He shakes his head. “I know how to be a prince, and I think you’ll agree I was a bit too skilled at playing the bad boy. But I’m afraid I haven’t quite figured out how to be a king.”
Talia tilts her head to one side, pondering. “Well, seems to me this is the kind of thing you learn over time,” she answers. “So maybe don’t be so hard on yourself. Once you decide to face it and start doing something about it—get some experience—you’ll feel much better. I mean, do you really think your father knew exactly what he was doing when he became king?”
“My father?” Al raises his eyebrows with a quiet huff. “Oui, actually I do. I am almost certain he was born wearing a tiny crown, with a tiny scepter gripped between his little baby fingers.”
Talia laughs, but then Al’s face becomes somber. “Talia, what if I can’t figure it out? What if I am not a good king? The pressure, c’est enorme! If I fuck this up, it will quite literally go down in history.”
“Yeah, but…” She gives him an encouraging smile. “If you succeed, it’ll also go down in history.”
Their eyes meet. And for a moment—just a moment—her heart speeds up. Al’s possibly bright future as the king of Victoire temporarily overshadowing his reputation as the bad boy prince.
“Talia…” He leans forward, folding his hands on top of his desk. “Will you—could you help me?”
An expression of mild alarm drops over her face. “Help you? With what?” She honestly hasn’t the first clue how to help him, or what he needs help with.
“With all of this,” he says, indicating the scattered piles of paperwork.
“But Al, how could I possibly help you?” she asks. Talia waves her own hand at the paperwork. “I have no experience with any of—whatever this is.”
“Nor did you know how to clean a castle before we met. But together, we figured it out. Perhaps we could YouTube it? After all, we do have internet here.”
She can’t help but laugh, remembering all the times she grumbled to him that everything from polishing the silver to dusting a chandelier would be so much easier if they had access to YouTube.
But then that line of thinking reminds her of why she came here in the first place. What she’d planned to do when she marched into his office. “Look, Al. I mean, Your Highness. I’m not supposed to be here,” she reminds him. “I have a life back home, in the States. You kidnapped me, and now you’re asking me to help you?”
He shakes his head from side to side. “You call it kidnapping. I would call it a preventative measure designed to ensure the future of the royal family. A kingly act, you might say.”
“Al, you need to let me go home,” Talia insists, refusing to let him distract her. “I need to get back to law school!”
“The law school you told me you hated?” he asks, arching one russet eyebrow.
She ignores him. “In order to get the degree that will provide me with a solid living once I have two more mouths to feed.”
“Talia, you know I would not—” he starts, his face going stormy.
But then he resets. Schools his expression back into something more neutral, before saying in a perfectly reasonable voice. “Four weeks. Bernard tells me you have four weeks until the winter semester starts at Columbia. So, four weeks is all I ask of you. Help me go through all this paperwork, and prepare for the coronation. Then I will gladly discuss your custody terms. Oh, and you can rest assured I will provide a stipend for all your work here.”
The prince takes a sheet of paper off one of the stacks, and writes a number on the back. “Will this be sufficient?”
She blinks at the five-figure number on the sheet in front of her. “Um…seriously? That much? Just to help you sort through paperwork and prepare for your big day?”
“Yes, Talia. Seriously. I believe you could be a huge help to me, and I would compensate you accordingly.”
For the first time since she lowered herself into the chair, she sinks all the way back into the cushion.
Four more weeks. And she’ll receive more than enough money to ensure she doesn’t have to rush out and find work right after graduation.
Not to mention…
Talia runs her eyes over the mess of official looking papers on his desk. The sight of it makes her fingers itch. A weird thrill runs through her at the thought of reaching out, sorting through them, organizing them into specific piles. Putting them in file folders. Making plans of action.
This urge to bring order to chaos is precisely why she was often chosen to lead the study groups at Columbia. Talia might not be the world’s best law student, but she loved studying and organizing herself and others for the next big test or mock trial. It’s been so long since she’s used her brain in that way. And she finds out in this totally weird way that she really misses it.
“Ok, Al. Walk me through all this.” She stands, hands on hips, and surveys the pile of papers, mistress of her domain.
He has her! Hourra!
Aldrich cheers on the inside, even as he frowns at the stack. “Well, this is a disorganized pile of approximately one hundred things I must sign off,” he says.
“What’s holding you back?” she asks, shifting a few pages to get a better look.
The fact that he’d asked Bernard to pretend he was in charge of all the work he typically delegated to his private secretary.
Aloud he says, “I don’t know where to start.”
Talia sits back down and pulls her chair closer to the desk.
“Let’s tackle this law school style. What’s your most pressing deadline?”
“Philanthropy.” Aldrich jabs his index fingers at a thick blue folder. “Whenever there’s a new sovereign, the royal family gives a grant to a local charity or non-profit organization. It’s a tradition dating back to the late 1800s. My father, for example, gave the King’s Gift to the National History Museum, which is why Victoire now has the best coelacanth exhibit in the world, an impressive archeology display, and a living aquarium so visitors can see the ancient fish that were once presumed extinct.”
