Royal Desire (Maid for the Billionaire Prince Vol 4) (4 page)

I clasp my hands. I’m nervous. “No, it’s not
like that. I’m not here to gloat. I’ll never do that to you, or to
anyone.”

She raises her eyebrows.

I say, “How are you, Tatiana?”

She does look different. Her shoulders are
not as poised and a stray hair has escaped her usually impeccable
coiffure. The sides of her mouth are creased. There are extra
patches of concealer buried beneath her eyes, suggesting that she
has not been sleeping well or looking after herself in the usual
flawless manner.

My chest contracts. In this kind of war,
there can only be one victor. I remember the state I was in when I
left Alex for the first time. I was pretty depressed. It’s
remarkable that Tatiana even managed to get out of bed and dress
for me.

“As well as I can be, under the
circumstances,” she says.

“I heard your father is really upset.”

“It’s a slap in the face for him. My
engagement to Alex was a very public announcement after all.”

“Is your father . . . treating you OK?” I
don’t know how royal fathers act towards their daughters, but
suddenly, I am worried for Tatiana.

She smiles. “He hasn’t hit me, if that’s
what you are implying. But he’s disappointed in me. He has always
wanted a son, and this
incident
does not sit well with him.
It’s an affirmation of his belief that daughters are and will
continue to be disappointments to his lineage.”

“But it’s not your fault.”

“He insists it is. If I had been more
persuasive with Alex . . . more beguiling, more giving.” Tatiana’s
shadowed eyes flit away.

I feel really, really bad, but we are not
close enough for me to reach out and clasp her hand. I’m not sure
she would welcome my comfort either – I who have stolen away the
love of her life.

“He thinks I should have been more
ruthless,” Tatiana continues.

“How?”

She shakes her head. “There are things some
royals do that never see print. You don’t want to know what they
are capable of.”

Her eyes regard me again, and I suddenly
feel a cold shiver slide down my spine.

She says, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to
have you murdered.”

A smile ghosts her lips.

The thought of her hiring someone to kill me
has never crossed my mind, and now she is suggesting that it
should. Oh God. What am I playing with? Surely things like these
don’t happen these days? With my heart thudding, I remember
Princess Diana’s fatal crash in the French tunnel when she was with
her lover.

That can’t be . . . no, no, it simply
can’t
. That was an accident, wasn’t it?

“You should see the look on your face,” she
says, once again amused. She reaches out to grasp my hand instead,
a gesture that takes me completely by surprise. “Don’t worry,
Elizabeth. I am not your enemy. My father is not your enemy, if
that’s what this visit is all about. We will not declare war upon
Moldavia over this.”

I’m more than surprised. I’m shocked. Is she
a mind reader?

She laughs. “I’ve hit the nail on the head,
haven’t I? Yes, you are here because you want to barter peace. Very
noble of you. We have no armies, but we can request defensive aid
from Germany if necessary, just as Moldavia can request armies from
France. But no army is going on the offense for us if we want to
attack Moldavia over something as trivial as loss of face.”

That’s a relief to hear. But I’m still not
out of the fire when it comes to assassination.

Tatiana turns a shade more serious.

“No, Elizabeth Turner. Neither I nor my
father will be protesting this turn of affairs, although when it is
made public, I cannot gauge the reactions of my fellow countrymen.
They have been primed to accept it, however, thanks to the endless
stream of photos featuring you with Alex for the past couple of
months. No, the enemy is much, much closer to your home.”

“What do you mean?” I say.

“Exactly what I mean,” she replies
cryptically. “It would do you well to keep your eyes and ears
tuned. When the strike comes, it would be from the most unexpected
of places.”

5

I spend the next four months being afraid of
my own shadow.

I’m jumpy and nervous. “Is our food tasted
before it’s served?” I ask Alex. “You know, as by royal food
tasters?”

He’s astonished for a split second, and then
he throws back his head and laughs.

“Oh Liz, darling.” He wipes tears from his
eyes. “Where did you get that? We’re no longer in the middle
ages.”

“It never hurts to be safe,” I argue.

“Yeah, but who in the hell wants to poison
us?”

