Nobody's Princess

by Sarah Hegger

  *

  Tiffany glared at the desert. As much as she wanted to know what the hell Thomas Hunter’s deal was, she didn’t want to answer his questions in return. For now, they were stuck together and she was a tiny bit grateful he was there. When the tow truck came, they could go their separate ways again. Unless he decided to keep following her all the way to Luke.

  “Is there more in the car?”

  “What?” She turned back to him.

  “More luggage.” He smiled the sort of smile that must go over really big with the girls in Geekville.

  “Yes.” Bits of her teetered on the edge of melting. Picking up her luggage had been a nice thing to do, even if he’d used it as a way to get information out of her housekeeper. “I’ll get it.”

  “No, I’ll get it.” He already had the door open and swung back to Dakota. “You got everything?”

  Dakota jerked his chin at the backpack sagging against the seat beside him.

  Muscle bunched and coiled beneath his tee as Thomas strode over to the Miura and leaned in. He straightened and she dragged her stare away from that supreme ass. With her bag in one hand, he turned back to the truck.

  The slogan on his shirt almost made her laugh out loud. Pi, one of those glorious mystery numbers that she should know all about. Except the once or twice she’d asked someone, they’d given her the pretty moron look that made her want to squirm and howl. Apparently, it was one of those hundreds of things she should’ve learned in school. After you got that look enough times, you learned not to ask. God, she just knew pi would be something worth knowing about, a number that could unlock a whole world of other stuff. The bits she picked up on the Internet had her salivating for more. She wanted to know about the infinite series, how the rate of conversion worked. Things she’d read and not understood. With nobody to ask, she had learned to keep her questions to herself.

  Thomas was still outside, so she reached over and grabbed her book. Working quickly, she thumbed open the lock and made a quick note of the slogan. It really was funny.

  “Is that her luggage?” Leaning over the backseat, Dakota faced the open hatch at the rear.

  “Yup.” Thomas loaded her remaining bag into the covered cab of his truck.

  “She’s such a girl.”

  Tiffany tucked her book back into her bag. “She’s sitting right here.”

  Dakota pursed his lips together in a sullen snarl. They had gone to bed the night before and got up that morning without exchanging so much as a grunt. Ninety-six hours, she’d thought, ninety-six hours and then she was free to become Mrs. Ryan Cooper. This was going to put a real wrinkle in her timing. By her calculation, the tow truck should be another fifteen minutes, unless she’d miscalculated and the tow truck worked a wider radius. Then again, they were in Utah. Utah? For the love of God, what could Luke be doing in Utah?

  Thomas climbed back into the truck.

  “Thanks,” she said. “For getting my luggage.”

  “It shouldn’t be much longer until the tow truck gets here.” He checked his watch.

  She nodded that she understood. All the driving was catching up with her. That and the heat. She hadn’t slept well because of the coming meeting with Luke. The last conversation they’d had face-to-face hadn’t gone well. Tiffany hunched her shoulders. It had been a disaster with both of them yelling and screaming, her crying, him looking like putting his fist through a door. The look on Luke’s face when he’d seen what she’d done to the Miura was burned in the back of her brain.

  At some point around three that morning, she’d made a decision. She wasn’t that girl anymore. Ryan and Daddy were right. She needed to put Wild Tiffany away and get on with her life. There was no reason for the conversation with Luke to go badly. With the Miura as her ace in the hole, all she had to remember was she was not the same girl. Luke wasn’t going to make her angry because she wasn’t going to allow him that sort of control over her emotions. She would logically point out how neither of them could get on with their lives while they were still married, give him the car, and then it was back to Willow Park and a quick divorce. Maybe she would even manage an apology for what she’d done to the car, but that might be pushing her maturity too far. If she could, she vowed, she would.

  “How long is this going to take?” Dakota threw himself around in his seat.

