Going Royal 02 - Some Like It Scandalous (4 page)

“To do what? Chase her away again? Let her box me up and put me squarely in the category she believes I belong?” He scowled. For someone so tempestuous and grounded in reality, she maintained a very black-and-white view of the world.

Thirteen years before, a busty little brunette burst into his introduction to business ethics class, interrupted the professor’s dry as hell lecture, and set the whole classroom laughing. With few seats to be had in the packed hall, he’d offered her his and she’d made him sit back down, while she squeezed into the narrow space next to him.

Their thighs touched for the entire class.

He never did hear what the professor droned on about with regard to compliance laws. He’d introduced himself, but she barely shook his hand before racing off. He didn’t even know what color her eyes were. A bribe at the register’s office earned him her schedule, and he’d waited for her outside her next class. The workload surprised him, but a week of putting himself in her path worked.

She’d said yes when he asked her out.

“Find all that out, but where does she jog in the morning? What coffee shop does she frequent? Where does she shop?” He drummed his fingers. “Her address is in the file, get that for me...”

“There’s a law against stalking.”

“Don’t be my attorney, Richard. Be my friend—help me.”

“Call her. Make up some excuse and get her on the phone.” Richard glanced at his watch. “It’s late, but it can’t hurt if you’re the last thing she thinks about before she goes to sleep.”

“Unless she hates me.”

“Oh, she’s probably angry, and like I said earlier, she resents the title. And the lie.” The droll response didn’t make him feel better. Richard held up his hands. “Look, you made a mistake and you paid for it—but at the end of the day,
she
was the one who walked.”

“She walked away because I’m a prince.” The bitter churn of that fact burned.

“You can’t change the fact that you’re a prince—or I guess you can, but it’s not like you can’t drop the titles altogether and walk away from your family.” Richard always knew what buttons to push. Armand was the head of his family, he couldn’t—and would never—abandon them.

“You are very good at poking holes, Richard, but do you have any suggestions?” He bit off the next words because his friend didn’t deserve the anger. Not this time. If anyone was at fault it was Armand himself.

“You can’t stop being a prince, Armand. So why bother?” Richard rolled his sleeves down one at a time and buttoned them at the cuffs. Their billiards game was over.

“What’s your point?” They’d already established that his position had an undesirable effect on Anna.

“My point,
Your Highness.
” Richard shrugged on his jacket. Disapproval rang in his words—he only used the appellation when Armand annoyed him. “You can’t stop being a prince, so why not use it to your advantage?”

Use it to my advantage how?
She doesn’t
like
the damn title.
He frowned.

Richard pulled his keys out of his pocket. “I’ll call you in the morning. I have some strings to go pull so you can stalk—court—your lady.”

He waved a hand, still considering his friend’s advice. He left the pool table as it was—someone would be along to straighten it—and walked through the apartment he maintained in the city. It was a recent acquisition, purchased after the family learned about his cousin’s existence. He’d intended to give her the penthouse, but her subsequent marriage to Daniel Voldakov had changed his mind.

Just ten rooms, the penthouse was silent. He maintained a staff but gave them their own apartments downstairs rather than have them live in. Privacy was a rare commodity—rarer still with the increase in security the family endured over recent months thanks to negative publicity in Eastern Europe. Between his cousin Francesca’s sudden interest in military service, Rosemary’s determination to be in every tabloid and his brother George’s behavior, it was a wonder he’d managed the last few months in Los Angeles at all.

In the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator and stared at the labeled containers. The housekeeper hated it when he rummaged, but she wasn’t here to stop him so he claimed a random Tupperware container and carried it out to the sunken living room. The city lights gleamed in the darkness beyond the windows of the tower. Stabbing a fork into a piece of shrimp, he ate without tasting the rich sauce he normally favored.

He couldn’t get Anna out of his mind.

“
Exactly how does this help me study for my final again?
”
She sprawled across his chest
,
her hair clinging to his damp skin.

“
Stress reliever.
”
He grinned
,
trailing his fingers up and down her spine.
He loved her like this
,
boneless and loose from sex.
“
The release of endorphins will help us retain what we’re reading.
”

Laughter shook her and she lifted her head
,
a
lazy smile curving her lips.
“
You are so full of it
,
Charlie.
You just wanted to get laid.
”

“
Do you feel better?
”
He traced the curve of her shoulder and the soft line of her throat.
She had the most beautiful neck
,
long and graceful.

“
Hmm.
”
She closed her eyes and leaned into his gentle caress.
“
I
definitely don’t have a headache anymore.
”

“
Which will contribute to your ability to study.
”
He might not get any more done
,
content to simply lie here and touch her.

“
True.
”
Eyes half-open like a cat about to purr
,
Anna stretched.
The delicious friction of her sweat-slicked body on his roused him all over again.
The doorbell rang and his contented kitten popped up.
“
Food!
”

Armand groaned
,
but Anna already bounced to her feet and grabbed his shirt from the clothes they’d stripped off earlier.
Fortunately
,
with his height
,
the shirt struck her at midthigh.

The doorbell rang again and she vanished down the hall.
Sitting
,
he fumbled for his abandoned jeans and dragged them on.

“
Charlie?
”

“
Anna...?
”
The strained note in her voice urged him to action.
His security knew not to flirt with her
,
though they still did it occasionally to give him a hard time.

