Almost My Prince

by Miranda King

  “Well, of course I do,” I said. “Just like I did when Grandpa used to tell me something.”

  “So, once again, I remind you of your grandpa?”

  I heard his footsteps come closer. Now my focus was on his shoes, so close now to my own. But I didn’t need to see the confirmation he was near—I could feel it.

  My breath was ragged, and all my senses were alert to him. “No, you’re definitely not like Grandpa.” I tried hard to steady the words. The door firm against my back.

  “Good.” And that seemed to end our conversation.

  No, not good.

  I leveled my gaze with his. “Yes, you’re very different from my grandpa. He was reasonable,” I said. “He would’ve let me take the kids to Michael’s press room.”

  His eyes glazed to granite. “Stop talking about Michael, please.” He closed his eyes for a long second.

  “I don’t understand what your problem is with Michael.”

  “And I don’t understand why you’re still talking about him.”

  “Are you ordering me as my boss not to talk about him? Because that’s going to be hard,” I said. “He’s helping—”

  “Not asking as your boss,” he said. “As a friend, do me a favor and stop talking about him.”

  Yes, we were friends… even more than friends? But why did Brunette Barbie know something so personal about him that I didn’t? And why did he always evade my questions about Michael?

  “Why do you want me stop talking about Michael?”

  “Because I said so.” And we were back to that again!

  “That sounds more like an order than a request from a friend.” I started to twist the doorknob to leave. “By the way,” I said. “Friends call friends by their first names, Mr. Princeton.”

  And then I escaped from his office, shutting his door—slamming it really, much harder than I intended. If the doorframe vibrated a little from it, I wouldn’t own up to it.

  I popped the door open a few inches and tumbled my words through the crack. “It’s me again. Just to let you know, I wasn’t trying to slam your door or anything.” And I shut it back as a normal person would—and not like a teen throwing a temper tantrum.

  I hightailed it down the hallway. I heard his door open and the sound of his footsteps in my direction. But after a few steps, he made that huffing sound he makes right before he rakes a hand through his hair, and he didn’t continue to follow after me.

  Why would he? He was my boss, and I’d backtalked him in his own office.

  By the next morning, I’d convinced myself he might fire me over the incident. But then I found a note in my mailbox:

  I was still his SLT—that was the first thing I noticed.

  The second: Christian! Not Mr. Princeton.

  It felt so intimate. And while I was emotionally connected to him, I also craved his physical touch.

  He had been holding back on that, and I suspected it had something to do with Michael. What was the deal between them?

  I wasn’t about to find out anytime soon. The kids would be in my classroom in a few minutes, and I sunk into my chair. I opened my desk drawer for some lesson handouts and lying there was a hot pink stickie note, with a silver-wrapped chocolate candy kiss sitting on top of it.

  This note said:

  He referred to Michael.

  But as to that last line of the note, what was he trying to tell me?

  If I’d only found this before I’d gone to his office, I could’ve asked him…

  Did he mean I deserved him?

  “Jealous Assistant Principal Caught Leaking ‘Sass’ Reports to World Press”

  -Gossip Weekly

  “Sass’ Assistant Principal in Royal Trouble, Ordered Not to Speak with Outside World Press”

  -Royal Rumor Report

  I’d asked myself a thousand questions before that end-of-school bell had rung. I had to “make a move”—as Divina had phrased it—and find the one man who had all my answers: Mr. Princeton… or should I now say Christian?

  He was outside, talking with Brunette Barbie, where the buses were loading up students. He had those sunglasses on again, and a few silver-wrapped chocolates he was eating one by one.

  “May I speak with you?” I asked him.

  I wasn’t about to christen the maiden voyage of Christian from my lips with Brunette Barbie throwing me dirty looks. Not certain what I’d ever done initially to tick her off, but somehow I’d done it since day one.

  He said something to Brunette Barbie, and she stomped off.

