse.”

“You’re still visiting next week, aren’t you?”

“I think so. I’ll see you then.”

When we’d hung up, I sat in silence, trying to find words to
explain this to Jack. He obviously wasn’t going to press the issue until we
were out of the car, and he didn’t speak as he drove back to our building,
which was just a mile or so away. When we turned onto our street, I saw a
couple more photographers, waiting at the front of our building.

“Damn it,” he muttered darkly.

“Hopefully they can’t get inside.” My voice wobbled, but it
felt like my whole world was falling apart. Jack hadn’t demanded answers yet,
but he would. I knew he would.

And then he’d feel betrayed because I hadn’t told him
before.

Everything was ruined—even the final weeks I would have had
with him.

“Do you want to go to a hotel for the night?” Jack asked,
before he turned the car into the parking deck. “That way, they won’t be
hovering around.”

“Yes. Yes, please.” The anonymity of a hotel sounded like a
dream at the moment. It would be safe, cut off from everything else.

Jack drove a few blocks to a discreet, expensive hotel, and
in a few minutes we were checked in and heading up to a room. We didn’t have
any luggage, but the staff hadn’t mentioned it or acted like it was strange. I
noticed Hans had followed us, and he positioned himself in the lobby. He had
his instructions. Unless I was in genuine danger, that was as close as he got.

I was relieved when the door shut, and Jack and I were truly
alone at last.

I went over to sit on the bed, breathing deeply and trying
to pull myself together.

Jack sat down beside me. He didn’t say anything, but his
eyes were expectant.

“My mother sent the photographers after me,” I began.

He nodded. “I figured that from your conversation with your
brother.”

I sighed. My secret was over now, as surely as if I’d
already spoken it. I might as well say it out loud. “My father is the king of
Villemont, which is a tiny country in the Alps. I’m…I’m a princess.”

Jack’s expression registered no surprise, no anger, no
outrage or shock. If anything, he looked relieved as he gave me a little smile.
“It’s about time you told me.”

It took me a minute to process what
he’d said. When I figured it out, the truth hit me like a blow. “You
knew
?”

His lips twisted in a dry, apologetic smile. “Yeah.”

“For how long?”

“Since that day we were shopping and those people recognized
you. You blew it off as nothing, but I found it very strange. So I looked you
up online. It didn’t take too long to figure out who you were.”

“Oh.” My heart was racing wildly, and my skin felt chilled
and flushed at the same time. “You didn’t tell me.”

“No.” He reached out, like he would touch my face, but then
his hand dropped onto the bed between us. “I figured you were keeping it a
secret for a reason, and I was hoping you’d eventually trust me enough to be
honest with me.”

There was the slightest reproach in his voice, and it caused
a stab of guilt in my chest. “It’s not that I didn’t trust you, Jack—” I broke
off my words when he arched his eyebrows. “Well, it wasn’t that you couldn’t be
trusted with the truth. I just didn’t want…I just didn’t want…”

“What didn’t you want, Amalie?” His voice was very soft and
thick.

“I didn’t want things to change between us, and I knew they
would.”

“Why would they?”

“Because…because I’m a princess.”

“You were always a princess to me.”

That might have been the sweetest thing anyone had ever said
to me. It made my throat ache and my eyes burn with tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t
tell you, Jack. But this was the first time in my life that anyone knew me,
liked me, for who I truly am, and I didn’t want it to go away.”

“It’s not going to go away.”

Part of me believed him, even though the rest of me had a
lifetime of experience to contradict his claim. “So…so you’re not mad at me for
hiding it?”

His expression changed back into its normal dry good-humor.
“Maybe a little. Every once in a while. And kind of hurt when you had the
opportunity lately and still didn’t tell me. But we agreed that we were just
hanging out, no strings attached, so I’d be pretty shitty if I held it against
you for not baring your soul to me.”

I let out a breath of relief.

He added, “And you’re not mad at me for not telling you that
I knew?”

I shook my head. “I’m not mad. And…and I’m glad you know. I
didn’t like keeping that kind of secret from you.”

“Good.” He reached out and pulled me into a soft hug, and I
clung to his big body for a minute, feeling comforted, feeling safer than I had
in a very long time.

When I finally pulled away, Jack’s eyes were studying me
closely, as if he were searching for signs of something I didn’t understand.

I cleared my throat. “So you understand why things are so
complicated for me? I can’t just do anything I want.”

“I don’t know. I can see why you’d have a lot of pressure.
But they can’t make you do things you don’t want to do, can they?”