Halfway up the hallway
,
the quiet murmur of multiple male voices penetrated the pleasured haze and he frowned.
He halted at the entrance to the living room—across the narrow space he and Anna called home.
Three things struck him at once.

The man in the door way was Gerard Danielson
,
the head of his father’s private security force.
He was framed on either side by two others—Michel Jerome
,
the family’s legal representative in the United States and Peterson
,
the senior member of Armand’s personal security.
They were in
his
doorway.
All three men stiffened as he appeared
,
then bowed.

His heart sank.
They’d bowed to him in front of Anna.

“
Your Highness
,”
Gerard began without preamble.
“
Please forgive the lateness of the hour
,
but this news had to be delivered in person.
His Imperial Highness
,
Grand Duke Phillipe
,
passed away late yesterday afternoon...
”

His father.
Dead.

Time stopped.

His university life was over.

“
...all announcements were delayed until you could be informed...
”

Anna turned a bewildered look in his direction.
His world shredded.

“
...the plane has been fueled and we have made all security arrangements to bring you home...
”

Armand stared into Anna’s eyes
,
their languorous heat frosting over.
He held out his hand to her and she came
,
but hesitance marked her steps.
Still
,
she let him pull her stiff frame to him.

“
...if you wish Miss Novak to accompany you
,
we shall have to make additional arrangements
,
Your Highness.
We await your will.
”
Gerard’s sympathy echoed beneath the protocol
,
but no amount of sympathy could repair what had been shattered.

Shoving that dark memory back into the box where it belonged, he looked at the city. He had her address—did she live in a house on the beach? Did she wake every morning to walk out onto a deck and feel the salty kiss of the dawn? Or was it a tiny little house tucked into a bedroom community with neighbors who knew her name?

Most of the people in their apartment complex at school had known her name. She just had a way of making everyone think she cared about what was going on with them. They reached out, firmed the connection and renewed it with every meeting.

He put the container down and walked over to the phone. He stared at the digits on the receiver. All he had to do was pick it up.

“
You can’t stop being a prince
,
so why not use it to your advantage?
”

He could only think of one person to call, and after another long moment, he picked it up and dialed.

* * *

It was barely five in the morning when her phone rang. Anna thumbed it off and rolled back over. She didn’t get up before seven a.m. unless the house was on fire. A minute later her phone pealed out Adele, her sister’s ringtone. She shut it off again. When it rang for the third time, she thumbed it on to answer. “What?”

“Oh. My. God. How could you start seeing him again and not tell us—scratch that—tell me? How could you not tell
me?
It’s so romantic.” Penny’s voice crackled with excitement. “So, when did it happen? Last month when you had that ‘conference’ to attend in Milan? Oh, I know, when you were in New York a few months ago and
didn’t have time
to see me.”

Her sister’s voice kept climbing, revving up with excitement, and it pierced the fog of sleep clouding her mind, threatening to ruin the rest of her morning’s rest. “Penny. It’s five in the morning. I keep telling you that there’s a three-hour time difference.”

“Oh my God, are you in bed with him right now?” That ice pick burrowed into her brain.

“In bed with who? What are you talking about?” Pushing the covers back, Anna sat and grimaced at her sister’s whine. Penny was the worst of her siblings when it came to recognizing other people needed sleep. A night owl by nature, she pounced at the worst hours to ask the most ridiculous things.

“You and Charlie—I mean the prince—does he mind if I call him Charlie? I am your sister and if you two are back together that means royal wedding and I can be the next Pippa. Oh God—you think I’ll get a spread in
People
magazine?”

Awake now, irritation flared through her. “Penny!”

“Sorry, got a little carried away.” Her sister squealed again. “I’m just so happy for you. And for me, because I’m going to look fabulous on television.”

“What are you talking about?” And how the hell did her sister know she’d seen the prince the day before? She told no one—least of all her family. They’d been as supportive as they could—her brothers had even threatened to beat him up—but they went through that mourning with her once. She didn’t want to open old wounds.

“You getting back together with Charlie, it’s so romantic.”

Her blood went cold. “I am not—we’re not together.”

“Oh yes you are, it’s all over ACE this morning. ‘Playboy Prince reunites with his first love.’ I still can’t believe you didn’t
tell
me...” Her sister continued to yammer, but Anna fumbled for the television remote and turned it on. She found the ACE channel by scanning the guide and stared. A commercial offering superstar figures detailed how every woman could look like a model segued into a red studio where the reporter started talking.

Thumbing up the volume, she waited.

“...and recapping our top of the hour, playboy Prince Armand Dagmar, titular head of the Andraste royal family, is known for his exotic tastes, but has happily ever after finally rubbed off on him?” Images of Armand cavorting with some blonde bimbo in Majorca punctuated the story. “The grand duke has been seen out and about in the Los Angeles area for months following the fairy-tale reunion with his long-lost cousin, the Princess Alyxandretta. But now sources close to the prince confirm that it wasn’t his cousin that kept him in the City of Angels but the chance to recapture romance with his first love, a woman ACE has identified as Anna Novak...” And then her face was on the screen.

“See!” Penny’s voice squealed through the phone.

I’m going to kill him.

Chapter Three

By eight a.m. the circus parked in front of her little two-bedroom bungalow. Give the paparazzi a bone and they make a meal out of it. She sipped her coffee, staring at the sea of cameras setting up housekeeping on her lawn. Her poor neighbors gawked at the vans sitting crookedly against the curbs. To leave, she would have to push through them to get to her car.

But they were in her driveway too.