Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

by Gardiner, Jenny

  “Please tell me this is the bathroom.”

  The woman turned and Caro instantly recognized her as Zander’s quest, the blonde. “Oh thank God. An American voice.” She reached out her hand. “I’m Andi. Don’t know a soul here, so I decided I’d slip up the back steps and find a quiet bathroom where I could escape for a minute. Imagine my dismay to learn someone had beat me to it.” She pointed to the closed door where light bled from the crack at the bottom of it.

  “At least we’ve found a bathroom. I think it took me ten minutes of wandering to find one at all. I’m Caroline, by the way.”

  “How is it that you’ve made it to this amazing bash?”

  “It’s a long, long story,” Caroline said, then pointed at her. “So you’re the one Zander was running after, aren’t you?”

  “Zander?”

  “The prince. Prince Alexander,” she said. “He and I had been, well, it’s a long story. And then all of a sudden he saw you and he ran off.”

  Andi cocked an eyebrow. “Wait a minute. You were on a date with him, and he ditched you when he saw me? That’s bizarre. I don’t even know him!”

  “That’s where the complication comes in. We weren’t on a date. He was trying to help me because the man I wanted to be on a date with needs a little nudge. So Zander offered to pretend to be with me in order to make him jealous.”

  “Oh really? So this prince person isn’t a complete jackass?”

  Caroline laughed. “Okay, you are definitely an American. I don’t think you’d hear anyone around here referring to one of the Monafortian princes as a jackass.”

  “Sorry, can’t help myself sometimes. But I’ve had a limited experience with the man, and so far that’s been my impression.”

  “Awww, poor Zander,” Caroline said. “I think he means well. I think maybe he can be a victim of his own overzealousness. Or maybe his enjoyment of a good time. Or maybe women. But to tell you the truth, he seems to be to be a genuinely kind man. And pretty easy on the eyes. And not a bad kisser either.”

  Andi’s eyes bugged open. “You kissed him?”

  “I know, right? How weird is that? Here I am this working-class girl from Virginia and I’m hanging at a party in a mansion and making out with royalty.” Caroline caught a look of annoyance in Andi’s eyes. “Wait, it’s not what you think. We had to fake kiss. To make Darcy jealous. Darcy’s the man I told you about. So when he showed up unexpectedly with another woman, we had to do something dramatic. That’s all. I mean you have nothing to worry about, if there’s something going on between the two of you.”

  “Really, I don’t even know him,” she said. “He just came up to me while I was speaking with Pippa. I met her a few months ago while helping out with a charity she sponsors in Africa. She offered to host me if I ever got to Monaforte, so here I am.”

  “Well, he sure seemed bent on engaging with you,” Caroline said. “And while I know he’s got a reputation for being a player, I think he’s a good guy at heart.”

  Andi knit her brows for a moment. “Not exactly my first impression of the man, but you’ve given me some things to think about.”

  A woman opened the door and slipped past the two of them.

  “Was nice to meet you, Caroline. Forgive me, but nature’s calling.” Andi closed the bathroom door behind her.

  ~*~

  Caroline wanted to get back to the palace and sleep. As it was, she was going to have a wicked-bad hangover. She was holding out hope that good champagne spared you the worst of it, but she knew better.

  But try as she might, she hadn’t been able to find Clementine, who was her ride home. She went down to the beach bar and pulled up a stool, then against her better judgment asked the bartender for yet another drink.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she said to the bartender, who was lining up several glasses to pour margaritas into.

  “Looks to me like you’re getting drunk,” he said, pouring with perfect accuracy into each glass and not spilling a drop.

  “I am so out of my league with this crowd,” she said. “Wasn’t too long ago I was that girl serving up cocktails myself.” She pointed at a nearby waitress.

  “So you’ve moved up in the world.”

  “Nah,” she said, taking a gulp of her champagne. “More like I’m just floating around in this world for a little while. Till I go home to loserville.”

  “Can’t be that bad,” he said, passing drinks to a waitress.

