Royal Engagement

by Chance Carter

  Alex laughed. “Tristan Noble, right?”

  Tristan rose and nodded. His face was flushed from more than just the wine, but I suppose he didn’t expect to run into the crown prince at his girlfriend’s sister’s apartment. I’d asked Jo not to mention anything to him.

  “I’ll be out of your way,” Tristan said, fumbling around on the table for his wallet.

  “No, stay,” Alex said. “I should actually be heading home.” He turned to me, smiling. “Much as I wish I didn’t have to leave, it’s probably for the best. They’ve probably noticed I’m missing by now.”

  He kissed me lightly on the lips and waved at Jo and Tristan, then strolled out the door.

  I turned back to the young lovers. “It’s nice to meet you, Tristan,” I said. “I’ve heard a lot of nice things about you and for now you’re in my good books, but if you tell a single soul what you saw today I will personally strangle you with your own necktie. Capuche?”

  Chapter 18

  Alexander

  I woke to slobbery kisses and groaned. “Hank! Get off me.”

  He whined.

  Cracking open my eyes I saw him hovering inches above my face, tail wagging. He needed to go out. Fair enough.

  I took him outside and grabbed breakfast from the kitchen on the way back to my apartment. The weather outside was clear and warm, not a breath of wind in the air. It was going to be a calm day, the perfect kind of morning that heralded good things on the horizon.

  No sooner had I taken my first bite of croissant than my father stormed into my apartment without knocking. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d even been in here, never mind the last time he thundered in.

  My father’s weathered face and bristling mustache swam into view as he marched up to my table, brandishing a folded newspaper. Before I could ask what he was doing, he slapped the paper down on the table and pointed an accusing finger to the image that took up half the front page. Tamara and I were at the front of the boat, my arm around her shoulder and her head on my chest. There was a caption underneath.

  REBELLIOUS PRINCE SNEAKS OUT OF PALACE TO TAKE ROMANTIC CANAL CRUISE WITH SECRET ACTRESS GIRLFRIEND, it read. INSIDE SOURCE CONFIRMS RELATIONSHIP. DETAILS ON PAGE 10.

  Inside source? Who had they talked to?

  “Who the hell writes these things?” I muttered, trying not to show how affected I was. I knew something like this was bound to happen eventually, but last night was a decidedly inconvenient time for that to be the case.

  “I cannot believe you!” Father growled. “You snuck out? Are you a child?”

  I gestured to the seat opposite but he remained standing, glaring at me with a fury I hadn’t seen in him for many years.

  Irritation bubbled in my chest for the child comment.

  “What does it matter?” I asked. “Nobody noticed I was gone.”

  His eyes narrowed on me. “It was a family event, Alexander. You’ve exhibited a blatant lack of respect for me and for everyone who cares about you.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I rose to my feet, palms facing my father. “Let’s not get confused here. There were very few actual members of our family there. It was a press event, and you know that.”

  “We are royalty, Alexander.” He stood a little taller. This man couldn’t have been born into a more suitable vocation than king. “The country is our family and we have a duty to uphold. Letting them into our lives through ‘press events’ is part of the deal, and you know that.”

  I didn’t much fancy having my words slung back at me, but my father had made one critical error.

  I pointed to the picture of Tamara. “Here you go. They’ve wheedled their way into a critical part of my life. We’re even.”

  His frown dipped even further, if that was possible. “We are not even. You owe an apology to Edward and Clarissa.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  Honestly, that seemed fair. I would’ve come to that conclusion with or without my father’s interference.

  He took a closer look at the image, and I could see him running her face through his internal database to find a match.

  “Tamara Callahan,” I filled in. “You obviously haven’t flipped to page ten.”

  His eyes returned to mine. “I don’t make it a habit to read this filth.” A second later, his brow furrowed. “Is this why you’ve been behaving so rudely to Svetlana?”

  Did everything in this place revolve around that Swedish princess? I already had Edward jumping down my throat about her, the last thing I needed was for my father to join in.

  “I wish you would all leave that alone,” I said through gritted teeth. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told Edward that I’m not marrying that girl.”

  “Because she’s a princess,” Dad said, indicating that he and Edward had spoken about it. Of course they had. They probably had a binder full of ideas on how to fix me.

  “Princess or no, I’m not interested.”

  He shook his head, and for a second his anger flickered into something a lot less easy to swallow. Disappointment.

  “You’re a fool, Alexander,” he said. “Whether you were going to marry the girl or not, it was cruel of you to behave as you did. You were unkind to her strictly to give your family the middle finger.” He stared at me hard. “Your mother may have been a princess of the people, but she was still a princess. And she would be ashamed of you right now.”

  That blow hit me harder than a brick to the chest. I didn’t even think—I just stalked around my father and to the door, calling out for Hank before slamming the door behind me.

  How could he say such a thing? No wonder our relationship had suffered in recent years.

  I tried not to let my bitterness toward my father consume me, and instead focused my energies on trying to decipher who the inside source was. I should’ve taken the newspaper out with me to scan it for clues but I was so angry that I’d forgotten everything except how to walk away.

