Nobody's Princess

by Sarah Hegger

  “Really? You’re going to talk to me like a Hallmark card?”

  Josh chuckled. “I was going to say, if it comes back to you, great. If it doesn’t, hunt it down and drag it back.”

  *

  Daddy drove her straight to a private airfield. Of course he had a friend who had a plane, and they were soon in the air. Tiffany looked out the window to see the Wasatch Range disappear beneath her. She was going home. She had done what she set out to do and she should be feeling relieved. She wasn’t feeling anything.

  “Princess?” Her father watched her. “Is everything okay?”

  “Sure, why?”

  “You look sad.”

  Sad? As good a word as any for the dead feeling in the middle of her chest. Sad was such a tiny word it didn’t even begin to cover the ache. Love. Another of those small words that carried a massive punch. She looked at her father. How could a man with such a discerning brain only see what he wanted to see? “I don’t want to marry Ryan.”

  He sat back in his seat abruptly. A slight frown marred his brow as he stared. “You don’t want to marry Ryan?”

  “No.”

  “Can I ask why not?”

  Excellent question. How to make sense of what whirred through her mind? The real answer was one she wasn’t ready to give. “I don’t love him.”

  “Okay,” he said on a deep breath. “I thought you did. I thought you and Ryan were perfect together.”

  Tiffany gave a small little laugh, but nothing about this felt funny. They were perfect. She and Ryan would make the perfect couple. If she were still Perfect Tiffany. She must be all kinds of nuts with the amount of people she had shuffling for space inside her: Wild Tiffany, Daddy’s Tiffany, Delilah, Princess Pearly Perfect. Which one was she really? Somewhere between Chicago and Canyons she’d started to find out. She’d wanted to marry Ryan because he was the total opposite of Luke. Ryan was sensible, considerate, deliberate, and reliable. On the other hand, you had Luke—all fire, passion, and snarling emotion. Two totally different men offering two entirely different futures, and a different Tiffany for each of them. Then you had Thomas, all of the above and a bit extra. The best of Luke and the best of Ryan, rolled into one gorgeous package. And the only man to see all of Tiffany and come back asking for more.

  “Why don’t we get you home,” her father said. “Then you can think about all of this.”

  “No,” she said. Her father looked taken aback. She didn’t blame him. She’d surprised the hell out of herself with that one. “I don’t need to think about this.”

  “No? You are suddenly sure you don’t want to marry the man who, less than a week ago, you were sure you did want to marry.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He adjusted the perfect crease in his trouser leg. “A week ago, you were upset because Ryan didn’t propose. Now you’re determined that he won’t do. I am not going to say anything to Ryan until you have given it some thought. And neither are you. You will look like a complete airhead.”

  Ouch—first blood to her father. She would look like an airhead, and a feckless one. She’d found that word in one of the books Thomas had bought for her. Feckless. It was a good word. “I am an airhead, Dad,” she said. “I drift along and let other people do my thinking for me. I don’t want to be that way anymore.”

  “Princess.” He shook his head and looked pained.

  He didn’t come right out and say it wasn’t true, though. “It’s true, Daddy. Marrying Ryan would be a mistake.”

  “And who is going to tell Ryan this?” He pursed his lips. “Ryan and I are in business together, this will complicate matters.”

  “I’ll tell him,” she said. “I will simply tell him the truth and see what happens. He’ll be mad and he has every right to be, but that isn’t a good enough reason to lie to him.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Her father groaned. “Listen to that crap you’re spouting. If you want to demonstrate how mature you are, pick another time. This is not the time to make your play for independence.”

  “When, then?” A big part of her wanted to buckle under her father’s displeasure and let him take control. It was so tempting to have him make this all go away. But she had this nagging sense that even if she let him, this wasn’t going away. There would be another time and another, until she stopped it.

  “I don’t know when, but I do know the right time will come.” Daddy so nearly echoed her thoughts, she almost laughed. Her father looked angrier than he had in years and she swallowed her nervous giggle.