  God, his shirt was awful. Did people actually make things that ugly? And who bought them? Dakota, obviously, but who else had that little taste? What was it with these two and their shirts? She gestured toward the disturbing logo. It looked kind of evil. “What is that?”

  Dakota shoved his Beats back over his ears. Another slap in a whole series of them from Dakota. Maybe she’d grow immune to them by the time they found Luke.

  “Anaal Nathrakh.” Thomas answered her.

  Tiffany stared, no closer to knowing.

  “Grindcore metal band,” Thomas said.

  “You know them?” Dakota’s eyes narrowed as he studied Thomas.

  Was Dakota wearing eyeliner? Note to self: keep makeup case locked. She didn’t want him in there messing with her Clarins. The memory of what he could do with nail polish nearly made her laugh. Lola’s ridiculous dog with streaks of Summer Sizzle Red all over his fur.

  “Sure.” Thomas grinned at Dakota. He really did have a nice smile. It crinkled up the corners of his eyes and made furrows down either side of his tanned cheeks. “I saw them when I was last in Germany. Incredible concert.”

  Dakota actually sat forward, his eyes sparkling with interest. “Really? Did they do ‘Between Shit and Piss We Are Born’?”

  Tiffany groaned beneath her breath. This was going to be one long nightmare.

  Chapter Eight

  The scenery outside Tiffany’s window had stopped being interesting forever ago. Thirty minutes past her estimated arrival time and no sign of the tow truck. She needed to kill time and her book was out of the question. People always asked what she was writing and then she had to make something up. They never quite believed that a girl like her could have such a passionate interest in numbers. They asked, she answered, and then came the pretty moron look.

  Maybe she should leave Ryan a message. Then again, it might do him good to sweat a bit.

  Annoying buzz from Dakota’s headphones blended into the hum of the truck engine. At full volume, that crap must be an eardrum assault. She flipped through the offerings on her iPad. There had to be something on here worth burning time.

  The clear sky outside the window outlined Thomas’s profile. He wasn’t model good-looking. It must’ve been the stress of Piers approaching meltdown causing her to mistake him for a model. Anybody trying to make a career in modeling would’ve had his nose fixed and gotten some Botox for those smile lines around his eyes. Tap tap-tap tap tap-tap-tap went his long forefinger against the steering wheel in time to the beat leaking out of Dakota’s headphones.

  “What are you reading?” His sudden question made her jump.

  “Emma.” Ryan had said she would enjoy it.

  “Really?” He glanced at her. His eyes were a clear cloudless blue, ringed with dark lashes. Men always had the best lashes. It didn’t seem fair. They aged better and got those giraffe lashes. “So you like Jane Austen?”

  “Yeah.” As soon as she got around to reading Jane Austen, she probably would. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  Thomas gave a quick bark of laughter. “If you’re into love stories.”

  That perked her right up and she tapped the icon to open Emma. She’d gotten halfway through that one about the Russian brothers and had to give up. Everybody was fighting all the time in the stupid thing. If she wanted family drama, all she had to do was visit Daddy for half an hour. But a love story, that sounded quite good.

  Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.


  Tiffany heaved a sigh. It was one of those books. She should’ve known. Still, it was about a girl and she was clever and rich and things seemed to be going right for her.

  “Have you read Pride and Prejudice?”

  So, they were going back to Mr. Chatty. “No.” Her concentration wavered off the page. Hadn’t even seen the movie. “Have you?”

  “Sure. I had to hide it from my brothers, though.” He gave her a quirky little smile.

  The sort that hit her in hot waves. “Is it dirty?”

  “What?” He looked at her strangely.

  Tiffany’s stomach dipped. Damn, she’d said something dumb. This was what happened when you could count on one hand the number of English classes you attended in a year. Maybe she would have been better off with her book after all.

  “You don’t really like Jane Austen, do you?”

  Busted. She could go with a lie and see where that led, but she already knew Thomas didn’t give up easily. “I’ve never read any Jane Austen.”

