Something in the Heir (It's Reigning Men, #1) (2 page)

~*~

“I
’m so ready to get out of this place,” Caroline said as they sipped sparkling water while taking a five-minute break. “These old geezers around here with those gold-digging floozies on their arms are giving me hives. Maybe I can kidnap blondie over there and make a run for it. Think his friend would notice?” Once again she pointed toward Darcy, dominating the conversation in a circle of women nearby.

They’d been warned by the event coordinator that the president would be arriving shortly, so Emma was taking advantage of a momentary break to run to the bathroom and make sure her equipment was ready for the big event.

When she returned to Caroline’s side, they worked their way back toward the front of the crowd to get in position for the president’s arrival. She noticed how Caroline’s gaze rarely left Darcy.

“Forget about it,” Emma said. “The place is crawling with Secret Service, at least until the president’s gone. You’d be hauled off for interrogation by Homeland Security, never to be heard from again.”

Her friend shrugged. “Yeah, though some of those Secret Service guys might be willing...”

“You do know you’ve got a one-track mind, don’t you?”

Caro shook her head in dismay at her friend. “At least there’s something going down my track. Ever since that last derailment with Richard what’s-his-name, yours has been a whole lot of nothing.”

“Please,” Emma said, anger flickering in her hazel eyes. “I do not need to be reminded of that regrettable relationship. The jerk still owes me five hundred dollars I lent him. Not to mention my dignity, which he took off with along with that stripper from his buddy’s bachelor party.”

“Yikes. Sorry for getting you worked up,” Caroline said, holding her hands up in defeat. “I forgot I swore I’d no longer resurrect your painful break-up stories. At least not while at work. Though you gotta admit, it was sort of funny to watch him on YouTube jamming fifties in her g-string. Just think how romantic it is that one day they’ll be able to show their grandchildren the video of the very moment they met.”

Emma made a grumbling sound. “At least I figured out where my money went.”

“And it was money well spent, darlin’, if it meant finding out the truth about that one. Way cheaper than alimony.”

“Which I’d have had to pay since he couldn’t keep a job for more than six months.” Sometimes Emma wished there was a punching bag nearby, just to get out her aggression toward the loser. Instead she silently reviewed her mantra in her mind:
Waste of time, waste of effort. Not gonna be duped again by a dude who lies, cheats and mistreats.

Their conversation was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of drums and bugles that precede “Hail to the Chief.” Emma snapped one wide shot of an audience’s worth of hands raised in the air, smart phones at the ready for their very own money shot with the president. She was grateful to not be in the throng, as one of these times someone was going to be clocked in the head with a dropped phone.

The president parted the velvet curtains, waved to the crowd, then greeted the prince and his entourage while Emma clicked away on her camera. After a brief, five-minute address, he was whisked away by a coterie of security guards,
tout de suite
.

Once the headliner was gone, the crowd began to dissipate quickly. Emma managed to pop off a handful of shots with other guests and the prince, and finally the embassy press secretary thanked Emma for her service and dismissed her.

She scoured the room in search of Caroline, who’d taken another bathroom break, just to let her know she was off the hook and could leave. She found her friend chatting up a cute bartender.

Emma tapped her on the shoulder, trying to draw her attention away from tall, dark and hottie, who seemed intent on slinging mixed drinks to impress. He was, weirdly enough, shaking cocktails atop his head like he was dancing the Watusi. Not exactly staid Washington-like behavior at one of these gigs.

“I’d tell you that you can leave but it looks like you don’t want to have a reason to slip out quite yet,” she said.

Caroline startled and gasped, as if caught in the act —of what, was anybody’s guess. But not a big deal. Caroline’s working motto was
love the one you’re with
, so Emma had faith nothing much would come of her current bartender lust. “You scared the crap out of me!”

“Just wanted you to know you’re technically off-duty in exactly T minus ten seconds,” Emma told her, pointing at the time on her cell phone. “Obviously you can feel free to stick around and latch onto some useless guy, but if I were you, considering the caliber of this crowd, at least I’d aim a little higher.” She smiled, knowing Caroline knew precisely what she meant.

