Courted: Gowns & Crowns, Book 1

by Jennifer Chance

  “Stefan, that’s enough,” Catherine said. “We’ll provide every statement we can to help ameliorate the media’s portrayal of Emmaline—”

  “No, we will not. I will.” Kristos seethed, his fists clenched. It was everything he could do not to launch himself at Stefan, but a part of him, once again, knew that his anger, his outrage was as sharp as it was because of the truth in Stefan’s words.

  The royal family had not done this to Emmaline and her friends.

  He had.

  In only a few short days, he’d managed to turn her life into a media circus. And in so doing, he had taken a sweet, caring, beautiful woman, and had transformed her into the horrified shell he’d seen in the conference room earlier this evening. The last sight he’d ever likely see of her was that of her shocked eyes, wide and disbelieving, as the reflection of a dozen news videos splashed across her face.

  He refused to wish away the last three, perfect days he’d spent with Emmaline, though he knew she probably did. She had no reason to ever forgive him, and he would never ask that anyway.

  It was finished.

  Chapter 21

  Em and her friends had been waiting for hours in what had to be the most comfortable jail cell she’d ever seen, but it was still a jail cell. Dimitri had joined them a good forty-five minutes ago and had stood stone-faced, looking straight ahead. His only words were that they needed to wait until safe passage could be assured for them. As if they were criminals, or hostages. Or both.

  She felt sick. She hadn’t meant to incur the Crown’s enmity with her sudden need to flee, but what else was she supposed to do? Sit around and eat chocolate-covered fruit while every television in the kingdom blared with accusations of her gold-digging ways? Her stomach plunged again, and she placed a balled fist against it.

  “You need to stop obsessing,” Fran murmured beside her. “Everything that’s passed is unchangeable, and everything forward doesn’t have to be tainted by it.”

  Em glanced at her. “Do you tell that to convicted criminals too?”

  “Every time I get the chance. But you’re not a criminal, Em—and you don’t have to be a victim either.”

  “That’s beautiful.” Nicki rolled her eyes. “But that doesn’t change the fact that some assholes are out there saying things they should be held accountable for. Em wouldn’t even know how to begin going on a gold-digging expedition for a prince—a prince none of us had ever heard of before this week except Lauren, and Lauren doesn’t count. She had to do something when she wasn’t shopping.”

  “At least I have a decent wardrobe to show for it,” Lauren shot back. “You spend every day in shorts and jog bras. And don’t tell me you’re pursuing your dream life in your work as an ‘adventure blogger.’ I’ll throw up.”

  “I’m twenty-three!” Nicki shrugged. “A normal job will be there when I’m ready for it. And this isn’t about me. How’d this get to be about me?”

  Em smiled, knowing her friends were only trying to cheer her up. The fact that it was working wasn’t the surprising part. The fact that she was letting them do it was.

  Maybe Fran was right. Maybe she was worrying too much. The people who knew her, knew that she wasn’t some needy, grasping harridan out to sink her nails into an unsuspecting prince. The thought was laughable. True, she still could barely make ends meet with her father’s hospital bills and probably even more creditors that would start popping up when word went out that she was back, but she was making it work.

  She had her job at the school and was giving lessons, just as Stefan had said. She also helped make doughnuts most early mornings at the shop her father loved, though that was more to be there whenever her dad came in to see his pals before his workday at the library began. It was the only time of day he really relaxed, really became the man she remembered before the accident.

  The time stretched on another hour as they waited, and Em checked her phone for the millionth time. It was past three a.m. now, and Nicki had already dozed off on the couch, Fran drowsing next to her, looking for all the world like they were teenagers at a sleepover kept up way too far past their bedtime. Dimitri still stood like a rock at the far end of the room, and Lauren followed Em’s gaze, scowling at him. “What’s his name again?”

  “Dimitri,” Em said. She glanced at Lauren. “I keep meaning to tell you. He knows English.”

