CHAPTER FIVE
“Why so jumpy?”
Aja dodged my coffee mug the instant I knocked it from the edge of my desk. For the second time in one afternoon I scrambled to wipe the liquid with a tissue before it reached the stack of notes I needed for my next article.
“Too much on my mind, I guess.”
Aja sat in the chair opposite my desk and pulled a tissue from the box to help me mop. “Too much prince on your mind is my bet.”
I looked up at her from under my lashes and scrunched my nose in a playful snarl.
“Please”—she laughed and tossed her soaked tissue in the trash before reaching for another—“like royalty walks into your life every day. No one would blame you for being a little occupied.”
Occupied made the unsure feelings swarming in my belly seem all too simple. I tossed my tissues in the trash and moved my notes to a safer corner away from my mug. “We’re having dinner again tonight.”
Aja’s eyes widened. “Not that I’m all that surprised. Who wouldn’t take advantage of a great catch?”
“I’m not taking advantage,” I huffed.
“I wasn’t talking about you.” She frowned.
“He’s only after finding the perfect woman.”
“Exactly.” Aja crossed her arms and pursed her brown lips.
To ignore her smug pout, I turned to my laptop and punched in the screen password. My to-do list glowed on the screensaver before I clicked over to the article still in need of over a thousand words before Tony showed up. “And he’s coming here soon.”
I didn’t look up when she gasped. I waited for several long seconds, which I knew pained her, before I made eye contact.
“A prince. Here? Why didn’t you tell me this morning? I need more time!”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling, then back to her. “Time for what?”
Aja sighed. “I don’t know. Do my hair better.”
“See?” I sat back until the office chair groaned. “It’s not so easy when you’re the one in the hot seat.” Not to mention Aja showed up to work every day looking as if she’d hired a team of fashion consultants to dress her and do her hair and make-up. I, on the other hand, went for comfort and cost above all other fashion considerations.
Aja sat up and dropped an elbow to my desk to get my attention again. The grin pulled across her face, and the narrowing of her gaze clued me in on the sarcastic volcano about to erupt seconds before her glossed lips parted. “Oh, I’m definitely not the one he wants in his hot seat.”
Even dodging her by turning back to my computer screen didn’t stop the spread of warmth blooming across my face. “It’s not like that.”
“‘Not like that’ my left butt cheek. Liza, girl. I can count the number of guys you’ve dated since I’ve known you on two fingers, and neither one of them ever took enough interest in your work to stop by the office.”
I typed the beginning of the next sentence and deleted it again. Aja had a point and ignoring her wasn’t going to make the blush spreading through me go away. Even if I only wanted her to be right. “We’re meeting to prepare for his next date.”
Aja’s mouth dropped at the dip in my voice. “Barbie turned her nose up at a prince?”
I laughed and the tightness in my chest eased. “Barbie never had the chance. He said there were no sparks.”
“Well, if I’ve learned anything from Sunday dinners with your Gram, it’s that everyone has that one thing they’re looking for most in a partner. If chemistry is his thing, more power to him.”
“And that’s the issue.” I pulled my notebook from under the stack of notes and flipped to Gram’s list. “No one from Gram’s contacts screams perfect match to me. Tony needs someone who is eloquent and poised, as well as free spirited and uninhibited.”
Aja flicked the corner of the notebook, turning the list to face her. “I thought the point of boarding school was to breed out the spirit?”
“Money better spent teaching them to have a personality.”
Aja started to answer, but held her mouth open in silence at the scraping of the front door across the cheap linoleum floor of the front office. We stilled and stared at each other, my worry mirrored in her expression.
“Is that him?”
I shushed Aja by waving my hand at her. “You’re the receptionist. You have to go show him the way back here.”
Aja’s eyes widened until they seemed to stretch from her cheeks to her hairline. “I can’t go out there alone.” She slapped her hand on my desk and the coffee mug shook. “What do I say?”
“Try ‘hello,’ followed by ‘welcome.’ And maybe a ‘can I help you?’ ”
A wave of white washed over her face, and I stood from my desk. “Fine. I’ll go.”