  “Oh believe me, it can,” she said. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. I was just this girl who was perfectly fine going from fling to fling. I just had no interest in anything serious. I mean, that’s not me. And trust me, I learned from the best. My mother was a pro at failed relationships, so I know what I’m talking about.” She handed him her glass for a refill.

  “You sure?”

  “What the hell,” she said with a nod. “This stuff is pretty tasty.”

  “Remind yourself of that tomorrow,” the bartender said with a grin. “So, you were saying?”

  “Right. That I was perfectly fine the way my life was before. But then came Darcy, and then my friend ends up here, and she’s getting married into this whole thing, and I’m just along for the ride, and that can’t last. I mean, I can’t just hang out here with no job and no place to stay and no friends—well, one, who isn’t going to be very available.”

  The bartender shrugged. “Plenty of people do it.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not me. At least I didn’t think it was me.”

  Just then, a familiar-looking man walked up to the bar. “Now you’re just proving what some of us already suspected,” he said, reaching for the beer he’d ordered. “You’re all about staying here however you can, even if it means trading up from my brother to Adrian’s brother.”

  Caroline blanched. Of all the dirty rotten people. She was so mad that before she could think better of it, she grabbed a margarita the bartender had just poured and tossed it in Edouardo’s face.

  “And this,” she said to the bartender while pointing at Darcy’s shocked brother, who had tequila dripping from his chin, “is why I’ll never stay here. Elitist snobs like this. I don’t need someone like him trying to make my life more difficult than it is.”

  She stormed off in search of a ride back to the palace.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  THANK God for heavy draperies. Caroline pulled a pillow over her head to block that one meager slice of daylight poking through the center point of the curtains, which did indeed block out the painful light that was threatening to cause an implosion behind her eyeballs.

  When she awoke again three hours later, she knew what she had to do, and after showering and brushing her teeth repeatedly, she tracked down Emma to break her news.

  “It’s time for me to return home,” she told her friend.

  Emma stared at her in surprise. “Why would you do such a thing? We’ve got so much work to do. You’re doing an amazing job. I’ve had people ask about your rates even.”

  “I’m sure that’s only because I’m your friend,” Caroline said. “It’s been fun living in the shadow of your fantasy, my friend, but it can’t last. This isn’t my world, as lovely as it is. I’m a meat-and-potatoes gal living in a caviar-and-champagne world. As much as I adore champagne—make that adored until last night, and I really don’t care for caviar—it just doesn’t seem to be a good fit.”

  “Did something happen last night?” Emma said. “I know you were going to that party with Darcy’s sister. Did she say something mean to you?”

  “God, no. Clementine’s not the problem at all. She’s great. It’s all the other stuff.”

  “Like what other stuff?”

  Caroline heaved a sigh. “It just gets so complicated. I mean, God forbid it just be boy meets girl, girl likes boy, boy likes girl, and they all lived happily ever after, end of story. There’s all this other stuff and other people and nothing ever just works out without problems. I don’t have
a taste for that, to tell you the truth. My life was so much easier when I didn’t care about a guy. I had fun, I went about my business, and then I’d find someone else when things got murky.”

  “Did you ever think that something might be worth fighting for?”

  Caroline gave her a scowl. “If my head weren’t throbbing behind my eyeballs already, that concept would make the blood pound that much harder in my skull. Maybe you forget from whence I sprang?”

  Emma shook her head. “Just because your mother didn’t have a good track record doesn’t mean you have to share her fate. It’s up to you to make choices that are right for you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m thinking returning to my apartment and finding a paying gig somewhere is probably the right thing for me,” Caroline said. “I promise I’ll be back for the wedding. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But right now maybe a little distance would be a good thing for me.”

  “Distance from me?”

  “Oh gosh no, Ems. You’re the only thing keeping me here,” Caroline said. “Distance from all the complications. I just don’t see how I can be here with sort of this disconnected connection to the place, not knowing people but kind of knowing them and just wandering about, showing up places where Darcy will be. He’ll be there with a girlfriend, and it’ll just break my heart too much for that to keep happening.”