  “I know the asshole knows English. The fact that he thought I was so much of an idiot as to not have figured that out is one of the many marks against his character.”

  “You knew?” Em lifted her brows. “But all that stuff you said—”

  “Was going to make it to the queen’s ears anyway. She showed up, what? Thirty seconds later? If she was using Dimitri as her messenger boy, who was I to keep him from his job?” She looked over at him now, raising her voice. “What are we still doing here, GI Joe? I thought we were going to a hotel?”

  Dimitri’s gaze shot ice across the room. “The hotels are being watched, and we’ve had difficulty finding an option that isn’t overrun by photographers. It would be better if you stayed here.”

  “Yeah, no.”

  He shrugged. “Early scouts have reported photographers setting up camp along all driving routes. We can move you in another few hours when they lose interest, but for now, we wait.” Dimitri’s gaze flicked back over them. “The most viable option is to relocate you to one of the private condominiums owned by the Crown, to ensure your safety until you leave.”

  “How is that anything like what we asked—”

  Lauren’s words were cut off, however, as the door opened and several people entered. Em’s heart lurched as she searched their faces, but she knew that Kristos wouldn’t be among them. Of course he wouldn’t be. He’d left her to go deal with his royal duties hours ago, and he and his mother were doubtless already poring over The Girl Most Likely dossier, trying to pick his fiancée. The whole thing should make her sick.

  It didn’t, though. Now that the adrenaline surge of her disastrous television encore had passed, the hollow feeling in her chest felt nothing like sickness. Instead, it felt a whole lot like plain old grief.

  Dimitri spoke in rapid Garronois to the men, nodding several times. He turned back to Em, ignoring Lauren completely. “We’re ready. Your bags have already been loaded and taken separately, so it’s only the four of you that will need to be transported. We considered the possibility of taking each of you separately, but that would result in too many variables.”

  Em lifted her brows, remembering the last time she’d been separated from her friends. That really hadn’t turned out so badly, had it? Let it go, Em.

  But Dimitri was continuing. “We will have to take a circuitous route. It will take some time.”

  “Your country isn’t that big.” Lauren scoffed.

  Dimitri looked at her, his gaze almost dangerous. “But it has many secrets.”

  He lifted a hand and signaled, and the guards came forward. None of them had guns drawn, of course, but their movements were far too exact for them to be simple tour guides urging them along their way. Em and the girls stood, then they all moved down one corridor and into another, the halls eventually giving way to familiar passages.

  Em frowned. “We’re in the guards’ barracks.”

  “We’re taking my vehicle.” Dimitri gestured again, and a guard opened a door, several men exiting before them. “It is nearly change of shift, and the trucks won’t attract attention. Not even mine.”

  He gestured to a muscled-up SUV that looked closer to a tank than a vehicle, though Em couldn’t identify the make. “Why am I not surprised that’s yours?”

  “Get in and get comfortable,” Dimitri said. “It’s going to be a long drive.”

  He wasn’t kidding. They drove so far into the mountains that Em was beginning to wonder if they’d end up at Theo’s chateau again. All of the adrenaline and exhaustion of the past few days’ events started to creep up on her, and she fought to keep her eyes open. She l
ooked over at Dimitri, the other three girls now fully passed out in the backseat. “What’s the delay?” she murmured drowsily.

  Dimitri glanced at her with the first real smile she’d seen him crack since the gala had begun. Heck, possibly since they’d left the ATV in that tiny mountain town, covered in mud and branches. “Go to sleep, Emmaline,” he said, his gaze returning to the road. “It appears our initial accommodations were not suitable for the Crown. Or the second one we suggested. Or the third. We’ve had to make adjustments midjourney, and it has taken time to prepare. We’ll be there soon.”

  It was almost dawn when they finally pulled up to a building with subdued lights. No one was on the street, and Em straightened in her seat, blinking as they turned into the overhang that must lead to some type of garage. The vehicle purred to a stop and the other girls stirred—well, Nicki stirred. Lauren and Fran were still out.

