The Pretend Prince Page 3

  Again, he scans me. Again, he laughs. “No, but it looks like the Queen invited you to tea, and you borrowed one of Kate Middleton’s suits before deciding to join her.”

  Having had enough of his brooding behavior, I decide to fire back. I get that he hates me, but he doesn’t have to be so incredibly rude. Besides, my suit is black, not mauve, and I happen to like the way Kate dresses, either way. “If your grandmother had invited me to tea, it would be to inquire about your ill behavior. And I’ll take that,” I tell him, pointing to the folder, but he doesn’t hand it over, he simply tucks it under his arm. I really should have peeked inside it when Pierce handed it to me.

  Casually, Julius leans against the elevator wall and opens the folder, reading it like he’d read a paper while he waited for a bus. Not that he’s ever waited for a bus.

  “Give that back to me,” I demand, my heart beating harder and harder for him the longer we remain trapped in this small space. “It’s an assignment for the magazine.”

  He lifts those thick-lashed blue eyes of his to mine. “About me?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  He glances back to the paper and then back to me, and I’m struck speechless when he says, “It’s not bad enough you fucked me once, now you want to fuck me twice?”

  “What? No. Of course not.”

  One of his dark brows rises. “Really? It certainly looks that way to me.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  He reads some more. “I think I do. It’s right here in black and white. Number one,” he recites, “Attend public affairs where the Prince will be and attempt to woo him.”

  “Woo you?” I croak, repeating what he said, because I can’t believe it. My boss wrote that down? This is embarrassing on so many levels.

  “Number two,” he goes on. “Ascertain the Prince’s likes and dislikes. His fears and inhibitions. Dig deep and make it personal.”

  “So, she wants me to investigate the subject matter. That’s standard literary protocol.”

  “Is it? For this publication?”

  “Sure. For any.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “She knows about us.”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  His eyes scan the paper again. “Number three, uncover the reason for his breakup with Princess Liz Laurent.”

  “Everyone is curious about that,” I tell him. “It doesn’t mean she knows about our past.”

  “It’s because she knows why I turned to Liz, and she wants to exploit those reasons.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Also,” he goes on. “There’s nothing about my appearance on the Bachelor in these notes.”

  “That’s because that’s old news.”

  “No, it isn’t. Not to her. She’s avoiding mentioning it for a reason.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “That she already knows about our past, and she wants you to write about it from an insider’s perspective.”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “Of course, she does. Open your eyes. That’s why she hired you, Ophelia. In fact, she and Rainer are probably friends. The whole kill two birds philosophy. Force me to abdicate my position, to move Rainer closer to the throne. There are so many reasons, including trying to prevent me from taking my grandfather’s company public, so Raquel herself can continue to collect her big, fat checks.”

  “What check?”

  “None of your business.”

  Suddenly, I feel sick. Raquel and Julius are connected in some way, and not a good one.

  Is she using me?

  No, she can’t be.

  “She wouldn’t ask me to do something like this and risk her professional integrity for her own personal gain.”

  “Maybe you should read this in its entirety, then,” he tells me, shoving the folder my way. “Because that’s exactly what she’s doing.”

  I stare at him for a moment, hoping to make him see that everything that happened between us was real. Despite the evidence to the contrary that presented itself, and most importantly, after everything that happened between us, he has to know, I would never hurt him. Not again. Not ever again.

  However, my intentions go unnoticed as his regard remains cold as ice. As I take a step back, I dare to open the folder, already knowing what I’ll see. And yes, there is my assignment in black and white. The very same assignment I was given three years ago—write an exposé on none other than the man standing in front of me.

  The difference, though—this time, I’m not afraid to say no.

  This time…I will say no.

  EVERYONE WANTS A BREAK

  3 Years Earlier

  I’m ashamed to say—there were times I wished I could change my life.

  Normal.

  I didn’t know what it was, and I wanted to know what it felt like.

  A product of drug-induced love, I was born to a gypsy mother and a hippie father. They never married. However, they stayed together and traveled from state to state for most of my younger years. As a child, I didn’t know what having roots meant. When I turned twelve, my mother decided to leave my father and move to her hometown in the Vespa Isles.

  The cultural change put me at a complete loss.

  Everything was different. The kids called me a foreigner. The climate was hot. The sea air humid. The culture was so different.

  My mother called it normal. I wasn’t sure what it was, only that I didn’t really care for it.

  It wasn’t until I turned eighteen that I returned to the only place I felt I fit in—the States. Then, for nearly four years, I’d found solid ground on my own. However, like most things in my life, it didn’t last.

  If only I’d been given a crystal ball or some other way of knowing what the future held, then I would have never answered the door that day.

  The knock was unexpected, but the clean-cut man in a collar with the fifty-thousand dollar proposition was even more so.

  Prince Rainer Archibald Casire was the youngest son of Caroline, Princess of Burgetti, and her second husband, Archibald Casire. Prince Rainer was sixteenth in the line of succession to the Wimberly throne. However, it was well-known that he still thought he might have a chance to sit upon it someday if the younger Monaco Prince never married.