  “Then,” she said, slowly and carefully as it crystallized in her mind, “I will step up that time as well. I need to make decisions that work for me.”

  His expression softened a little. “Princess, I see what you’re trying to do, and I applaud it, but trust me on this. Okay?” It would be so easy to open her mouth and say “okay.” Habit had the words on her tongue, but her lips refused to form them.

  “No, Daddy.” Her throat felt so tight it was a miracle the words came out.

  “This is ridiculous.” His expression grew hard again. “Is that idiot you married behind this? Has he been saying things to you again? Telling you stuff and turning your head?”

  “This has nothing to do with Luke.”

  “Then it has to be that other one, the big guy. I am an excellent judge of character, and there is something about that one that got up my nose.”

  “Thomas.” Just saying his name made the ache throb. “His name is Thomas and he’s a really good man.”

  Her father’s eyes narrowed. Tiffany wished she’d kept her mouth shut. She could see the wheels grinding in his mind. “Are you involved with him?”

  “No.” Throb, went her chest. Throb, throb, throb.

  Her father looked doubtful. “Listen to me, Princess, and listen well. Men like Ryan don’t grow on trees. If you let this one go, there isn’t another one like him waiting in the wings. You screw this up with Ryan and you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

  “Yes.” Tiffany understood that only too well. She swallowed hard and looked down at her hand. The hand without the ring she’d wanted so badly. Tears blurred her vision and she tried to blink them away before he saw them.

  “Men like your Thomas, on the other hand, are a dime a dozen. You can pick them up at any football stadium or bar.”

  It wasn’t true. Oh, God, she couldn’t seem to stop the tears. The harder she blinked, the faster they came. There was only one Thomas with that smile that could light up the darkest parts of her. The way he touched her so reverently, the way he never looked at her as if she was an airhead. The way he saw her. The ache sharpened into hard edges. Her breath caught on one of the jagged corners and snagged.

  “Princess?” Her father leaned forward in his chair. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t cry.” He put one finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. “Don’t worry about a thing. That man is behind you now.” He didn’t mean it to wound, but that hurt so badly her breath stopped altogether. “Ryan will never find out because you and I will forget this and everything that happened.” He squeezed her hands. “Come on, Princess.”

  The tears poured down her cheeks. She freed one hand and swiped at them.

  Her father tugged her forward and held her. For the first time, Tiffany didn’t want to be there. The smell of him caught in her throat. The feel of his arms about her were like restraints. She sucked in a large breath and tried to get the crying under control. Gently, she wriggled out of her father’s embrace.

  “There, now,” he said. “Why don’t you have a little sleep? You can’t have gotten much rest in that awful motel. You have a little sleep and before you know it, we’ll be home.”

  “Okay.” She sat back in her chair. She could speak about this all the way back to Chicago and he still wouldn’t hear her. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, Princess?”

  “I thought I might get my high school diploma.”

  “What?” He loo
ked thunderstruck. “You have one.”

  “No,” she said. “I mean, like, get a real one. I thought I might try to get into a college.”

  Her father’s mouth dropped open and he looked totally floored. Then he cocked his head and the sides of his mouth turned up. “This is a joke, right? You’re joking?”

  “No, I—”

  “You don’t need to go to college, Princess. You do fine with what you have.”

  “That’s not the point. I want to get it.”

  His mouth tightened as he looked at her. “For God’s sake, you’ve been gone one week and now you want to turn your whole life inside out.”

  “It’s important to me.” She held on to his hard gaze with everything she had. “I’m going to get my high school diploma.”

  He threw himself back in his chair. “You don’t need to get your high school diploma,” he said. “You have one already.”

  “I mean a proper one.”

  “I know what you mean, I am not stupid.” Her father fiddled with his trouser crease. When he looked up again, his eyes were hard as gemstones. “And. You. Have. One.”

  Maybe he really didn’t get what she meant, because it sounded like—“What?”