  Dimitri rolled his eyes and hefted Lauren’s body, while another man stepped forward to pull Fran into his arms. Nicki fought off help, hopping out of the SUV along with Em, blinking around. “The mythical condo?”

  “Looks like.”

  Dimitri explained the layout as they entered the elevator chamber. Their rooms were on the top two floors. The other building inhabitants on the lower floors would be notified, but they were used to staying away. Dimitri handed over keys to the main doors and to their rooms, then he and the guard left Nicki and Em staring owlishly after them.

  “Why does this still feel like jail?” Nicki grumbled, eyeing the guard at the far end of the hall.

  “Life of the rich and famous.” Em pressed her key against the lock and heard the tumblers shift. “See you in the—well, soon,” she said, as sunlight peeked through the shuttered far window.

  “There better be sunshades.” Nicki padded down the hallway to her own room, and Em waited until she unlocked the door and slipped inside.

  Then she pushed her own door open, not bothering with the lights, though the room was shadowed and murky.

  She hoped for just a moment that Kristos would be there, waiting for her.

  He wasn’t.

  Chapter 22

  Princess Emmaline Aurora Grace gazed out of her embattled kingdom from behind her prison walls, so desperately sad that she could barely move.

  Okay, she was clearly going to have to work on her fairy-tale endings.

  But there was not much to look forward to today, their second day in captivity in the condo, not even on this beautiful dawn as she gazed over the sandy beaches of Garronia. Even the Aegean Sea, glistening in the distance, seemed to mock Em with all her beautiful memories that had now turned sour.

  Because for the second morning after the Accession Ball, she’d awoken alone, so terribly alone, that she hadn’t wanted to move. She’d lain in her borrowed bed with its borrowed linens and borrowed pillows, thinking of her borrowed life that had brought her to both the heights of pleasure and the pits of dark despair.

  Kristos hadn’t reached out to her. She hadn’t really expected him to, and yet these past few days had passed in a weird sort of limbo without him, and she’d found herself far more exhausted than she should be. Though both she and the girls had decided not to turn on the television yesterday, their mutual resolve had lasted only until about three o’clock. The moment they’d flipped the enormous television on, however, it had cut away to another story of the gold-digger princess, now disappeared once again, and the gleeful expressions of the entertainment reporters had resulted in a resounding cry from all of them to “turn it off.”

  After that, they’d found it easy enough to drown their sorrows in a bottle of smuggled tsipouro Lauren had bribed a guard to bring in, and an enormous fruit-and-cheese plate the condo management had seen fit to send up to their rooms.

  And now they were waiting again, because the word that had come over this morning was that they still had more hurdles to jump over. They needed to wait to make the trip to a private airstrip late that night, ensuring they wouldn’t be accosted along the way. Lauren was convinced Dimitri was doing it to be obnoxious, and that their enforced imprisonment had nothing to do with royal command.

  Still, no matter what the reasons were, the result was the same. They were stuck here. Half hideaways, half outcasts, all of them suspended in time.

  Em slumped back in her chaise, bringing her violin away from her chin. That was the ironic thing, of all of this. The queen had shipped the lovely gift violin to the condo—without a note, without an explanation—yet it was exactly that violin that Em had found herself turning toward, again and again in her isolation. She’d even tried her audition piece a few times. Once, she’d made it all the way through… and then she’d started crying.

  Why had it taken her heart being broken, for her to find her way back to her music? That didn’t seem remotely fair.

  “Ugh. How can you stand the light?” Lauren stalked out onto the balcony, then squinted into the brilliant rays blanketing their sumptuous balcony. “I’m not even hungover, and I feel like death.”