  He unwrapped another chocolate and devoured it. Dear Lord, his mouth was beautiful to watch... and when he noticed my attention on his lips, he gave me this heart-stopping, mischievous smile.

  “I love it when you smile at me like that.” Why did I just say that out loud?!

  “Something else I can do for you, besides the smile?” He flashed me another wide grin.

  I felt myself smiling back at him like all the teenage girls did whenever he walked in during my class. And then suddenly the noise of our surroundings and the kids outside crept to my attention. Probably not a good time to ask him what he meant by his note on my desk.

  “No,” I said, about to turn to leave.

  “No?” His eyebrows rose, although I couldn’t see his eyes through those enigmatic sunglasses. But he had his suit jacket off, and the sunlight on his white shirt turned it semi-transparent.

  I couldn’t see his chest due to a t-shirt, but those biceps…

  I swallowed hard. Maybe I needed to ask for that last chocolate in his hand because my throat went suddenly dry. Or maybe I should just get to the point and have everything out in the open.

  I inventoried our surroundings again. Or, maybe not. I needed to go, but his words stopped me.

  “Stay,” he urged. “I’m all yours. What do you need?” I swear his rich voice dripped down my body like melted chocolate somehow at that moment.

  “Well, I want”—I bit at my lower lip for a second before I had the nerve to continue—“whatever is it you think I deserve. Can you tell me?” I looked him directly in the—sunglasses. What was he thinking right now?

  For what seemed like an eternity, we both stood still, except that I could feel my heart beating wildly all the way up my throat.

  He wasn’t going to answer me right now, right here, was he? I should’ve asked him something like this when we were alone. Not with kids all around us.

  I had to leave. Now that the question was out in the open, and he’d said nothing—nothing—to me, I was too embarrassed, too rejected to continue standing in front of him.

  As if he could sense I was about to leave, he leaned nearer to me. I stayed riveted in place, overwhelmed by his warmth, by his masculine scent.

  His breath brushed along my cheek as he whispered into my ear in that low, husky voice, “Oh, my Sassy Little Thing.”

  That’s all he said, but it was enough to set every nerve in my body to tingling. Then he abruptly straightened, reached for my hand and placed his last remaining chocolate candy in it. I instinctively curled my fingers around it.

  And once again, he was gone.

  I unfolded my fingers. The silver wrapper sparkled under the sun.

  So was this his answer to my question?

  I deserve a chocolate kiss?

  I twirled the wrapped candy between my hands and daydreamed all the way back to my classroom.

  What did this mean? Was he simply handing me candy as he often did with the kids, like Smart Sally? Was he suggesting something more... some subtext, some hidden meaning? Did that chocolate kiss hint of more... a real kiss?

  I sighed and slipped it into my pocket. Why couldn’t I be like Divina and say “Whatever”?

  Well, if he wanted to explain more, he knew where to find me.

  A half-hour later, I stared up from my desk to find him filling the doorway with his muscled chest chiseled against his shirt. My breath hitched—he’d sought me out.

  He had
a ravenous look to him. His tie was tugged askew. His sleeves rolled up. His hair tousled. “Now a good time to work on that centerpiece?”

  “So you came to play dolls with me?” I teased. I rose from my desk to gather up True Royalty Vanessa and some swatches of fabrics I’d set aside on a shelf behind me.

  “God, yes.” His voice was raw… and right behind me. How did he move so fast?

  He braced his hands on both sides of the shelf and caged me in with his powerful body. The hard curves of his chest grazed against my back. I burned to touch him, and I leaned my body fractionally against him.

  He groaned, and then whispered against the side of my cheek, “Beautiful.”

  His meaning was unmistakable this time. My heart skipped and then raced to an unknown destination.

  He nuzzled the side of his face against mine. I quivered. Vanessa dropped to the floor, but neither of us bothered to pick her up. My only focus was him.

