by Tawny Taylor
Jenna took a seat. She couldn’t help looking at Rafe, standing on the deck. He was so striking, so regal. It was easy to imagine him as a king, standing on a balcony, waving to his people as they cheered, “Long live the king!”
She’d been one of the luckiest girls in the world, to have had the chance to know Raphael Karposh Stojanovski, the man, and not just the prince.
She would never forget that.
A second uniformed man came stomping down the deck. He paused to speak to Rafe then boarded the boat. As he hurried past Jenna, he smiled. “We’ll depart in a few minutes.”
She nodded and turned her attention back to Rafe, who was still standing on the dock. The boat’s engine rumbled. Water gurgled. Rafe untied the ropes securing the boat to the dock and tossed them onto the deck.
This was it.
Goodbye.
Forever.
He waved and, the world turning into a blurry watercolor, she waved back.
18
Jenna
A boat ride that afternoon, followed by an overnight stay on St. Lucia, and an eight hour flight later, Jenna’s bestie shouted, “Welcome home!” as the travel-weary Jenna tossed her suitcase into her backseat.
Then, shivering her butt off, Jenna flopped into the passenger seat. Holy cripes, was it cold! Her face was on fire. Her eyes were watering so badly she could barely make out Mikki’s face. And her teeth were chattering so hard she was afraid they would crack.
“Start talking!” Mikki demanded while shifting her car into gear. “And don’t leave out a single thing.”
Was it just her, or was Michigan ugly? Gray. Dark. Grungy. “You aren’t going to give me one day to recover? I’ve been traveling for almost two whole days.”
“Hell no! I’ve been waiting to hear about the prince since you left home. That’s torture!” Mikki snapped as she forced her little car into a tiny opening in traffic.
Jenna let her head fall back against the headrest. “It was… amazing. And horrible. All at the same time.”
“Did you get your job at the GLC, like you wanted?” she asked as she hit the gas to avoid being plowed down by a bus.
“Rafe—“
“Rafe?” Mikki interrupted. “You call him Rafe?”
“Well yes, that’s his name.”
“Not to me. It’s Your Grace,” Mikki said, using a funny accent.
“Oh. Maybe if you were working directly for him, it would be different.”
“Maybe.” Mikki shrugged, eyes flicking from the rearview mirror to Jenna and then to the windshield as she navigated the twisty-turny road out of the airport.
“What else? There has to be more,” she insisted as the car rocketed onto the freeway. “Tell me everything. What’s the island like?”
“Beautiful.” Jenna closed her eyes and the image of the ocean shore flashed through her mind. White sand. Blue skies. Clear water, sunlight glittering on the spray. “Heaven.”
“I’m so jealous! But you said it was horrible. Why?”
“That’s a long story,” Jenna said, opening her eyes. The world around her was so freaking gray. Ugly. Dirty. And packed, wall-to-wall with noisy cars and trucks and busses. She missed the salty wind. She missed the sound of the surf. She missed the peace and beauty.
And she missed the sound of Rafe’s voice. “It was Rafe. He made it wonderful but also horrible, too.”
“How? Was he one of those bastards that treat their assistants like dirt? His regular assistant has never complained about him, so I—“
“No, it wasn’t that.” A tooth-clacking shiver quaked through her and Jenna wrapped her arms around herself. “God, I am freezing!” She cranked up the car’s heat to full-blast.
“You became acclimated to the heat that fast?”
“I guess I did.”
“Okay, I’m done.” Mikki gave Jenna a death glare. “This is harder than pulling teeth! Give me the dirt, girl! I know there must be some, the way you’re acting. What happened between you and ‘Rafe’?” she asked, making air quotes.
“What happened is… I… I liked him. A lot.”
Mikki grimaced. “Oh crap.”
“Yeah. Exactly. I’m screwed. He made it clear it could only be an affair.”
“Wait!” Mikki’s turned three shades of red. “Did you… sleep with him? With Prince Raphael?”
Technically, she had slept with him. She nodded.