“No,” she pulled me down by my sleeve. “It’s my job. Just give me a second to figure out how I want to greet him.”
“Ms. Johanson?” Alifonso's smooth voice came from over Aja’s shoulder. As if in slow motion, she stood and turned, pure mortification stretched across her features. She started to extend her hand, then dipped into a shaky curtsy before Alifonso reached for her elbow and brought her back up.
When his eyes met mine, they pulsed with question, even though the rest of his face stayed as stone cold as usual.
“Uh, Aja, this is Alifonso.” She glanced at me, then back to him. “He’s
Prince Antonio’s bodyguard.”
“Oh.” She popped her hand over her mouth.
“There wasn’t a person at the front desk. Antonio sent me to find you and ask if this is a good time?” Alifonso ignored Aja, who was wilting right in front of him and focused on me.
Inside, I couldn’t stop the roar of laughter. After days of teasing me, Aja deserved to squirm, at least a little; but before Alifonso scared the crap out of her with his impassive stare, I stepped in. “Yes.” I glanced at Aja and she stood straight again. “Please show him back to the cubical.”
Alifonso nodded and tucked his hands behind his back, before disappearing down the row of vacant cubes.
Aja’s head turned and she stared at his back until he disappeared behind the last cube wall. “Oh. My. Lord. Do they all look like that?”
“All who?” I laughed.
“Men from Monterra.” She leaned out until her head poked past my cube wall and whistled lightly.
“Tall and tanned, with hair you could lose a hand in? Yes. But Alifonso has his own...style.” For lack of a better way to describe his coolness.
She started to respond when footsteps padded down the hallway leading to where we were. Her lips closed tight and she scooted to the back wall of my cube, making room for Tony, I could only guess.
I took a tight breath and another, fighting the need to pant. My heart thudded and the sound reverberated in my ears, until a black suit turned the corner of the row and Tony’s smiling face came into view.
“Is it him?” Aja whispered from her corner.
I leaned closer and matched her tone, “Yes.”
“Is the bodyguard with him?”
I leaned out from the wall again to check. “Right behind him.”
She touched her chest right below her throat and a crimson blush spread across her neck. From a very young age, Gram taught me to read body language, and Aja’s was softly screaming smitten with Alifonso. If only finding a match for Tony could happen as quickly.
“Liza.” Tony’s soft tone rang in my ears. He stepped into the small mess of a space and took my hand and lifted it to his lips. If he kissed my hand a million times between now and finding his match, I’d never get used to the warmth of his mouth on my skin.
“Tony.” My cheeks hurt from grinning. “This is our assistant and receptionist, Aja Wilson.”
He stepped closer and took Aja’s hand for a soft shake. “It’s a pleasure, Ms. Wilson.”
I couldn’t be sure, but Aja’s reaction to Tony seemed tame compared to first landing eyes on Alifonso.
“I’m sure you guys have a lot to talk about.” Aja scooted past Tony in the tight space, but stopped right outside the cube opening where Alifonso stood. “If you’re interested, there’s coffee in the waiting area.” She glanced around at shadow one and shadow two before stopping on Alifonso with a grin.
“Go.” Tony waved a hand. “Ms. Johanson and I will be fine here.”
Shadow one and two didn’t hesitate to step aside and fall in behind Aja, who was still standing in the hallway, but Alifonso didn’t move.
I glanced around the cube and realized the space was much too small for both men to sit, and felt a pang of guilt for making Alifonso stand. Then I glanced at the chair opposite my desk. Other than Aja, and at times my boss, no one sat there long and now giving it a good look, I understood why. The wooden seat had a crack down the middle that had to pinch something awful, and the back spindles had no slope to them. “Let me grab a chair from another office.” Not that any would be worthy of a prince.
“Please.” Tony lifted his hand. “Don’t go to the trouble. Alifonso”—he turned to the suit beside him—“go with the others. I want to be alone.”
Aja’s wide grin hit me at the same time as the word “alone.” My heart thudded and my stomach dropped.
