The Royal Runaway

by Lindsay Emory

  Something snapped inside of me.

  I slapped Nick’s hand off me and slid off my bar stool.

  “Ha! See? I knew you were lying,” Drunk Idiot said wheezily.

  “No, he’s not.” I glared. Drunk Idiot said something unintelligible behind me as I took Nick’s face in my hands and planted one on him.

  I suppose I had only meant to give him a quick peck, just long enough to taste his full, dangerous lips and to prove that no man would control me tonight. But, as with most of my impulsive acts, the consequences pulled me into something deeper.

  Just a taste turned into a full-on obsession. His lips felt better than they looked, a soft contrast to the rough scrub of his beard against my chin. I hooked my forearm around his neck, and his hands pulled me tight against him.

  Distantly, I heard yells and hoots, but . . . God.

  This kiss was everything.

  “Take her someplace private!”

  “Get a room!”

  Nick’s mouth cracked into a smile against mine. “Sounds like a plan,” he murmured right before he lifted me up like sack of flour, threw me over his shoulder, and carried me toward the back corner of the pub.

  I was stunned. I lifted a fist to pound the man in the back of his skull and then someone shouted, “Smile!” and I saw an all-too-familiar camera flash. “Here’s your camera, then.”

  The body underneath me stopped. “Thanks, mate,” Nick said. From my high, upside-down perch, I saw the man slap a small camera into Nick’s hand.

  The camera that had just taken a picture of me.

  On top of Nick.

  That camera had just gone into Nick’s back pocket.

  What the hell?

  Nick kicked open the door of the men’s room and dumped me on my feet as soon as the door was closed behind us. “There you go, Princess.”

  Anger, confusion, and thwarted lust rushed through me.

  “W-wh-what did you call me?”

  Even in the dim light of the washroom, I could see Nick’s smirk. He tapped the bridge of my borrowed glasses. “You didn’t think a pair of these was an effective disguise, did you, Princess?”

  He knew.

  No. This wasn’t happening. “No one knows it’s me.”

  Nick made a face and patted his rear pocket. “That nice man out there took pictures for me, Theodora.”

  “Of my ass in the air!”

  “It’s a very recognizable ass.”

  “No one will see that photo and see me. They’ll just think it’s some random girl.” I said it as much to convince myself as I did Nick.

  “Right. Well. Two nights in a row they’ve seen you and I have the photographic proof.”

  I cringed. The American girls.

  Nick chuckled. “Those lovely girls were more than happy to text that shot to me. You’ve now been spotted in two bars, with the same man.” He leaned in and whispered in my ear, “And then you kissed him.”

  An uneasy tremor clenched the back of my neck.

  Nick’s voice was quiet and even, but it made me as nervous as if he were screaming. “I can see the headlines now: ‘Princess Theodora Gets Her Groove Back.’ ”

  “That’s not what this was.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  “Not with you,” I lied, even with the fresh imprint of his lips still burning on mine.

  Nick chuckled softly but didn’t say anything as I processed what was happening. “You’re a reporter, aren’t you?” He didn’t answer but he didn’t need to. I’d fallen into a trap because I couldn’t sleep, and an insomniac princess has very, very bad judgment. “What do you want? You can have an exclusive, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “But Chantal Louis already interviewed you.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “It’s my business to know.”

  I wrapped my arms around my middle. “What else do you want? Money?” Outright blackmail would be a new experience for me, but after being pulled unwittingly into the scandal of the century four months ago, I knew that Big Gran’s tolerance for a new tabloid scandal involving me and a dishonest Scot in a dark pub would be very low. We were talking medieval levels of intolerance here.

  Nick regarded me seriously for a long moment, long enough for me to start wondering how much cash I could get my hands on in the next twenty-four hours, but then he said, “I want information.”

  “Information? What kind of information?”

  “Information about Christian Fraser-Campbell.”

  My ex-fiancé? That didn’t make sense. “You said it was your business to know things.”