“Ohmygod!” Mikki stabbed out her right hand and smacked Jenna’s shoulder. “My best friend had sex with a freaking prince!”
“Wait, I didn’t say—”
“And it was…?” Mikki asked, cutting across three lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic to make their exit. “Tell me it was amazing!”
“I didn’t have sex with him. We just slept.”
“Huh?” Mikki stomped on the brakes at the end of the exit ramp and blinked at Jenna. “You slept with him? Literally?” The traffic light turned green and once again she stomped on the gas, rocketing the car down the road.
“Yes,” Jenna confessed. “I. Fell. Asleep.”
“You fell asleep?”
“I know. It’s crazy, right?”
“Yes, crazy. Why would you fall asleep? I’ve got to hear this story!” Mikki turned into their apartment building’s parking lot, cut off the engine. “Hurry up! You’ve got to tell me everything when we get inside.” She opened her door and a blast of arctic air shot into the car.
Holding her breath, Jenna scurried out of the car, yanked her bag out of the backseat and sprinted for the door with Mikki tailing behind her.
Inside the apartment, Jenna dropped her bag at her feet. That had been pure hell! She hated Michigan in the winter! There was absolutely nothing to like about it.
“I was drunk, and sunburned. And he was trying to be respectful. But I did try—I mean, I practically threw myself at him. I respect him for not taking advantage of the situation.” She plopped onto the couch. “I really liked him. Of course he was good-looking. I’ve never been face-to-face with a man that gorgeous. But he was also hard-working, committed, and kind.”
And sexy. And adorable. And… the list could go on and on.
Mikki elbowed her. “Sounds like you have a little crush on the Aragonian prince.”
Crush? What she’d felt was no crush. Or was it?
No. No way!
“I don’t think it’s a ‘little crush’,” Jenna told her. “If he had asked me to go to Aragonia with him, I would have agreed without a second thought.”
Mikki clapped her hands over her mouth. Her eyeballs bulged, nearly as big as tennis balls. “No way!”
Jenna nodded. “No doubt about it.”
“That’s insane. You’re crazy!” Mikki smacked Jenna’s shoulder. “You went there to get a job. Remember? Not to screw a prince.”
“I remember. Believe me, this was the last thing on my mind when I got there.”
“And Prince Raphael? Did he…?”
“He spent the whole time trying to avoid me… when he wasn’t shoving his tongue into my mouth. You remember when he called and demanded a replacement?”
“Yeah.” Mikki’s eyes widened. “Oh!”
Jenna nodded. “Anyway, I’m home now.” She looked around their apartment, at the shabby hand-me-down furniture and the butt-ugly framed “art” they’d bought at the Salvation Army. And the grungy walls the shade of vanilla ice cream. And the puny kitchen with its banged up cabinets and painted countertop. It was amazing how sad and pathetic their apartment looked after spending less than a week away. “Home sweet home.”
“I left some pizza for you,” Mikki told her as she jumped to her feet. “It’s in the fridge.”
“Yeah, thanks. But I think I’ll jump in the shower and wash off the travel grime. Then I might crash for a while.”
“Okay.” Mikki gave Jenna a worried-mother-hen look. “You are all right, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine,” she promised. It was a hollow promise. At least, it f
elt like one right now.
Jenna dragged her bag behind her as she walked down the short hallway leading to both bedrooms. She flopped onto her bed, and shivering, wrapped herself up, pig-in-a-blanket style and closed her eyes.
She might never get to go back to that island again, or see Rafe. At least, not in the real world.
But she could in her dreams…
An hour later, or so it felt, she was rudely woken.
“If you don’t get out of this bed right now,” her obnoxious bestie shouted, “I’m calling 9-1-1!”
Jenna clapped her pillow over her head. “Go away!” What was the big deal? She was tired. That was what traveling did to her. It made her tired. It was hardly a reason to threaten a call to the authorities. “What time is it?” she croaked.
“Five-thirty. PM. Saturday.”