“Sounds really cool,” Talia says, taking the folder.
Oui, he definitely has her. Al privately pats himself on the back, and makes a mental note to praise Bernard when he sees him next. He’d helped the prince decide which project would be the best one to hook Talia’s interest. Philanthropy was obviously the right choice.
However, he once again manages to act like he isn’t humming “La Marseillaise” in his head, as he says rather mournfully, “I really should have started sooner. Usually it takes months to vet all the candidates, make a short list, draft the financial implications of the gift on the country’s many sectors and, most importantly, find out if the potential recipients are even able to handle a large endowment. They need to have a solid infrastructure, and show long-term sustainability. Not all non-profits are that well-organized.” He pauses for a moment to rub the bridge of his nose, and shakes his head. “I really should have hired staff to deal with this, and now I’m not sure I can. If the press found out how far behind I am, it could get…messy. So now I must figure it out…with your help. I’m really not sure how we’re going to do it.”
Talia opens the blue folder which contains ten bound information packets about potential grant recipients. “Hmmm. First we’ll need to go through each of these and pare them down until you have a manageable short list.”
She looks up from the folder and glances at the rest of his desk, still covered in papers.
“The King’s Gift is our first priority. We need to make space,” she says, nodding at the clutter. When Aldrich doesn’t react fast enough, she starts zipping around his desk, stacking documents, and collating them as best she can horizontally and vertically into a pile in the corner of the desk.
Soon she’s standing beside him, and Aldrich watches her spread out the ten information packets on the newly cleared space in front of him.
Talia looks fantastic in a high-waisted dress, and she smells even better. Like the va
nilla orchids in the fields by her Papy’s house.
“Please, take my chair,” he says, rising to a stand.
“No, I’m fine like this,” she says.
“I insist,” he answers.
She sighs but takes the chair saying, “We’re going to be here a while. You should pull another chair over here next to me so you can sit, too.”
“Oh, I am ok to stand. Merci, quand meme.”
Also, remaining at eye level with her newly large breasts is not a great idea. Especially if he wants her to believe he truly needs her help.
But then she replies, “I insist,” with a teasing smile.
And the smile makes it hard to deny her. He pulls up a chair beside her, and does his best to keep his eyes on the packets.
“Okay, to start with, I’m guessing you can cut at least two candidates from the list right off the bat. Let’s read the summary pages from each packet, and then start narrowing down the options. Our goal is to get the list down to eight charities by this afternoon. Sound good?”
Talia looks over at him when he doesn’t respond, and finds him watching her, amused.
“What?” she asks, with a confused shake of her head.
“Palace life…it looks good on you. Beautiful, in fact,” he answers, too enchanted to be anything but honest about why he’s looking at her instead of the packets.
Talia stiffens. “Uh, anyway, why don’t I read these five, and you read those,” she points to a small stack in front of him, “and then we’ll switch,” she says, looking away. But she doesn’t sound annoyed. More discomfited, like the way she was when he came on too strong at Vieux Victoire.
She’s all business after that, but he doesn’t mind. He’s pleased with the familiar dynamic that’s sprung up between them again.
Mother was right. Talia likes helping others, so if he wants her to give him another chance, he’s going to have to convince her he’s in need of her help, even if it means taking on Bernard’s duties.
It’s worth it, he decides, as they start reading over the summaries. Not apart as they’ve been for the last three miserable months. But together.
Chapter 18
For the first time in, well, forever…Aldrich feels as if his life is going exactly to a plan he likes. His own.
Working closely with Talia during the last four weeks, and spending afternoons together pouring over charities in his office, has more than accomplished what sincere apologies and the gift of her own staff hadn’t. The former tension and anger between them has all but disappeared. They are laughing again, telling each other stories, and working together in a way that feels completely genuine…even though he more or less orchestrated the whole thing with the help of Bernard.
Before Talia’s arrival, Al had no problem delegating non-business projects—what he referred to as “people work”—to Bernard. But now he finds himself thoroughly enjoying the people work, so much so he dedicates at least half of each day to it. And the time spent with Talia is even better than what they’d had at Vieux Victoire. Not only because he doesn’t have to clean anything, but also because the job he manipulated Talia into taking is bringing out the best in her.
She shows up promptly every day right after lunch, looking plump and beautiful and always cheerful in spite of her situation. Her skilled observations and advice has helped him get through the piles of paperwork formerly assigned to Bernard. Over the last few weeks, they’ve nailed down the King’s Gift project, resolved a few domestic issues, made necessary staffing changes—including some well-deserved promotions—and even helped plan the coronation ball. Of course, Talia has no clue about the amount of behind-the-scenes preparation Al did with Bernard and other members of his staff to get up to speed on each of these projects. But it was all worth it.
If Talia had any experience with the inner workings of a royal household, she would have almost certainly realized Al’s sudden interest in working with the staff was part of a bigger ploy to spend more time with her, and convince her that his former “bad boy prince” persona was no more.