“They can make it almost impossible for me to do anything
else. I put my foot down about marrying the man my mother had picked out for me
and about going to college here, but anything else and she’s going to get
desperate. She’s already desperate. That’s why she keeps giving the tabloids
leads about me. I’m not important enough for them to bother with otherwise, but
if a princess in disguise lands in their lap…” I shook my head.

“I get that, and I think it’s a shitty thing for her to do.
But she can’t do much worse than that, can she? I mean, she can’t
force
you.” His features twisted into a frown. “Can she?”

“Not with force, no. With other kinds of pressure.
Manipulation. Guilt. That kind of thing.”

Jack’s expression relaxed. “So that’s the situation, then. I
get that it’s hard, but you do have choices. If you want to stay here and go to
graduate school, you can. You just have to make the choice.”

His words should have been encouraging, but they
weren’t—since they proved that there were some things Jack would never
understand. “I told you before. I’m glad that you see the world as always
simple and straightforward, but that’s not how all of us live our lives. It’s
not simple and straightforward for me.”

“There are some things that are simple. Your family
shouldn’t pressure you to do what isn’t good for you. And you shouldn’t let them.
I still think it’s more that you’re scared of living without a safety net.”

“That’s not fair, Jack. You have no idea what my family is
like.”

“True, but I know you. And I know it took courage for you to
come to college here on your own, but even in doing that, you always had a
safety net.”

I felt more rattled than ever. “What safety net? Why do you
keep saying that?”

“They paid for your apartment, right? They sent you with a
bodyguard—which is who I assume that guy who is always lurking in the distance
is. You haven’t had to get a job, and you have the biggest wardrobe I’ve ever
seen.”

My chest clenched with pain at the realization that he’d
been thinking all of this about me. “You think I’m spoiled?”

“Anyone in your situation would be. Amelie, I’m not
insulting you. You’ve lived a different life than me, than anyone I know. I’m
just trying to explain what I mean by a safety net. I get it. I totally get it.
You’ve always known you’re going to go back home after graduation, so you’ve
never had to really jump all the way into life here. So the thought of doing so
and giving up all you’ve always had is terrifying. It would be to anyone. I
just think that’s the real reason why you won’t do what you really want.”

I shifted uncomfortably, trying to be honest with him, with
myself. “Maybe. To a certain extent. But there’s more to it than that. I love
my family, and I don’t want to cut them out of my life.”

“Of course not. You can still talk to them, visit them, whatever.
But you don’t have to live there in order to do it.”

I started to argue, since he was making me feel guilty. He
believed in what he was saying, but he’d never been a Rothman. There was no way
I could make him understand. Realizing this, I closed my mouth and drooped
backwards onto the bed.

Jack lowered himself next to me on his side, his head
propped up on one hand. “Amalie, please don’t shut me out.”

“I’m not trying to shut you out. I just don’t know how to
explain my real situation. I don’t think you can know what it’s like—why it’s
just not as simple as you think—unless you actually experience what it’s like
to be a princess of Villemont.”

“So show me what it’s like.”

“How?”

“Take me with you when you visit home next week.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“But that would be…”

“It would be what?”

“I don’t know. A very large deal.”

Jack surprised me with a huff of amusement. “A big deal.”

“No, it would be larger than big.”

Now he laughed out loud. “No. I meant the expression is a
‘big deal,’ not a ‘large deal.’”

“Oh.” I smiled at his warm expression. I loved when he
looked at me like that, even when he was correcting my American colloquialisms.
“It would be an extremely big deal.”

“So why is that a problem? You say I don’t understand, so
let me see for myself.”

As ridiculous as the idea was, I was actually tempted. Not
just because I didn’t like the idea of being away from Jack for a week, when we
had so little time left as it was. But also because I wanted to share my life
with him, and I could never really do that with just words. After a moment of
silence, I murmured, “If you come home with me, everyone will think we are…we
are…serious.”

“Yeah. I can just imagine.”

“We are supposed to be just casual.”

He reached out to take my hand in his. “Does this feel just
casual to you?”

Of course it didn’t. It never really had. “Jack…”

“I know it’s early for us. I’m not asking for anything
deeper right now. But I’d like to explore whatever is between us, and I don’t
think we can ever do that if you’re planning to move to another continent in a
few weeks. So take me with you next week, and we can just see what happens.”

I gazed at him, my heart so full I couldn’t even speak. I
couldn’t believe this amazing man was saying such a thing to me. I couldn’t
believe he seemed to mean it.

And I just wished I could hope that, at the end of the week,
there would be a future for us, but I knew it was impossible.

Jack would see then. And he’d never want to get tangled up
with a girl who came with that kind of baggage.