“What?” Jenna blinked. “What day did you say it was?”
“Yeah. You’ve been sleeping for over twenty-four hours! I’ve checked you for a heartbeat every few hours. I was sure you were dead.” Mikki sniffed. “Speaking of dead, it smells like something died in here.”
“I didn’t shower yesterday.”
“Yeah.” Mikki tore the covers off the bed. “It’s time to join the world of the living. In the shower! Now! Later we’re going out. You and me. My treat. We can grab some dinner before hitting happy hour at the Crash.”
The Crash Landing, aka the Crash, was Mikki’s favorite bar. In Jenna’s book it was a dive. In just about anyone’s book it was a dive.
But the place was literally a half-mile from their apartment. And the bartender was very generous with his pours. And if ever she needed to sit face-to-face with a generous bartender, it was today.
“Fine.” She swung herself up, wobbling from the sudden loss of blood to her head.
Her stomach rumbled as she washed away the stench of travel, brushed her teeth, climbed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and made a half-hearted effort at making her hair and makeup look decent. When she opened the bathroom door freezing air smacked her in the face, reminding her that spring was still a long way off. God, she hoped it wouldn’t take too long to get re-acclimated to this fricking cold.
She scurried back to her room and crammed herself into three sweaters before heading to the kitchen.
“Wow, dressed like that, you’re sure to score tonight,” her best friend quipped. Mikki’s curvy body was crammed in a tiny, clingy number that barely covered her butt… or her boobs for that matter.
“Well, dressed like that, you’re going to get frostbite in places only porn stars would.”
Mikki puffed up her over-exposed chest. “A risk well worth taking if it means you and I will be drinking for free tonight!” Not caring one bit about the safety of her girl parts, Mikki shrugged. “One of us has to dress slutty.”
“Then I thank you for your generous commitment to the cause.”
“Hey, anything for you, girlfriend.” Mikki did the short-dress wiggle to make sure everything was in the right place. Then she and Jenna click-clacked out to her car for the short drive to the little dumpy Coney Island restaurant down the road. The car didn’t have any time to warm up, so Jenna sat there, blinking, hoping her watering eyes and suddenly drippy nose wouldn’t wash away her makeup.
While they stuffed chili cheese fries down their throats, Mikki jabbered non-stop about some guy she’d interviewed for the agency last week, and how he might ask her out for dinner sometime. This was a big deal. Huge, actually. There was one rule nobody, not even the daughter of the owner of Pacello Personnel, was allowed to break.
And Jenna had broken it.
On a glorious private island.
With a prince.
Not that the boss, Mikki’s mom, would ever find out. Mikki wasn’t going to tell her. Just like neither she nor Jenna would tell if anything happened between this new guy (who wasn’t technically a client yet anyway) and Mikki.
After stuffing themselves, they braved the arctic air, piled back in the car, and drove to the Crash. They both did a quick check in the mirrors before once again enduring the excruciating walk from the parking lot to the entrance.
Mikki ducked inside first. Jenna followed and was immediately engulfed in the bar’s thick, stale air. It smelled like spilled beer, sweat, and fried food… as usual.
The two friends gathered hungry stares as they clomped to their table, which was positioned to allow them both a great view of all the men in the crowded space, but to also allow the men a clear view of them—most important if they were to drink on someone else’s dime. It was early, but there were already a few promising candidates holding down the bar.
Their waitress ran over, a big smile on her pretty face. She was in for some great tips, thanks to Mikki’s ho-dress.
She shouted, over Damon Albarn’s whoo hoos blaring from the speakers, “The usual?” And, at Jenna and Mikki’s nod, ran off to fill their orders. No sooner was she gone than a guy Jenna had noticed eye-screwing Mikki came strolling to their table with a serious man-on-the-hunt expression plastered across his face.
“Ladies,” he greeted Mikki’s boobs. “Can I buy you a drink?”
Jenna did an inner eye roll. Boobs didn’t drink. He probably knew that. But from the way he was staring at Mikki’s girls, she couldn’t be so sure. “Sure,” Jenna replied. “We just ordered.”