  The fact that a distant cousin of the Crown was at my door should have been a red flag that he was up to no good, but I was naïve and eager to make my mark in journalism, so I bit at the poison apple he offered.

  Having recently moved back to Alexandria from New York City, my pity party was more pity than party. I hadn’t planned to return to the Vespa Isles, ever, nor had I planned to drop out of college. I’d gone to the States to go to college and to do everything I could to prepare myself for a journalism career at the New York Post. I moved in with my half-sister and forged a bond with her that I relished. However, when my mother got sick, and there was no one else to take care of her, I was forced to leave the States with one semester left before graduation.

  And that was why I was back in the land I only knew as foreign.

  My life was dangling before me, and the devil at my door had an offer that was hard to refuse.

  It was a way to get my old life back.

  I just didn’t realize there is never any going back.

  Still, I didn’t jump at the chance immediately. I had integrity and values that I thought couldn’t be bought. He had to prove to me that he was legitimate. Sure, the offer was suspicious, but I should have been even more so, especially of him.

  “I need you to prove Prince Julius isn’t looking for love, just fame,” he announced.

  “You want me to do what?” I asked, just to be clear about what he’d proposed, before I slammed the door in his face.

  He cleared his throat. “I want you to prove to Wimberly that Prince Julius Monaco isn’t fit to wear the crown.”

  “And you want me to do such a thing by going o
n an American reality show?”

  He nodded. “Yes, you will be a contestant on The Bachelor and expose Prince Julius Monaco as the fraud he really is.”

  “Fraud in what way?”

  “He doesn’t want to fall in love. He only wants the attention the role will bring him.”

  “Why would he want that?”

  “To assure the world knows he is the soon-to-be King of Wimberly.”

  Closing the door a bit more, I laughed at how ridiculous that sounded. “Most of the world doesn’t even know Wimberly nor the Vespa Isles exists.”

  He put his foot out to stop the door from closing. “That’s the point.”

  “Okay.” My hand gripped the knob, willing myself to push a bit harder; yet, I didn’t. “I’ll give you that. But why are you asking me to help you prove something I know nothing about?”

  He put three fingers up and counted them down. “You’ve spent time in the States, and you’re from here. And you also have a way with words. All of which makes you the perfect candidate.”

  The man had a way with words. He’d obviously been reading my blog. Shamelessly, I felt more than a bit flattered. “Even so, I can’t go on a television show where I’m supposed to fall in love with someone just to write a story about how the star isn’t really looking for true love.”

  “Sure you can,” Rainer told me, “because it’s the truth, and you’re a journalist with integrity.”

  “How do you know he doesn’t want to fall in love?”

  Rainer laughed. “Research him. He’s never had a girlfriend for longer than a month. Both his grandparents and his parents divorced. He’s a skeptic at best. Trust me when I tell you, he’s after notoriety.”

  “I don’t know,” I mused, biting my lip. The truth was, I’d been blogging as royalgirl.net since my return and getting nowhere. My followers were minimal, and my sponsorships were non-existent. I was failing. I needed to finish college but didn’t have the money since my scholarships didn’t transfer. I really needed the money. Not only for me but for my mother, whose early onset of dementia was proving more and more difficult to take care of without healthcare.

  If the Prince wasn’t looking for love, what did it matter? Nobody would be hurt. It was a job, and I was doing what I loved—writing. How bad could it really be?

  “This story will launch your career,” he insisted.

  “Are you sure he’s a fake?” I asked. Hey, I was a fan of the reality show, and I had seen fakes, so if I could uncover an injustice, why not?

  Rainer pointed his finger at me. “Absolutely. Look, do this, and not only will I pay you fifty thousand dollars, but I will help you get a job at any publication you want anywhere, even without a degree.”

  Woah. What? I stared at him for a beat. “No way! You can’t make that happen?”

  Sensing my skepticism, he assured me. “But I can. I have connections all over the world.”

  For a girl like me, who’d been struggling to make ends meet, this seemed too good to be true. “Any job? Anywhere?”

  He nodded his head. “Any job. Anywhere. Take this offer, and your life is going to change forever.”

  With that, I believed him, so I said yes, and he told me what to do.

  I applied to the show without really lying, but without telling the entire truth, either. I simply omitted the part about not being in college anymore and having moved back home to Alexandria. It really was easy because it was the life I wanted to get back but couldn’t have.

  In the end, nothing worked out the way it was supposed to. I didn’t take the money. He didn’t help me get a job. And I never wrote the story of a lifetime. However, Rainer was right about one thing…my life did change.

  Forever.

  I WILL NOT FALL

  The Present

  A horrible case of nerves erupts as I close the folder. “You have it all wrong.”

  The Prince’s jaw clenches, but the rest of him leans uninterested against the wall, absolutely motionless. “I really fucking doubt that.”

  My stomach is in knots as my mouth vomits the truth. “I was just given the assignment, but I’m not accepting it.”