You never know, Alex, I think soberly. You
just never know. It’s like the proverbial sword hanging over our
heads. I don’t know when the strings tethering it to place are
going to be severed.

To calm my nerves, I take French lessons. I
spend a voluminous time with Marie Vassar whenever she has time for
me. Now that her brother is King, their business and social
calendars are filled with engagements and appointments. Marie has
taken over a large chunk of the casinos so that her brother can be
left to tend to more kingly matters.

My mother came to visit for two weeks. Alex
paid for everything, of course – first class all the way. It was
the first time my mother had ever met Alex, the first time she has
ever been to Moldavia and the first time she has ever flown first
class. In fact, it’s the first time she has ever been out of the
United States.

Her jaw has not left the ground.

She has seen the pap photos, of course, and
has been hounded by tabloid reporters to tell her side of the
story. Or rather,
my
story. How I was as a child. Where I
grew up. If I had any boyfriends as I was growing up.

Unlike Deanna, she never took the bait. Not
even when they offered her a hundred thousand dollars.

Mom was like a fish out of the water
everywhere. She never lost her awe of Alex (“But he’s a King! Yes,
I know he’s very young and handsome, but he’s still a King,
sweetheart.”). She had one tea with the Queen and Marie, and she
clattered her way through with the teacups, spilling half her
Darjeeling on her cheese and tomato finger sandwiches. She is
clueless about dining etiquette.

I know I ought to be embarrassed for her,
but I’d rather have my Mom for a Mom anytime than Alex’s mother,
who is polite and smiling throughout, without the smile quite
touching her eyes.

“I don’t belong here, sweetheart,” Mom says,
abashed.

“Of course you do, Mom.” I hug her.

“No, I don’t. And neither do you, Lizzie, as
much as I hate to say it.”

I hate to admit it too, but she is
right.

“I have a bad feeling about this place,
Lizzie.” She shudders as she looks around the grand palace. “It’s
as though we are being watched all the time. Nothing feels safe.
Nothing is private.”

Those are my exact sentiments, though I have
learned to ignore it. Mom is far wiser than we give her credit
for.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Lizzie,
giving up college and all. But Alexander is a good, good man. He
loves you very much.”

“I know, Mom. I know.”

I say a teary goodbye to Mom as she leaves
for the airport. The time has now come for another major
confrontation – the announcement of my official engagement to Alex.
So far, the family knows about it and they have been majorly
uneasy, except for Marie.

But it’s time to make it public now. It’s
time to drag that-which-shalt-not-be-discussed into the
limelight.

Let the mudslinging begin.

*

The official announcement will be to the
press. Under Madame Fournier’s careful guidance, Alex and I hold
our first interview for Telemonde Moldavia, our local TV station.
But CNN, FOX, BBC. Al-Jazeera and all the big world news reporters
are here too, not to mention the gossip rags.

I’m dressed in a deep blue velvet dress. It
has a demure neckline and a very flattering waist. My hair is
brushed and coiffed to shining ‘natural’ perfection. I am
bright-eyed and innocent-looking. My face has been touched up so as
not to make me look too young, lest Alex be accused of robbing the
cradle, even though we are only a few years apart in age.

Alex is so impossibly handsome that I can’t
take my eyes off him. Which is a good thing. He helps me focus on
what we are here to do. We have to sell our love to the world and
come off not looking like the bad guys.

The interview is conducted in English. Our
interviewer is the most famous talk show host in Moldavia, Yvette
Dupree. She’s the Oprah of her little corner, and we are about to
make her world famous.

We are seated on her couch together. She is
placed in her usual armchair facing us. There is no live audience
today. A bevy of cameras – more news cameras than I have ever seen
in my entire life – decks the entire podium to the front of us. I’m
frankly dazzled by all the lights.

My hands are numb. Come to think of it, I
can’t feel my legs either. Madame Fournier has made us rehearse
what we’re going to say again and again, but there’s always the
chance of Yvette Dupree throwing us a curveball. She’s a journalist
after all and you can’t curtail the freedom of the press, even in
Moldavia.

Even if you are royalty.

