Royal Pain Read online

“Oh, definitely not.” There’s a warmth flowing through me, one that has nothing to do with the scotch and everything to do with the beautiful gypsy in front of me. “You put it to use in stuffy ballrooms instead.”

  “Exactly.” She grins. “And look where it got me tonight. I’ll definitely have something to write about when I go home.”

  “You know,” I say, putting my cup on the table and closing the small distance between us. “I’ve got an idea on how to make your writing a little more interesting.”

  “Do you now?” Her eyes go wide in fake surprise but she doesn’t move away. Instead, she holds my gaze with her own, a wicked smile playing on her lips. “And how exactly can we do that?”

  I move even closer, backing her up until she’s pressed against the stone railing and I’m pressed up against all those lush curves of hers. She’s tall—close to six feet even in her work shoes—and she fits nicely against my own six-foot-four frame.

  “Why don’t you let me show you?” I say, leaning in so that my breath is hot against her ear. I’m rewarded when she shivers, just a little. “I’m an action-oriented kind of guy.”

  “I just bet you are.” She slaps a hand on my chest, pushes until I back up a little. “But, sadly, my break is just about over. I need to go.”

  She slides out from between me and the railing, and reaches over to drop the scotch and club soda back into the cooler. Then she gathers up our empty cups and heads for the door back inside.

  I take hold of her hand, spin her around until she’s facing me again. “You’re really going back to work?”

  Savvy smiles, obviously amused by my disbelief. “I really am.”

  “I thought we were having a moment here.”

  “We were having several moments.” She reaches up with her free hand and pats my cheek. “And now they’re over.”

  “They don’t have to be.” I place my free hand on her lower back, press her against me. Despite her words, her body is pliant and her nipples peaked as she lets me hold her close. “Trust me, Savvy. I can make you feel good.”

  She laughs then, and somehow it’s even sexier than before. What is it about this woman that turns me on even when she’s laughing at me?

  “I just bet you can.” She leans forward and brushes her lips against mine. Electricity arcs between us at the brief contact. “But not here and not tonight.”

  I hold her tight, go in for another, deeper kiss. One that has her moaning low in her throat and has my every nerve ending standing up and taking notice. “Where and when then?” I ask, when she finally pulls back. “You name the place.”

  She just shakes her head, shifts against me. I can feel it now, the way she’s poised to flee despite the need winding its way around us like a vine. The knowledge only makes me hold on tighter, a part of me afraid she’ll disappear like Cinderella when the clock strikes midnight.

  Thank God it’s only ten-thirty.

  “I have to go,” she says again.

  “At least give me your number. Your last name. Something.”

  “And what exactly would you do with my number or my last name, Prince Kian?”

  This time I don’t like the emphasis she puts on my title, any more than I like the distance she puts between us when she pulls away. “I’d call you up and ask you out on a proper date.”

  “The prince and the pauper?” Now she sounds downright mocking. “I know how that one ends.”

  “I think you’ve got your fairy tales confused.”

  She tilts her head, studies me. “But my fairy godmother’s been on vacation for a decade or two, so there’s no taking chances. Besides, I’ve never really liked Cinderella.”

  “So? You’re the writer. Why don’t you change the story?”

  She cups her hand around the back of my neck, tugs my head down for a swift, hard kiss. Then pulls back and smiles up at me. “I already have.”

  And then she’s gone, slipping through the door and out into the hallway.

  I follow her—of course I do—and plow straight into Lucas. “Get out of my way!” I order, in too much of a hurry to be polite. He’s blocked my way just long enough for Savvy to get a head start down the hallway.

  He moves, but the couple of seconds he takes are all she needs to disappear onto the open elevator at the end of the hall. I give chase, but the doors close before I get there. Damn it.

  “Is everything okay, Kian?” Lucas asks and for the first time I realize he’s followed me down the hallway.

