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

by Jenny Gardiner

  “I don’t,” Caroline said, pulling strands of her hair outward and making long, thin braids with her gorgeous, bright, red hair. “Maybe I should be a hairdresser?”

  “Oh yeah, that would be perfect for you,” Emma said. “You did such a good job frying my hair with a curling iron in college. I had hair sprouts growing out of my scalp for months. I’m still not sure if I’ve forgiven you for that.”

  Caroline sighed. “Too late. Now that you’re a princess to-be, the slate’s wiped clean. Guess it’s back to the drawing board for moi. My writing career didn’t pan out either.”

  “Caroline, you regularly got C’s in English class. And didn’t you drop that creative writing class your sophomore year?”

  “Well, we had a really long paper due,” she said, raising her voice in a whine. “Besides, that was the weekend of that super fun fraternity festival out at the lake. Priorities!”

  Emma shook her head. Caroline always had been the good-time girl, nothing ever fazed her, so it bummed Emma out to see her seeming so down.

  “Oh yeah, I remember. We had to hitch back to town and it was like ten degrees out and you kept sticking out your leg to try to attract cars and then that idiot Bruce Bishop stopped for us—“

  “—but he’d been drinking all day long so we refused to ride with him. And he was so insulted, but he agreed to pull over on the side of the road and we all slept in his tiny two-seater car with the heat blasting, you and me squished together in that one seat, till about five in the morning, when the car ran out of gas and the heat died.”

  “And then we had to find a tow truck on a Sunday morning, and I think we had about a half a bar on our cell phones, so it took a thousand times trying to get enough of a signal to call someone.”

  “Ah, but I lived to tell about it. And then lived to watch my best friend grow up and have the kick-assiest life imaginable while I lingered back and became a has-been.”

  Emma tsk’d loudly, wagging her finger at her friend. “Hey, Car. That’s not you talking. You’re no has-been. You’re an up-and-coming. You just haven’t gotten there yet. But in the meantime you’re the most fun friend a girl — or guy — could have.”

  Caroline felt tears welling up, making her green eyes appear almost translucent. “If I’m so fun, then why did that jerkball bail on me, just when we were starting to have a great time? Was I that bad in bed?”

  “Don’t you mean in beach?” Emma said with a wink.

  Caroline and Darcy sort of publicly went at it after skinny-dipping in twenty-degree weather at the beach in North Carolina where Adrian had holed up, and seemed to actually have some potential as a couple together. Back then, Emma was too busy blubbering about her own broken heart once Adrian returned to his real life to worry about Caroline. Besides, Caroline had a reputation as a love-’em-and-leave-’em type, which suited most guys just fine. I mean what’s better than a girl who’s full of life, loves to fool around a little, and then doesn’t demand the guy put a ring on it?

  “You never answered my question.”

  Emma arched her brow. “Which one was that?”

  “Have you seen him?”

  Emma shook her head. “Honestly, Caro, I’ve been so crazy busy since I moved here and Adrian has too that I haven’t had a chance to think about much of anything except what is right in front of my face. I know a few weeks ago Adrian said something about Darcy’s father being ill, so maybe he’s been sticking close to his family lately. Plus you told me to not ask around, you said you’d feel stupid if he knew you were prowling.”

  “Yeah but that was before I didn’t hear from him at all.”

  “How was I supposed to know you had a sudden change of heart?”

  “You’re my best friend. Of course you need to know that intuitively.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll just double check in my crystal ball next time I have a chance to come up for air so I can second guess you from across the Atlantic Ocean.”

  Caroline rolled her eyes. “Rubbing salt in the wound that you’re so far away. And that you’re so busy you don’t have time to deal with the likes of me.”

  “Oh, honey. I know you’re upset with him and I totally understand that. But I hope you can understand that I’m just doing what I have to do to become part of this family.”

  “This royal family.”

  “Oh yeah, no forgetting that. I think I’ve seen more sabers in the past month than I’d seen in an entire Three Musketeers novel. And velvet. Wow, do we have a lot of velvet here. And ermine. The queen has a deep red velvet cape trimmed in ermine. If I weren’t so sad about how many little ermine had to die to make that cape, I’d want to use it as a blanket at night. Even though I’m not sure what an ermine even is.”

