by Miranda King
He didn’t answer.
“I thought not.”
Oh, this man could rile me up like no other.
He opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t want his excuses.
I cut him off. “I’ll have you know that it cost me one hundred twenty-five dollars to overnight that to you. I already had the job—or so I’d thought—and I didn’t have to do that,” I said. “I’d have been better off scratching out Harvard grad and filling in Margarit—”
“And we’re back to this again,” he interrupted me. “Ms. Wellborn, when you stepped off that truck, you looked like a Margarita Girl,” he said. “At least, all the ones I’ve ever had the pleasure of being with.” He finished with an unapologetic, yet totally-beyond-words-gorgeous grin.
In a different time, different place, what was he suggesting about me? Would I be a pleasure, too?
Something pulsed to life deep in my stomach, like butterflies spreading their wings for the first time. No man had ever stirred such a reaction in me.
Although when I thought of all those other girls he’d alluded to, something else kicked in my gut with the sharpness of a stiletto heel. If it was jealousy, I wouldn’t admit to it.
“How many girls?” I released the words before my brain could instigate an emergency lockdown on my mouth.
“No comment.” He tossed back my crumbs.
Fair enough.
“You’re still not off the hook for calling me a Margarit—”
“Ms. Wellborn, I’m not certain what you’d expect me to think of you showing up here… late,” he countered, “with your shirt gaping open and two dark handprints around your—your… sides.” He did that gesture Granny did with the cantaloupes, only I was pretty sure his experience wasn’t gained in testing fruit for ripeness.
“What?!” I chirped. “There’s nothing wrong with my shirt.” I angled my head down to examine myself.
“Under your—your… chest, there are two handprints on both sides of the under-curve of your… let’s call it ribs,” he said. “Looks like someone was… fondling you.”
Fondling me? Dear Lord, that was a definite no-go since Dwight Littleman freshman year of college.
I didn’t see anything on my shirt, although I couldn’t see beyond the tops of my breasts. So whatever the hell was he talking about might’ve been caused by me patting myself down after the fall with dirty hands. Or maybe after the bike crash when I’d been helped up by…
“Jeanne?” I said aloud.
“Hey, I’m not here to judge your preferences.” He raised his hands in a mock protest.
Oh, that wicked, wicked man!
“There’s also that gap,” he said. “Third button down.” He was counting my buttons!
I shifted my hands… and sure enough, a missing button. I touched two fingers skin to skin against my midriff.
He inhaled a swift breath.
I thought he would say something else, but he didn’t.
Fortunately, because I don’t think he could’ve berated me any more than I already was doing to myself.
How could I screw this day up so badly? My insides shook like Jell-O.
Dear Lord, Smart Sally had tried to tell me. What must that poor girl think of her teacher?
Well, I wasn’t her teacher now, was I? I swallowed hard.
“I can assure you that I meant to ‘POP’ today, but not like this.” I tried to cover the gap by pulling my skirt up, but it wasn’t working. “I—I…” I swallowed hard again.
That missing third button had undone the last of my control. I rattled off to him everything from the bike crash, to the lilacs, to my missing backpack, to the symphony lesson, to Princess Grace, to the garbage truck pickup… with a tiny omission about ogling him in the parking lot at Diamond Corp.
I bared too much, literally, to him. But he had to know. “I’m not those pictures,” I said. “I’m sorry you didn’t see that today.” I walked my bike towards the exit. My heart was raw, exposed, yet still somehow beating.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
“Please stop, Ms. Wellborn.” He approached the short space between us.
“Yes?” My heart leaped at his words. Despite it all, had he decided he needed me now?
“Where are you headed, especially with a flat tire?” He gripped my bike and rolled it back and forth a few inches to highlight the problem.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
“Oh, I see.” And I did. I was the deflated one. My only option now was to go back to America. Or to crawl back to Prince Michael to ask what strings he could pull to get me into another school—no way, I wouldn’t owe him again.
But maybe I didn’t have to. When Michael found out that this principal had let me go, he’d probably have hell to pay.
No, scratch that, this man didn’t seem the type to let anyone tell him what to do.
I tried to take a deep breath, but it was difficult with my world collapsing on top of me. “I’m sure you can understand that I just want to go home after being fired,” I said. “Can you call me a cab?”
“Fired?” he repeated.
“School Didn’t Want Sass, Forced to Hire Her by Prince Michael”
-Gossip Weekly
“Sass Shows Movies Instead of Teaching Her First Day”
-Royal Rumor Report
“I didn’t fire you,” he said.
Dear Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you…
“But I’m not going out of my way to keep you either,” he said. “Expect no favors from me.”
Yet right there, he hooked one hulking arm around the frame of my bike, lifted it, and treaded towards the bike rack with the ease of man carrying a newspaper under his arm—not a bulky beach cruiser.
In one fluid motion, he’d also raised whatever that heavy barrier was between us.
I trotted beside him. “And carrying my bike’s not a favor, Mr. Princeton?”
“Call me ‘Princeton,’ Ms. Wellborn, everyone else does.”
We still had half the parking lot to cross, and he wasn’t even winded from carrying my hefty bike.