  “Ah. So Darcy showed up with a date, did he?”

  Caroline nodded, hanging her head in sadness. Of course she didn’t dare tell even Emma about what his brother had done. That would be too humiliating.

  “I can’t imagine where Darcy even found a date for this thing. Adrian tells me he wasn’t even going to attend it at all.”

  “Looks like he changed his mind. Because she was gorgeous, and they were holding hands, and oh well for me.”

  “I’m not going to keep coming up with excuses for Darcy. He doesn’t deserve them anymore. He must be in a strange place in his head, and it’s hard to understand that until you’re in that position,” Emma said. “When people lose a parent, it often puts them in a life crisis and they reevaluate everything. I’m just sorry you got stuck in the middle of that because you two did seem to hit it off so well.”

  “Yeah, well, I hit it off with a very cute dog at a café last week when Gareth and I had lunch too, and that relationship didn’t go very far either.”

  “Why don’t you take a few days to think it over?” Emma said. “At least we can wrap up projects we have going, and Gareth can help determine what needs to be transitioned to someone else.”

  “I’m sorry, Ems, I don’t want to leave you in the lurch. I just feel quite adrift and can’t figure myself out.”

  “Totally understand your worries, honey,” Emma said, giving her friend a big hug. “And I wish we could just go bop Darcy over the head with a pipe and maybe have him start thinking clearly again.”

  Caroline got up and paced. “I know a part of this has to do with Darcy,” she said. “Well, make that a big part of it. But it’s more than that. I guess I’ve never really considered the rest of my life, and now my life is looking at me and wondering when the hell I’m ever going to do something more than just be that girl.”

  “That girl?”

  “That girl who shows up at parties, who has fun with the bartender, who makes out with someone and maybe sees him one other time, or maybe not, but then is on to the next one. The girl who takes a job, then gets bored with it and takes another one. The girl who can’t commit, I suppose. Who can’t seem to commit to much of anything in life.”

  “Wow, that’s a heavy burden to carry around. No wonder it’s got you weighed down.”

  Caroline shrugged and flopped down in a chair, out of steam. “Maybe Darcy’s midlife crisis has enveloped me too. Leave it to me to not even commit to my own angst but rather tag along with someone else’s.”

  Emma scruffed Caroline’s hair with her fingers. “I think things will turn out just fine, my friend. Just a few little bumps in the road. After all, no growth without some effort, right?”

  “Meh. I’m sort of over growth, if this is what it does to you. I’ve been so moody I feel like a hormonal teenager.”

  Emma laughed. “Lest you forget, I witnessed you firsthand as a hormonal teenager. And I can promise you, you’re not nearly as bad this time.”

  “Wow, so reassuring.”

  “So enough of the navel-gazing. I suppose my timing is impeccable, but I’ve got a gown-fitting today. I know it might not be the ideal activity for you, feeling so emotionally under-the-weather and all, but if you’re up for it, I’d sure love to get your input.”

  “As long as it involves absolutely no men, I’m there.”

  “Well, I do have Gareth lined up.”

  “Gareth doesn’t count. He’s too nice to fit under that category, so I’ll give him a pass.”

  “In that case, let’s get to it. I arranged for us to go to the designer’s studio because I didn’t want anyone at the palace to have a sneak peak.”

  ~*~

  “Rumor has it you’d castrate me if I weren’t already a thoroughly nonthreatening man,” Gareth said with a laugh to Caroline.

  “Nah. Only if your family name was Weltenham. Then all bets would be off, and you might want to steer clear of any sharp objects with me in the room,” she said. “But thanks, I knew I could trust you to make light of my life’s trauma. And I’m grateful for it. I’ve come to the conclusion that the less seriously I take myself, the better off we all are.”

  “Good advice for anyone.”

