Going Royal 02 - Some Like It Scandalous (9 page)

Richard was shown leaving an office somewhere in Los Angeles. He nodded politely to the cameras, but kept right on walking.

“...so at this time, it’s anyone’s gamble. But I have to say that if the two have reunited, then it has all the fairytale potential a woman could dream of...”

“Thanks, April.” The screen focused back to the studio. “For those just joining us, we are following the breaking story of Prince Armand’s love affair with American Anna Novak. Are they a match made in storybook heaven or will she break his heart for a second time?”

Break his heart...
Anna stared at the screen as it cut to a commercial advertising nude celebrity moments. She looked at the decimated cake in the container. The trip to Norway was one of the hardest she’d ever taken—but it was nothing compared to the flight home.

Alone.

“You shouldn’t watch that. You’ll never hear anything you want to hear.” Armand’s quiet voice wrapped around her. She found him standing a few feet behind her, his hands in his pockets, exhaustion digging grooves deep into the furrows around his eyes.

“You’re back.” And she had no idea how she felt about it.

“My apologies. I didn’t expect to take as long as I did.” He walked around to sit down on the sofa next to her—fall down was more like it. He claimed the remote and hit the mute button when the reporter started talking again. “You found the cake?”

“Yeah. It’s good.” Discomfort shifted inside her. He looked like hell. “Should you be going out with those threats?”

He slid off his shoes and stretched his legs out until his feet rested on the coffee table. “I cannot allow others to dictate where I can and cannot go. If that were the case, I would never leave home.”

She maneuvered the cake around in the container, chewing her lower lip. “But it’s not safe—”

“Anna, it’s never been safe. The unhappy accident of my DNA means I live with security twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We take precautions, I let them do their job and they allow me to live my life.”

What a horrible life that must have been... “How did you manage to go to school? You weren’t surrounded by security.”

He leaned over and poked a finger into the bowl, scraping some chocolate from the rim. “Wasn’t I?”

“I think I would have noticed.” Security didn’t exactly blend into the background.

Armand swiped another finger full of the frosting and she scooped some onto a fork and held it out to him. He stared at her for a long heartbeat and then accepted the bite. A streak of chocolate decorated his lower lip. She stared at it until his tongue swiped it away. “Jimmy Snozen from across the hall.”

“What?”

“Jimmy Snozen. Giles Carter. Mike Denning. Eddie Brown.” He ticked the four names off on his fingers.

“They were your frat brothers.”
They hung out at the apartment and they moved in next door and across the hall when we did...

He shook his head slowly. “No. They were part of the security detail, as was the pizza delivery man, the Chinese takeout and the sandwich shop guy.” He grabbed her water bottle from the cushion where it rested next to her leg and unscrewed the top. “May I?”

“Sure.”

A long drink later, he put the cap back onto it.

“Why?” The one question she never asked. The one she always worried about the answer. “Why...why were they dressed like that? Why did they act like your friends? Is—was Rick?”

“No. Richard and I met just like I said we did. He was my assigned roommate freshman year. Security vetted him, but he came up clean, so they let it happen. And as for why—because I wanted to go to school without men in suits keeping everyone at arm’s length. I wanted to be me and not the royal representative of the family.” He leaned his head back. He caught her legs and swung her feet up until they rested in his lap. It was so heart-achingly familiar a gesture, she didn’t think to pull away.

The screen flickered through another set of images, more photos of him and so many other women. She looked back at the real thing.

“I know you hate me right now and with good reason.” Her heart squeezed at the empty acceptance in those words. “And I know the last place you want to be is here. I messed this up and for that, I am truly, deeply sorry. But will you stay? Stay with me until I can fix this and you can be safe?” The quiet question carried such a deep longing that she couldn’t find irritation with it, even if she didn’t want to answer it.

She stretched out to set the container and its fork on the coffee table. “I’ll stay. For as long as it takes.”

When he didn’t say anything, she glanced over and found his eyes closed, his breathing regular.

He’d fallen asleep.