“Okay,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “You can come
with me.”

He smiled as if he’d won some kind of victory. “Good. I
can’t wait.”

I knew for sure he wouldn’t be that hopeful for long.

***

The following Monday, Jack and I
were on my family’s private jet, somewhere over the Atlantic.

We did have a private jet, but it wasn’t a very large one,
and we used it as infrequently as possible, since the fuel was ridiculously
expensive. But my father was a king, and he could hardly fly commercially, and
my mother was so insistent on getting me home that she’d sent the jet to fly me
back to Villemont for the week.

Jack and I were sitting in comfortable leather seats facing
each other. I was reading one of the books assigned for my seminar that started
next week, and Jack was talking on the phone. He’d had to change a number of
meetings he’d had scheduled this week to phone calls instead.

He was talking about financials. I understood most of the
words, but it was very difficult for me to follow the conversation. He
obviously knew what he was talking about, and he was deeply focused on the
topic. I glanced up every few minutes to watch him.

It was a side of him I’d never seen before. I knew him as
casual, relaxed, and amusing—and sometimes intensely sexy. I’d never seen him
working like this before. It was like he stepped out of the role as soon as he
left the office every day. No matter how casual he acted on his downtime, he
ran a growing business so he couldn’t be any sort of slacker. It wasn’t a huge
company. Certainly not a national or international corporation. But eleven
stores in three states was nothing to sneer at, and he was obviously very good
at his job. I’d never seen him so focused on anything except me before.

I liked it. I liked the authority with which he spoke on the
phone, and the understated competence and intelligence of his conversations.

I wanted to be like that one day too. I wanted to know art
just as well as he knew his business. But the only way I could do that was to go
to graduate school, and I just didn’t know how I could manage it.

The thought made me feel a little glum, but I smiled at Jack
as he hung up the phone.

“Sorry,” he said with a rueful look. “I’m trying to get as
much done as I can on the flight.”

“Of course. I don’t mind at all. Are you sure you could
afford to take off so much time?”

“It’s no problem.”

I wasn’t sure how true the words were, since his expression
looked a little strained. He would have had to reschedule his entire week,
leaving at the last minute the way he had, and it couldn’t have been easy.

It was a little thrilling. That he cared so much about
me—about exploring a possible future with me—that he was willing to do that.

“We’ll have time this week,” I told him, “if you need to
work on your computer or make more calls. Our entire days won’t be scheduled
out for us. I made sure my mother didn’t do that.”

“Good.” He paused. “Would she have done that otherwise?”

“Probably. But I told her I wouldn’t come at all if I didn’t
have any free time, so I believe she’s making an effort to be good.”

“What did you tell her about me?”

“I said you were a friend.”

“And what did she think about that?”

My mother hadn’t been at all happy to hear I was bringing a
male friend with me on my trip home. She’d asked me all kinds of nosy questions
about him, and I’d had to tell her it was none of her business. She’d been hurt
and offended, and she’d probably ordered some sort of background check on Jack,
looking for dirt.

I knew she wouldn’t find any. Nothing that would matter to
me, anyway. But it felt like an intrusion on my privacy, that she would be
looking into Jack.

It might have been a huge mistake to bring him with me at
all, but it was happening so there was nothing I could do about it.

“She was curious, but she said you would be welcome,” I
said, answering Jack’s question.

“It will be fine then.”

“Yes.” I swallowed, hoping the words were true.

I had no idea if this week would be fine or not. I rather
doubted not.

***

Villemont is made up of one small
city and some outlying rural areas. It takes less than an hour to drive the
length of the country, even with all the mountain roads. There is no airport,
so we landed in Geneva, where a limo met us to drive just over an hour to the
royal palace of Villemont.

Jack didn’t talk much during the drive. He stared out the
windows at the gorgeous mountain scenery.

“Have you been to France or Switzerland before?” I asked,
wondering what he was thinking about all of this. He’d been born and raised in
a small town in Minnesota. None of this would be familiar to him.

“I’ve been to Paris, but not down this way. Did you grow up
skiing?”

“Yes. We skied all the time. It’s not the best time of the
year for skiing now, though.”

“I was never much of a skier. It sure is gorgeous here,
though.” He smiled at me. If he was uncomfortable about being here with me or
anything he was about to face when we got to the palace, he certainly wasn’t
showing it.

I made myself relax.

It didn’t matter what happened. If Jack got scared away or
disgusted by all of the royal attitudes or aplomb, then we wouldn’t have had a
future anyway. Better to find out now, before I fell for him any further.