Before I could react, Alifonso stepped in front of Aja and led the way down the hall. Tony moved the chair further from my desk to accommodate his long legs, then sat.
“They really stick to you.” I took my seat and wiped my sweaty palms on my legs. Thank goodness I’d worn black leggings under my heather gray knit dress and the dampness wouldn’t show.
“They worry too much.”
“Do you have many threats?” I wanted the words to crawl back in my mouth the second I said them. Who had threats?
He laughed lightly. “Nothing that serious. As I told your grandmother on our first visit, my family has a reputation for knowing love at first sight. A member of the Monterra royal family hiring a matchmaker from the states would make for a great tabloid story, but it would hurt my family’s name. I must be careful at all times.”
“I see.” I stifled a giggle. “And I’m sure you understand the humor of the bodyguards protecting you from the threat of the media, while you stroll into a newspaper office to speak with a journalist.”
“It’s after hours,” he stated, and grinned. “I’ll assume I’m safe.”
“You’re safe, unless you have an opinion on large corporations running the small man out of business. I need a quote.” He tilted his head and I went on. “My latest assignment. A large chain store wants to take over a corner building down the street, and all the mom and pop shops are fighting it.”
“I’m sure I’m safe then. We don’t allow businesses to grow large enough to monopolize any one industry in Monterra. There is plenty of room for the family-run businesses, as well as the government run ones.”
He’d left out corporations. Maybe they didn’t have any large enough to speak of in Monterra. I’d been joking about writing about his opinion, but an outsider's view on the neighborhood’s disagreement could provide suggestions in how to solve our problem. “If you have the time, I’d love to interview you for the paper?”
He rolled one shoulder back, then the other. The chair had to be getting to him. “As much as I’d enjoy the extra time with you, I’m not allowed to share my personal opinions to the media.”
“Oh.” The comment he’d made about Monterra outlawing paparazzi flashed to mind. “I’d forgotten.”
He leaned forward enough to be heard at a whisper. “That’s Alifonso's job. Drake and Colman keep the crowds and photographers away. Alifonso makes sure I don’t step too far beyond my family’s expectations.”
“Like a babysitter?”
“Exactly.”
I couldn’t be sure if the pull on my chest was sympathy for him, or guilt over asking him to do something against his family's wishes. “I understand.” I closed my laptop as a gesture to assure him anything else he said stayed between us and pulled Gram’s list from my desk. “I guess we need to talk more about tomorrow anyway. Gram has Sam—”
“Tomorrow can wait until dinner.” His eyes sparkled in the overhead florescent light and he stood with his hand reached out to me. “I was hoping you’d help me with something.”
“Sure.” Confused, I stood and laid my hand in his.
Tony surveyed the open room, his gaze stopping at the side and back doors. “Do either of those lead outside?”
I glanced to each. “The one on the side is bricked off. It used to open to the store next door. The other is a back hallway that runs behind the building and out into an alley.”
“And you can reach the street from this alley?”
“Shouldn’t your men have already checked this out?”
“They did. But they didn’t share it with me.”
I glanced at him again, confusion made me scrunch my nose, before all the pieces created a complete picture in my head. “You’re running.”
His lips parted and his eyes narrowed. “Only for a couple hours. Only here, in Jackson Heights. No one knows me here. It’s safe.”
I blinked hard and stuck my head out into the hall to check for Alifonso, unable to wrap my brain around a grown man needing a babysitter. Or the fact that, with the pleading look in his crystal eyes and the innocence that washed over his face, I actually entertained the idea of helping him run.
“Liza, please?” He squeezed my hand. “I’m going out that door with or without you.” His gaze darted back to the door and then to me. “But it’ll be so much more fun with you.”
Something in the softness of his eyes, the longing just under their surface, begged me to agree. “I can’t let you go.” Besides the fact that Gram would kill me, after she dug up my dead body from when Alifonso killed me, Tony traveled with bodyguards for a reason. He needed security to move around the city, and I couldn’t risk something happening to him.
