Lie to Me: A Contemporary Billionaire BWWM Romance (23 page)

* * *

S
taying
on schedule was not an issue for Christian. Besides, he intended to spend as much time as possible in the hotel. As he walked under the crystal and gold chandelier hanging from the middle of the lobby, his mind was at work, weighing what he had seen today. The standards of the hotel were on par with the strict standards of the rest of the resorts and the staff appeared happy enough.

Christian strode in long steps, unaware of the figure he cut with his easy confidence and quiet magnetism. Despite the clothes, people were drawn to him and turned to stare as he walked by. It felt good to be out of the hotel and himself again. He would feel better once he was out of the uncomfortable shirt and cap.

He spied his black Bugatti waiting for him, parked three blocks away, with his driver—who was also his bodyguard—behind the wheel. Before he slid in, Christian looked behind him to make sure that no one who worked at the hotel was behind him. The chances were slim, but it had never hurt him in the past to be careful.

“Hello Jim.”

“Hey boss,” Jim said with a wide grin. “If I hadn’t seen you two hours ago, I wouldn’t have recognized you.”

“I don’t recognize myself either,” Christian said and grinned back at his long time employee.

Jim eased the car out of the parking lot and headed toward the main drag. Thirty minutes later Christian hopped out at the entrance of his condo building, and, with a wave to the doorman, took the elevator up to the fifteenth floor. Though he didn’t live there, the entire building belonged to him. The penthouse apartment had been vacant and he thought it a convenient place to set himself up for the next few months.

As soon as he walked through the front door to his expansive living room, Christian began shedding off his disguise. He tossed away the cap first and placed it on a glass table as he walked across the living room to his bedroom.

He had gotten the cap from Jim, who asked no questions. Christian liked his driver for his discretion. Jim knew that if Christian wanted him to know something, he would tell him, thus Jim never asked a thing, which suited Christian just fine.

Next, Christian went to the adjoining bathroom and slipped off his contact lenses and stripped out of the clothes. Only after he had taken a shower did Christian feel at ease and like himself again. His hair still looked terrible, but he could find someone to fix that in a few months.

He sank into a deep, comfortable chair and looked around approvingly. His assistant had done a good job furnishing the place on such short notice.

His mind drifted to his interview with Raina. One thing was for sure; despite his irritation at Roger for bungling the management of his properties, the next month or two would be interesting. He wondered how he would keep his desire for her in check as they worked together.

Fortunately, it was likely their paths would not cross too often.

Or is that “Unfortunately”?
His subconscious chided him.

Christian surprised himself with that thought. His last relationship had ended so poorly he had sworn off relationships completely. The last thing he needed was to start wanting to get close to a woman.

Women invariably disappointed him. Most wanted him for his money and the power his name held. After the last girlfriend, who’d turned out to be just another gold-digger, he had given up on finding a woman who would like him for himself.

He couldn’t blame them though, he acknowledged wryly. His name opened up doors to all the swankiest parties of the year. But women often got a shock when Christian refused to attend those types of events, preferring to spend the evening ordering in, or at a quaint private restaurant. All his relationships—if you could call them that, ended when both parties realized that they could not get what they wanted from the other.

Women wanted a prize and Christian wanted honesty.

While Christian was generous with his money, he was less so with his time, and he couldn’t be bothered to deal with the trivial frivolity and trappings that came with wealth, which appealed strongly to most women.

Or, at least the women I’ve met
. The thought appeared out of nowhere. He wondered if that type of life would appeal to Raina. For some reason, he doubted it.

He realized fleetingly that his position as a maintenance man would give him a chance to meet normal, women like Raina and Kelly. Women who, like himself, had charted their own paths in life and worked for everything they had.

Yes
, Christian thought with a rueful smile,
he would enjoy getting to know Ms. Raina McMillan.

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P
aris
and the Prince

Alexander

Crown Prince Alexander Lennox absent-mindedly drummed his fingers on the mahogany desk. He could already feel his mind drifting as the old man in front of him talked endlessly about things that didn't actually matter to anyone in the long run.

Diplomatic missions were always such a hassle—ceremonial meetings with stuffy and self-important people, all for optics, accomplishing very little. Days like these meant just another day spent envying his younger brothers, who despite sharing the royal Lennox name, were allowed to slack off and party away their teens and twenties.

It might have sounded conceited, but Prince Alexander spent a lot of time thinking about the fact that he’d never had much of a life. His royal duty—that’s what his life had always consisted of.

As the oldest son, he had been expected to join Dalvana's Royal Navy right out of University, quickly rise through the ranks to captain his own ship, and begin acting as a distinguished and proper diplomat when he wasn't in service, and that was precisely what he had done. Had he ever stopped to think about whether it was what he wanted? No, not really… but would it have mattered if he had? He asked himself the question, his brows furrowing, but he knew the answer the moment the thought entered his head.