“Thank you, but I just couldn’t, Mr. Princeton.”
“Why?” he asked. “Oh, I forgot, you’re American and believe every man should carry the title ‘mister.’”
“Maybe,” I said. “But it’s more that you’re my principal, Mr. Princeton, and it’s my sign of respect.”
“Respect?” He teased. “Is that what you’ve been showing me today?”
“Of course.”
“God, help me, make it through this semester with all your respect.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said. “But you’re a bit of a sass.”
“Sass? Of course, that’s my name. Short for Sassandra.”
He gave an oh-now-I-get-it chuckle.
“You didn’t even bother to know my first name?” I crossed my arms. “You should’ve read my packet.”
“It was an inch thick.” He laughed. “I thought it was a joke because—”
“From the tabloids, you thought I could be a Margarita Girl.”
He nodded. “Tell me something,” he said. “Why were you in a lingerie contest to begin with?”
I knew he was referring to that picture of me in the Modern Comeback bustier. “Granny and I had a streak of bad luck on eBay, and we needed to win,” I said. “She chose a bold costume for me, but then, you haven’t met my Granny.”
He smiled at that. “She’s good for you.”
“How would you know?”
“The thickness of that packet,” he teased, “tells me you’re a slight overachiever. But I think there’s more to you than school.”
“No, not really,” I said. “And I’m not off to a good start today, am I?”
“Tell you what,” he said. “Don’t worry about your regular classes today. I’ll have someone send down a video on the American Southerners who founded Maravista.”
“But—”
“No buts,” he said. “It’d be a good transition for you to introduce yourself to the students as an American.”
Back in the late 1700s, rich Southern landowners who’d opposed slavery had headed for the shores of Maravista. They’d fought for their new homeland and won due to the leadership of one man, Prince Michael’s ancestor, later crowned the first king.
Maravista’s new king had traveled to the French Court, to sign a peace treaty, where he’d met the Contessa, already pregnant with her illegitimate child. He’d offered to make her his queen and to raise her child as his own. I’d never understood why the Contessa had been foolish enough to turn him down for a life of hardship and ostracism in America.
Pretty sure that story wouldn’t be featured in the video.
“I will not show a video on my first day of”—I looked down at my watch and I had forty-five minutes left before the bell rang—“um, sounds great.” And it did. With the immediate urgency of preparing today’s lesson gone, I relaxed.
Unfortunately, my mind found other diversions—and they all seem to be linked to this man. I stole glances at him every chance I could. Was that him doing the same?
When I sneaked another peek at him, I caught him looking at me with his head tilted, as if he was in deep thought.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
He cleared his throat and shook his head slightly. “No.” But he said it like he was trying to convince himself.
Let’s see, we’d covered everything from wardrobe malfunctions to margaritas. What else could trouble him about me? “Oh, you don’t like my doll class sixth period, do you?” I asked. “You probably got the dolls pushed on you by Princess Divina.”
He laughed. “Her and her dolls.”
“Hmm,” I said. “You’re against Princess Divina’s plans to bring the fashion industry here?”
“No, but with… dolls?”
“Don’t you know that’s how Jason Wu got started? With dolls,” I said. “He helped launch Integrity’s Fashion Royalty doll line, and now he’s a celebrity fashion designer.”
“I still won’t be touching any dolls,” he said. “And I’m not ecstatic to have my students playing with dolls either.”
“These kids aren’t going to be playing with dolls.” I crossed my arms. “They’ll be designing clothes on a miniature scale, and then eventually for people, too,” I said. “Don’t you like wearing clothes, Mr. Princeton?”
“Not always, never at night.”
Hot blood rushed into my cheeks. Dear Lord, how was I supposed to respond to that?
I angled my face away from him and pretended to be preoccupied with watching the temperate summer wind rustle the leaves of trees and bushes near the portico-enclosed bike rack. The morning sun filtered through the leaves and cast beams of light to the ground, as if the Angels had reached their golden fingers all the way from Heaven to here in Maravista.
As if any of that splendor could compete with the vision of this man standing beside me. As if even that vision of him now could compete with how I imagined he would look at night with nothing but the clothes off his back.
As if I even wanted to know whether the reality of him was better than my imagination.
Even if I did, I would never admit to it.
The summer breeze danced around my skirt and drifted a waft of sandalwood and musk—his scent—over me. I breathed deep. He smelled of lazy mornings, laidback afternoons, and forbidden nights.
Given my quest to get into Stanvard Law, he was nothing I should want… and everything I desired.
I followed him into the portico where he slotted the bike into the metal rack. I unlatched the chain lock spiraled around the bike frame, but he wordlessly took control of securing it.
No bike chain, however, needed here. Every imaginable luxury car available to mankind parked in the student lot. Nobody would want my rusty, flat-tired bike. Good, because my chain snapped, but didn’t lock—it was just for looks.
Yet he took such care in wrapping the chain. He sloped my bike against a short concrete wall topped with a wooden lattice clothed in bougainvillea flowers, a pure rich red.
I leaned against the side of the bike seat with my butt—or should I say derrière? No, I think this man preferred butts.