He paused and watched me for several long seconds before his eyes narrowed on mine. “I pegged you wrong. I saw you as a free spirit.”
Free spirit. The words rung in my ears. I’d heard them before. In his voice, with his accent focused on the “free.” They’d been on his list for the perfect woman, and with that thought, I let Gram’s list float down to my desktop and I grabbed my keys. “The alley has a gate, but I know a weak spot in the chain links.”
Tony grinned and brought my hand to his mouth, but before his lips touched my skin, he looked up into my eyes and pulled me against his chest until his mouth landed on my forehead. Sweet, soft, warm. I leaned into him and his arms locked around my back. His scent, mint and spice, filled my nose and the heat of his fingertips pressed into my back through my dress.
All too soon, he pulled away, and his soft gaze searched mine before he let me go. “I knew I could count on you.”
Before I could process the wave of feelings all bubbling up at once, Tony pulled my hand forward and I followed down the row of darkened cubes with my heart pounding under a new weight in my chest. He’d kissed me. Not on the lips, but he’d definitely lingered longer than a friendly peck. Or, maybe it had been only a friendly peck as a reaction to my offer to help.
I didn’t have time to decide before he opened the back door and the chilled late fall air hit me. In our rush, I’d left my coat and wallet at my desk, but even if I told Tony, he’d been moving too fast to hear me.
We ran through the back alley between the paper office and the back end of a mom and pop grocery store, dodging wooden crates and pallets until we reached the fence. I glided my hand along the links and found the loose one near the center. Aja had shown me the short cut during a downpour over the summer when she needed snacks from the grocery on the corner, but didn’t want to walk around the entire block in the rain to get them.
“It’s here.” I held the fence open for Tony, but he put one hand under mine and steered me through with his other hand on my back. I turned and held the flap of loose fence up for him to duck under.
“Where to now?”
He beamed up at me. “How about that Italian place you told me about?”
“Alifonso won’t look for you there?” We had talked about it in front of him yesterday.
Tony searched the street ahead. I couldn’t get over the change in his expression. The softness of it. The freedom of him. “How many Italian restaurants are there in Jackson Heights?”
“Plenty. We have our own little Italy.”
He grinned, glanced down the road to the Golden Gondola sign, and took my hand. “That’s what I thought.” We began walking and he pointed to the sign. “Is that one?”
“Yes.” I rushed, almost tripping over my toes trying to keep up with him.
Cars passed on the street before he pulled me across and stopped at the glass doors decorated with flyers about the specials for each day. He glanced back at the alley we came from, then opened the door.
Heat from an overhead vent hit my face, though I didn’t need to be reminded my cheeks were already burning from Tony’s attention, not to mention that kiss. The heat from his lips still clung to my forehead, and I fought the urge to brush my hand along it. Tony waited at the Please Wait to be Seated sign and I laughed.
“What?” He bumped his shoulder playfully into mine and winked.
Fighting my grin, I took his hand and pulled him to an empty booth.
“The sign said wait.”
I grabbed two menus from behind the napkin holder and handed him one. “The sign came with the restaurant when they bought it last year. If you wait, you’ll be standing there until the zombie apocalypse.”
Tony eyed the menu for a second. “You’re a Walking Dead fan?”
I dropped the menu from in front of my face and let my mouth drop open. “You have The Walking Dead in Monterra?”
He laughed. “We restricted the press, we didn’t recede from the world.” His gaze landed on the bottomless lasagna special. “Though we are a season behind, if you happen to have a few episodes on DVR...”
That sounded a lot like a second date, if this was even a first date, so I dropped my gaze back to the menu and waited for my heart to stop pounding.
A woman in a white button-down top, and a red skirt that matched the checkered tablecloths came to the booth with a plastic pitcher of water and filled our cups. “You two need a minute?”
Tony’s attention shifted back to his menu.
“We’ll have two specials and a bottle of the house red,” I spoke up, ordering the same dinner Aja and I share at least once a week.
The waitress scribbled something and took our menus.