The waitress trotted over with their drinks, two jello shots and royal scandals, and the man motioned to her. “Put those on my tab.”
“Will do.” She gave Mikki a grin and hurried to the next table.
“That dress is hot,” Mikki’s new friend proclaimed.
“Thank you,” Mikki said, lifting her shot glass. “To hot dresses and cold drinks.”
Jenna tapped her shot to Mikki’s and down they went. They plunked their glasses on the tabletop at the same time. “That was good.”
“Another?” Mikki’s would-be one-nighter offered.
“Why not?” Mikki grinned as she sucked down the scrumptious mix of Amaretto, Southern Comfort, Crown Royal, pineapple juice and sour mix through her straw.
He waved the waitress over and ordered two more rounds of shots. Those went down as fast and smoothly as the first, and before long both Jenna and Mikki were feeling pretty damn good about everything, even the guy who was eagerly funding their evening.
Mikki went off to grind against him on the dance floor. That left Jenna sitting alone. She watched, and memories of that stupid prince started bringing her down.
The jerk couldn’t leave her alone even when she was drunk.
When a fast song started playing, she forced herself out on the dance floor. But even that didn’t help. The motion of the floor reminded her of that night, when she’d gotten drunk on wine and had thought the island was sinking.
It was no effing use.
She slumped back on her chair and dropped her head into her hands. Not even alcohol could make her feel better.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Mikki slurred, bumping into Jenna’s arm. She made a funny noise, pitched sideways and plopped on her ass. “Shit! I fell.” She laughed.
Jenna didn’t laugh.
Mikki scrunched up her pretty face. “It’s that prince, isn’t it?” She climbed to the chair next to Jenna’s, using the table for support. The empty glasses rattled. “You have to forget him!”
“I’m trying.”
“No, you’re not. You’re sitting here feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Okay, maybe I am.” Jenna checked the glasses for more alcohol. “I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can.” She grabbed Jenna’s sweater. “You know what you need?”
Jenna shook her head.
“To get laid.”
Jenna didn’t like that idea. Sex had never been a cure for anything. At least not in her lifetime. “Mikki...”
“I’ll help you find someone.” Mikki looked left, right then stabbed out an arm, pointing. “What about him?”
Jenna didn’t l
ook.
Okay, she took a peek. A small one.
She wasn’t impressed. “No.”
“Him?” Mikki pointed in a different direction. This time Jenna didn’t bother looking.
“No.”
“What about him?” Mikki offered.
Jenna shook her head. “No.”
Mikki heaved a massive sigh, getting visibly frustrated. “Girl, you’re too damn picky! In case you didn’t realize it, the world isn’t full of hot European princes.”
She had that right. “I realize that.”
“So what?” Mikki smacked her arms across her chest. “You’re going to let your lady parts shrivel up from neglect if you can’t have a prince?”
“No. I just need some time. That’s all.”
“You know what they say.” Mikki wagged a finger. “If your horse falls off you, you have to get right back on…” She scrunched her face again. “Or something like that. I’m drunk.”
Jenna was drunk too. Maybe that was why she got what her friend was trying to say. The problem was, she didn’t want to get back on a damn horse. Or on a man, either.
Unless that man had eyes the color of a tiger’s.
And his name was Rafe.
And he lived in some stupid country called Aragonia, where they got a lot of effing snow.
Jenna hiccupped. “I want to go home.”
“Noooo!” Mikki threw herself at Jenna, nearly toppling them both off their chairs. The whole freaking world swung wildly. Jenna grabbed onto the first thing she touched—her bestie’s little dress—and nearly tore it. Spandex. Miracle fabric. “We’re here to have fun! To help you forget princie-poo!”
“It isn’t working.”
Mikki jerked around. “What?” she snapped at someone behind her.
Oh great, the one-nighter, aka Romeo, was giving her that look, the one that said he was ready to be repaid for all the cash he’d laid out.