  The only people who had seen us together were her sister, Tristan Noble, and the maid at Springfield Manor. Unless there was somebody I was forgetting about.

  My thoughts circled back to my father and I kicked a clump of grass, sending it flying over Hank’s head. The sky had faded to a dull ash color since I was outside last, typical of the weather around this time of year.

  He had no right to say what he did or be as angry as he was. I skipped out on one fucking party. Hell, I’d been caught doing much worse in the past than taking a beautiful actress for a romantic cruise.

  Which reminded me... My father probably wasn’t the only one angry.

  I dialed Teddy’s number.

  “I cannot believe you,” he answered. “You lied to me.”

  I winced. “I’m sorry, Teddy. It was a spur of the moment sort of thing.”

  “How much trouble are you in?” he asked, humor lacing his tone. Teddy could never be mad at anyone for long—except his family.

  “More than I expected.”

  He chuckled. “Foiled again, eh old boy?”

  “So it would seem.”

  He cleared his throat. “I won’t pretend I’m not offended that you didn’t tell me you were going out with Tamara Callahan,” he said, “though I do approve of your choice.”

  “I’ll sleep easy now.”

  Teddy tutted. “Hanging out with an American has made you sassy.”

  “Please never call me sassy again.”

  “Someone’s getting sassy.”

  “Teddy!”

  He laughed. “Fine. Sorry. What are you going to do now?”

  I scrubbed a hand through my hair and wrinkled my nose. Good question. Tamara was probably crushed, and I needed to see her to make sure she was okay. After that I could fix whatever else of the fallout needed fixing.

  “I’ve got to go find Tamara,” I said. “She was the one who insisted we keep everything quiet. She’s had bad brushes with the press in the past.”

  “You could call it that,” he replied.

/>   In all the times Tamara mentioned the debacle with her ex-boyfriend, I never thought to ask about or seek out the what he’d said about her. With Teddy’s hanging words, I grew curious.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The last time I read about Ms. Callahan on the glossy pages of the gossip rag, her ex-boyfriend was painting quite the pretty picture,” he explained. “Self-absorbed but terminally self-conscious, a higher-than-thou attitude that alienated her from the rest of the cast, and the inability to function when she didn’t get her own way.”

  “That doesn’t sound like my Tamara at all.”

  Teddy hummed. “Well, you know her better than I.”

  He left it at that. Teddy had a penchant for drama, so I didn’t put much stock in what he said.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” I said.

  Teddy laughed. “Don’t let the press bugs bite, star boy!”

  I rolled my eyes and ended the call.

  Chapter 19

  Tamara

  My heart galloped in my chest like a wild mustang. It had been all day.

  Nothing I did—no calming teas, soothing music, mediation—helped shovel aside some of my anxiety, and the longer the day went on the worse it seemed to get.

  It all started when I woke up at five in the morning to a call from my agent, badgering me with questions about my relationship with the prince and berating me for not telling her sooner so we could ride the publicity. After I figured out that it wasn’t just her that knew—it was everybody—I ended the call and stormed into Jo’s bedroom.

  Jo was sleeping like a log, mouth wide open and not a care in the world. A pillow to the head did the trick. After about fifteen minutes of fighting, wherein she insisted that Tristan hadn’t told a soul and I insisted the facts didn’t lie, Jo stormed out of the apartment in her pajamas and I got ready as quickly as possible and left for work.

  When I got there, I discovered that yay, lucky me—the press were camped outside, waiting. They hounded me on my way through the gates, yelling questions that varied from one shade of rudeness to the next.

  Now, I sat in my trailer and tried not to cry. This was my personal hell.

  The set gates held the press at bay for now, but I couldn’t stay here forever—though the prospect was certainly tempting. I’d never seen so many of them, and they were out for blood. Alexander was the juiciest news story in the country. How could I have been so stupid?

  I flitted like a ghost between places—costume, make-up, rehearsal, none of it mattered—surprised every second that my heart hadn’t exploded yet. I saw Michael a couple of times. I expected a snide look from him but he smiled instead, which I took to mean all his attempted cozying up to me over the past few weeks had only been an attempt to get close enough to embarrass me again. Now I’d done the hard work for him.

  No matter what I did throughout the day, however, I couldn’t bring myself to read the actual article. I knew I should, that the only way I could ever understand the scope of the issue was to just bite the bullet and read it, but every time I tried it slipped through my fingers.

  What did it say about me? I could only imagine the nasty things the press would have to say about the mixed-race American commoner who’d stolen the heart of their prince. They already had tons of kindling to work with from my last time in the paparazzi spotlight, so they wouldn’t have to look hard for ways to drag me down. And I just couldn’t take it.

  Around lunchtime, I prepared to board myself up in my trailer with the biggest bottle of water money could buy and a gigantic turkey and mayo sandwich. When I got there, the door stuck on something when I tried to open it. I shoved and it scraped open, revealing its impediment.

  My face stared back up at me. Well, it started off into the distance, an expression of bliss on my features as Alex whispered something into the crook of my neck. My heart tumbled over and I nearly slammed the door shut and burned the whole trailer to the ground. Then I realized I’d put it off too long. It was time to read.