  “It is.”

  “Then what do you need to know about my ex-fiancé?”

  “The things no one knows.”

  It wasn’t what I expected. All my life, people had wanted to know the behind-the-scenes details about me. Second in line to the Driedish throne, young, fairly attractive, considerably well-off. This was so odd. I had to make sure. “You don’t want to know about me?”

  “No.”

  I had to ask once more. “You want to write an article about Christian? Not me?”

  Nick leaned slightly toward me, his lips curved in a slight, mocking smile. “Princess, you’re the least interesting person in this room.”

  I didn’t know what to think of that. “So if I tell you about Christian, you won’t tell anyone about . . .” I swallowed. “Us?” I finished.

  “So predictable,” Nick murmured. “Always thinking about yourself.”

  I took a step back. “You’re the one who’s taking advantage of people to get a story.”

  He shrugged and reached inside his coat. “That’s my job.” He handed me a business card with crumpled corners, blank except for a phone number.

  “Call me when you’re ready to talk.”

  I took it automatically and he checked his watch. “Wait here for ten minutes. A taxi will pick you up at the back entrance and take you back to your car.”

  Then he left without another word, and I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into.

  And how I was going to get out of it.

  six

  I HAD AVOIDED SITUATIONS LIKE THIS my entire life.

  They didn’t occur often, thank goodness, but when they did, they were decidedly uncomfortable.

  Me, in a spindly, hard chair covered in a scratchy fabric that made the back of my thighs itch, sitting across from my grandmother in her formal office. She only used this room when she wanted her guests to experience the full grandeur of her majesty, people like that American president she didn’t much care for, or my mother, whom she had never quite forgiven for her polo-player-husband-loving ways.

  The fact that I was called in today didn’t necessarily mean that I was as bad as an American president who used “y’all” to refer to a queen of a sovereign nation, but it also didn’t mean she wanted to gossip over a glass of wine and pedicures.

  She settled across from me in a matching chair, her spine not touching the stiff back. As a habit, my posture was pretty good, but it did not compare to that of Queen Aurelia right before she was about to lay into someone.

  I waited in silence. It would be unwise to speak first.

  “I received the photographs from your interview with The Driedener,” she informed me.

  My spine bent automatically in relief. She had called me in to talk about the Chantal Louis interview, not my nightly escapades with Nick the Blackmailing Pond Scum Reporter. “Oh?”

  It was a safe choice. There was no way to unintentionally insult her with a vague “Oh?”

  I was wrong. Gran’s eyes grew cold. “It was unacceptable, Theodora.”

  She used my full name. Not a great sign.

  “I sent you to Perpetua to have a bit of quiet time and recover your health. These photos make you look like you’ve been drinking yourself into a stupor the last four months.” She flicked her fingers as if the photos were right there and she could make them disappear into oblivion with
just a snap.

  She probably could. The sleep I’d lost by drinking with Nick had apparently shown on my face in the photographs. Roberto was good with concealer, but he wasn’t a miracle worker.

  I had to say something. Quick. “I apologize, Grandmother.” There was no “Gran” now, not in the scratchy, hard chair. “I’ve been—”

  Gran cut me off. “Yes, yes, Lucy keeps telling me how bereft you are from that wedding business.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s surprising, considering your feelings for the man.”

  Surprising? My feelings? I wasn’t quite sure what she was referring to—or what Lucy had been telling her. If there was a chance that Lucy had said something to get me out of this situation, I needed to milk that.

  “It’s kind of Lucy to defend me,” I said, carefully picking my words. “But there’s no excuse for neglecting my duty.”

  Gran sniffed. “Your duty. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You were willing to do your duty by marrying that . . .” Her mouth turned downward as she searched for the appropriate word for Christian. “Person,” she finished. It was tantamount to an insult, the way she said it, dripping with disdain. “And as I have told Lucy, your duty to the family remains even if he did not.”

