Page 11 of Royally Knocked Up
Of course, anyone might know of Enzo’s reputation. He was so frequently featured in the tabloids that all she would have had to do would be to pick up a magazine at the Monteverde airport.
The thing that troubled Enzo was that if an American who hadn’t been in the country for very long knew about him, maybe that meant that his father wasright.
Maybe his reputationwasstarting to get out of control.
He didn’t want to think that was true. But it was hard to brush off this new piece of evidence. His father had always been judgmental, but here was a total stranger who seemed to agree with his father’s assessment.
Enzo frowned and shook his head. All she’d really said was that he knew how to have a good time, and that was unquestionably true.
He wouldn’t let it get under his skin. He would serve his time here, and then he would go home, and that would be that.
CHAPTER 5
ENZO
Afew hours later, Enzo had given up entirely on the idea of serving his time.
He had tried to have a bottle of scotch sent to his room, only to be told that the staff weren’t allowed to order from the bar. He’d done his best to insist that he wasn’t really a member of staff, but no one had seemed to care about that very real fact. They’d persisted in forbidding him from getting a drink.
He’d tried to entertain himself by going out to the slopes, but there wasn’t much fun to be had in that since he hadn’t brought any of his ski gear with him. The only option was to rent some from the lodge, and he had quickly been informed that if he wanted to take skis out, he was going to have to pay the rental fee, by order of the king. It was such an indignity that Enzo had refused the offer, knowing that any money he paid for the rental would be ending up right in his own father’s pocket. He couldn’t bear the thought of giving money to the man who had exiled him here.
That had left him with nothing to do but sit in his room and watch television, a pastime that had quickly begun to wearon him. Enzo preferred to be social and active. The idea of sitting around watching TV for even one night was wearing. The thought of doing this for the next two months was unbearable.
He was going to have to leave.
The driver who’d brought him to Vista Piccola was employed by his father, so getting the same car to take him back to Luria was out of the question. Not only would he be refused, but the driver would no doubt let Enzo’s father know what he had requested.
It was maddening that he was nearly thirty years old and was being treated like a wayward teenager. If his father hadn’t been the king, there was no way he could have gotten away with this. It took political clout to treat someone this way.
All right. He couldn’t contact the driver who had brought him here — so how was he going to leave?
He thought through his options. He could rent a car — there was a rental place in Vista Piccola for tourists. But if he did that, he ran the risk of some member of the media spotting him and releasing a story. If that were to happen, he was sure his father would get his hands on the story right away. He probably had people searching the internet every morning for Enzo’s name, waiting to see what dirt he could dig up on his own son. He probablywantedto discover Enzo getting into trouble so that he would be able to enforce some sort of stricter punishment than he already had.
So no rental car, then. There had to be some other way out of here — something he hadn’t already thought of.
Enzo picked up his phone.
None of his friends knew that he had been sent here. He hadn’t known how he would explain it to them. How did you tell your friends, at twenty-nine years of age, that your father had sent you out of the city? They wouldn’t be able to understand something like that. His friends’ fathers were businessmen and venture capitalists. A few were politicians, but even that didn’t carry the same weight as being a king did. None of them would understand how a father could seize control over you if he wanted to do so, how he could use his royal authority to upend your life.
So he hadn’t told them. But now he was rethinking that decision, because it had occurred to him that involving his friends might be his only way of getting out of here.
He fired off a quick text to Luca, his closest friend. Luca’s father owned a tech company in Luria, and Luca was being groomed to take over the business when he retired. Luca liked to joke that this was the same thing as being in line for a throne. That was a joke that had always annoyed Enzo — the two things weren’t remotely similar, of course, and he didn’t like Luca acting as if they were. But he had always overlooked it for the sake of preserving their friendship.
What’s going on this weekend?he texted. He needed to start slowly. He couldn’t open with a request to be picked up. Luca had to be eased into all this.
Luca answered quickly. He always did. It was one of Enzo’s favorite things about him.Everyone’s getting together at Gustaf’s.You in?
Maybe,Enzo replied. He paused, then decided to leave it at that. Maybe there was a way he could get out of all this without having to let his friends know he had been banished to Vista Piccolain the first place. Maybe he could make it seem as if he had come here of his own free will. That would be a hell of a lot less embarrassing.
He saw the bubbles come up on the screen that indicated Luca was typing. Then they went away. His friend didn’t seem to know exactly how to respond, which Enzo thought was probably a good thing. Let him take his time trying to sort that out. Let him believe it didn’t matter very much to Enzo whether he was included in the weekend’s plans or not.
He got to his feet and switched off the TV. Maybe Luca would call. Maybe they would get to talking and would decide it made sense for Luca to drive up and pick Enzo up tonight. He could crash at his friend’s place for the weekend, and then, when the weekend was over, he would decide whether or not he wanted to come back here. Maybe he would find a hotel in Luria and stay there for a few weeks so that his father wouldn’t be able to track him down. Maybe he would throw caution to the wind and just go back to his own apartment.
There was a knock at the door.
Enzo jumped a foot in the air, feeling spooked by the sudden interruption. Of course, it wasn’t possible that anyone had realized what he was thinking and come to stop him, but it did feel like a massive coincidence. He straightened his shoulders and made his way over to the door, expecting to see Isla with some sort of information about tomorrow’s agenda.
But it wasn’t Isla. It was Hailey, the American.