  He growled at her impatiently. “I had it all organized. You would have passed anyway because I would have made it so. I didn’t need to in the end. You passed on your own, Tiffany.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Tiffany glared at the girl in the mirror in the exquisite dress. A masterpiece of draped chiffon over silk, drifting fairy-like from a sequined collar. Nope, the trouble didn’t lie with the dress. Or the beautiful crystal-studded heeled sandals. The problem was inside all of that. She looked like a modern-day princess, and it bothered the crap out of her.

  She’d filed her college application a week ago. The first thing she’d done all on her own. It gave her a unique sense of achievement. A feeling she hugged close to her. She didn’t share it with Ryan, or even Daddy. Somehow, she sensed this was not what they wanted for her.

  Ryan took the news she wasn’t going to marry him in rather typical fashion. He’d gone very quiet, a small frown puckering his brow, and then he’d started talking. He started by telling her to think about it. Why did all the men in her life assume if she thought about it, she’d see it their way?

  And then Ryan had talked some more. All about how it was so typical of her and he didn’t really blame her, he blamed her upbringing. Then he went on about how the mark of a person’s worth was in how they overcome the hardships life offered them. And all the time he spoke, she’d obediently nodded and wondered how Ryan came by this information.

  Sitting in front of her in his custom suit and handmade shoes, spilling about hardship and suffering and strength of character, she got the earthy waft of bullshit. It had been so unexpected, she’d been struck dumb. Ryan took her silence for acquiescence and warmed to his theme. All through their four-hundred-dollar bottle of wine, he’d kept telling her how much he’d had to overcome to be the man he was today.

  She’d thought about what sort of man he really was. Ryan grew up in the same neighborhood as her. He’d gone to the same schools and enjoyed the same advantages. Hell, his mother hadn’t even handed him over to “the help” to raise. She’d done the playgroups, been right there for toddler gym and Clamber Time. This did not make him an ass. He’d just been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. No, what made him an ass was the way he believed his own press. He took unashamed credit for things that had been handed to him. What made him a jerk was the way he looked down on everyone else around him.

  She frowned at the girl in the Armani dress about to go to a jerk’s birthday party. Three weeks she’d been back and it felt like a life sentence—the only bright light her divorce decree, uncontested and greased along by her father. So many times she’d had her phone out and in her hand, ready to call Thomas and give him the good news. The corners of his eyes would crinkle into his beautiful smile and he’d probably hug her. Thomas was big on hugging, and she missed that more than she could say.

  Resisting had been frighteningly hard. “Be sure of what you want,” Thomas had said, and that’s what she was doing; thinking this through, feeling it out. Three weeks of doing little else but thinking, and keeping Ryan at arm’s length. He was getting impatient with her, but she stayed firm. She couldn’t think when her life resembled a revolving door of men.

  Tonight her father was sending a car to whisk her to Ryan’s birthday celebration. It would be an event worthy of a Gold Coast prince. A family barbecue, he called it. Tiffany snorted loudly. Only if you considered the work of one of Chicago’s biggest chefs manning an open flame to be a family barbecue.

  She stared hard at her reflection. How did a student dress for a family barbecue?

  *

  The party was in full swing when she got there.

  “Jeans, darling?” Ryan’s mother enveloped her in a cloud of Chanel. “How very modern of you.”

  “Hi, Patti,” she greeted the other woman, kissing first one cheek and then another.

  “Ryan is outside, pressing the flesh.” Patti tucked her arm through Tiffany’s and towed her through the house toward their huge, manicured garden. A woman of Patti’s age came down the hall toward them.

  “Val, darling.” Patti pulled her to a stop. “I don’t believe you’ve met Ryan’s Tiffany.” She made a graceful motion as Tiffany and Val greeted each other politely. Tiffany wasn’t Ryan’s anything, but Patti and her father both suffered from the same strain of deafness. “Val is one of Ryan’s work associates. She’s been with the company for years. The place wouldn’t run without her.”