  “Then why read it now?”

  Tiffany gaped at him. Was he kidding her? Ryan had put the book on her iPad because he said it would help improve her mind. Confessing that sounded pathetic. “Why did you read it?”

  “Because I love books.” His gaze drifted over and met hers. “I read anything and everything.”

  That sounded like a challenge to her. “Have you read”—she scanned her iPad—“Of Mice and Men?” Stupid title, like some sort of Disney movie.

  “Steinbeck, sure.” He nodded. “Great story, but totally depressing.”

  Great. Stuck in a car with a hot brainiac. She searched her bookshelves again. “The Painted Bird?”

  “Kosinsky.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve read it.”

  “Lolita?”

  “Yup.”

  “1984?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Great Gatsby?”

  “For sure.”

  “Middlemarch?”

  “Uh … maybe … yes.”

  “Ulysses?”

  “Yup.”

  “Madame Bo …”

  “Bovary and yes.”

  “The Portrait of a Lady?”

  “No.”

  “Aha.” Tiffany did a happy little wiggle in her chair.

  “Have you read Portrait of a Lady?” He chuckled like it wasn’t such a bad thing if she hadn’t.

  “No,” she said. “But I’m going to.”

  He pointed toward her iPad. “When you get through all those others on there.”

  “Yes.” She pretended to read, but her attention kept straying to Thomas. He smelled good, too. Not like expensive aftershave or cologne, but woodsy and manly and warm.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  If she said no would it stop him? Probably not. “What?”

  “Why do you have that list of books on there and you haven’t read any of them?”

  “I never said I hadn’t read any of them.”

  “Have you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t have the time.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. His brow had a language all of its own, and right now it sneered, “Oh, yeah?”

  “I have a job, a life and friends and things. I don’t have time to sit and read, read, read all day. Not like some people.” She glared at his profile.

  He kept his attention on the road for all of five minutes. “You know what I think?”

  “Why do people always ask that? Because they don’t really care if you say yes or no, they’re going to tell you anyway.” The guy must be ADD or something. Why couldn’t he look at the scenery and be happy doing that?

  “I don’t think you want to read any of those books on there.”

  “Of course I do.” He hadn’t even known her for one full day and he thought he was going to tell her what she did and didn’t like.

  “Did you choose them?”

  “No.”

  “Who did?”

  “Ryan.”

  “Ryan?”

  “My … Ryan.” What was Ryan to her anyway? Not still a boyfriend, but not a fiancé either. She must be the only girl alive who was sort of engaged.

  “Aha.” He made a noise like he’d stumbled onto the secret of life and then clammed up.

  Not likely. “Aha, what?”

  “Nothing.”

  It didn’t look like nothing from where she sat. She so wanted to ask, but that meant carrying on the stupid conversation. She pointedly returned to her reading.

  “If you could choose what you wanted to read, what would you read?”

  Tiffany growled her exasperation and peeked at Thomas. “I can choose whatever I want to read.”

  “Okay. If I took you to a bookstore right now and said pick any book, what would you pick?” Up went the chatty eyebrow in challenge.

  Tiffany squirmed in her seat. There was no way she was answering that. She’d had this conversation one too many times to be fooled. He might seem interested now, but she’d tell him and then he’d get the pretty moron look on his face. Then, he might laugh or make some comment and she would know he was thinking what the fuck.

  “Not going to answer?” He didn’t seem to get that she was ignoring him. Or maybe he didn’t care.

  “What’s it to you?”

  He held her gaze for a moment before going back to the road. “Because reading is something to enjoy, and if you’re not going to enjoy it, then you might as well not do it.”

  Okay, that was a new one. Ryan said reading improved the mind. He said well-read people were cultured and interesting people. She’d been to enough dinner parties with Ryan’s friends to know that was true. Finally, she’d gotten tired of sitting in the corner with nothing to talk about. And every time she did open her mouth, their faces went all carefully blank. She wasn’t well read. She wasn’t read at all. Daddy didn’t read and he didn’t think it was important that she read. “Reading improves the mind.”

