by Ella Brooke
“I hope you don’t ever feel pressured to do that.” Louis shrugged. “I’m just asking that you think about it. When it comes down to it, the Bremen family cannot be the ones to fail to uphold their side of this arrangement.”
“What, it has to be our fault?” Sugar looked pained.
“It has to be someone’s fault. I do believe Gran would be okay with this, if only I could give her a real reason that the marriage won’t happen.”
“She fought for the right to inherit the throne instead of her brother. I’d hope she understand the problem with arranging marriage for underaged girls.”
Louis’s lips curved slightly. “Gran’s always been a pip, hasn’t she?”
“Honestly the only member of your family I can stand.” Sugar leaned her cheek on her hand. “What about you, though? You’re talking about this whole thing like you’re arranging the deal for someone else.”
“What I want doesn’t really matter, darling.” Louis took another cherry and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ve had a lot of freedom in my life. Maybe a little too much. But if my family needs me to handle this, I have to try.”
“You’re not even going to fight to keep that freedom?”
“I don’t really have a reason to do that.” Louis popped the cherry in his mouth. “You want to give me a reason?”
She grimaced as he waggled his brows. “Behave.”
“I will, if you accept our engagement. Until then, I consider myself a free agent.”
Sugar licked the tips of her fingers. “Ditto.”
“I suppose we have an agreement, then. But do make up your mind before the press makes up its own.” Louis reached over to touch her cheek. “Have a good evening, Sweet Girl.”
Sugar wasted no time finding Astra and getting the real party started. Louis moved closer to the bar, watching and waiting as May went about her work. There was no lack of interest in her, by far. Men of all kinds tried to flirt with her as she poured their drinks, but they weren’t making much progress. She took their cash and their cards and moved onto the next customer. She definitely didn’t move out from behind the bar for them.
Then, Louis caught her looking over at the booth where he and Sugar had been sitting, and a self-satisfied smile spread across his lips. Perhaps, she wasn’t quite as disgusted with him as she had seemed. Louis slipped up through the crowd until he was leaning over the bar.
“What can I get you?” the young male bartender asked.
“A moment with that lovely one.” Louis pointed to May, who was mixing up some pom-tinis for a group of college-aged girls.
“Oh, uh . . .”
“I’ll wait.”
The bartender did as asked and went to May, who looked back at him and cast him an annoyed look. Louis smirked and waved his fingers at her. She rolled her eyes.
“Hello, May,” he said cheerfully as she approached.
“Hello, you.”
“Look, I know you’re annoyed with me, but I truly didn’t mean to offend you. You said you didn’t mind if I left, and I thought it would be better if we didn’t see each other again.”
“I’m not mad that you left. I was disappointed, but it’s a free country.” May shrugged. “I’m disappointed about other things, though.”
“And you don’t want to enlighten me on what I did that warranted embarrassing me in front of Astra?”
“Not particularly.” May picked up a nearby towel. “I have to get back to work.”
“Come upstairs to talk to me when you get your break.” He held up his hands. “No naughty stuff. I just want to talk.”
May bit her lower lip and sighed. “Fine.”
Louis tugged on the collar of his suit jacket and nodded before heading up to the lounge.
Chapter Four
May
May’s throat seemed to dry out as the elevator rose up to the lounge. It was probably a mistake, coming up here to meet with Louis. Of all the players that came through the front door of Astra’s Place, Louis was the most baffling. He seemed like the ultimate gentleman one moment, and in the next, he was having an intimate conversation with a famous movie star. Moreover, the help were just as invisible to him as they were to most of the rich people she dealt with every day.
She smoothed her hands over her hair as she waited for the doors to open. Unsurprisingly, the sound of the piano hit her the moment they did, and she stepped into the lounge filled with soft lighting and the warm, gentle music Louis was coaxing from the piano. She didn’t recognize this piece, either, so it was probably something classical or foreign. It was, however, one of the sweetest and most complex numbers she’d ever heard.