  We’ve always been friends as much as we’ve been prince and bodyguard, which is the only reason I drop my guard enough to say, “I need to find out who she is.”

  He pulls out his phone. “Do you want me to do that for you?”

  I think of the emphasis she put on my title, think of just how unimpressed she seems with what that title stands for. She says she’s going back to work, and I could probably find her upstairs in the ballroom. But something tells me Savvy isn’t the type to take kindly to me messing with her when she has a job to do.

  Besides, the last thing I want to do is draw attention to her in front of all those people—I can see the unflattering headlines about the prince’s waitress dalliance already—or cause trouble for her at work.

  “Kian? Do you want—”

  “Yes. And get me a phone number and address, too. Her name is Savvy—Savannah—and she’s a part-time waitress here. That’s all I know.”

  There are a lot of downsides to being the heir to the Wildemar throne. Access to the best intelligence agency in the land isn’t one of them…

  Chapter 3

  I stare at my laptop screen for long seconds, scrolling through photos of a quaint cottage with good bones and pots full of cheerful flowers lining the front walk.

  “This is it?” I ask Lucas, glancing up at the leader of my security detail for the first time since I opened the file. “This is where Savvy lives?”

  “That’s the place.”

  “And her name is Savannah Breslin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “No problem.

  I scroll through some more pictures, this time of a bar downtown called Wild Sea. “And this bar is her main place of employment?”

  “Yes. Her normal schedule is detailed on the next page.”

  “Okay, thanks. I appreciate the help.”

  “No problem,” he says again as he heads for the door. “Roland asked me to remind you that you have that reporter coming in an hour. The one to do—”

  “The puff piece, I know,” I answer with a groan. “Why the fuck anyone thinks it’s a good idea for me to be swanning around in the middle of the biggest crisis this monarchy has ever faced, I will never know.”

  “Swanning around?” Lucas’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “Now that’s something I would pay to see. And I’m pretty sure the rest of the country would, too.”

  I flip him off, but he just laughs as he lets himself out.

  Once he leaves, I turn back to my computer screen, scroll through the rest of the pictures there and try not to feel like a creeper. Her house is nice—not what I expected from a struggling bartender/waitress/writer.

  Not that she implied in any way that she was struggling when I spoke with her, but I assumed. Why else would she be working two jobs? Besides, didn’t all writers and artists struggle at the beginning of their careers?

  I should be getting dressed—Roland will kill me if I’m late to this stupid interview—but I can’t help scrolling through the rest of the information Lucas compiled for me.

  There isn’t much, which helps me feel like less of a stalker. Just her phone number and work schedule, as promised. I pull out my phone, enter her contact information, then hightail it into my bedroom to get dressed.

  Normally I don’t give a shit about being late. In fact, sometimes I do it just to rattle Roland’s chain a little, just to freak him out and watch him spin himself around in agitation—here in Palais les Charmilles, more times than not
you’ve got to make your own entertainment.

  Making Roland crazy has been mine since I was a teenager.

  But today I have better things to do than keep a reporter waiting. The sooner I’m done with this bullshit interview, the sooner I can call Savvy.

  I’ve got a dozen crown prince things to do today—the most important of which is the daily briefing about Garrett—but I’m determined to carve out a few minutes to talk to the woman I haven’t been able to get out of my mind for the last twenty-four hours.

  I’m not sure what it is about her that intrigues me so much. Maybe it’s the fact that she turned me down—God knows, that doesn’t happen very often. Maybe it’s the way she had no trouble speaking her mind to me. Maybe it’s that she’s gorgeous.

  Or maybe, just maybe it’s the fact that, when I was talking to her, I felt good for the first time since Garrett went missing.

  He was still there, in the back of my mind—just like he always is. But for the first time in thirteen weeks, I felt like I could breathe. I felt like maybe, just maybe, there’s a way for me to come out the other end of this nightmare.

  It’s not much, but right now I’ll take whatever small glimmer of hope I can get.