Yvette is a stunning blonde. She is not
beautiful if you take her individual features apart. Her nose is
too narrow. Her eyes too close together. Her lips trend to the
voluptuous side. But put together, she is stunning, especially with
her huge mane of hair.

“Are you ready?” she says in her low, smoky
voice. She is far from deferential, though she is clearly excited.
This is her coup and she knows it. Her career is about to go
stratospheric.

“Yes,” Alex says.

He clasps my clammy hand.

“You’ll be OK,” he whispers.

It’s like a test I have studied ten times
for. I keep telling myself I’ll be OK, and yet, now that I’m here
and my examination orals have begun, I am tongue-tied and
frozen.

Oh God God help me.

The interview begins. Before us, the news
cameras greedily lap up our every word, magnify our every
deficiency . . . every pore on our face. Sweat beads upon my brow
from the studio lights.

The first few questions are congratulatory
about Alex’s ascension to the throne. Yvette mentions the old
King’s passing and we are suitably somber. Alex talks about his
father in a heartfelt way, dragging up memories of his childhood
with his father. He details the anecdote, as rehearsed, about his
father playing toy trains with him in the royal playroom. I find
myself imagining Alex as a boy and the old King as a far younger
man – sitting together on a humungous toy train as it runs round
and round a track replete with toy stations and toy passengers.

So we have now established that Alex loved
his father. I hate it that everything is so manipulated for the
media, but we have no choice. And it’s true – Alex did love his
father dearly, even if they didn’t always see eye to eye.

Alex is magnificent in front of the cameras.
He’s very natural, as if he’s used to being before them all his
life even if this is his first time being officially
interviewed.

Yvette swivels to me. My insides turn to
jelly.

“So, Liz. May I call you Liz?”

“Yes, please.”

Don’t,
don’t
throw me a curveball, I
psyche her.

“So how did you and Alex meet?”

I take a deep breath. Alex gives an almost
imperceptible nod of encouragement.

He claimed and took my body against the wall
of a public hotel restroom. The men’s one, to be exact.

Do not be ashamed, I hear Madame Fournier’s
voice telling me.

“I was a maid in a hotel in Chicago. Alex
and his father were visiting.” Thank goodness my voice isn’t
shaking . . . yet. I am looking directly into Yvette’s piercing
brown eyes. “I was one of the servers at the state ball thrown that
night by Alex’s father. Alex noticed me.”

“He noticed you? How?”

Wait. That isn’t supposed to be in the
script. She’s throwing me a curveball. Yvette’s expression turns
amused. She seems to be saying,
Come on now, Liz. Don’t spare my
global audience the juicy details.

If only she knew.

I remember what I wore that night – a
harem’s outfit – and I blush. How do I extricate myself from this
now? I’m not good at telling lies. How do I wriggle out of this
without appearing like a harlot? I don’t want the world to know how
intensely sexual our experiences are. I don’t want them to know
about our first ‘date’, and the way he fucked me 30,000 feet above
the ground.

“I was serving champagne.” I say. I don’t
actually remember what I was serving that night. “I’m kind of a
klutz. I spilled champagne on him.”

I groan inwardly. She’s going to totally see
through that. It’s the commonest ‘meet cute’ story in the book. I
should never be allowed to tell stories. Someone should lock me in
and throw away the key before I embarrass myself and Alex any
further.

“You did? How quaint! So what happened?”
Yvette appears genuinely interested.

Oh, oh, what do I say? What do I say?

Alex interrupts, “She apologized profusely,
of course. I was totally charmed. There’s something different about
her, I noticed immediately. She has a refreshing, innocent beauty
that I haven’t encountered very often. I mean . . . just look at
her.”

His clear green eyes are filled with so much
love that my heart wrenches with actual physical pain.
Oh Alex,
Alex . . .
This is genuine. No one can fake that.

“What were you wearing, Liz?” Yvette
says.

She’s trying to steer the conversation back
to me. She knows I’m flustered and unpracticed and she wants my
undesirable traits to come out on worldwide television. She wants
this segment to be the subject of a hundred million YouTube
downloads.