  Val inclined her head and made small noises of denial. Nobody, including Val, was convinced she meant it.

  “Isn’t darling Tiffany daring, Val?” Patti tittered. “She is making us all look overdressed in her jeans.”

  Val’s gaze swept her from head to toe. “Of course, Patti, if we had that body, we would also be wearing jeans. Whose are they, Tiffany?”

  “Walmart’s.”

  Val and Patti froze and then broke into laughter.

  “Such a sense of humor.” Val chuckled. “I can see right away why Ryan adores you as he does. He talks about you all day in the office. Tiffany this and Tiffany that until we are all quite terrified to meet you.” Oh, God, she might puke, any second now. Thomas would be laughing his ass off.

  They moved through the vast living room, tastefully decorated in earth tones. A flower arrangement blocked the view of the garden, but the rise and fall of conversation drifted through the open bank of glass doors. Fantastic smells floated in with the sound of glasses and laughter. Spare ribs. Tiffany took a deep breath. Thank God, her jeans had a bit of give in them.

  Through the glass doors onto a patio spanning the entire length of the house they went. People flitted like exotic birds amongst the lush greens and vivacious flora of the garden. The smell of money hung heavy in the air, brought to her on the back of expensive colognes and perfumes. Val and Patti kept up a polite flow of small talk, barely noticing, or needing, her contribution. Sedately dressed wait staff slid through the crowd like ghosts.

  Tiffany snagged a glass of champagne from the tray extended to her and followed the other women deeper into the throng. Patti stopped constantly, making introductions and drawing people into her orbit for a few moments before drifting on again. “Ryan has been waiting for you,” Patti whispered in her ear.

  “Where is he?” She needed to wish him happy birthday.

  “Over there.” Patti waved. “Holding court, as he does.”

  “Excuse me.” She drifted around Patti and swapped her glass for a full one.

  “Call me, Tiffany,” a voice called. “I would love to hear all about the wedding plans.” That would be the shortest conversation on earth. Her father had kept the news of their broken almost engagement strictly on the down-low. And she’d let him. After their plane ride, she’d stopped fighting him. Out loud, a
t least. This was her thinking to do, and she needed to do it on her own.

  Tiffany approached Ryan, who stood beneath a white awning beside the pool, in the center of at least a dozen people his age. A table behind him peeped out from under the weight of an immense amount of ribbon and wrapping. Shit, she hadn’t brought a gift. Well, it wasn’t his actual birthday. That was still a few days away, and she would do something then.

  “Tiffany.” Ryan’s voice cut across the general noise, and she looked up. He strode toward her, smiling like the happy prince that he was. “I wondered when you were going to get here.” Leaning forward, he kissed her on the mouth, tugging her close to him. “I missed you.”

  Gently she disengaged from his grip. “You saw me yesterday.”

  “Yesterday was days ago. I have a surprise for you.”

  Tiffany drained her glass. Another tray appeared by magic and she placed her empty on it and snagged another.

  “Nice jeans,” Ryan murmured.

  “Thanks.” The champagne soothed the words down her throat.

  “I thought you were going to wear the Armani,” he said, his gaze drifting over her outfit.

  There must be a hole in the bottom of her glass, because this one emptied faster than the last. “Nope, changed my mind.”

  “Is everything all right?” Ryan drifted closer and kept his voice pitched only for her.

  She took a leaf out of Thomas’s book and answered a question with a question. “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know.” The skin puckered between Ryan’s brows. “Your outfit, the way you’re acting. You don’t seem yourself.” Which struck her as very funny because she’d never felt more like herself. “Do we need to talk?” Ryan gave her the therapist voice, along with the grave expression.

  She almost stuck her tongue out at him. “No.”

  What would she say anyway? I think I may be in love with someone else. I’m just waiting until I’m sure. Was that what she was doing? Waiting? Her heels caught in the grass and she stopped.