  “A weasel.”

  “I don’t think Darcy’s a weasel, Car. I think he’s just dealing with other things right now.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Darcy, you dingbat! An ermine is a weasel.”

  “Huh. Wonder who decided it was particularly regal to wear a weasel. I could see something like a sable sounding more royal, but a weasel?”

  “A sable’s kind of weaselly too, to tell you the truth.”

  “And you’re an expert on royal fur trimmings because?”

  “Remember that protest march phase I went through? Only I wasn’t so wild when the group decided to throw red paint on fur-bearing women even if I did think their fur coats were better off on the original wearer?”

  Emma nodded her head knowingly. “I was sort of glad you stopped that only because I wasn’t up for having to bail you out of jail. Even though I total respect your conviction.”

  “Yes, conviction minus the conviction. To be honest, my parents threatened to take me out of the will if I got cuffed and put in jail. Considering I’m still paying off college loans, I didn’t want to cut off my nose to spite my wallet. Or something like that. But enough about me. Let’s hear more about palace life.”

  Emma walked over to sit in what looked like the world’s most comfortable chair, something long and overstuffed but posh with what appeared to be hunt scenes involving leopards on the upholstery. It was right by a fire blazing in one of those mammoth fireplaces in which you could cook an entire ox on a spit. She put up her feet and leaned back, settling into the chair, which seemed to swallow her whole, it was so cushiony. A beautiful yellow Labrador was asleep beside her. It could’ve been a scene from a Norman Rockwell: the Royal Years painting.

  “They call this a fainting chair. Do you love it?”

  “I’d love it more if I was fainting in it, rather than sitting in my cold, barren apartment in Arlington.”

  “I hear ya. You know you have an open invitation to come over here any time.”

  “Thanks, Em. I know that. And believe, me, I’ll take you up on it. As soon as I can drum up the funds.”

  “Once I’m feeling more settled, maybe I can figure out how I can enlist the royal jet to come for you. Surely I’ll have some access to it.”

  “Don’t force it yet. I don’t want you getting kicked out before you’re even in.”

  “I really do want to see you. And I’d love for you to be here to help me plan this wedding.”

  “Oh, my God. I still can’t believe you are going to be married. You, of all people. The last of the holdouts.”

  “Tell me about it. If you’d have asked me two months ago if I’d even date someone, let alone marry them, I’d have cackled in your face.”

  “I think maybe you did that.”

  “Okay fine. You know what I mean. But really, Caroline, you’re my maid of honor. There are going to be some times where it would be really nice to have you here.”

  “Like say a bachelorette party, being that you don’t know a bleeding soul in the whole country? It will be the worlds smallest hen party.”

  “Oh you are so funny. Actually I really love Adrian’s sister Isabella. She’s as sweet as can be and a little feisty. Reminds me of you, sort of. And I even kind of like Sere
na, believe it or not. She’s not half bad, especially now that I know all that I thought was true about her wasn’t. She’s got a little pissy streak in her, in a good way. And she can be pretty bawdy too, for a blueblood.”

  “So what’s it like having people wait on you hand and foot.”

  “Sometimes it’s amazing. I mean like never having to wash a dirty dish is so not a bad thing. I could truly get used to that. Actually I have gotten used to it. Actually I haven’t. At meal times I go to clear my dishes only someone else clears them before I can even think to. Sometimes I feel a little pampered. Okay I feel really pampered. It’s just amazing.”

  “And your royal wardrobe?”

  “So get this: they come to me. I mean if I want to shop at stores I can, but I can also have people bring me clothes. Stylists and designers. Considering the fanciest I ever got was J. Crew or Anthropologie, and that only rarely, this is way out of my league.”

  “And you and Adrian?”

  Emma’s eyes got all swoony and her face Dalai Lama-serene. “It’s amazing, Caro. He’s amazing. Never could I have imagined being so happy with someone. I am absolutely over the moon.”