But Talia loves to help. So as a result, she’s never once questioned that he might not feel the same way she does when it comes to helping others. And despite her lack of experience, she’s proven herself to be more than capable of tackling the job he’s assigned her.
As for Aldrich…well, not only does he not mind doing the people work as much he thought he would, he finds himself enjoying it far more than he ever thought possible.
In all honesty, the only thing that’s been at all difficult about spending so much time with Talia is keeping his hands off her.
Merde, but it’s been hard.
All those hours spent together. Being charming but not flirtatious. Pretending to be fine with a platonic working relationship, all while entertaining visions of sweeping the piles of paperwork off his desk, and taking her right there.
Sitting beside her is the worst. He can feel the heat radiating off of her skin, even more so now that she’s running warm all the time thanks to the growing babies. Al never imagined a pregnant woman could be so attractive, but…putain! Some nights, it takes him hours to fall asleep because his voyeuristic brain won’t stop lingering over every moment they’ve shared that day: her hand brushing his, their thighs barely touching while they sit side-by-side on his office sofa, the sound of her laugh… Yes, he has it bad. Very bad.
To make it worse, in the past few weeks Al has come to know what he only dared suspect: Talia has the poise, heart, and dedication of a queen. Far more so than Philomena, truth be told. Even though she’d been training for that role from birth.
Philomena is a perfectly lovely young woman. But unlike Talia, she’s never had to work a day in her life. And he is certain she would not have had the stamina to handle the huge number of tasks he’s thrown Talia’s way. Aldrich thinks it’s a safe bet Philomena would have doubled their personal staff and farmed out as many of her duties as possible. Which, to be honest, he’d been doing himself for years before Talia showed up on the scene. But he now sees that was the wrong approach.
Talia has an instinct for ruling. Her caring and thoughtful approach to the King’s Gift project is exactly what is needed to make the best choice. And she truly cares about the palace staff, going out of her way to make sure his employees have exactly what they need, even if they don’t yet know they need it.
A few weeks ago, she joined forces with the official palace photographer and Bernard to create a protocol for staff birthdays.
As she later explained to Al, “Everyone needs to feel appreciated, especially by the guy who signs their paychecks.”
(Technically speaking, Al does not sign staff paychecks, but he didn’t want to interrupt so he let it slide).
“One way to accomplish this is by having you personally wish every staff member a happy birthday.”
Talia then explained how she’d built a spreadsheet to track staff birthdays so it would be easier for him to give each employee, from Bernard to the guy who washes dishes in the royal kitchens, a thoughtful token gift on their special day. She also asked the palace IT guy to program Aldrich’s smart phone to remind him of upcoming birthdays.
“He set it up so you get a reminder the day before, and the day of. You can call the greeting in by phone if you’re travelling, or if the person isn’t at work that day,” she explains. “But I think you really should try to deliver the message in person when possible.”
But a gentle suggestion from Talia might as well be a command as far as Aldrich’s heart is concerned. Yet that only partially explains why Al is currently dashing like a madman through the palace’s moonlit gardens.
He spent most of the day attending an inauguration ceremony for a newly opened university on the windward side of the island. As a result, he missed his regular afternoon meeting with Talia. He also missed the reminder on his phone announcing today is Pascal’s birthday. And according to the head of security, Pascal is somewhere in the vicinity of the private lago
on. He could just as easily call the man to wish him many happy returns. But if he can speak to him in person, he has a very good chance of not only granting Talia’s wish, but also having her see him do it. Because wherever she is, Pascal is rarely far behind.
“Your Highness,” a familiar voice calls behind him. Aldrich glances over a shoulder to see Matthis and his other guard, Tyson, power walking behind him. “If you are worried you will miss him, allow me to call ahead and make sure he stays put until you arrive.”
Aldrich ignores his guard and picks up his pace to a rapid jog. Matthis and Tyson, not ones to be left behind, lengthen their strides to keep up with the prince. Soon, the three men are all but flat out sprinting down the dimly lit trail, until they turn a corner and run right onto the lagoon’s main path. Only then does Al abruptly stop, causing poor Matthis and Tyson to nearly crash into his back.
But Aldrich doesn’t have time to apologize to his guards…he’s on a mission. He smooths down his hair, adjusts his shirt sleeves, and tosses his linen jacket casually over one shoulder. And with that, he is the epitome of casual, princely elegance as he approaches the hidden oasis of tropical flora and natural stone his mother commissioned as a young queen.
It has been said that neither Aldrich’s mother, nor his uncle, the Duke of Diamant, were ever fond of Châteauneuf Victoire. They claimed that in spite of its name, the castle was far too old fashioned, especially compared to the duke’s residence on Diamant: a decadent, modern mansion designed by a forward thinking Scottish architect in the 1970s. Yasmin might not have been able to change all of Châteauneuf Victoire, but she could definitely add on to it. Which is why she hired the same Scottish architect to design the saltwater lagoon.
His to Princess Page 12