And so did I—at least his. Honestly, I didn’t intend to glance there—it just happened. He was the one bending down in front of me, where else was I supposed to look? The view of his broad shoulders and back, well, that was included bonus material.
The sheer power of his size amazed me. Even his suit—immaculately tailored, I could tell by the cuts and clean lines—could barely contain the strength of him, and the fabric strained against every arc of his muscles.
That suit restrained him, for the most part, except for his hair. Thick, dark brown, wavy—and unruly. I had this impulse to run my hands through it for him—just to smooth it out, of course.
He shifted to stand, but stopped short. “Your right knee is bruised and scratched. Does it hurt?”
“No, no, I’m fine.” I bent it to show him slowly, on the off chance I’d torqued it.
Jeanne, or was it Smart Sally—that crash was all a bit hazy—had poured peroxide on my knee from their first-aid kit, cleaned off the blood, and added a couple of bandages. I even doused peroxide on my skirt to lessen the blood stains, a Granny trick. “I just need a safety pin for my shirt, and I’m good to go.”
“Let me at least check for swelling.”
“You know how to do that?” I asked. “You’re just a principal.”
“Not just a principal.”
Yep, I could detect a sore spot, and it wasn’t just on my knee.
After a second, he added, “Military.” That’s it. That’s all. Leaving me with a billion questions… and one image—him in uniform.
“Ms. Wellborn, do you give me permission to touch your”—he sucked in an unsteady breath and released it—“knee.”
After that mental image of him in uniform, yes, Sir!
But I gave him a nonchalant, “Um, I guess.”
I looked down at him, still kneeling. He took off his sunglasses and hinged them in his suit pocket near his shoulder. All the good it did me that he finally took off his sunglasses—I still couldn’t see the color of his eyes.
So I closed my own eyes and waited for his fingers to connect with my bare skin. It was an intimate gesture, yet necessary, I supposed. I didn’t feel hurt, but maybe he saw something that I couldn’t— kind of like the handprints on my shirt.
I held my breath, waiting for his contact. No man had ever touched me like this. Maybe a doctor when I was little, but that sure didn’t count.
Back in the Victorian era, when men touched women for the first time, the women were supposed to lie back and think of England. I could see why now.
My heart was about to explode. I needed to slow it down. I leaned back against the bike seat and let my head rest on the spongy—and thankfully, thornless—bougainvillea.
I didn’t think of England, but instead I thought of those posters up in my classroom that proclaimed things like “Where Learning Begins.”
And so it did.
His fingers made contact near my knee on my bare skin.
A shock jolted through me at his touch. The electricity shot straight up into my belly causing those butterflies to stir again. It was as if my belly had released all those butterflies to roam around my body.
My toes curled trying to catch them.
“Mmmm….” This was nice. I was floating. I had an impulse to stretch my hands out as if I were flying, like this morning on my bike. But instead, I clutched onto whatever I could grab hold on the bike behind me. I was afraid of the free fall.
“Does this hurt?” He let his fingers explore my skin.
“Mmmm…” was about all I could give him. His fingers sent my nerves into overdrive. My heart revved faster than any of those cars could out in parking lot. I had to calm dow
n. I recited another slogan posted on my wall, “Expect the Best.”
Oh, and he was.
“And does this hurt?” His hands moved around and around and around.
I was in a trance, my eyes half-lidded.
I shook my head no.
He glided his fingers and thumbs to the back of my knee.
Oh, Dear Lord, I had to chant another slogan, “Lend a Hand to Help Others Learn.”
And so he did.
I learned I was ticklish behind my knees.
I jerked and gripped the bike seat behind me. Spasms erupted, like those butterflies were playing “Tag, you’re it” with each other behind my knee.
I gasped.
He groaned.
He withdrew his hands, and I opened my eyes. Playtime was over.
He rose up to full height. Over six feet. How much over? I didn’t pull out a measuring tape.
But I finally can tell you this: Blue eyes.
His eyes sparkled blue… as blue as the playground of Heaven.
He studied my eyes, my lips, my cheeks, the contours of my face, and his eyes lit as if he also was learning something for the first time.
Warmth flooded my face at his bold appraisal, yet he made me feel as if I was the most beautiful woman in the world.
“You have something here,” he said, looking right above my cheek. He plucked a sprig of lilac from my hair. I think he tucked it in his pocket, but I wasn’t paying attention. The heat of him, the nearness, overwhelmed me.
The breeze drenched me in his intoxicating scent, and the air crackled with something between us.
Then out of nowhere he said, “You need to change your clothes.”
I dusted myself off a little more. “I just need a safety pin and—”
“Not enough.” He cleared his throat. “It won’t take care of the red.”
“Red?” White top, with grease streaks, and a beige skirt, with some brown dried blood spots. No red.
“Yes,” he said. “Your skirt is at least an inch too short.”
“No, it isn’t.” If it was, I wouldn’t admit to it. “And it’s not even red,” I said. “You have something against the color red?”
“On you? Not at all.”
“On me?” I was so confused. “I’m not wearing red.”