  My fingers felt spiderwebby, and I realized I was gripping them tightly in my lap. All this over a bad photo shoot. I was trying to come up with a polite way of telling Gran that I’d wear more concealer next time when she took the conversation into an entirely new direction.

  “My fortieth anniversary is next summer. The Ruby Jubilee.”

  “Yes, I remember.” It had been on every calendar in the palace since her thirtieth anniversary of taking the throne.

  “The concerts and parades have already been planned. I will expect you to be in full control of yourself by then.”

  She said that as if I had stripped off my clothes and gone skinny-dipping in the fountain in front of the palace instead of having a few drinks on a weeknight. “I imagine I’ll be fine,” I said evenly. “As soon as I forget that I’m the laughingstock of the nation.”

  Gran’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “You are a member of the royal House of Laurent. That person does not deserve a thought in your head.”

  “I don’t think about him.”

  Gran was shrewd. “I know you were still trying to reach him while you were on Perpetua.”

  I shifted in my chair. “A few phone calls—that was all.”

  Gran’s expression had gone ice cold.

  “What do you want me to say?” My voice rose a half octave in defensiveness. “I was going to marry him. He humiliated me and I wanted—”

  She cut me off. “It doesn’t matter what you want. You are a princess. Duty before desire.”

  A frustration rose in me, one that was all too familiar. “You’ve always said that we should put our duty first. I did that with Christian.” I had picked the appropriate man, the one who was lovely company, who followed protocol, who knew how to play the game. “But maybe next time I should fall in love with the man first. Like Caroline.”

  Mentioning my sister’s name, especially in this conversation, was like throwing dynamite into the opening of Parliament: destructive, explosive, and treasonous.

  But Her Royal Highness Queen Aurelia of Drieden would not be baited, nor would she shock easily. One did not sit on a throne for forty years and get rattled by a purposely provocative granddaughter. “This is not Monaco, where princesses may marry circus clowns and unemployed fools,” she tutted.

  “Stavros is not a circus clown,” I said in defense of the Formula One driver my sister had married in an unsanctioned ceremony two months ago.

  “And that girl is no longer a princess.” The reminder that Caroline’s royal title had been stripped after her elopement was chilling. And the fact that Gran wouldn’t say Caroline’s name hurt me, too.

  It struck me that this was why I agreed to do my duty most of the time. Because for me? Duty was just another word for family. I complied with Gran’s expectations, with the traditions, with all the rules, because at the heart of it all, this was my heritage. These were the people I had grown up with, who I knew better than anyone. And if you didn’t comply, you were banished. First it was my mother’s exile, and then Caroline’s. The message was exquisitely clear: do your duty or lose everyone you love.

  Which made Christian’s abandonment doubly painful. I had been completely willing to marry a man I had no passion for, for the good of my family. My queen.

  And what did I get in return?

  A multitude of unanswered questions and grief over a few well-deserved whiskeys.

  The word was on my lips. My tongue pressed against the back of my teeth, ready to let it fly. I could feel it—a word so solid, so necessary, that it demanded to be let loose.

  No.

  But what came out of my mouth was, “Yes, Grandmother. I apologize for my appearance in the photos.”

  Gran nodded her pleasure at my response, then turned her back on me and moved to her writing desk, where she pressed an intercom button. In two minutes, her butler, Harald, would knock softly and our meeting would be over.

  Now was the time for me to bring up my illicit midnight runs through the city and the photograph of me slung over Nick’s shoulder that could destroy Gran’s plans for a neat and tidy Ruby Jubilee next summer. Now, while she was reminding me about appropriate behavior and fulfilling one’s duty to the Crown.

  But the thought of Nick Cameron, of his disrespectful manhandling and his smart mouth on mine, made my nerves rattle in my lower belly, and in order to distract myself from my entirely un-princess-like thoughts, I fiddled with my watch and brushed my fingers across the scratchy, upholstered chair o’ torture.

  Harald would be here in one minute.