  I ached to feel his skin, but instead I let my fingers swirl around the fabric swatches bound by a metal ring. I caressed my fingertips across the soft silks and satins, letting the sensations overwhelm my body.

  Christian let his hands fall to cradle me in his arms, and I leaned my head back against his shoulder. He traced his fingers everywhere my fingers circled. We danced across colors, textures, and patterns. Sometimes his fingers would linger longer than mine, and I would let mine follow back to him.

  “Which one do you like best?” Was that throaty voice mine?

  “This one.” His fingers circled around and around and around.

  “The satin?” I asked and then smiled. “Of course—it’s red.”

  “That, and”—his fingers guided mine across the fabric—“feels like my sheets.”

  I trembled everywhere. My mind flashed with images of our bodies entwined on red satin sheets.

  His fingers overtook mine. He caressed the skin of my hand in back and forth motions. His touch rhythmic. Electric pulsing sensations rippled across my skin that I couldn’t control.

  I closed my eyes. “Oh, Christian.”

  His warm breath next to my ear coaxed me at a near whisper, “Say my name like that again, like you did yesterday.”

  “Christian.”

  He trailed butterfly kisses along my cheek. “I can’t resist you anymore.” Kisses along my neck. “My life is complicated.” Kisses back up to my cheek. “But I want to share my life with you.” More kisses. “And my satin sheets.”

  If I whimpered at that point, I wouldn’t admit to it.

  He trailed one last row of kisses before his husky voice offered, “If you want that, too, then find me at the masquerade.”

  The heat of his body dissipated. I opened my eyes, and he was gone.

  Did that just happen?

  Yep, I had poor Vanessa tossed on the floor as proof. I picked this doll that symbolized so much of my family’s past—that had begun because of the Contessa. Would I make better choices than she had?

  Because I had a choice to make at the Saints and Sinners Masquerade. Would I be a saint… or become a sinner with Christian?

  I slid the chocolate out of my pocket that he’d handed me earlier, and I devoured it. I craved this man, and a thrill of excitement ran through me as I said his name aloud on my lips... Christian.

  But then my cellphone rang, and it said another name.

  Michael.

  “Prince Michael and Sass Engaged in Secret Rendezvous”

  -Gossip Weekly

  “Prince Michael Says ‘No Comment,’ But Gives Wink When Asked About Sass”

  -Royal Rumor Report

  I headed out to meet Michael at a coffee house, but I had an uneasy feeling about it. The fact that I showed up alone was enough to give him false hope that there could be something between us.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that I wanted to meet with him “in private.”

  But there was something nagging me about several passages I’d seen in those papers I’d helped Fallon pick up in the hallway. Call my memory photographic or possibly eidetic—didn’t matter. Whatever the name, it was also the source of the sporadic, intense migraines that Granny had helped me deal with all my life.

  But there were benefits, like now.

  Based on those papers, I had a suspicion that Fallon was plotting something against Michael’s uncle, King Rex. When I told Michael, he laughed off what I’d seen as “take out the king” as only a lunch appointment he knew about between his cousin, Fallon, and his uncle.

  “But—” I wasn’t done.

  “Let’s talk about something else.” His voice was smooth and unnecessarily low, given that no one else was here—he’d had the entire coffee shop cleared for the two of us. “Like me taking you to the masquerade this weekend.” He reached across our table for my hand, but I retracted it.

  “I’m meeting someone else there,” I said, avoiding eye contact and lifting my hot chocolate up to my lips.

  “What?” He slammed down his lidded cup of coffee.

  The vibrations on the table jarred me. I gulped. Scalding hot... the burn on my tongue irritating, heightening the same irksome emotions swirling around inside me at that moment.

  My hot chocolate was overheated, much like the man sitting opposite me. His breathing was erratic, and I could tell he was trying to control his anger.

  As I’d experienced when I’d singed my tongue before on Granny’s chocolate oatmeal, sometimes something so sweet could turn so bitter when burned. Because of me, would Michael also end up bitter?