Stretching carefully, she reached over to the other chair and snagged a throw blanket. She spread it over them both, because he still held her legs captive. She found a way to be comfortable and switched the station to a black-and-white movie. She watched him, not the movie, until her eyelids grew too heavy.

Did I break your heart?

Did she dare ask?

Chapter Six

He hadn’t expected to fall asleep and he’d even less expected her to stay there. But the crick in his neck and the cramp in his back were well worth the trouble—especially when he found her sound asleep next to him, her bare feet still resting in his lap and beneath his hands. If only the peace of that moment extended to three hours later in the meeting with his head of security.

“We’ve gone over this, Anna. Peterson can’t secure your office—not in its current location.” He glanced at his security chief. The man nodded, his solemn expression adding gravity to the statement.

“His Highness is correct, Miss Novak. It would take us a week to complete the threat assessment properly, install a new system and bulletproof glass. The parking structure is not secure, so we would have to invest in more security for your vehicle—though we could handle transport ourselves. Either way, the threat ratio is not in your favor.” The man laid it out, cleanly and without bias.

The disappointment on Anna’s face, however, tugged at Armand’s heart. “However—and this is just a suggestion.” Arresting his need—and habit—to take over took some forethought. He’d considered the options all morning, when he wasn’t staring at her eating or drinking or just breathing. “The fourteenth floor is available.”

“I’m sorry, what?” She pulled her attention back to the meeting and focused on him. The weariness in her expression smoothed, the invisible barrier, the curtain that seemed to have shrugged down between them for so brief a time the night before, firmly in place again.

“The fourteenth floor.” He repeated and tapped two fingers against the tabletop. “It’s unoccupied and has about three thousand square feet of office space available and another thousand square feet for a security office. The building is secure, it won’t take us long to arrange for the entire office to be moved here.”

Resistance flared in her gaze, but she merely nodded. “That is a generous offer. Armand.” She moistened her lips. “But it’s a great deal of trouble to go to—particularly to pay for such a large space.”

He smiled at the use of his name. It didn’t carry the same affection as Charlie or the same depth of meaning, but it was far preferable to “Your Highness.”

“It really is no trouble at all. We own the building and I would be delighted to donate the floor to the cause.”

“A floor in this tower would serve better, Miss Novak.” Peterson didn’t require any encouragement to pile on. “The building is secure, the garage is secure and we have a full-time rotating staff, which means your on-duty detail wouldn’t be stretched—”

“My on-duty what?” She whipped her gaze over to pin the security chief. “I have a detail? Isn’t that...going too far?”

“No, ma’am. A standard detail of five will be assigned to you, led by Johnson.” He nodded to the tall man who arranged to have her picked up at her house.

Anna rubbed her forehead and dropped her gaze to the table. “Would you all excuse us, please?”

Peterson glanced at him for permission. Armand nodded and the men filed out. He forced himself to lean back in the chair rather than reach across and touch her hand. “You okay?”

“No.” She looked up and a smile strained the lines around her mouth. “No, I’m not.”

He sat forward and reached a hand across to her. She stared at it and then him before sliding her cold fingers against his palm. “You’re freezing.” Squeezing her hand, he rose, releasing her only long enough to walk around and strip off his suit coat. He claimed the chair next to her and draped the coat around her shoulders. Capturing her hands again, he rubbed them lightly.

“Do you live like this? All the time? Security details? Threat assessments?”

He shrugged. Telling her a lie might ease the worry and tension from her face, but... “You get used to it. There have always been threats against my family. At one time, there was even a bounty on my grandfather’s head. The communist regime at the time wanted to stifle any more tales of the family’s return to Mother Russia.”

“Yeah, that’s not comforting.” But she smiled and the soft curve to her lips beckoned him. It took everything in him to walk away the day before, but as much as he’d already botched their reunion, he refused to let anger spoil it.

“It wasn’t meant to be comforting—it’s hard to let others take over these areas—but it’s essential for your safety.” Her fingers continued to tremble in his grip. It was damn hard not to just pull her close. “What can I do to make this easier for you?”

