Princess Wanted - The Complete Book Set: An Alpha Billionaire Prince Trilogy (10 page)

Will sat back in his chair – stupid really; to assume that his opinion mattered. Being royal meant absolutely nothing - he had no power as anything but a symbol. The actual negotiations would be done by the politicians and business men, while he sat there as a prominently visible bargaining chip: give us a good deal on oil and we’ll give you this weak-chinned, overdressed, inbred as your son-in-law. He looked at Lacey (because why wouldn’t you?), she smiled a gorgeous smile. It was very hard to complain about being Prince: you never had to worry about anything and everything from room and board to a stunningly attractive wife, was handed to you on a silver platter. There was no reason, Will knew, for anyone to feel sorry for him. And yet he could not help feeling sorry for himself.

Chapter Two - The Ball

“W
here did you get this?” Samantha stared at the invite in wonder.

Her father shrugged in his quite, modest way. “Scientists get invited to state events from time to time.”

“Yeah, but this one?” Samantha wondered. “This is just a schmooze-fest: let’s get the Prince a wife. Why not post a singles add under ‘Princess Wanted’?? I can’t imagine scientists being invited to a royal speed-dating ball.”

“Scientists can be pretty too,” Jack insisted. “Your mother for example. She was beautiful.”

Samantha smiled – her father always spoke of his ex-wife as if she was dead, when in reality she had left him for a climatologist from Copenhagen.

“And then there’s you of course,” Jack concluded.

“I’m not a scientist Dad.”

“It’s never too late.” Though they shared beliefs, Samantha had not followed her father into academia. She was tremendously well-informed via books and articles, but had decided that there was no time to take years out of her life in study when she could be enacting change now. Her skill was in talking, conveying her passion for her subject with every word she spoke. Jack Dalton might be able to speak with more authority, but it was his daughter who brought his dry words and the sentiment behind them to life.

Jack smiled, he might regret that his daughter had not chosen science as her vocation, but he never doubted that she would be the one who would change the world. Being right would only get you so far, you had to be able to present that rightness in the correct way.

“Besides,” Samantha continued, side-stepping the old argument, “I didn’t mean that there were no pretty scientists, I mean that a Prince isn’t looking for a scientist, be she ever so pretty, to be his wife. It’ll be some duchess or other Princess. Someone to whom he’s distantly related. Or not that distantly.”

“You say that,” said her father, “but look at Prince Lukas. Married a girl from New York; now doing charity work in Thailand.”

“Like there’s nothing that needs doing here.”

“It all counts,” her father spoke sternly. “You know I don’t like that attitude, Samantha. We’re no more important than anyone else in this world. Being born in one country rather than another entitles you to no more, nor any less, concern. The important thing is to do something for someone. Anyone.”

Samantha acknowledged this and her father indicated the newspaper he was reading.

“Apparently Prince Christof is at it too. Not charity work, but falling for a commoner. He’s ‘living in sin’ with a Texas horse-breeder.”

“Why do you read this nonsense?”

“Because,” her father explained, holding up the tabloid paper as he did so, “if you want to know what the people think, then you need to know which lies the papers are telling them. This is the most popular newspaper in the country.”

“You’ve got an answer for everything.”

Jack shrugged. “Comes of being right ninety-nine percent of the time.”

“Just ninety-nine.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

Samantha returned to the main subject. “But seriously, what do you think I can do at this royal ball?”

“Seriously?” Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. At worst, you might have a nice evening – bit of dancing, some expensive food, maybe a Duke will give you a pat on the bum. Best case: you have a chance to talk to the Prince. You may not be a scientist but you are pretty and, royal or not, he’s a man.”

“You’re pimping me out?”

Jack shrugged again. “I’d sooner you didn’t go too far, but if you do, remember I’m your father, and what happens at the ball stays at the ball. You’re easily the match of a New York charity worker and a Texan horse breeder so, who knows?”