  “Who is he?” Michael demanded.

  I hesitated. I didn’t like being caught between whatever it was between Michael and… “Christian.”

  “You call him Christian now?”

  What was the big deal to Michael—and pretty much everyone else I’d met—with calling Mr. Princeton by his first name? There was still so much to learn about Christian, but not if Michael had his way.

  “I forbid you from dating him.”

  It was my turn to say, “What?!”

  I stood up and pushed my hip against the wooden chair—and its legs screeched across the rough notches in the tile grooves. The sound echoed against a jagged edge in my heart I hadn’t even realized was there.

  I made a sharp turn away from him. With my back already to him, I heard his authoritative voice calling to me.

  “Wait!”

  Nope.

  He couldn’t compete with my love for Christian.

  Love?

  When I got home, I folded Christian’s jacket that he’d given me to cover up at the sewing table and sat with it on my lap.

  Yes, I still had it, only because I meant to get it dry-cleaned. Truly that was the only reason I’d kept it so long... really. Of course, if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t own up to it.

  I swirled my fingers along his jacket, mimicking the patterns our hands had made across the red satin onto this, had to be, soft vicuna wool.

  I traced across his pocket and found the faint outline of something, perhaps a flower, and it seemed harmless enough to pull it out to look.

  A sprig of lilac?

  Hmm… why?

  My heart raced my mind all the way back to the first day I’d met Christian. Back to when, at the bike rack, he’d slid out of my hair a piece of lilac—and he’d kept it all this time? For months…

  He really was a pickpocket… and he had my heart.

  Any lingering doubts about whether, come the masquerade, I’d be a saint or sinner washed away.

  I tucked the lilac back into his pocket, and Divina’s advice resurfaced.

  Make a Move.

  I didn’t want to wait until Saturday night, and since he’d written me several notes now, I wrote him one. In the opposite pocket, I folded a piece of paper that said:

  Very sassy of me. I liked it... liked the way I felt around Christian—or even just thinking about him.

  I saw him for about thirty seconds that morning, saying nothing to him about my secret n
ote when I handed him his jacket. As I walked my first period class into the library, I wondered if he’d already discovered my note.

  Thinking about all the possibilities of Saturday night, I leaned with my back against the counter watching the kids.

  Gwen, the librarian, late-forties, perfectly manicured, hair like a newscaster, came up beside me. I thought of her as Gossip Gwen because she was the information hub of not just my school, but arguably all of Maravista.

  “Who’s the guy that’s got you daydreaming?” She angled closer to me. “You know, Prince Michael’s never been so active with this school until you came along.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. Who cared about Michael?

  Apparently Gossip Gwen. “You’ve seen him lately?”

  “Last night at the coffee shop.”

  Her lips curled like a cat’s tail did in pursuit of a mouse… or mischief.

  So I rushed on. “We mostly talked about team strategies.” Not really. I did mention Christian said no to the team going to Michael’s press conference room, and Michael said he wasn’t surprised.

  With Gossip Gwen so near, I had to ask. “Do you know what’s up between Prince Michael and Princeton? They just don’t seem to like each other very well.”

  “Honey,” she laughed, “that’s an understatement.”

  “But why?”

  Gossip Gwen leaned over and said low, “A woman before your time.”

  “Who exactly?” I shot out.

  “Oh, not my place to say.” She reached across the counter to a holiday candy dish she kept for the kids. “Here, have a candy before the bell rings.”

  I expected the Gossip Gwen would delight in feeding my curiosity. Instead, in a dodgy move, she was pushing candy on me. And it was the hard kind that scrapes your tongue with sharp edges as you suck it.

  “No thanks,” I said, discounting the candy.

  I wanted hard facts, not hard candy.

  Gossip Gwen looked offended. “You’re one of those that doesn’t eat.” She looked me up and down. “Thought so,” she criticized.