“Yeah, yeah, but you know I’m no gold digger, girlfriend,” Caroline said. “I’d far rather find me a hot bartender with some good moves—” she said, pointing over to Hot Diggity, “— than some snooty, rich country club-type who wouldn’t abide my less-than-uppity ways.” She lifted the tip of her nose with her pointer finger as she said that, her long, straight red hair falling into her face.

Emma laughed and mussed her friend’s hair. “Have fun, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do...”

“That leaves my options wide, wide open,” she said, holding her thumb and pointer finger up in an “L” shape to her chest. “And just to prove you’re not a complete loser, why don’t you grab that cute prince to take home with you?” Always quick with the joke, that one.

Emma fake-glared at her. “Thanks, but there’s no prince in my future. Though he was pretty easy on the eyes, I will give you that. I’m surprised you didn’t already commandeer that buddy of his.”

“Yeah, well, once I got finished wiping the drool from my chin, unfortunately he’d disappeared.”

“No kidding. I think your river of saliva is coursing its way toward the White House as we speak. Just as the sun sets in the west, I know I can count on you to not miss out on the eye candy, whether he’s a mere bartender or a royal footman,” Emma said, pausing to contemplate the thought. “Is that what you call them? Footmen? Do they do something with their feet, or have a creepy foot fetish? Sort of weird name, isn’t it?”

“Probably more like henchman is my guess. Back in the day his footman would’ve cut off the enemy’s head. Am I right? Ah, well, clearly we weren’t born into that world, so I’m not gonna bother even fantasizing about it, not to mention decipher the terminology.”

“Yep. Besides, imagine how high maintenance a prince would be. Sheesh!” Emma waved her hand as if dismissing a nuisance gnat. “Spot of tea, Mummy? Oh, royal knave, fetch me my slippers! Pip, pip and all that rot,” she said with an exaggerated accent.

The two women practically fell over laughing, until Bartender Ben cleared his throat at an elevated volume, trying to rein in his audience.

“Right, then. Anyhoo...best I can tell, I’ve got no shoots scheduled for the next week, so looks like you can just hole up in the man-cave with Hottie and see where things lead you.”

Caroline’s eyes grew wide and she mouthed “Shut up!” to Emma, then turned back to her hunk du jour.

Emma took a final quick glance around the room as she packed up her camera bag. After working more hours than she cared to count, teetering precariously atop a torturous pair of black stilettos, she wanted nothing more than to peel off her floor-length, black satin sheath, lose the strapless bra that was cutting off the circulation too close to her vital organs for comfort, and tug on her favorite oversized sweatshirt and yoga pants. Then she’d finally pour that very full glass of Chianti she’d been craving, and return to her natural slothdom.

The party was still going strong, but since she was only contracted to do grip-and-grins of Prince Charming, there wasn’t truly a reason to stick around much longer. Hell, she’d likely get pressed into service with the wait staff if she wasn’t careful. Not like she had anyone she could hang around and chat with anyhow, with Caroline being preoccupied. That was the thing about her work world: being a worker bee at the ball wasn’t really much fun, even if the top-tier champagne was flowing freely and the passed canapès probably bore a per-piece price tag that exceeded her daily meal budget.

For Emma, being an outsider at an insider’s party was losing its luster; she was getting old enough to appreciate that it wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. Sure, she got to share proximity with some of the world’s elites, but since she wasn’t a member of that rarified universe, it didn’t rank a whole lot higher than being the one polishing the silver at the palace. It wasn’t as if she could chat up the guests, comparing notes on their winter holidays in Aspen, shared vacations on Necker Island with Sir Richard Branson, or summering on Nantucket. The closest Emma got to summering (and when did that become a verb?) — not counting Caroline’s annual skee-ball smackdown on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland, which didn’t quite elevate vacationing to the next level — was escaping to her parents’ beach house in North Carolina.

Okay, she had to clarify this a bit. The Great Hall, as a work venue, on a scale from one to wow, was no doubt a wow. Picture every little girl’s fantasy of taking that Cinderella descent down a grand marble staircase, garbed in a luscious tulle ball gown twinkling with crystal beads, with the man of your dreams (like maybe that Adrian guy) waiting at the bottom to clasp your outstretched hand and pull you into an intimate dance. Throw in that two-story tall Christmas tree, which would put the famed Rockefeller Center version to shame on grandeur alone, and, well, this was where that dream would come to life. That is, if that was the kind of fairy tale you could somehow work out for yourself. Good luck there.