  Gran was looking at the newspaper on her desk. Many of the monarchs in Europe relied upon aides or secretaries to filter the headlines, if they cared to read them at all, but for as long as I could remember, Gran was a voracious consumer of news both domestic and international. She might be only a figurehead in a modern Driedish government, but she cared deeply about the issues and could wield considerable influence behind the scenes.

  It wasn’t the top headline, but I was sure I knew what Gran was contemplating. The head of the Liberal party, Pierre Anders, had recently made some sort of budget proposal to Parliament, and it was all the papers could talk about as of late. Liberal budgets were only slightly more acceptable than mentioning the word republic.

  “Will you be speaking to Parliament this fall?” I asked her. It was an event that took place at the Queen’s discretion, often when there were contentious issues threatening the usual procedures.

  Gran lifted her eyes above the newspaper. “It makes one long for the days when the Crown could exert its true authority.”

  “And one could just toss Liberal ministers into the dungeons?”

  I thought I was making a joke, but Gran replied, without a hint of a smile in sight, “Exactly.”

  There was a soft knock at the door, which opened a moment later. Gran sniffed, and without looking up from her paper again, said, “Harald will see you out.”

  I left the Queen’s presence with a renewed sense of purpose. Gran had called me in to remind me what I had been raised to do, what I had always done. Princess Theodora of Drieden was polite, respectful, and compliant. She put the Crown and its priorities first. Even if it meant acquiescing to the blackmail of a dangerously cocky reporter.

  seven

  I CALLED THE NUMBER ON THE card.

  I had to be sneaky about it.

  Leaving Gran’s apartments, I went to the press offices three stories down, to Jerome’s office.

  Officially Jerome was attached to my father’s staff, but when my father was at his country house, poor Jerome ended up “working from home” with no official tasks to do, which meant his palace office—and his secure landline—was generally available to princesses who needed to make call
s with no one listening in.

  Nick picked up on the second ring. “Yes, Princess?”

  “How do you know who this is?” My hand hovered over the buttons on Jerome’s phone. It wasn’t supposed to be traceable, but after my meeting with Gran, I was on edge.

  “I don’t share this number with just anyone.”

  “Just don’t say that . . . word.”

  “Of course, Princess. Whatever you say.”

  If Nick had been in front of me, I would have kicked him.

  “What do you want from me?” I hissed.

  When he told me, I felt like Gran’s heaviest ceremonial robes had been dropped onto my chest. “You can’t be serious,” I said.

  The sound of the dial tone was my answer.

  Lucy wasn’t thrilled when I told her that I needed to attend a football match in the royal box at the National Stadium. She reminded me that I hadn’t yet seen a doctor, that she didn’t think I was eating well, and that sporting events were a breeding ground for “international diseases.” Whatever those were.

  My reassuring smile felt brittle and harsh. “I need to get out of here. Do something fun. And besides,” I added with some bitterness, “Gran wants me to start getting back to work.”

  Three hours later, Tamar and Hugh, my two security guards, escorted me up the elevator to the royal box at National Stadium, which overlooked the pitch where Drieden’s team was about to face the Scottish team in a friendly game of football.

  I called Tamar over after I had finished greeting the people working the box. “There’s a man waiting at the ticket booth downstairs.” I described Nick and the Scottish scarf he told me he’d be wearing. “He’s a friend of Christian’s and I invited him to see this match. Please let him up.”

  She nodded quickly, but from her tight-lipped expression, I knew she wished she could argue with me. Tamar didn’t like when I made changes to the plans, but that was what made her good at her job—she protected me from my ill-considered impulses. Except for, of course, right now.

  In his team colors like 99 percent of the football fans in the stadium, Nick Cameron walked into the royal box, still seeming like the biggest, baddest wolf that had ever stalked a well-meaning if slightly impulsive woman like myself. The blue-and-white Scottish football scarf draped around his neck seemed to accentuate that his shoulders were too big. His posture too alert. His attitude a little too lethal.