Going Royal 02 - Some Like It Scandalous (12 page)

“For consumption—not ammunition.” He tapped her nose with a finger and she snickered, but the humor failed to gain traction in her soul—not the way their earlier fun had.

“Will you answer my question?”

“Which one?” He had to let her go to open the water bottles, but he didn’t move away and she conceded the field on this one, staying right where she was.

“What do I call you?”

He took a long drink of water before tugging his own plate closer. He picked at the sandwich and she thought he might not answer at all. “I told you yesterday, you could call me Charlie.”

“And I said Charlie was a lie.” She finished the thought and sighed. “I’m sorry I said that—it wasn’t very kind.”

“No, but it was honest. You are always brutally honest.” Sadness crept beneath his words and her heart squeezed. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and chase away the melancholy shrouding him.

She chewed her lower lip, peeling the sandwich apart to pick out the meat. “I don’t know if I know how to do this...” She lacked the words to describe the conflict rending through her. She wanted to hug him. She wanted to punch him. She wanted to latch on and never let go. And terrified that this time, walking away would kill her...

He slid a hand behind her neck, familiar, casual—intimate—and so very him. It took very little coaxing for her to look up at him. The gazes crashed together and history seemed to rewind—it was just the two of them. It had always been them against the world—until the day she left him.

“
Miss Novak
,
I’m sorry—His Highness is in a meeting.
”
The guard blocked her from accessing the door to Charlie’s office.

“
Do you know when Charlie—His Highness—will be free?
”
She grimaced.
It hadn’t been a full week since they arrived in Norway and she didn’t think he’d slept for a moment.
Certainly
,
she didn’t see him though she had woken once when he slid into bed next to her—falling immediately to sleep at three in the morning.
He’d been gone when she woke again just three hours later.

“
I’m sorry
,
ma’am.
I
don’t.
”
The security guard returned to his position and Anna nodded.
Fighting the urge to slide her hands into her pockets
,
she smoothed her morning jacket.
It took her a moment to find a door exiting into a rose garden.
The well-manicured lawns were a brilliant shade of green and the roses—they came in all shades from a deep rich golden yellow to a vibrant red.

She wandered through the garden for the better part of an hour before she caught his familiar voice.
“
One moment
,
gentlemen.
”

Charlie strode out the same doors she’d used and crossed the sunny patch of garden to catch her hands in his.
“
They said you were looking for me.
Is everything all right?
”
He didn’t kiss her or do more than grasp her fingers.
“
I
have a meeting with the prime minister and I don’t know how long I’ll be.
Is it important?
”

Shaking her head slowly
,
she murmured.
“
No
,
of course not.
”

Lifting her hands to his lips
,
he kissed her knuckles.
“
I
will find time for us to talk
,
I
promise.
”

Stomach lurching
,
she forced another smile.
“
I
understand.
”
She didn’t—not really.
Why hadn’t he told her he was a prince?
What made him keep the secret from her?
Who was this cool
,
remote man and what had he done with her Charlie?

“
Your Highness
,
the car awaits.
”

“
I
have to go.
Have someone take you to the museums.
You’ll love them.
”
And then he was gone.
He didn’t return that evening—or at least he didn’t until very late.
Anna only knew he’d been in her room by the faint scent of his aftershave clinging to the pillow.

Each subsequent day followed the same pattern—he’d be tied up for hours in meetings.
When he did manage to slip away
,
they were interrupted time and again—his mother
,
his brothers
,
attorneys
,
guards.

“
I
know you have a lot of questions and I sincerely want to sit down and discuss them all.
I
have to ask for you to be patient just a bit longer.
”
Three times he’d said nearly the same words to her.
It didn’t seem to matter how patiently she’d waited
,
he couldn’t make the time.

When she woke to a note apologizing that he’d had to go to Belgium
,
she’d been sick to her stomach.
They didn’t talk
,
barely saw each other and she had no idea where she fit into this life.

If she even did.

When his trip to Belgium turned into a trip to France and then another to England
,
she’d booked an airline ticket and waited.
Anna had to go back to school.
Four weeks in Norway
,
and her finals still awaited her.

Her finals.
Her diploma.
Her future.
He didn’t have time for her and she was running out of time on the extensions she’d had to file.

Reality sank its ugly claws in her heart and threatened to shred it in half.
She’d
left
him.
She’d
broken them up.

Chapter Eight

By the time they finished their late lunch, Armand was in a far better mood. A mood George needed to be thankful of, considering his behavior when he’d arrived unannounced. Dressed in fresh clothes, Armand’d left a curiously quiet Anna reading through the foundation history and took the elevator down to the floor beneath the penthouse. George’s cool greeting warned of a potential temper explosion, but whereas his younger brother’s behavior typically wearied him, today he didn’t mind. He rather looked forward to the verbal assault.

He didn’t have to wait long.

“Why are you keeping her here?” George poured two glasses of wine. Far too early in the day for heavier spirits, but his brothers never noticed a clock when it came to alcohol. Armand seemed to be the odd man out when it came to that particular habit. The red came from Burgundy; he recognized the vintage as a particular favorite of their mother’s.

“Manners.” Eight years his senior, he would give his younger brother only so much rope.

Like Armand, George had changed out of his food-splattered clothing. But instead of a suit, he wore a polo shirt and slacks. He looked ready for a golf course. The clubs in the corner suggested he planned for one as well. Peterson would discourage him, so Armand left it alone.

“I thought you were with that model—the one with the pixie cut.” The younger prince slung himself down on a chair, falling into it rather than sitting.