  Caroline smiled, finally. “It couldn’t have happened to a better person. I’m so happy for you, Emma. So, so very happy for you.”

  And she was. Although she wished right about now she could make crank phone calls to Darcy like the kind they used to make back in sixth grade. Maybe one of those I hear you have Prince Albert in a can. If so, you’d better let him out! type of calls. Though they’d have to change it to Prince Adrian. Gah! Anything to get his attention. To hear his voice with that dreamy accent. To enable her to take the pulse of the situation. To understand why it was that they had gotten along so well and their chemistry was pretty darned electrifying and then all of a sudden he dropped off the face of the earth. It didn’t make any sense, and things that were senseless made Caroline crazy.

  But the fact was, she couldn’t be making long-distance phone calls to Europe. Nor did she want to come across as desperate. If he wanted her, he’d have reached out to her. And clearly he had moved on. So what that when she showed up at Emma’s wedding he was going to be best man to her maid of honor, and they’d likely be paired up and have to fake it that they even wanted to look at one another, let alone that they might have almost cared about each other. Because by then she wasn’t going to care. Not one whit. And if Darcy wanted her, he was going to have to crawl to her on all fours. Better yet, slink. Like one of those royal ermine. Skitter and slink right back into her heart, damn him.

  Chapter Two

  Darcy rubbed his eyes hard with his fingertips as he plunked down into that darned uncomfortable chair yet again, weary from days by his father’s side in the hospital. The beep-beep-beep of heart monitors and whatever else was taking the pulse of his father’s fading body had started to really wear on Darcy, a constant reminder that soon those beeps were going to fade away altogether. While he was more than a little tired of that electronic medical metronome, he knew the silence would be worse. He cherished his father, and rued the day he’d no longer be here.

  Darcy, his sister Clementine and little brother Edouardo had been taking turns alongside his mother, Charlotte, holding vigil as the family patriarch slowly made his exit from this world. Darcy’s father, Lord Hubert (please, people, pronounced with silent “h” and “t”) was a remarkable father who balanced managing his impressive estate with being a very involved and quite down-to-earth father. Some of Darcy’s best times were spent in the company of his father, hunting, fishing, even traveling to exotic locales like the African continent. His father lived life to the fullest, so it was with at least a small amount of gratitude Darcy acknowledged he’d had plenty of time to fulfill his dreams. And at some point dreams must come to a close. Something Darcy was realizing all too factually now.

  During some of the late nights in the contemplative dark of his fathers hospital room, Darcy marveled that only a few weeks earlier, he was, truly, footloose and fancy-free, feeling none of the burden of the family patriarchy that he’d known, deep in his heart, would someday be something with which he’d have to deal.

  Wasn’t it only Christmas time when he was traipsing across the States on the heels of Adrian, his runaway charge? It seemed his only care — other than ensuring Adrian’s safe return — had been his burgeoning friendship (if he could call it that) with that cute, rowdy redheaded friend of Emma. And now that was about the last thing he could dream about dreaming about, even if maybe he did find himself occasionally revisiting some of the high points of his time with her. Including that little encounter on the beach, despite the frigid weather, and yeah, the after-party in their cheap hotel room that night.

  But now he had the family sandbag weighing down his shoulders, the knowledge that it was up to him to ensure the family name and tradition continue on, to upkeep the property and holdings of his fathers financial empire to last long past even his own heirs.

  Heirs. Now there’s a funny one. Darcy hadn’t given a fair thought to a serious relationship in, well, ever. He didn’t need to. He wasn’t in charge of a country, or even really anything. He was Adrian’s best friend and thus evolved into being his equerry after a shared boyhood at boarding school and years together at university. He was Adrian’s right hand man, he knew him as if a brother, and he loved being there for his friend. Until now, Adrian’s priorities took precedence over his own. Who knew what twist this relationship would take now that Adrian was settling down.