Samantha shook her head. “This is Prince Wilhem you’re talking about. The other two – I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d ended up marrying an Argentinian gymnast and a Russian showgirl. But Wilhelm will marry who he’s told to marry and that means blue-blood.”

“You don’t need to marry him. Just get a few minutes of his time,” Jack said. “It’s a long shot. But as much as he’s the boring dutiful one, Wilhelm is also the quiet, thoughtful one. Tell him the truth and I think he’ll listen.”

In Samantha’s view, ‘long shot’ did not even come close. But these were desperate times – the oil deal had not been closed yet, but it was only days away. They had to act now to persuade someone in power that it was a bad idea, and that there were alternatives. Even a chance as slight as this one could not be missed.

Samantha smiled ruefully at her father. “You know, there’d going to be no one there I know.”

“Miss Dalton!”

Samantha turned at the sound of the voice. Thus far in the ball she had been perfectly right in her earlier assessment: there was no one there she knew. There was also no one there she liked. Everybody seemed to have an agenda and had no time for anyone but the Prince. It was with a sort of cold horror that Samantha realized that exactly the same could be said of her. Was she just like everyone else in this room? What a dreadful thought.

The voice from across the room, therefore, stunned her – surely there could be nobody here who recognized her? Unless it was a security man who had seen her at a protest somewhere and was coming to escort her politely but firmly out the back way.

But the gangly looking man now approaching did not have the look, nor the muscle tone, characteristic of security personnel. He reached Samantha and drew her to one side with overtly clandestine movements.

“I knew I wouldn’t be the only one here!” he hissed in an excited undertone. “It’s me! Richie!”

And suddenly, Samantha realized where she had seen the youth before: he was a protestor.

“What are you doing here?” Samantha tried to sound more surprised than horrified. “How did you get in?”

“I’ve got a friend who got me an invite.”

It was easy to forget that protestors come from every walk of life and strata of society.

“Why are you here?” asked Samantha.

There was something oddly frightening about the broad smile with which young Richie answered. He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. “You’ll see.”

With that, he slipped away from her, smiling all the time and leaving Samantha with an overwhelming sense of foreboding. The evening had not been fun so far but there had always been the chance of it being worthwhile, an opportunity to push forward the cause that meant so much for her. The worst case scenario was a boring evening. Now, suddenly, with the unexpected intrusion of Richie, that worst case was getting worse by the minute. Samantha’s mind raced ahead, darting from horrid possibility to horrid possibility. The problem with protestors was that they acted with the complete certainty of their own moral rectitude, and people like that could do
anything
, because in their minds it was all justified. It might be as simple as a pie in the Prince’s face or… Samantha decided that she would rather not dwell on that end of the scale. Whatever he did it would reflect badly on Samantha and her organization by association. It did not matter that she herself would never pull such a ridiculous stunt - because she and Richie had the same (or similar) ultimate goals, she would be associated with his actions.

She had to stop him.

At first Samantha had been tempted to let Richie go, so as to put as much distance between her and him as possible, but she was fast-realizing that that would not matter. Even if she was on the other side of the room when the event (whatever it proved to be) took place, she would be swept up in the aftermath because she was one of the most recognizable faces of her cause. If she was in the room at the same time, then she would inevitably be associated with it and no one would believe her pleas that it was a coincidence. She could not really blame them.

A hasty circuit of the room produced no sign of the suddenly elusive protestor, but Samantha had a hunch that, when she least wanted him to be, Richie would all kinds of lusive (or whatever the opposite of elusive was).

“Excuse me,” she turned to a guest who was trying to catch the Prince’s eye without looking like they were trying to catch the Prince’s eye. “I’m looking for my friend.”

The guest waved an impatiently dismissive hand. “I haven’t seen anyone.”

“He’s tall, thin…”

“Haven’t seen him.”

“Quite pale…”

“No idea.”

“Smiling like he’s of his meds and someone loosened his straitjacket.”

“Oh, him.” The guest nodded. “He asked me the way to the men’s room.”