His whole life had been planned out from the moment he was born, right down to the woman he would marry. His life was boring; privileged, extraordinary, newsworthy even…
but
boring
. He'd never quite been able to shake the sense that he'd been sleepwalking through his entire adulthood.

The French diplomat in front of Alexander cleared his throat, drawing his attention to the fact that he'd been staring off into the distance and out the window at the stunning Parisian views for far longer than was probably appropriate or could be chalked up to deep and thoughtful musings.

The elderly statesman pointed to the table where Alexander's phone was now buzzing its way across the table and was on the verge of falling to the floor. Alexander muttered a half-hearted apology and grabbed it before it tumbled over the edge.

Ahh, his “darling” fiancé Whitney's name on the caller ID; there was no suppressing an Olympic-level eye roll as he pressed the “ignore” button and stuffed the phone back into his suit-jacket pocket.

“My apologies, sir. Please continue.” Alexander gave the diplomat the charming smile that had helped land him on the cover of
People
magazine’s “Most Beautiful” issue. It was a smile that naturally won people over and helped him get his way.

As the man continued his soliloquy, Alexander felt his mind drifting once more, this time to the caller ID on his persistently ringing phone.
Whitney Bishop-St. Claire.
He couldn't even stand her name. They had been betrothed at birth by their parents in a handshake agreement that included increasing trade between the two tiny European nations of Dalvana and Estia.

When they had been kids, Whitney had bossed him around, demanding he give her all of his favorite toys. She had been spoiled and deceitful as a child, and as an adult her behavior had not improved. Starting at age ten, Alexander had begun begging his parents to break the engagement, but forested Estia supplied their coastal country of Dalvana with all of its lumber, and angering Whitney’s parents and causing a trade disruption between the countries was a non-starter. Calling off the engagement simply wasn't an option, or so he had been told over, and over, again.

In all these years, Whitney had never stopped being bossy, but what she had become was a drunk.

She believed it was her royal duty to be a cliché modern princess: drinking, smoking, attending all the most important gallery openings and fashion shows, while being seen tumbling out of limousines and stumbling up red carpets. While Alexander spent his days commanding an entire naval fleet, Whitney threw plates of food at unsuspecting waiters and slept until three in the afternoon.

Marrying her was the furthest thing from his mind, yet even as he sat here in this meeting with the French diplomat, their countries—Estia and Dalvana—were preparing for their royal nuptials.
“Your wedding,
” his mother liked to remind him,
“Will bring over 3 billion dollars in tourist and advertising revenue this year alone!”
The cameras of the world would be trained on their little monarchy, and it would be their chance to sell the kingdom as the next hot vacation spot for jet-setters and starlets.

Every meeting regarding the wedding seemed to lead to one unmistakable conclusion:
there was no getting out of it.
Alexander could feel his stomach rolling at the mere thought of being tied for life to Whitney, and it was making him nauseous, so it was time to go back to pretending to listen to the man drone on about an exchange of priceless art. He hoped the diplomat wouldn’t notice how green he looked around the gills.

The phone continued to buzz persistently in his chest pocket.

* * *

P
aris

As the plane touched down on the tarmac at Charles De Gaulle Airport, Paris Martell felt a distinct buzz of panic in her chest. She reminded herself that statistically she was far likelier to die in a car crash on the highway than in an airplane.

Her traitorous brain
also
reminded her that the most likely time for a plane to crash was on take-off or landing.

“
Damn it,”
she muttered to herself. “Today is
not
a good day to die.”

The elderly woman who was her seatmate shot her a suspicious and terrified look. “Don’t worry!” Paris said with forced cheerfulness. “Just talking to myself!”

The woman did
not
look comforted.

Now would not be a good time to be tackled by an air marshal, Paris!
She chided herself.

Paris in Paris.
It was a life-long dream.

As a kid, she used to travel all over the United States with her mom, so generally, travel was second-nature. Her mom was a nightclub singer, sometimes getting a headline gig, but mostly a few opening acts, and she made her living driving from state to state, chasing the next job, and hauling her three kids along with her. But not once in her whole life had anyone in her family ever travelled outside of the US, let alone left the continent.

As a kid, every time she had to start at a new school (17 schools in 12 years, by her last count) she always hung her head whenever she had to be introduced to the class.

“Paris! What an unusual name!” The new teacher would inevitably exclaim. “Were your parents fans of Greek mythology?”

By fifth grade Paris had learned to answer “yes” to that question. It was better than telling everyone that her mom had thought it cute to name her kids after the town they’d been conceived in.

Worst of all
, thought Paris,
I wasn’t even conceived in Paris, France—I was conceived in Paris, Texas.
Still, it could have been worse, she supposed. She could have been conceived in Milwaukee or Albuquerque. Her sister, Atlanta, and brother, Orlando, had gotten off relatively easy too. Thank goodness her mom had stopped there.