Her mouth twisted, but the smile didn’t fade. “Well, you’re not making fun of me—that’s a good start.”

“When have I ever made fun of you?” Askance, he raised both eyebrows.

“When I wanted to backpack across Europe. When I took that theory class from Doctor Ramuesen...oh and when I picked up that wardrobe at the garage sale. You laughed at me for four hours.” Her nose wrinkled, but the strain around her eyes eased.

He burst out laughing. “You hated walking across campus and you planned to sling on a pack and walk across Europe? Not to mention, have you ever stayed in a hostel? The smell is pretty bad.”

“Fine. So I wouldn’t have done as well with Europe.” She snorted a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

“And Dr. Ramuesen was a whackjob with a pen. His idea of diplomacy was to close borders based on language—only those with similar languages were bound to understand the other side, translators be damned.” He still chuckled but shook his head. “The man wouldn’t know diplomacy if it bit him in the ass. He was turned down by the U.S. State Department four times and if I recall, you were furious at his grade for your midterm paper.”

“Because he gave me a C when I pointed out the flaws in the Treaty of Versailles based on his law of language.” Outrage sparkled amid the laughter in her eyes and her hand tightened on his.

“Wholly undeserved.” He soothed. “And you finished the class even if you disliked him.”

“Yeah.” She bit her lip. “I still have the wardrobe.”

“That ugly behemoth?” He couldn’t bottle the words before they popped out. She tipped her head at him and gave him a sly smile.

“It wasn’t ugly. It had—has character.”

Doubtful, he stared at her.

“Okay, fine. It’s ugly as sin, and it weighs five tons, but I like it.” She made a face and he laughed, allowing himself the barest of touches down her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

“You love it and that’s why I didn’t argue when you insisted on moving it into the bedroom...”

“Oh my God.” Her eyes rounded, then she grimaced.

“What?” A quick glance around the room showed they were still alone.

“I made your security guys carry it up the stairs.”

He laughed again. “They didn’t mind.”

“Of course they did—they complained about how heavy it was and I gave away your fancy European lager to pay for it.”

It was his turn to grimace. “
That
I know. I came home from class to find it all gone and Eddie toasted me with his that night.”

She giggled, a delicious, girly, youthful titter, and the rock on his chest rolled to the side. “This is weird.” She withdrew her hands and he hated it, but he let her go. She wasn’t so pale or so cold, warmth flushed her cheeks.

“I don’t know—it feels pretty normal to me.” Seductively normal—they used to have conversations like this all the time. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.” He rose and held a hand out to her. She’d barely eaten breakfast.

And they could use the distraction before he picked her up to cuddle away the fears. Patience, however, was not the virtue he wanted to embrace at the moment. She stared at his hand for a heartbeat longer than made him happy, but she took it and he tugged her to her feet. Interlacing his fingers with hers, he led the way toward the kitchen, but she pulled back and he halted.

“What?”

“We should give them an answer so they don’t stand out there in the hall waiting for us to call them back in.” She turned toward the door and he went with her rather than letting her pull away. She opened the door and peeked out.

“Your Highness, Miss Novak.” Peterson glanced up from his phone.

“Mr. Peterson, if we’re going to be working together, would you mind just calling me Anna?” She didn’t like titles—amusing considering how often she threw his in his face. But he squelched the thought.

“Of course, Miss Anna. Have you reached a decision?” Peterson didn’t miss a beat, the man accepted the invitation and took them right back to business. It was why Armand put him in charge of his U.S. security forces. He was damn good at his job after nearly two decades in law enforcement and a stint with the FBI.

“Yes. The fourteenth floor would be lovely—if it will be less trouble for all of you.” She smiled and it lit her whole face up. He squashed the first lick of jealousy that his security chief earned that expression before he did.

“Absolutely. We’ll take care of it. It will only take a couple of days. We’ll start with background checks on the staff so we can get them in immediately—”

“Would you mind if we went down to see the space?” Anna didn’t look at him, but when Peterson did, her jaw tightened.