Once she was gone, Tony’s eyes appeared over the top of his menu. “You didn’t give me chance to decide.”
“Believe me when I say this...the only thing the Golden Gondola is known for is the lasagna. Anything else would be taking your life in your own hands.”
He left the menu on the table and his brown furrowed. “But you like this place?”
“The lasagna is that good.” I smiled and waited as our waitress opened a bottle of the house red and left it at our table. “And it’s close enough to the paper to not freeze my ass off getting here.”
I froze at the slip of the profane word, wondering if Tony even cursed. Instead of paying it any attention, he reached for the bottle and poured for both of us. Next came the salads, salads from a bag they dumped out into wooden bowls seconds before serving, but I’d never minded them before. Although, looking down into my mostly white lettuce with the thick Italian dressing clumped on the top, I missed the hotel chef’s secret seasoning.
“Tell me more about Monterra?” I asked around my first bite.
He poked his fork around his bowl and scrunched his lips at a piece of iceberg. When he glanced up and caught me watching, he stabbed the lettuce chunk and brought it close to his mouth. “With the time change, it’s morning there, so I’d either be having breakfast with Mother or preparing to leave for the palace.”
He sunk the forkful in his mouth and chewed as if the greens were fighting back on his tongue.
Before eating at Palazzo Margherita, salad was just an empty calorie way to fill the stomach before the real meal arrived. Since sampling Tony’s translation of the side dish, I understood the amount of concentration it must have taken for him to keep chewing. After the first bite, I shoved my bowl to the center of the table and hoped he’d understand he could do the same.
“You don’t live in the palace?”
He followed my lead and left the limp greens in the center of the table. “My mother, the regent’s youngest sister, married into a family from town.”
“I assumed you’d all be together.”
He chuckled and his voice chimed in my ears. “We are, in a way. My father refused to give up his open land and views, and refused to move in with his father-in-law, so the family gave my mother free-reign to convert the old huntsman cottage on the edge of the grounds into a chateau.”
I stuck my fork back into my bowl and chewed on a crouton to keep from commenting about how his father had managed to keep his identity, even though Tony’s wife wouldn’t be allowed too.
The waitress returned with a breadbasket, and I noticed she didn’t look in my direction. I watched her walk away, then I surveyed the rest of the restaurant. At least a few pairs of star-glazed eyes stared in our direction. Shaking off the heat burning in my gut, I propped my chin on my hand and my elbow on the table. “That sounds like a wonderful place to grow up.”
“If you like quiet.” His eyes rolled slightly.
I laughed. “It’s been only me and Gram, and for the last six years, Mags and the shop. I’ve had enough quiet to last a lifetime.”
Tony ripped the end off a baguette and held it to his mouth. “And I’d pictured you the quiet type.”
Along with at least a hundred other misconceptions about me, probably. The conversation had started with me getting to know him, and he’d somehow spun it back to me. I tipped my wine glass in his direction, before taking a gulp. Again, it lacked the robust flavors of the hotel’s wine, but at least the taste was familiar.
“What type are you?” I asked after swallowing.
Tony had his glass to his mouth, but he stopped and stared before taking a sip.
Maybe it wasn’t an appropriate question to ask a prince. Maybe I’d offended him. A cold chill ran up my arms and I sipped my wine for something to do with my hands and to hide my hot cheeks.
“It depends on who’s asking.”
I glanced over the rim of my glass and found his lips curled, not in the playful grin I’d grown to love on him, but in a provocative smile that made something deep inside me come to life. I swallowed hard and glanced out the front windows to try to tamp it down, but as soon as Tony came back into view, my whole body blushed from the inside out.
“If you’re asking as a journalist”—he sat his glass down and ran a finger over the rim—“I’m the playboy prince of Monterra, born to the youngest daughter of the royal family and her non-conventional husband. Raised in private school to one day take my place at my cousin's side as an ambassador for our country, and a role model to bring the realm into the technology age.”
“That didn’t sound at all rehearsed.” I laughed. “For a country without paparazzi, you sure do know your spiel.”