  The two were waiting for Emma to come out of the dressing salon. The designer, Domenico Acquati, an up-and-coming Monafortian who’d recently been hailed for dressing a Hollywood starlet for awards season, had closed his studio for the afternoon so that no interlopers would happen upon the soon-to-be princess of Monaforte modeling her bridal-gown choice.

  Caroline reclined in the gray suede sofa and took a deep breath. It was almost impossible not to relax in this studio, a study in complete neutrality with gray furniture, soft gray walls, and gray flooring. She felt like she ought to go into downward dog, or better yet shavasana. Except when it came that time in yoga, Caroline had a tendency to fall asleep, which was probably not the goal of that yoga resting phase. And it would be especially rude for Domenico to find her snoring on his hand-stitched sofa. But she made a mental note to get herself back to yoga as soon as she returned home. And to consider a career as a yoga instructor, because being around soothing colors and music all day would probably be therapeutic for her.

  They heard rustling and then from behind a gray—of course—curtain came Emma, Domenico following behind and holding up her train.

  Caroline caught her breath. Her friend looked so... so royal.

  Emma mounted a modeling platform in the center of the studio while her friend remained speechless as she took in the exquisite pleated silk organza gown with appliquéd ivory Chantilly lace. The wide-neckline bodice had a cinched waist with a formfitting lace overlay and short sleeves. As Emma turned slightly to model it, Caro could see the back had a deep V-cut and narrow vertical pleats that opened up to the accentuated waist above the wide skirt and a train that extended some fourteen feet. Atop her head was a silk organza veil edged in tulle that trailed halfway as long as her train, held down for the moment with a loaner tiara.

  “The real one will go on for the wedding,” Emma said to reassure them.

  “I am so very speechless,” Caroline said. “I wish I could run up and give you a hug, but I don’t want to mess anything up. You are going to be the world’s most perfect bride.”

  “Domenico, you’ve outdone yourself,” Gareth said.

  “I can’t take my eyes off you, Ems!”

  “Well, you’ll need to in a minute because Domenico’s got your attendant’s gown ready to try on too, if you’re game.”

  Caroline knew that on the inside she felt exactly opposite of how Emma must be feeling at right then, but she didn’t wa
nt to spoil the moment so agreed to don the dress.

  While Emma changed back into her street clothes, Caro took her turn fancying-up.

  She came out of the changing area looking like a new woman.

  “Ta-da!” she said, radiant in a gown with a soft mint-green layered chiffon skirt and a sleeveless bodice with a crisscross multicolored satin weave and a fitted waistline in a satin harlequin pattern.

  “Oh, Caro,” Emma said, clasping her hands in delight. “That green, with your hair and your eyes. You look scrumptious.”

  “Honey, that man-who-shall-not-be-named will drop dead when he sees you in this,” Gareth said.

  Emma gave her friend a thumbs-up on that. “He won’t be able to resist you.”

  Caroline shook her head. “Not to worry because I will be so busy admiring myself in this dress I won’t even notice his presence.”

  Emma and Gareth looked at each other and nodded, knowing at some point Darcy’s resolve was going to have to crack. And this might be just the tool to bring that about.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “YOU sure I can’t persuade you to stick around till the wedding at least?” Emma said, standing in front of the palace as the driver loaded Caroline’s luggage into the car. “You’re just going to have to turn around and come back, you know.”

  “I’m sorry,” Caroline said. “As much as I love you and as grateful as I am to have had this incredible opportunity, I think it’s time for me stop putting off the inevitable and finally figure out how to grow up.”

  “But can’t you grow up here? I was having fun with you here with me.”

  “I know, Ems. But you have your whole new life here, and it’s not fair to Adrian for me to continue being a third wheel. I think I’ve got you well on the way with your renovations—you’re going to be moving in before you know it! So let me see what I can do to figure out a career path for myself back home. I’ll be back in plenty of time for the wedding, Maybe you can pick out some kick-ass piece of jewelry from the vault for me to borrow for the big day. But nothing too flashy—after all, I can’t outshine the bride.” She batted her eyelashes at her friend.