  I sequestered myself in the corner of my couch and flipped the pages of the newspaper until I landed on the one that sealed my fate. And I read.

  It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it wasn’t nice. Along with the implication that I was jockeying for the crown, the writer had no problem bringing up my previous relationship drama as an example of why the prince needed to keep me a secret. That hurt. I reached the “inside scoop” part and my hands turned cold.

  The paper’s source mentioned the prince visiting me on set, bringing me flowers that I threw out. I never told Tristan that. I never told my sister that either, nor anybody else I could think of. That meant that whoever blew the whistle on our relationship was likely on set with me now, and I had a bad feeling about who it might be.

  I slammed the water bottle down on the table next to me and vaulted to my feet. I was going to kill him.

  Michael wasn’t hard to find. He spent most of his free time in his trailer, either yakking on the phone to one of his friends or entertaining some poor young groupie who had no idea how much of a loser he was. Thankfully, today he was alone.

  I yanked open his door and stormed up, throwing the balled-up newspaper in his face. “What the fuck, Michael?”

  The ball bounced off his nose and onto the couch next to him. He picked it up and had the gall to pull it open, like he needed to read it to know what it said. He stared at it for a long while, then his lips turned into a nasty smile and he rose to his feet.

  “Come on, Tamara,” he purred. “You think this is my fault? You should know better.”

  He stepped toward me and I took a step back. I wasn’t sure what I expected when I came over here, but this reaction wasn’t quite it. I guess I had hoped he would break into tears and start begging for forgiveness at my feet. Wishful thinking.

  “I know better than to trust you,” I said. “Thank god I didn’t give you another chance, not that the thought crossed my mind.”

  His jaw ticked. “You think being the prince’s booty call makes you better than me?”

  “I think being a good person makes me better than you!” I yelled. “What you did was unprofessional and downright cruel. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  “What I did?” Michael sneered. “I haven’t admitted to anything. Remember that before you try slandering me in the papers.”

  He didn’t need to admit to anything. He hadn’t denied it, and the look of satisfaction on his face made it obvious he was the inside source who’d ruined my day.

  “You are such a fame whore! All you think about is the next interview and the next scoop!” My voice had reached a shrill level and my face was hot. I knew anyone outside would be able to hear us, but I didn’t care.

  “I’m not like you, Michael! I’m not going to take this to the papers. I just want to live a happy fucking life without having lies spread all over the pages of a magazine just because you’re bitter that I broke up with you!” I grabbed the nearest object—a TV remote—and chucked it at Michael. It hit him in the arm and bounced off.

  “You’re just a pair of tits and a pretty face!” he roared. “I made you what you are!”

  “Oh yeah? I don’t see you in a starring fucking role! I made it big on my first try and you couldn’t get anything bigger than a herpes commercial until Freedom Five! And look how well that went!”

  At the mention of his old TV show, which was cancelled after a disappointing three episodes, Michael’s face reddened.

  Someone banged on the door. “Open up!”

  I recognized Yesha’s voice and decided it was time to go. I was over this.

  I opened the door and shot out of the trailer, barreling past the director. Michael followed me.

  “He doesn’t love you!” he yelled. “You’re just a piece of ass to him. The public would never accept you and he knows that!”

  “Hey!” Yesha screamed. “Both of you, stop right now!”

  I stopped mid-step. Her tone brokered no a
rgument. Even Michael shut his mouth, miracle of miracles.

  “Tamara, take the rest of the day,” Yesha said. “As for you Michael, come see me in my trailer.”

  A crowd of onlookers had gathered around Michael’s trailer, and they murmured amongst themselves with delight. Michael was in deep shit.

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I wanted to be home, even if it meant slogging through wall of press dying for another bite of action.

  I stomped back to my trailer, shaking off anyone who tried to talk to me. I just wanted to be alone. I would grab my stuff and be out of here before I bit somebody’s head off.

  Too bad my trailer wasn’t empty. I gasped in surprise.

  Alex jumped to his feet with a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I didn’t know where you were and I didn’t want to wander around looking for you. Figured that wouldn’t be wise.”

  I closed the door and locked it just in case. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to see you. Make sure you were okay.” He stepped toward me, threading his fingers through mine. “I’m sorry about the article.”

  I pulled my hands away and started gathering up my stuff. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Tell that to my father. I didn’t realize he would be so upset,” he said, chuckling. “It’s not like I bailed to go partying.”

  I hadn’t expected to see Alexander today, hadn’t even factored in what I was going to do when I did see him. The uncomfortable truth settled on my shoulders and I knew then what I had to do.

  For the first time all day, my heart stopped beating. It froze and cracked in my chest.

  “I’m sorry too, Alex.” I turned to face him, even though I wanted to look anywhere but those gorgeous green eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  His face fell. “What?”

  “The scrutiny, the anxiety...it’s too much.” I scraped a hand through my hair and shook my head. I was getting major post-Michael flashbacks and I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. Ending things with Alex felt like cutting off a leg, but if that was where the infection was, wasn’t that just what I had to do?