Slow Tango With a Prince (Royal Scandals) (12 page)

“The same magic that makes all Hollywood leading men appear to be six-foot-two?”

“The very same. Though you don’t seem to need that magic.” She gave him an obvious perusal, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder as she did so. “You’ve got tall, dark, and handsome down pat.”

“I forgot to warn you that Rita’s a terrible flirt,” Emily said as she approached. She gave Rita a light elbow to the ribs. “Now step aside so I can powder this tall, dark, and handsome man’s nose.”

A wide smile spread across Rita’s face. “You go right ahead.”

Emily moved to stand between his knees, wielding a large, fluffy black brush and a compact. He raised an eyebrow. “Twice in one day?”

“I might’ve gotten away with blotting if you hadn’t sprinted down the stairs and jumped the barrier at the stadium.” She shrugged. “But in this case, film twice, powder twice. Unfortunately, we only booked the makeup artist for this morning.”

He held still while she swirled the brush against the compact, tapped it, then swept the soft bristles over his nose and forehead. In the quiet confines of the apartment, the action felt more intimate than when the makeup artist had dusted his face in the corridor leading to the soccer field.
 

“Close your eyes.”

He did so. Her wrist moved close to his cheek. Warmth radiated from her and he caught a hint of her soft scent. The light, airy fragrance suited her perfectly. As she shifted to dust the other side of his face, he detected another, more natural layer, one that made him want to bury his face against her skin and inhale. The mental images that conjured made him harden.

“Open.”

He found her scrutinizing him, an odd expression on her face. She smoothed a stray lock away from his temple, then stepped back for a better look. “Huh.”

“Huh?” he repeated. “That’s your assessment? How did I go downhill from nice?”

“Never fear, you still look nice.” Crinkles formed at the outer edges of her hazel eyes. “It’s the strangest thing, but for a moment there, you looked familiar to me. Like I should recognize you from somewhere. But then I lost it.”

Shock left his gut in a hard knot. It took every ounce of his training to keep his expression neutral and his tone easy. “All tall, dark, and handsome men look alike, don’t they?”

“Very funny.” She shook her head. “You’ve never lived in New York or Oregon, have you?”

“Never. I’ve only visited New York twice and have never set foot in Oregon.”

She couldn’t possibly recognize him. Most of the time when he entered a room, he was announced. It was the only way those outside southern Europe knew him. The only Americans who ever placed him otherwise were die-hard royal watchers or tourists who’d studied Sarcaccia’s travel brochures just before visiting his country.
 

“Didn’t think so.” She signaled Mike that they were ready to begin, then walked Vittorio out the door to the apartment’s vestibule so Mike could film their entrance. While they waited for the signal to enter, she shot him an easy grin, one meant to put him at ease. Nevertheless, throughout their tour of the apartment, he remained on edge. Emily had intentionally kept him in the kitchen prior to filming in order to capture his first reaction to each of the apartment’s rooms, and it’d been a smart move. Despite his lifelong media training, he needed every aid possible in order to appear natural on camera. The idea Emily might identify him—or worse, say something in front of the others—distracted him from the apartment’s numerous amenities. It wasn’t until they were on the final rooms that he felt like himself again.

Once they’d walked through the entire apartment, Emily called for a break so Mike could use the restroom before their second take. Once again, she surprised Vittorio by brushing the same stubborn lock of hair back from his forehead.
 

“This always fall in your face?”

“It seems determined.” He couldn’t tell her that until a couple months ago, he’d never kept his hair this long.

The odd expression she’d worn before the walk-through reappeared as her hand fell back to her side. “You seem very relaxed in front of the camera. Done this before?”

“Nothing like this, no.” Sharing his thoughts on camera about living arrangements didn’t compare to discussing politics or the charities his family supported. Frankly, he found it more challenging. More intimate. And if he wanted to avoid discovery and the scandal it would cause, intimate was not the way to go.
 

And that went for the intimacy of having her constantly touch his hair.

“It’s good that you’re mentioning the pros and the cons of the place, like the size of the bathroom in comparison to the bedroom. It prompts viewers to debate the same features, which keeps them engaged.”

“You’re very good at this, you know?”

“I do my best, but a lot depends on who we feature.” Her lower lip twitched, then she tilted her head to indicate he should follow her from the living room toward the bedroom. In a voice low enough to keep Rita and Mike from overhearing them, she said, “I know you want your privacy, and I truly wish to respect that. But can you give me anything to work with editorially as we do our second walk-through?”

The words
your privacy
pinged his internal radar, putting him on alert. “Such as?”
 

“During the house-hunting segments, I like to give our viewers information about why we’re visiting a particular home or apartment. For instance, I might say you’re an architect who appreciates the building’s free form shape and the apartment’s open floor plan. Or that you’re a painter who needs a living area with plenty of light. It doesn’t need to be too personal.” She gestured toward the windows. “You’d think anyone would want this, but last season, we had a woman who didn’t like heights and decided against an apartment that hit everything on her wish list because it was on the tenth floor. In the end, she asked to be put on a waitlist for a unit on a lower level in the same building, even though that floor didn’t offer very good views. Any tidbit like that would work.”

“I see.” He wasn’t about to explain that he wanted the apartment so he’d have an escape from the watchful eye of paparazzi cameras or that he requested a modern space because it was the polar opposite of his centuries-old apartment in Sarcaccia’s royal palace. But as Emily’s expressive eyes searched his, Vittorio experienced an overwhelming urge to tell her exactly that. He wanted her to understand him just as he burned to understand her. To discover why she gave up the beautiful vistas of Oregon for the intensity of life in Manhattan. What drew her to work at a magazine, then sparked the idea for
At Home Abroad.
About the struggles she must have faced to convince a network to pick up the show. About the strain of being on the road for months at a time, with only her coworkers for company. People for whom she felt responsible.