Armand shrugged, leaning back in his own seat and resting an ankle on a knee. “Does it matter who I’m seeing?” Since Nikole’s temper tantrum and threats, he’d been too preoccupied with the discovery of their cousin to concern himself with a new woman.

Anna’s arrival complicated everything. Normally, he’d have found a string of eligible, available young women and squired them to a few art openings and theater shows. It would get the press off his back and effectively divide the interest in Nikole’s antics. He could hardly begin dating another woman, not even for cover with Anna sharing the penthouse. Hell, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about the situation, but he wasn’t in a sharing mood—not with George.

“No, but Mother is concerned...”

“She is not.” He held up a hand and cut his brother’s favorite ploy off. The younger prince discovered trotting the mother card out whenever he wanted something from his older brothers worked when he was a child and they in their teens. “In fact, she is in Paris, preparing to attend the Memorial charity ball—a ball you were supposed to escort her to.”

George grimaced. “It was all old women and rigid protocol. Not my favorite thing as you can imagine.” He drained his wineglass. “Nor is seeing my brother on ACE making a fool out of himself.”

“Worried about competition for your most-photographed-inappropriately title?” He swirled the wine in his glass. Anna preferred whites and fruity. He would ask the chef to bring up a selection for their meal that night. She didn’t want to drink in the office or at their makeshift lunch—but supper could be a sit-down meal with a white and—

He set the wineglass down and pulled out his phone. Flipping to the text messages, he sent three and looked up to meet George’s stony stare.

“When you feel the urge to get around to the point of your unexpected visit, I’ll pay more attention to you.” The phone in his hand buzzed. Security gave the nod. A second buzz confirmed his chef was on board. The third message remained unanswered.

But he was patient.

George drained his wineglass and bounced up to his feet. He walked over to the bar and refilled it. Fingers drumming against the wood, George didn’t sit still.

It’s money...

“I need an advance on my allowance.”

Armand sighed. “What happened?”

“Nothing
happened
. I just need an advance. I was in Monaco one night too many and my luck turned. Then I had to go straight to Paris and Mother’s surrounded by the rat pack of societal hangers-on and old guard—” His shoulders rolled in a shudder. “And their far too single daughters and granddaughters.”

Armand laughed. The Dickensian predictability of their mother’s matchmaking landed on him far more often than not. It was about time George got his taste of it.

“It’s not funny.” George scowled. “One was thirty-eight and twice divorced.”

“Cougars are the rage—or so I hear.” He could be sympathetic, but tweaking him was much more fun even if he didn’t care for the term.

“According to who? You haven’t dated a woman over the age of twenty-five ever.”

True. Armand liked his woman too busy and preoccupied with her career to pay attention to his life. The younger they were, the hungrier they were for success, and the less inclined to believe they needed to “land” him. He hadn’t even entertained the idea of marriage in years.

Ten to be specific.

“Anyway—” George stabbed a finger in his direction. “With all the fuss, it’s costing a bit more for security, so I need an advance.”

“You don’t pay for your security out of your allowance.” Armand rolled the wine around in the glass as though watching the light play off of it.

“You know what I mean...” George returned to the chair opposite Armand’s, wine bottle in hand.

“You could mean any number of things, George. I do not presume to interpret your statements for you. You do not pay for your security, so you do not need an advance to cover that.” He held up a finger when George opened his mouth to speak. “You do not pay for your travel. You do not pay for your accommodations. You do not spend much time at home, so you do not maintain a regular staff and you fired your valet just a month ago and have not hired a replacement for him. His was the only salary you pay for—so you did not fire the man for incompetence, but because you couldn’t afford him.”

“You’re a real bastard sometimes.” His younger brother’s shoulders slumped, but the defeat in his tone muted the anger.

“So I’ve been told. What happened?” Armand sat forward and set his wineglass down. He didn’t really want the drink anyway. He studied his brother’s expression even as the younger man continued to avoid looking at him directly.

“I made some bad investments—acted on poor advice as you would put it. Now I’m in arrears. I took out a small loan because I thought the return justified it, but—”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he promised himself he wouldn’t yell. “How much?”

“It’s not as bad as all that.” He set the bottle and the wineglass down. “It’s—just a few thousand dollars.”

Few thousand?
“How few?” Armand clasped his hands together, better not to strangle the younger man.

“An advance is all I need—you can just authorize it—”

“George.” One word. His name. A reprimand.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Armand sat back in the chair and stared. His younger brother rarely shocked him—not after Sebastian’s antics all over the globe. A fan of extreme sports, Sebastian took dangerous pursuits to new levels and he periodically went off the grid, leaving everyone to speculate wildly that he’d been killed only to pop up somewhere else. Spoiled, indulged and perhaps even a little petulant, George had been a decent—if lazy—younger brother. He preferred to gamble and drift through his life, only stepping up when it was requested of him.

“Who do you owe the money to?”

“Do you really need the answer to that?” Which meant someone Armand wouldn’t approve of—or worse, someone dangerous.

“Fine. I’ll pay it. You’ll give the name to Peterson and we’ll take care of it.” He rose from the chair.

“Thank you, it won’t happen again and I’ll—”

“Go back to school.” He cut off the gratitude. Buttoning his coat, he stared at him, unyielding. “You’ll enroll this afternoon. Check the schools you’re most likely to have an interest in, choose a major, fill out the paperwork and contact Gretchen with the details. We’ll get it taken care of, until then, you will remain here.”