  Julius tsks, his body coiling ever so slightly, like a tiger about to pounce. “Still lying, I see.”

  Annoyed, I place my hands on my hips. “I never lied to you. Not once. Not about anything.”

  His responding snicker irritates me so much that my lips press together and form a single line.

  “It’s true, and you know it.”

  With a shrug, he says, “Yeah, well, whatever. Lies and avoiding the truth are basically the same thing.”

  Determination grips me. “I’m not writing about you, Julius. That’s not a lie or avoiding the truth. It’s a fact.”

  “You work for this magazine, right?”

  Unease washes through me. I straighten my stance. “Yes, as of two weeks ago, I do.”

  His emotion is so casual, so calm, he could have a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips and be more interested. “And you’re here to write for Raquel.”

  “For the magazine.”

  Again with the boredom. “They are essentially the same thing.”

  “Yes, I suppose they are.”

  He’s not looking at me when he speaks. “And she’s the one who gave you this new assignment?” He’s asking this in question, but I’m fairly certain he already knows the answer.

  My heart skips a crazy little beat. “Yes.”

  “This is great. Really fucking great. You really think you have a choice in the matter? Don’t you?” His bitter words sting.

  “I know I do. I was on my way up to tell her that I won’t be writing the piece I’ve been assigned for personal reasons, I cannot disclose, when I got stuck in here with you.”

  His shoulders start to shake with more obscene laughter. “Okay, I’ll humor you. Say you do just that? Then what happens?”

  “I don’t know. She’ll pass it to someone else and then allow me to write about stories that matter.”

  Julius drags a hand restlessly along the back of his neck before he raises his head. “You don’t really think you’ll still have a job after that, do you?”

  All I can do is clear my throat. “I’m not sure about that.”

  Now his cold eyes zero in on me. “I’m going to help you out there and tell you that you won’t. And once she fires you, how are you going to pay back that advance you were given? The one you used to put your mother in a memory unit?”

  Shock rocks through me. “How the hell do you know about that?”

  Julius runs his long fingers through his hair before stuffing them into his pockets and jutting his chin toward the folder. “Raquel Livingston is playing you. She’s been playing you from the start, Lia, and you don’t even know it.”

  The hand I’m using to grip the folder begins to tremble. “What are you talking about?”

  “She sought you out.”

  “No. No, she didn’t.”

  “How’d you get the job, then?”

  “I got an email telling me there was an opening, and I applied for it. She hired me on my merits.”

  “She didn’t hire you for the reasons you think.”

  “You don’t know why she did what she did.”

  “Yeah, I do. She hired you to keep a leash around me. If I don’t do what she wants, she’s going to expose my past, and she wants you to back up her story when she does.”

  I stand here, shaking.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  His menacing laughter continues to fill the already small space, which seems to be shrinking in size by the second. “First Rainer, now Raquel. A great track record you have going.”

  My lips purse. “I had no idea Raquel knew you.”

  He’s still laughing, dark and brooding-like.

  “This isn’t funny.”

  He sobers a bit. “I never said it was,” he remarks, cool and calm, seemingly unaffected by all of this.
<
br />   All of this is my life.

  My life being blown apart, again. This can’t be happening. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m pounding my fists against his chest. “Stop being an asshole and tell me why she’d go to so much trouble, to what, get back at you for something.”

  “Lia…” I don’t heed the growl of warning in his voice.

  “It’s Ophelia, in case you’ve forgotten,” I hiss out. “And this is my life. Now tell me what the hell is going on. I deserve to know.”

  He grabs my wrists with both of his hands and holds them in place. “Raquel and I have a history of sorts, and right now, we’re at odds. She’s trying to keep me from doing something I want to do, and I’m here to set her straight by telling her she can go to hell.”

  “What’s your history with her have to do with me?”

  He’s close, so close I can feel the puff of his breath on my lips. “She’s decided to use you as a pawn to control me.”

  I’m shaking my head, no. “That can’t be true. She’s a reputable businesswoman. She wouldn’t do something like that.”

  Seemingly irritated, he heaves a sigh. “I don’t think you know her as well as you think you do.”

  My own agitation is starting to show. “Why? Why would she risk her reputation on you?”

  “For money. She wants to stop me from taking my grandfather’s company public, and she’s holding past history over my head.”

  God, he really is arrogant. “I don’t understand. Why would she care about your company? You’re in shipping. She’s in publishing. They are in no way related.”

  A beat or two passes. He seems to be debating the best way to answer me, and then I’m treated to another heavy sigh. “You don’t need to understand everything. All you need to know is she’s afraid things won’t work out, and that her income will dry up, so she wants to stop me from doing what my grandfather dreamed of, and you are the weapon to do so.”

  Money.

  It’s always about money.

  Money or love, anyway.

  All of my rage at myself for the possibility of being played again is redirected at him, and admittedly, a little off-topic. “Everything isn’t always about the spoiled rich prince who runs away from love.”