Walking over to pour herself some orange juice, May cleared her throat. “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”
Louis turned and smiled. “Here you are. I half-thought you wouldn’t come.”
“I considered just going to get a burger with my friend Alice instead.” May shrugged and sipped her drink. “Do I get another piano concert?”
“Hardly.” Louis came over to her. “Please, don’t be angry with me.”
“I told you. I’m not.” May sucked in her lower lip and tapped her finger on her glass. “Tell me. How do you know Sugar DeLaude?”
“Old school mates, for the most part.” He paused. “But . . . well, our parents came to an arrangement. Mine wanted a portion of land owned by her parents, and her parents wanted a tie to the royal family—”
“I’m sorry. Royal family?”
Louis chuckled self-consciously. “You hadn’t figured that one out? Ever heard of Critonia?”
“Uh . . . no? But then again, I struggled to even get a C in World Geography freshman year.” May looked over Louis’s face critically. “Are you playing with me?”
“Not at all. You can Google it if you want.”
May raised a brow. “I’m gonna.”
Louis gestured forward. May pursed her lips and pulled her phone out of her back pocket. After demanding that Louis spell the name of the country, she found herself on some news website about Middle European tapestry exports.
“You’re a prince.” May stared up at him.
“Well, I do like to think of myself as charming.” He grinned down at her.
“Wow.” May heaved a sigh. “I guess I thought most real-life princes were just . . . you know. Spoiled messes with receding hairlines from all the incest.”
“What?” he laughed.
“To keep the bloodlines pure.”
“We do not do that!”
“Good to know.” May bit back a laugh. He looked so scandalized. “So, you’re getting married?”
“I actually don’t think so. This deal was made so long ago, and Sugar doesn’t seem at all interested in making good on it. I just have to do my due diligence, make sure that by the time I return, we all know the deal was off because Sugar doesn’t want to go along with it.” Louis grabbed a glass and helped himself to a gin and tonic. “No one wants to be the one to make a deal like this collapse.”
May sighed uncertainly. She shifted her weight and twisted her fingers. “So you don’t have any interest in her? At all? She’s gorgeous, and funny, and god, so famous. Her last three films killed at the box office. She’s a star. And actually a really good actress.”
“It sounds like you know her better than I do, really. It’s been so long, and . . . quite frankly, she can’t stand me.”
May walked around the counter and stood beside him. “That really bothers you, doesn’t it? Why do you care if she doesn’t like you? Especially if you have no intention of marrying her?”
“Who likes to be hated?”
“She probably doesn’t hate you.” May patted his bicep. “If it’s like you say, she’s probably just unhappy with the situation. Go easy on her.”
“I’m trying. It’s just such a bizarre set of circumstances.” Louis slipped his hands in his pockets and looked around the lounge awkwardly. “Does this make you less annoyed with m
e?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” It would explain a certain amount of self-involvement, dealing with a bananas situation like this. But it was still annoying for him not to notice her. “I guess it’ll depend on what I see from this point forward. Assuming we see each other again at all.”
Louis reached down and touched a dark curl that had escaped her French twist. “It’s so inconvenient, but I do admit, I would like to see you again.”
May pulled back and started back toward the elevator. “We’ll see.”
The rest of May’s week was relatively uneventful. Louis didn’t return to the bar for the next few nights, so the only time she saw him was in passing at the hotel. Not one to make things easy for herself, she kept her head down and just did the work. No reason to keep flirting with disaster. He had a ton of baggage and a potential fiancée. May had problems of her own to worry about without having to take on his.
Still, she couldn’t completely keep him from her thoughts. She’d find herself glancing over in the elevator. Every dark-haired man in a crisp suit registered in her mind as Louis until she got a good look. It definitely kept her on her toes. She kept waiting for the moment when he would notice her.