“Where is it?” asked Samantha urgently.

The guest looked her up and down as if making sure of something. “I know there’s always a queue at the Ladies but that’s still not cool.”

“I need to find him!”

The guest pointed, shrinking beneath Samantha’s wrath, as people tended to. Samantha hurried off across the room and into a discrete corridor in the far wall. She checked both ways to make sure she wasn’t seen, then ducked into the men’s toilets. The room seemed to be empty, which was something of a relief. Or at least it was empty in terms of people, but what was in there made Samantha’s blood run cold. The door to one of the cubicles was open, the lid was off the cistern and there was water on the floor as if something that had been secreted within that cistern had been removed from it. Based on the water-mark left beside one of the sinks, Samantha could assume the object had been circular and the size of a large jam jar, a fact confirmed by the presence of a jam jar lid in the trash. Gingerly she picked up the lid and looked at its underside, there was no mistaking the thin residue of oil left on it. Samantha ran for the door.

Back in the main hall she looked desperately around for Richie. There he was! Walking slightly awkwardly, almost as if he had an open jam jar of crude oil in the enlarged inside pocket of his dinner jacket. He was easing his way with determined care through a press of people. Samantha could not see what or who was at the center of that press, but she could guess.

The stated purpose of the ball was to introduce Prince Wilhelm to a selection of eligible and appropriate women, with the idea that one of them might make a suitable wife, if the requisite spark was there. But its actual purpose, Will well knew, was to obfuscate the reality behind his unavoidable marriage to Lacey Brosnan. While people were quite happy to accept a royal marriage of convenience forging stronger ties with other nations and their royal families, they were a lot less comfortable with their Prince being the sweetener in a business deal. The ball had been organized as a place where Will and Lacey could ‘meet’ for the first time. That way their courtship would seem distinct from the oil negotiations that were going on simultaneously but separately. It was a convenient coincidence that the Prince had fallen in love with the oil heiress at the same time that a big deal was being pushed through but a coincidence was all it was. Not everyone would believe this subterfuge, and there would be a good few murmurings in the press about the convenient timing, but it would make the match more palatable to the public. Even if it remained a little unpalatable to Will himself.

There was an irony, Will considered as the most beautiful and eligible women European nobility had to offer were paraded before him, that he had to hide his motives when he was doing something purely to benefit the public. Thanks to his sacrifice, oil would be cheaper and that would have a measurable effect on the lives of his people. But that, apparently, would upset people, so he had to pretend that he was acting from purely selfish motives, which was fine. What a ridiculous way in which to run a country.

If Will had been a ladies’ man then the evening would have been horribly frustrating: meeting so many interesting and beautiful women and yet able to take an interest in none of them since his fate was already decided. Will was not a ladies’ man of course, and so the evening was merely horrible. Small talk with girls was Will’s personal nightmare and a night that forced him to indulge in this pastime over and over was his personal hell. By about halfway through the evening he was contemplating setting off the fire alarm just to get out of it. But, as it turned out, fate presented a less pleasant alternative.

He was surprised to see a man elbowing his way through the throng of young ladies that followed him wherever he went. But that was nothing to the surprise Will received when the man reached him.

“This is for you!” the man yelled, struggling to get something out of his pocket.

At the last moment Will had a vague impression of a pretty, blonde-haired girl diving forward and struggling with the man, and then there was blackness. Very literally.

Eyes stuck shut by some sticky substance, nostrils clogged and mouth tasting disgusting, Will was aware of little more than hands being laid upon him and his being ushered from the room in a chaos of shouting and jumble of limbs, that told him little.

“How do you get oil out? How do you get oil out!”

“You need…”

“Nobody’s talking to you!”

A calm, female voice had started to answer but had been instantly shouted down.

“Does anyone else here have any experience in this area?!” The female voice was apparently not used to being interrupted and now sounded a lot less calm. “Do you know how many seals I’ve cleaned?!”