Page 16 of Royally Knocked Up
Hailey pondered that. It made sense, she thought — his chosen lifestyle was starting to get him into trouble now that his father was about to assume the throne. It was something that hadn’t been a problem for him before, and that could only be due to the fact that he had had plenty of distance from the throne and the palace. It simply hadn’t mattered what he was doing so much when his uncle had been king.
“So when you were growing up,” she said, “you had more distance from the throne. You didn’t think so much about being a member of the royal family.”
“Well, it was always a part of my life. There were always affairs of state to attend. I grew up knowing how to conduct myself in front of dignitaries. But there was also a great deal more freedom. Ididhave the chance to think about what I might like to do when I grew up.”
“And?”
He grinned. “You’ll laugh.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“Well, I thought it might be fun to be a movie star.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You did, really?”
“I loved watching movies. American ones, especially — well, I’m sure you know that all the best movies are American. It’s one thing you Yankees do better than anybody else.”
She laughed. “All my favorite movies are American,” she confessed. “But I’m sure I’m biased.”
“Well, maybe you are. But you’re also right in this instance. Anyway, I had daydreams about moving to the States and being a cowboy in a western movie, or maybe a TV series.”
She laughed. “I can’t believe it. You wanted to be a cowboy!”
“Doesn’t every little boy sort of want to be a cowboy?”
“I guess they do,” Hailey agreed. “I didn’t expect that to be true of the prince of Monteverde, that’s all.”
But maybe she had been putting too much importance on the title. He was the prince, it was true, but he was also just a person. When he was a boy, he had been just a child, and it made sense that he would have had dreams like those of every other little kid.
Hailey wasn’t sure whether understanding that about him was going to make it easier or harder for her to do her job — but it was definitely going to be a factor.
CHAPTER 7
ENZO
Are you sure you don’t want me to come pick you up?Luca had texted.
Enzo pressed his lips together. He couldn’t believe that he was still telling his friend no. He had been the one to originally come up with the idea of having Luca break him out of this place, and Luca was practically begging to be allowed to aid and abet his escape.
Enzo had been at La Fantasia for a week now. He would have thought the place would have become unbearable by now. And there were days when it was. There were days when he couldn’t believe he had spent so much time here, when he thought that if he’d had an easy way out, he would have taken it in a heartbeat. If Luca’s car had pulled up in front of the resort today, for instance, there was no chance in the world he wouldn’t have gotten in.
It had been an uncommonly rough day. There had been a minor event to coordinate — the first since Enzo had ostensibly joined the events team. It hadn’t been anything much, just a minor league football team visiting the lodge for a team-buildingexercise, but Isla had taken their visit very seriously. She’d had the whole events team working nonstop, and Enzo had been placed on food service.
Food service! What did he know about serving food?
He’d tried to make that point to Isla, but she had pushed back. “What job do you think you should be given?” she’d asked him. “Do you want to be in charge of cooking? Do you want to handle the decorations? You don’t know how to do any of those things either.”
“I should be here in my capacity as a member of the royal family,” he’d told her. “The members of the team should be given a meet and greet with me as a part of their stay here.”
Isla had sighed. “That doesn’t help our team. You were sent here to be a productive member of the team, and that does us no good.”
“It makes the resort look good,” Enzo had argued, but Isla hadn’t agreed, and she’d let him know.
The upshot was that he had spent the entire day in a hairnet, scooping food onto the plates of football players who obviously hadn’t even known who he was — they hadn’t so much as looked twice at him. It wasn’t that Enzo felt any particular need to be admired for his role as prince — he didn’t mind not being recognized — but by the end of the day, it was beginning to wear on him. It wasn’t as though he had been treated like a random person who they simply didn’t know. He’d been treated like he was completely insignificant to them. Like he meant as much to them as the spatula that was being used to serve their food!
And now he smelled like cheese. Even a long, hot shower hadn’t completely gotten that smell off of him. It was unbearable.
Maybe he would have Luca come and get him, just for a few hours. They could drive up to Vista Grande and lose themselves in some of the nightclubs there. He could be back by morning. No one would ever be the wiser, and it would be a great way to blow off some steam.