Though after all the teasing she’d had as a kid about being conceived in the “City of Lights,” Paris—the city—had taken on almost mythical proportions. She had sworn that someday—
someday—
she’d get there.

And now?
Someday was here.

As a first year medical student, and the first person in her family to go to college, Paris had been elated when she’d been chosen—out of all 200 students in her cohort—to attend the prestigious
Salon de la Formation Médicale
conference in Paris, France.

Sure, she'd have to attend a few lectures, but she'd actually get to sight-see the rest of the time! Once she finished medical school and started her residency, she knew that chances to travel would be few and far between.

Paris didn't know any of the other students that been chosen to come on this trip, but that didn't really matter. All she was interested in was checking out the city, practicing her rusty French, and maybe learning a little bit about the history of European medicine while she was in Paris. Realistically, she knew that this trip was going to be a whirlwind mostly focused on classes, but there was always the chance that she would get to climb up the Eiffel Tower, or perhaps even wander the Louvre for a few hours after a glass of wine at a cafe.

Ah, daydreams
. Paris opened her eyes as the plane landed with a jolt, shaking her out of her reverie. She muttered a little prayer to thank God for the safe landing, finally loosening her grip on the arm rests.

Struggling with her oversize suitcase, Paris had barely even made it off the plane before she was being jostled in the massive crowds at France’s busiest airport. The student group she was with was nice enough to make sure she didn't get lost initially, but there was nothing romantic about the City of Lights when you are being herded like cattle onto a smelly bus bound for a discount motel in a very questionable corner of the city. Some of the sights from her tour book flew by her via the tiny window in the back of the bus, but she didn't have time to register anything, as she was mostly too busy trying to not throw up from nervousness and motion-sickness.

What were obviously the posh areas of Paris quickly disappeared, leading to a far more seedy side of the city that Paris could have lived her entire life without seeing. However, she reminded herself,
free was free
, and as long as she could keep herself from puking all over the nice blonde girl sitting next to her, she was determined to have the time of her life.

If she ever got off the damn bus, that was…

Thomas, Alexander’s bodyguard, spoke quietly into the microphone hidden within the sleeve of his coat. Alexander had been through this routine a thousand times: his people had already cleared out this entire wing of the Louvre just so he could spend some time amongst the paintings without being assassinated by a rogue killer who happened to be waiting there for the Crown Prince of Dalvana to stop by.

But now, they were sweeping the museum a second time, just to be sure no one had snuck by any of the fifty men surrounding the outside of the buildings. It was tedious.

All he really wanted to do was see Mantegna's Madonna della Vittoria in person, and perhaps be left alone to stare at it for a while. His father liked to tell him that his Great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother had been the one to pose for it, but Alexander had never been quite certain if his father hadn’t just been telling an impressionable boy a tall tale. However, it was certain that several other Lennox relatives had their portraits in various Louvre galleries, and he was always fond of trying to find a family resemblance in the point of a chin or the curve of an ear.

But Thomas, his chief bodyguard since he was a teenager, was already encouraging him to hurry. “You have a meeting with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Orphans in two hours, a dinner date with King Leonard and Queen Penelope of Estia at 8pm, and after-dinner cocktails with Whitney at 10pm. Your father specifically stated that you are not to be late for any of them.”

Ah, poor diligent, dutiful Thomas. Little did he know that Alexander had no intention of being at
any
of those meetings, especially not dinner with Whitney's parents or drinks with her afterward. He knew the only topic of conversation would be why he was still stalling on setting a definite date for the wedding.

No, Alexander had already formulated alternate plans for his night in Paris. But Thomas didn’t need to know that…

Alexander had been slipping his security detail since he was eight-years-old, having always been a big fan of privacy, but destined to live his life rarely being given any.

The first time he ran away from his guards, the entire Lennox family had been on a photo-op trip to the zoo in Dalvana's capital city of Kara's Vale. His youngest brother Mathias had just been born and all he did was scream like a banshee. Joseph, who was four, never stopped stealing things, breaking things, or stealing
and then
breaking things. Neither of his brothers had changed much over the years.

Alexander had always been expected to be the son who posed for the cameras. He was always the one who was required to be well-mannered and behave like a proper young gentlemen, even when he was a small child. That day at the zoo, though, he’d had enough of all of it!

He had whispered to one of the bodyguards that he thought he'd seen a sneaky man with a camera hiding in the bushes, and as soon as the guards had descended on the foliage a few yards away, Alexander had taken his chance and made his escape.

Chaos ensued when his father, King Alexander, finally realized that he was gone. When Alexander was at last located forty-five minutes later, he was sitting quietly by the edge of the duck pond, chatting happily with a gardener.

Stealing away for a bit of solitude had become one of Alexander's favorite hobbies. Recently, it had become even more important to his mental health with all of the wedding nonsense weighing on his mind. Whitney wouldn't leave him alone about every pointless detail, and it was beginning to get to the point where he even resented the sound of his phone ringing.