  My phone buzzes as I open my closet doors, and a quick glance down shows me that Roland has already started his campaign to get me to the Salon des Roses, the room he likes to use for interviews like these. Along with the text nudging me is another one with wardrobe suggestions. Like I haven’t been dressing myself since I was three.

  Because I can’t help myself—messing with Roland is a compulsion as much as it is a stress-reliever—I fire back a text telling him that today feels like a naked day.

  Then I drop my phone on my dresser and ignore his answering barrage of texts for the next twenty minutes. Just because I can.

  I arrive at the Salon des Roses fully dressed and with five minutes to spare. Relief flashes in Roland’s eyes as it registers that I’m properly attired, in slate gray Armani dress pants and a sage green, button-up silk shirt.

  Not that he’ll acknowledge my promptness or my attire—I’m not the only one who knows how to play games in this palace. Roland’s kept Garrett and me in line since we were kids and he made it obvious years ago that he had no intention of stopping just because we’re now adults.

  Of course, neither of us would have it any other way. Garrett pretty much always does what he’s told and even he likes to fuck with Roland just because he can. And Roland takes it from him better than he does anyone else—he always says he doesn’t play favorites, but it’s hard to miss that he’s got a soft spot for Garrett that’s a mile wide.

  Then again, don’t we all?

  My smile fades at the thought and I can’t help wondering if I’ll ever get the chance to see Garrett ruffle Roland’s very proper feathers ever again. If I’ll ever get to see Roland fussing at him like he’s a little kid, instead of the next King of Wildemar.

  I don’t understand why we can’t find him. It’s not like his plane crashed and he’s on some deserted island alone somewhere. He was grabbed in full daylight, outside a charity appearance he was making here in Wildemar. His guard detail—Pietro and Victor and Sean—were murdered, found lying dead next to the still running limousine.

  And Garrett was gone.

  No ransom note, no hits at the airport or train station or from the road and sea blocks Wildemar’s Royal Guard set up. No proof of life. No dead body. Nothing but the terrifying uncertainty that haunts my every waking minute.

  We have briefings every day and they all say the same thing. We know that whoever shot those men also has my brother. Or did have. Every day that passes without a ransom demand or proof of life increases the odds that Garrett’s dead.

  Just the thought has me wishing for a shot of tequila. Well, that and the knowledge that while Garrett was being taken—and maybe even killed—I was cruising the Mediterranean, drunk and sexed up.

  How the fuck could I be so careless? So stupid? We’ve never had any enemies in modern times—at least none who would do something like this. Or at least, that’s what I’ve always believed. What has always been.

  “The journalist has arrived,” Roland says, interrupting my downward spiral with his crisp British accent and narrowed-eye glare. “So pull yourself together and act like a prince. Sir.”

  The tacked on “sir”—so proper and yet so obviously undeserved in his mind—is what does it, what has me chuckling when seconds ago I was heading straight into despair. The fear and guilt and rage don’t disappear, but they retreat a little. Give me room to think.

  And judging from the satisfied look on Roland’s face, that is exactly what he intended.

  “Well, show her in,” I tell him with an expansive—and slightly indolent—wave of my arm. Two of us can play this game, after all.

  “Him,” he says, with a disapproving twitch of his nose.

  The pronoun catches me by surprise. “Him? Are you sure? They always send female journalists to interview me.”

  “Yes, well, maybe they thought it was time to give the Playboy Prince moniker a rest, with everything going on in Wildemar right now.”

  “The Playboy Prince was King Juan Carlos, over in Spain, and he’s abdicated. I’m His Royal Hotness. Keep it straight, old man.”

  “I do so beg your pardon, sir.” He reaches up and fixes my collar the same way he has for the last twenty years. “Try not to embarrass the monarchy, will you, sir?”

  “But, Roland, you never taught me how to chew with my mouth closed.”