  Of course Adrian would still be traveling, though likely less so, but now, more often than not, Emma would join him. Emma would, undoubtedly, take over many of the roles that Darcy had played. Which was fine. It made sense. Adrian was moving on. And, like it or not, Darcy would have to move on, to adopt a more serious role running the family estate. Which would leave little time for travel with Adrian, anyhow, and less still for personal indulgences like flings with feisty American firecrackers named Caroline.

  ~*~

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  SLIM TO NONE:

  I am not a glutton. I am an explorer of food.

  ~Erma Bombeck

  First Chapter

  A Teaspoon of Sugar

  I miss my Spanx. I outgrew them about fifty pounds ago. Somewhere between the decadent foie gras at La Grenouille and the joyfully simple pigs-in-a-blanket at Payard Patisserie. It was like a seasonal transition: it happened so gradually I didn’t even notice it, until one day my control-top-pantyline-avoiding-God-Bless-America-for-inventing-these-things Spanx refused to oblige me by fitting comfortably.

  No longer gently hugging my curves, respectfully holding all of me in, they’d become a boa constrictor and I their victim. Evidently Spanx are made for far thinner women than me. And so I graduated up to Flexees. But now, as I ready myself for yet another meal out by attempting to contain my expanding girth in my latest girdle of choice, it’s become abundantly clear that I’ve fallen into Flexee disfavor as well. I heave a sigh of resignation. What’s a girl to do when her life revolves around having to eat for a living?

  * * *

  "Jesus, this is a mess," my best friend Jess says as she trails small heaps of greasy lupini beans across her plate with a fork, forming them into a smiley face with what appears to be tears streaming down its cheeks but is probably just excess oil. Jessie mocks the bean face with her own broad smile. Her blond hair, the color of farm-churned butter, softly frames her face in the flickering light of our table’s blazing torch. Jess’ truffle-brown eyes twinkle with mischief: my tasting assistant caught playing with her food.

  I nod in agreement. So far what we’ve seen at Puka, the new pan Italian-Hawaiian-Greek restaurant in midtown Manhattan, doesn’t look too promising. I’d held out hope, what with the luau décor, tiki lamps aglow, and the bouzouki player plinking out a h
alf-decent version of That’s Amore. How often can you get a taste of Hawaii, Greece and Italy in one sitting? I dip my pita bread into the complementary poi served in a dugout coconut bowl in the center of the table, hoping for a miracle. Instead, I choke on the soupy gray paste and reach for my water glass, which is still empty.

  "Jess, gimme a swig of that!" I point to her glass of water, my hand around my throat for emphasis. I can’t wait for a reply and instead grab the drink and throw it back, like Zorba tossing down a flaming shot glass of ouzo.

  "Appetizers suck, they can’t even keep our water glasses filled, the signature tiki drinks haven’t materialized despite waiting over half an hour, and the freebie poi appears to be the key ingredient in the fixative that holds up the wallpaper," I mumble as I jot down notes surreptitiously in my iPhone, mindful to be sure that no one is paying attention to my musings.

  "Sure, it’s not exactly Le Bernadin, but seriously, Abbie, it’s all relative," Jess says. "At least it’s better than the donor kebab I’d have been eating had you not called me at the last minute to come along tonight. But for you, yeah, I’d imagine this pretty much bites the big one."

  "At this place, I’m afraid to bite anything here, big or small. But seriously, I’m just looking at the silver lining in this stormy cloud. Without the bad restaurants, imagine how much fatter I’d be. At least here I have no desire to eat even the smallest of portions. So it’s a little diet in disguise."

  Jess laughs but just barely, and instead squirms in her seat, clearly hating my fat reference. She’s lodge pine-thin and could probably go on a week-long eating bender and still lose weight. That is if food really even mattered to her that much, which it doesn’t. I, on the other hand, seem to have assumed the uncanny silhouette of a beluga whale, while cursed with the sluggish metabolism of a three-toed sloth and blessed with the culinary palate of a Michelin reviewer. Not always a good combination if you savor your size-tens. Oh, wait, I’m in Manhattan. Make that size-twos. And I, Abbie Jennings, am most definitely not a size two. Maybe size twenty-two, perhaps, but I’ve lost count, so who knows?