But he didn’t, of course. That was reason enough to move onto other things in her life even if parts of her were still longing for him. That Tuesday evening, her night off, May went out to dinner with her friend Alice, and then they headed back to their apartment which they shared with Alice’s boyfriend. Together they put on some teen horror show Hulu had picked up from Wattpad and spooned peanut butter out of the jar to eat with dark chocolate.
“I’m so tired. I need to go take a shower, but I think I’ll fall asleep in there and drown,” Alice grumbled.
“I’ll spot you, if I have to.” May licked her spoon and raised a brow. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have one job?”
“It’s the dream, girl.” Alice yawned. “I’ve edited about a thousand pages already this week. And that’s on top of tutoring.”
“Where are you on that internship?”
“I don’t think I’m getting it. Gotta keep up the hustle.”
“I don’t envy you. I’d rather clean. At least I get to listen to audiobooks while I’m doing it.”
“Maybe you should choose better books. Literature, maybe, and not those silly ghost stories,” Alice teased.
“You picked this dumb show!” May gestured to the teenage girl choking on the screen.
“This is clearly fiction.”
“Bad fiction.”
“I don’t have the brainpower to watch something smart.”
May rolled her eyes. “And I’m not looking to solve the secrets of the universe while I’m scrubbing toilets, okay? Don’t judge. At least ‘real’ ghost stories don’t have jump scares.”
Alice shrugged. “I’m always interested to see what the mainstream picks up from the Interwebz. Be honest, this is way better than that movie that just came out. Even if there’s a magic game killing everyone, it makes a lot more sense.”
“I’d be less salty if the cinematography were more interesting. The movie we watched last time—”
“Oh, yes! That was brilliant. The director really knew their shit.“ Alice sighed. “You could do so much better with this . . . God, the lead in this looks like a chipmunk.”
May chuckled. “You’re mean.”
“Did she take this role after getting the mumps?”
“I could only hope to get a gig like this, but I prefer suspense based in reality.”
“Like ghosts.”
May dug her fingers into the peanut butter jar and smeared it in Alice’s pretty red hair.
“Ah! No!”
“Consider it motivation to go shower, you skank.”
Alice tried to glare at her, but she laughed as she paused the show. “Fine, I’m going to shower. Don’t talk to any spooks without me.”
“I won’t make any promises.” May pulled out her phone and settled in to wait for Alice.
It wasn’t that she believed in ghosts. She didn’t, of course. She was just fascinated with what the human mind did to compensate for feelings it couldn’t handle. Whether that was other fears, insecurities, desires, or traumas, in the end, it manifested itself into something that wasn’t supposed to exist. People would believe they saw a ghost before they’d admit to what they really wanted.
May spent a few minutes on Google trying to find a name of a song she’d listened to on repeat in high school. She’d been looking for a week, and it was driving her crazy. But failing again, she sucked in her lip and Googled Louis’s name. It immediately pulled up a slew of tabloid news reports, all featuring “mystery girls” or society women from whatever country he happened to be in. Beaches, parties, hotel lounges, the paparazzi of Europe had found him everywhere with a different woman on his arm every time.
“Christ, I’m getting tested this week,” she muttered to herself. She should have insisted on a condom to go along with the patch.
May tilted her head to the side as she looked at one young, pretty woman on Louis’s arm. She was gorgeous, with silky golden locks and a wide, perfect smile. And so tall. May would probably feel like a garden gnome next to her. She ran a hand through her own dark, wavy hair. Louis had been attracted enough, but it seemed like he was pretty much attracted to everyone. And this deal with Sugar DeLaude . . . She looked more like Louis’s type. Tall, rich, and goddess-like. It couldn’t be too hard to make himself want to be around her. They had known one another once, too. Even if he claimed to have no interest, if Sugar decided to give it a try, they would make a lot of sense together.
Think of that PR. The Action Princess and the Actual Prince.