  “For sure it does.” He nodded. “But it’s not supposed to be a punishment. I don’t think any of those authors on your iPad wrote their book to torture someone.”

  “Huh.” Tiffany made a mental note to remember that for Ryan next time they had this conversation. “I’m not much of a reader, that’s why Ryan made this list of books for me. So I could learn stuff.”

  “What sort of stuff?” A smile curved his lips up, but she didn’t think he was laughing at her.

  “Well, these books for a start.”

  “Lots of people don’t read. It’s no big deal. But I think you might be missing out by not reading.”

  It made sense the way he said it. Still, she didn’t trust this whole live and let live thing he had going on. Smart people were arrogant, like they knew how much you didn’t know and that made them special. And he was smart. She recognized the type. “And, okay, your T-shirt. I don’t understand what it means.”

  He looked taken aback. “Come to the nerd side, we have pi.” He read the slogan like saying it out loud was going to make her understand. “It’s a play on words, pie and pi.”

  Tiffany dug her nails into her palms. She knew that much. “I meant I don’t understand pi.”

  He frowned a little and Tiffany braced for the tone.

  “Pi is a number,” he said. “Actually, it’s a letter of the Greek alphabet, but in mathematics, it has a numerical value.” He glanced at her. “Did you do trigonometry or geometry at school?”

  “Yes.” When she was there, which was not often. Daddy rated pageants over grades.

  “Then you would have used pi.”

  “Huh. I guess I forgot.” When she was younger, she’d told her father how much she liked numbers. Daddy had laughed and said it was a shame to mess with a pretty head like hers by putting numbers in it. She peeped over at Thomas. He watched the road. He didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with the fact that she didn’t get his tee. “It’s the sixteenth le
tter,” she said. “Pi is the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “It represents the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference.” It came out in a breathy rush.

  He raised both eyebrows. “So you do know about pi, then?”

  “A little.” She feigned a casual shrug. This was the point when most people were already looking at her like she’d grown horns. Thomas, though, cocked his head and watched her as if he really wanted to talk to her some more. Digging her nails into her palms, she took the leap. “Do you know anything else about pi?”

  “Do I know about pi?” he scoffed. “I’m wearing the T-shirt.”

  She hauled up a bit more courage. She’d smack him if he laughed. “Could you tell me?”

  Instead he looked at her as if she’d handed him the moon. “Okay, stop me when I lose you, because I could go on all day.”

  “Okay.” Maybe he was a bit crazy, but in a nice way.

  “Speaking of pie, I’m getting hungry. Once we get the car towed somewhere, we’ll get something to eat.”

  “Sure.”

  He glanced over at Dakota, who texted and bopped his head to the crashing noise in his ears. “He’ll be sure to be hungry. I was always hungry at that age.”

  Tiffany sat still and waited. She wondered if she should mention she had very specific dietary needs, but she was enjoying the moment too much to screw it up. Daddy hated it when she started with what he called her “picking and fussing.”

  “Now, pi is an irrational number with an approximate value of 3.141596—”

  “Stop.” Tiffany held up her hand. Lovely numbers floated around in her head. She almost purred. “Pretend I don’t know anything and start at the beginning.”

  His face lit up like Christmas. “That I can do.”

  Chapter Nine

  Tiffany had never met someone who liked numbers as much as she did. And he never once gave her the look. He kept talking decimals, irrational numbers, circles, tangents—delicious terms that wrapped around her like fluffy clouds of awesome. She itched to write this all down. The more he spoke, the more questions she had. They bubbled up in her brain until she almost blurted them out. At some point, he’d even grabbed an old flyer from the glove compartment and shown her some calculations. Too bad the tow truck’s arrival brought his mathematical lecture to a halt.