His eyes twinkled in the dim lights, and I couldn’t pull mine away long enough to get a read on the rest of his face, or to tell if he seemed amused.
“What if I’m asking as a friend?” I ventured.
“As a friend?” his tone lightened. “I fulfill my duties out of love for my cousin and my mother, but like my father I’d rather be almost anywhere else.”
The light I’d been fascinated with in his gaze dimmed, and my heart dropped in my chest. “That’s why you’re here? Out of love for them?”
“It’s my duty.”
Ice pricks ran up my arms and the back of my neck. “Love is not a duty.”
His lips parted, but the words didn’t come right away. “For me, it must be.”
A heavy silence fell between us before he reached across the table and took my hand. If the steam from the pasta held near his face hadn’t interrupted us, I’d hoped for another kiss.
Our waitress plopped my plate down with enough force to slosh sauce on the table. Tony’s plate floated down as gingerly as a cat traversing the tops of fence stakes. She all but licked him on her way back to the kitchen, and my appetite left with the image.
Tony plunged his fork into the food and came up with a bite larger than his mouth. The sauce stuck to the corners of his lips and I fought the urge to reach across the table and wipe them clean with my bare finger. That wouldn’t have been much better than the waitress.
“Good, huh?”
He hummed an answer over the mouthful of hot pasta and gave a thumbs up. Waiting for him to finish, I twirled my fork around on my plate and pretended to nibble on a bite. He wiped his face with the paper napkin and set his fork on the side of his plate. “Very.”
“So, what’s next?” He asked between bites.
“Next?” I blinked at him, unsure if he meant “next” for Gram’s suggestions, or “next” for tonight.
“What would you be doing if I wasn’t here?”
I leaned back into the cracked pleather of the booth and crossed my arms. “You really want to know?”
“Lay it on me.”
I glanced up at the ceiling before meeting his eyes again. “First, I’d have a finished article to take to copy tonight.” His eyes pulsed large, then small again. “Then, I’d head home to help Gram close up the shop, and we’d have some quick-fix meal while musing over your possible matches, before Gram called it a night and I played around with some writing.”
“You’re an author.” He had that “Eureka” tone in his voice, like he’d put all the pieces together and made a huge discovery.
“I play around after hours; that doesn't make me an author.”
“And fixing one guy up on one date doesn’t make you a matchmaker?”
“No.” I dropped my napkin to the table and waved at our waitress for the check. “The fact that my client refuses to talk about dates proves I’m not cut out for this line of work.”
“Tomorrow.” He reached into his coat pocket and I remembered I’d left my wallet back in my office. “I’ll do whatever you ask tomorrow, if you give me one night off from being a client.”
He pulled a stack of bills free from the expensive smelling leather and told the waitress, “No change.” Before I could argue he’d over tipped, he stood by my side of the booth with his hand out and waited.
“Gram is going to kill me.”
“Not before Alifonso. Besides, if you’re going to die tomorrow, you should make the most of tonight.”
“Fine.” I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. “There’s a place a couple blocks over. Loud music. Lots of people. Cheap beer. You’ll fit right in.”
“I have a better idea.” He led me to the door and held it open, before running out next to the street to whistle at a passing taxi. I could stand on the same corner in a mini skirt and hooker heels for hours and not a single cab would stop, but as if he had a magic power for hailing cabs, the first one to fly down the street pulled to the curb.
Tony ran back to me and pulled me toward the car. I had to run to keep from tripping over my own feet. Between the laughter and fear, I found my voice. “Tony! What are we doing?”
He let me slide in and followed. The driver stared from the rear view.
“Tony?” I searched his gaze. “Where are we going? He’s waiting on directions.”
He glanced out the window, then back to me. “Where’s the best view of the city?”
“The Empire State Building, but it’s closed this late.”
His lips curved into a devilish grin and he tapped the Plexiglas partition. “The Empire State Building, please.”
I shivered in the seat, excitement and fear both swirling around my head. “I just told you, they closed at dusk.”
“Then it’s time I show you the advantage of hanging out with a prince.”