  He sighs heavily, shoots me a look that says I am his cross to bear. “I’ll show Monsieur Meadows in.”

  Chapter 4

  Three hours later, the interview—complete with a tour of non-public areas of the palace—is over and I’m cruising toward 269 rue de Toulouse. Toward Savvy.

  I thought about calling first—since that is the less stalkerish thing to do—but after the way she ran away at the gala, I don’t want to give her the chance to tell me not to come.

  And while I respect any woman’s right to say no, I know we connected that night. I could feel it in the way she smiled at me, the way she gave as good as she got. The way she kissed me.

  If she says no again today, I’ll walk away and never bother her again. But I want to see her face when she does it, want her to see mine.

  I wind my way down the highway that runs along Wildemar’s coast. Savvy’s cottage isn’t waterfront—the real estate is too high-end for anyone but millionaires to afford—but her neighborhood is only a few miles from the Mediterranean, a small little alcove on the southern edge of downtown.

  Traffic is light, so the drive only takes about twenty minutes. As I pull over to the curb in front of her house, I do my best to ignore the SUV pulling in behind me—loaded with Lucas, Niall and my newest bodyguard, Avery. Nothing like trying to woo a woman with a gun-toting entourage in tow.

  While I’ve never had trouble closing the deal before, I’m pretty sure Savvy is different. She never would have walked away last night if she wasn’t.

  Reaching into the backseat, I grab the large bouquet of wildflowers I picked up on the way. Usually I’d go for roses, but usually I don’t pay enough attention to a woman to try to figure out what might impress her. Savvy definitely didn’t seem like the champagne and roses type, despite how we first met.

  Niall is on the sidewalk in front of my car before I even get the door open. “We need to go inside first, check the place out.”

  “On the off chance an assassin is waiting for me in the house of a woman I barely know who has no idea that I’m coming?” I brush past him. “I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen.”

  “We need to be sure,” he insists.

  “I am sure,” I tell him. And maybe I’m being a douche about this—we’re all on edge after what happened to Garrett. But I actually like this woman and the last thing I want is to have the small chance I’m trying to carve out with her go up in smoke beca
use I invade her home with my cavalcade of guards.

  “I’m certain that you are,” Avery says, face grim and voice all business. “But we aren’t. And it’s our job to ensure your safety.”

  “Which you can do from right here. I promise to keep my phone on me at all times.” I point to the two open windows at the front of the house. “And I promise to yell really loudly if someone attacks me.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s not good enough.”

  “It’s going to have to be,” I tell him, with a clap on the back.

  I start toward the house, my faithful detail at my heels. When I’m two steps away from the front door, I turn and give Lucas a beseeching look. He’s been my guard the longest and knows—despite my reputation—that I don’t play fast and loose with my detail. He also knows that I rarely (and by rarely, I mean never) go through this much effort for a woman.

  “What if I promise to stay in view of the windows the whole time?” I tell them. “I’ll park myself right there in front of that one and you can make sure I’m safe.”

  Lucas looks like he wants to argue, but I cut him off before he can even start. “Come on, man. You’ve got to give me something. I like this woman.”

  He sighs, but in the end—above the very vocal protests of the very serious Avery—he nods. “In sight the whole time,” he orders and for a moment I feel like a junior high kid on his first date.

  But beggars can’t be choosers and I know, better than most, what a disaster it would be if something happened to the spare three months after the heir disappeared. Wildemar would be in absolute chaos. There’s no way I’d put my country through that, girl or no girl.

  “I promise. And if I disappear from sight for more than five seconds, you have my permission to come crashing in after me.”

  “I think you’re forgetting,” Niall says with a narrow-eyed look, “we don’t need your permission.”

  “Geez. Way to be a killjoy.”

  “Yeah, well, someone in this relationship has to be.”

  “Aww, Niall.” I slap his ass with my free hand on my way by. “Don’t you know it’s more fun when everyone’s having a good time?”