Page 8 of Some Like It Scandalous
Armand stared into Anna’s eyes, their languorous heat frosting over. He held out his hand to her and she came, but hesitance marked her steps. Still, she let him pull her stiff frame to him.
“…if you wish Miss Novak to accompany you, we shall have to make additional arrangements, Your Highness. We await your will.” Gerard’s sympathy echoed beneath the protocol, but no amount of sympathy could repair what had been shattered.
Shovingthat dark memory back into the box where it belonged, he looked at the city. He had her address—did she live in a house on the beach? Did she wake every morning to walk out onto a deck and feel the salty kiss of the dawn? Or was it a tiny little house tucked into a bedroom community with neighbors who knew her name?
Most of the people in their apartment complex at school had known her name. She just had a way of making everyone think she cared about what was going on with them. They reached out, firmed the connection and renewed it with every meeting.
He put the container down and walked over to the phone. He stared at the digits on the receiver. All he had to do was pick it up.
“You can’t stop being a prince, so why not use it to your advantage?”
He could only think of one person to call, and after another long moment, he picked it up and dialed.
ANNA
It was barely five in the morning when her phone rang. Anna thumbed it off and rolled back over. She didn’t get up before seven a.m. unless the house was on fire. A minute later her phone pealed out Adele, her sister’s ringtone. She shut it off again. When it rang for the third time, she thumbed it on to answer. “What?”
“Oh. My. God. How could you start seeing him again and not tell us—scratch that—tell me? How could you not tellme?It’s so romantic.” Penny’s voice crackled with excitement. “So, when did it happen? Last month when you had that ‘conference’ toattend in Milan? Oh, I know, when you were in New York a few months ago anddidn’t have timeto see me.”
Her sister’s voice kept climbing, revving up with excitement, and it pierced the fog of sleep clouding her mind, threatening to ruin the rest of her morning’s rest. “Penny. It’s five in the morning. I keep telling you that there’s a three-hour time difference.”
“Holy fuck, are you in bed with him right now?”
The ice pick burrowed into Anna’s brain.
“In bed with who? What are you talking about?” Pushing the covers back, Anna sat and grimaced at her sister’s whine. Penny was the worst of her siblings when it came to recognizing other people needed sleep. A night owl by nature, she pounced at the worst hours to ask the most ridiculous things.
“You and Charlie—I mean the prince—does he mind if I call him Charlie? I am your sister and if you two are back together that means royal wedding and I can be the next Pippa. Oh God—you think I’ll get a spread inPeoplemagazine?”
Awake now, irritation flared through her. “Penny!”
“Sorry, got a little carried away.” Her sister squealed again. “I’m just so happy for you. And for me, because I’m going to look fabulous on television.”
“What are you talking about?” And how the hell did her sister know she’d seen the prince the day before? She told no one—least of all her family. They’d been as supportive as they could—her brothers had even threatened to beat him up—but they went through that mourning with her once. She didn’t want to open old wounds.
“You getting back together with Charlie, it’s so romantic.”
Her blood went cold. “I am not—we’renottogether.”
“Oh yes you are, it’s all over ACE this morning. ‘Playboy Prince reunites with his first love.’ I still can’t believe you didn’ttellme…” Her sister continued to yammer, but Anna fumbledfor the television remote and turned it on. She found the ACE channel by scanning the guide and stared. A commercial offering superstar figures detailed how every woman could look like a model segued into a red-dressed studio where the reporter started talking.
Thumbing up the volume, she waited.
“…and recapping our top of the hour, playboy prince, Armand Dagmar, the titular head of the Andraste royal family, is very well-known for his exotic tastes and revolving door of beauties to grace his arm, but has happily ever after finally rubbed off on him?” Images of Armand cavorting with some blonde model in Majorca punctuated the story. “The grand duke has been seen out and about in the Los Angeles area for months following the fairy-tale reunion with his long-lost cousin, the Princess Alyxandretta. But now sources close to the prince confirm that it wasn’t his cousin that kept him in the City of Angels but the chance to recapture romance with his first love, a woman ACE has identified as Anna Novak…” And then her face was on the screen.
“See!” Penny’s voice squealed through the phone.
I’m going to kill him.
Chapter 3
Anna
By eight a.m. there was a circus parked in front of her little two-bedroom bungalow. Give the paparazzi a bone and they make a meal out of it. She sipped her coffee, staring at the sea of cameras setting up housekeeping on her lawn. Her poor neighbors gawked at the vans sitting crookedly against the curbs. To leave, she would have to push through them to get to her car.
But they were in her driveway too.
Three took off with her trash.I hope they like microwavable meal remains and takeout boxes.