May sighed and scrolled down to a video someone had taken of Louis. It was from several years before, at Astra’s place, and he was playing the piano. Well, why wouldn’t he be? He seemed to suffer from a magnetic force drawing him in the direction of all musical instruments. With a bit of a smile, May opened the video. The lounge was full of people, dressed to the nines, or barely dressed at all. One of Astra’s famous invite-only parties. May had been on drinks at one once, and had experienced the joy of cleaning up afterward.
Although May didn’t recognize the piece Louis was playing, it seemed to be another contemporary number translated for the piano. The notes rose from his fingers, gentle and sad, and Louis frowned, shaking his head as he played. After a moment, Astra sat next to him, kissed his shoulder, and whispered something to him. His lips pressed together, and he stopped playing. His expression disappeared as he stared down at the keys. The silence stretched out, and he didn’t move, although Astra kept rubbing her hand over his bicep, as though she owned him just as much as any of her employees.
Why let her order him around like that? May would’ve thought Louis could affect a princely attitude if he really wanted to. He had the funds, and the ranking.
Suddenly, his hands came to life again, and after a few bars, May realized he was plinking out the opening to “Uptown Funk.” May giggled and covered her mouth. Astra must have demanded a more upbeat song change.
Why had he been so down to begin with? May dug her toes into the end of the couch as she stretched out and closed her eyes, listening to the lively music from the keys and the rhythmic tapping of one of his shoes. She would have to stop ragging on him for being so drawn to music. He really was an immaculate player. She’d never had the patience to get that good.
“Oh, hot damn,” Alice said from behind her.
“Right?” May looked back. “Are you ready to watch more teenagers die?”
Alice fluffed her hair and smacked May’s legs to get her to move them. “Definitely. Let the bodies hit the floor!”
“Weirdo.” May sat up, the image of Louis’s serious expression burned into her mind’s eye. The gulf between the man in the tabloids and the man at the piano was dauntingly wide. How could she ever navigate her way between them? And did she want to?
Chapter Five
>
Louis
The set of Ryde or Die III bustled with frenetic activity. Extras milled around in the background, the director argued with the cinematographer (or it looked like an argument . . . the second man was smiling and nodding), and several people were on the set itself, pulling on rigging and double-checking the safety of the next stunt. Louis slipped his hands into his pockets and walked around the set slowly, taking everything in. He’d gotten his security pass cleared that morning, and he expected he could slip through and get Sugar to give him a clear answer on how she wanted to proceed. It had been a week. It was time.
He’d expected that she’d be waiting in her dressing room, but instead, she was standing by a woman about her height, mimicking a crouching pose. When the other woman gave the go ahead, Sugar threw herself forward into a roll and flew past Louis.
“Impressive.” He looked down at where she had landed.
Sugar glanced up irritably as she fussed with her hair. “I’m working.”
“Clearly. I thought you and I could have a talk.”
“We had one.”
“And it was inconclusive. Can we please finish this matter up so I can leave L.A.?” Louis tried to keep from sounding like he was begging, but he wouldn’t be able to rest until he knew for certain where he stood.
“You can wait until after we get done shooting for the morning.” She waved her hand at him. “Just wait over there.”
Louis sighed and took a few steps back to stand by craft services. Sugar hopped up and went back to her stunt double (he presumed). She crouched again, and the woman reached over to move her arms and legs into place. Louis raised a brow as Sugar’s expression softened. This might be more entertaining than he’d imagined.
For the better part of an hour, Sugar worked with her stunt double while the rest of the crew got the scene set up. After that, they dragged both back off the set, and Sugar returned in a pair of leather pants so tight that he could probably see her femoral artery pulse. Her stunt double now had a blonde wig with red stripes pinned on her head, and they both went out to the set to film. As far as Louis could tell, the Ryde or Die franchise had started with their main character, Billy Ryde, who had indeed died in the second film. Fortunately, they had already introduced the character’s sister, Victoria Ryde, in that one, and so they were able to keep the movies going, even after the somewhat dramatic exit of their star James Faulk, who was now in rehab.