Though it didn’t seem so on the surface, in many ways their lives were similar.

She stepped closer and rested her hand on his forearm. “You mentioned that your siblings tease you about being a creature of habit. Does that figure into your apartment criteria at all? Are you happiest in modern surroundings? That’s an easy thing to mention.” One side of her mouth jerked up. “The modern surroundings part, not the teasing, that is.”

“Anyone with siblings has endured their share of teasing.”

“I imagine.”

“You don’t have any?”

Her fingers tightened fractionally before she released his arm. “My parents married in their forties. It was a second marriage for each of them after short first marriages. They had me a couple years later. Even if they could’ve had more children, I suspect I wore them out. I was a rambunctious toddler. Liked to push buttons, open cabinets, climb furniture, you name it.”

Her answer conjured a mental image of a tiny Emily perched atop a dresser. “They still alive?”

“And kicking, no thanks to me. Yours?”

“Same. Though these days, they’d kick me if they could get away with it.”

“I doubt that.”
 

“I haven’t visited recently,” he explained, though it skimmed over the fact they lived under the same roof. “They’re entitled.”

“I suppose parents want to keep track of their kids, no matter their age.”

Her voice held a hint of wistfulness, though she covered it with a broad smile. He wondered why she didn’t have children, though it was obvious she’d be an attentive, loving mother. Was it the job? Or something else?
 

It made him wish he were anyone other than the crown prince he was, that he could speak to her as two normal people might while getting to know each other, without dancing around reality. But if he wasn’t royal, he wouldn’t have met Carmella, wouldn’t have needed an escape far from Sarcaccia, and certainly wouldn’t have met Emily. Wouldn’t be standing here now, looking into her caring hazel eyes, envisioning her holding a bouncy, giggling infant. Or handing the baby off to him.

Chapter Eight

Noises from the adjoining living room indicated that Rita and Mike were getting ready to do a second run-through on the apartment. He blinked. What was he just telling himself about intimacy?

And dear God, a
baby
? Much as it was his duty to beget heirs, he’d never visualized a woman as the mother of his children, even for a split second. Maybe he really had hit his head harder than he’d thought.

“So…any editorial ideas?” Emily asked, sensing the change in his mood and taking a step back. “If not, no worries. I can wing it.”

He ran a hand over his beard, thinking. “How about this: I was raised in a home with antiquated floors and windows, heavy crown molding, and electrical and plumbing systems older than my grandparents. So while I’m nostalgic about traditional design and enjoy having access to Argentina’s historic neighborhoods, which have a distinctly European feel, I want the experience of living in a contemporary residence, one with an abundance of light and clean-lined decor.”

“Wow.” She let out a low whistle of appreciation. “When I said I wanted editorial, I never expected you to deliver actual content. That’s very good.”

“Agreed,” Rita said as she entered the bedroom. “At least the part I heard. So you ready to roll?”

The second take went quickly. When they finished, Rita called the building’s security office to let them know they’d be leaving shortly and to thank the management for giving them such latitude for filming. As Mike packed his gear and Emily walked back through the bedrooms to ensure they’d left everything as they’d found it, Rita handed Vittorio a few sheets of paper.
 

“What’s this?”

“Our schedule for day after tomorrow. We’ll film that day and the next, then we’ll be done.”

He glanced at the papers, which also contained the descriptions of two more apartments. The first looked like nothing he’d described when he’d talked over his wish list with Emily.

“I know,” she said, grimacing at the first one. “It’s an old-fashioned colonial, rather than a modern building. It’s in the neighborhood of San Telmo, not far from the soccer stadium where you went today. But it’s in an amazing location, has a secure entrance for privacy, and is near a lot of tango. I can get us in there for a walk-through in the daylight, then we can either visit a tango instructor that afternoon or a tango bar that night.”

She flipped the papers to show him the second apartment building. “This one is more your style. It’s a recently renovated Belle Epoque building in Barrio Norte. The exterior was left intact, but the interior was completely modernized. There are a number of units available and they’re all open, so we have a lot of options for filming. We’ll do that on Friday, then we’ll be finished. And you’ll be free of us.”

The San Telmo apartment didn’t interest him, but the Barrio Norte units were similar to one he’d admired in that district the day before he met Emily. “What about tomorrow?”

“The sky is supposed to be clear, so Mike and Ignacio are going to film our outdoor scenes. Emily and I like to pick a theme for each episode. Sometimes it’s stated outright, sometimes not. For this episode, we’re going with passion.”

“Passion?” And he was being featured?

Rita nodded. “When Emily does the voiceovers, she ties what’s depicted on screen to our theme. It helps give each episode a cohesive feel and makes it more memorable. For instance, during your episode she’ll talk about the passion of soccer fans, the passion of the tango, and the passion the government had for the reclamation project that brought Puerto Madero back to life. In keeping with that, tomorrow we plan to capture some shots of the tango parlors in San Telmo. Emily’s also filming a short segment on drinking like a local.”

“Now that sounds like a topic to get passionate about,” he said with a grin.

Emily walked up behind him. “It’s not what you think. I’m interviewing a café owner about the Argentine obsession with
mate
tea, then he’s going to demonstrate how he makes his. I’ll say that while I like
mate
, I’m far more passionate about the Argentine
submarino
.”

“Isn’t that…milk?”

“Oh, it’s much more than milk.” Her eyes lit with humor. “It’s a submarine-shaped chunk of chocolate
dunked
in hot milk.”

Rita’s laugh resonated through the apartment. “Mention chocolate and every woman instantly ties it to passion.”