  “Yeah, but it sure is beautiful.” Em waved her bow at the view. Only the hardiest of beach lovers was lying out at this hour, but couples walked the edge of the water and several joggers traced their way toward the distant, craggy mountain path—one of them Nicki, who’d announced that one day of forced confinement was her limit and that this morning she’d free-climb down the side of the condo to get some exercise. In her ball cap, sunglasses, shapeless T-shirt and shorts, she could be any of a hundred tourists, she’d argued—and she’d been over the balcony before anyone could talk her out of it. Let the guards figure out how she’d made it past them when she walked back in.

  “My idea of beautiful is generally less…bright. At least before I’ve had my coffee.” Still, Lauren slung herself into one of the heavily cushioned chaises that overlooked the beach. “Pretty awesome views, though.” She squinted at Em through slitted eyes. “It sure is good to be king.”

  “Yep.” Em burrowed underneath her light coverlet. “I think most of the city is subsidized in one way or another by the royal family. They try not to talk about it.”

  “Too déclassé.”

  “One must keep up appearances.” She smiled ruefully at Lauren. “Did you ever suspect this tiny little kingdom was going to cause you so much trouble?”

  “Me? I’m not the one who’s become an international celebrity. No, no, don’t you dare wince.” Lauren kicked at her with a sandaled foot. “I’ve been living with the Internet on my back since I was nine years old. You don’t go anywhere or do anything in society without knowing that’s part of the game. And let me tell you, people can say some absolutely awful stuff about nine-year-olds that will pretty much make you give up on humanity.”

  “I never knew.”

  “Of course you never knew.” Lauren shook her head. “You had a life. You didn’t Google your friends to see what creepy things were being said about them by total strangers. You didn’t even know who my father was when I showed up in the Freshman dorm that first day. It took me half a semester to forgive you for that.”

  “Well, you were rooming with Frannie. I’m sure she explained you were being unreasonable.”

  “Unreasonable with borderline narcissistic tendencies, I think was her actual diagnosis. Not that I remember.” Lauren sighed, stretching in the pool of dappled sunlight. “Speaking of…”

  She turned and peered back into the suite. “Fran? You gonna join us out here, or are you the only one of us who couldn’t hold your tsipouro?”

  “Just a minute!”

  “Right.” Lauren rolled her eyes and settled back into her chair. She regarded Em more somberly. “You finally ready to tell me what your parents said when you called? You weren’t exactly in a talkative mood about it yesterday.”

  “Yeah.” Before seeing the latest round of newscasts, thank God, she’d called her parents. It hadn’t started well. She’d been fine until she’d heard her father’s voice, and then had come the tea
rs, the humiliation, the apologies. She’d had to force herself to calm down enough so he could understand what she was saying. And then…

  “He took it really well.” Em shook her head, still surprised even now, almost a day later. “I mean, I don’t know if he was still half-asleep, though he sounded alert enough, but he…” She sighed. “It was pretty much just the way Stefan said it would be. He told me it was going to be okay, and that Mom was strong enough and he was strong enough to weather a bunch of idiots talking about them online, and so I should be strong enough too. I was pretty much bawling at that point, and he told me I’d always be his princess, and that has never really been his thing, you know? The princess stuff. It was Mom’s. So that didn’t exactly stop the flood of tears.” She brushed her cheeks. “And here I go again.”

  “Tears are good for you. They help release the emotions we can’t process otherwise.” Fran appeared in the doorway of their rooms, her glasses perched on her nose, her hair tied back in a loose bun. She carried her ever-present laptop in her hands and looked over the top of her glasses at Em. “But I wouldn’t bother putting up the tissue box quite yet.”

  “Why, what’s happened now?” Em frowned at her as Fran walked out into the sunshine and paused to drink in the light the way she did, as if there were answers in each individual sunbeam.

  She squinted back down at her laptop. “Well, I wanted to show you out here, but it’s way too bright.”

  “See? I told you,” Lauren said. “They’ve got a critical excess of sunlight here.”

  “Show me what?” Em grimaced. “I don’t know that I’m up for more episodes of Princess Gold Digger. It’s way too early to break into the alcohol again.”

  “Oh, I think you’ll like to see this particular twist ending. C’mon.”