As Emma was working her way toward the coat check, she spied the obnoxious senator pawing at what looked to be a Capitol Hill intern, judging by the badge dangling from her neck. Emma quickly opened up her camera bag, pulled out her camera, and began snapping pictures of the senator in a clinch with the girl, his hand squeezing the young woman’s butt.

“Hey, Senator,” she shouted over the din of the crowd. “Wonder what your constituents would think about you tapping that.”

She moved the camera away from her face and gave him a big thumbs-up as the senator quickly detached himself from the girl, who had to be fifty years his junior.

Gotcha
.

With that, camera still slung over her shoulder, she grabbed her coat from the coat checker, handed the girl a buck, and slipped out a side door, never to be missed by those inside. Now to get back to the car, cross the bridge into Virginia, and be home in twenty-five minutes, tops.

H
is
Royal Highness Crown Prince Adrian was one very ticked-off young man. He paced the floor of the private office-cum-holding room in which he was holed up as if he had somewhere to go. Only he didn’t. Although he might, soon enough, right on down the aisle, what with his mother force-feeding him a heaping helping of Lady Serena Elisabeth Montague, Duchess of Montague, like a fat spoonful of that disgusting, overpriced caviar that girl seemed to be on a steady diet of.

Despite Adrian’s repeated entreaty to the contrary, his mother the queen had deemed Serena to be “ideal marrying material,” via yet another text message to her son, and palace efforts were now under way to ensure the fulfillment of her wishes, regardless that they were in direct conflict with her son’s own desires. Certainly it hadn’t helped that Serena’s mother, Lady Sarah, a close consort of the queen, had been touting the glories of her daughter to his mother for years now.

“
Serena Montague
.” He growled her name, swatting away his equerry and trusted confidante, Lord Darcy Squires-Thornton. “Despicable would be too generous a word to describe that miserable manipulator. I’d no sooner wed that scheming, conniving—”

“Adrian,” his aide said, stopping him with a hand against his chest and a stern look in his eyes. “The walls have ears.”

Adrian glanced around the room, remembering that there were indeed others nearby whose discretion wasn’t guaranteed. It wasn’t easy always having to worry that what you said could be broadcast publicly and not in a good way. Ridiculous, really. He was starting to feel almost imprisoned in his life of privilege, what with the extreme limitations on his privacy, his freedom, and, point in fact, his choice of life partner. He never chose to be an heir to a dynasty; rather, it was thrust upon him thanks to this outdated primogeniture nonsense. Who was to say he was any more deserving of the throne than his siblings, or even Darcy, for that matter? It all might have made sense a few centuries ago, but now?

He was beginning to wonder if being a relic of days gone by wasn’t more of a strange curiosity that ought to be relegated to sideshow status or somehow set up as a tourist attraction to sustain the royal needs, of which there were plenty.

“Besides which, she’s a complete drunk!” he whispered in his friend’s ear.

“True, but you have to admit it was rather funny when she fell down the grand staircase at your father’s birthday party last month. Without that you’d have been left to listen to a string quartet as your only entertainment.”

Adrian laughed. “Would have been preferable. And here I thought seeing her tumble head over heels down a flight of steps would have been enough for my mother to finally realize the woman’s a total lush. Instead she bought into the whole excuse about Serena’s blood sugar dropping so quickly, and Mother swoops into care for her.
Bah!
Maybe if she’d eat a meal once in a while, she wouldn’t be so embarrassingly smashed every time I see her.”

“Obviously, she’s head over heels for you,” Darcy said, smiling. “What better way to prove it to you than quite literally showing you?”

Adrian moved into a smaller office within the confines of the larger one in which he was pacing, seeking a moment’s solace from onlookers. He pulled Darcy close to him.

“I can trust you, no matter what, right?” he asked, his brow knit in concern.

“We’re mates,” Darcy said. “But you already know that!”