Not Your Prince Charming

by Kate Johnson

  He watched the camera pan out across all the Royals, some of them better known to him than others. Yep, there was the Queen. Eliza’s grandmother, the freaking Queen.

  “She’s just a normal person,” he said, and felt like a moron.

  “You don’t need to come in with me,” Eliza protested, as her new Personal Protection Officer marched down the hall with her. Poor Wilson was still off on indefinite leave. “Where on earth am I going to go?”

  “I’ll need to check the room, ma’am,” said the PPO, and Eliza let him sweep in ahead of her, peer under the bed and behind the medical equipment, check the window and finally allow her to be left alone with the man who lay in the hospital bed.

  Xavier looked tired, half his chest bound up in bandages. That chest she’d slept curled against not three nights ago. His hair had been washed but he hadn’t shaved, and he looked even wilder than he had on the beach.

  “Hi,” she managed.

  But his eyes, those beautiful eyes of his, those were the same. Only now they were shuttered and wary, and didn’t turn fully in her direction.

  “Your Highness,” he said shortly.

  Her stomach plummeted. “Ah.”

  “I’d bow, but…”

  Oh God, this was excruciating. “Xavier, please.”

  “You couldn’t tell me?”

  “What good would it have done? If I’d made an utterance on that boat I’d never have seen the light of day again, and afterwards…”

  “Yeah, afterwards?” said Xavier, finally looking up at her, and she remembered his hands on her body, his lips on her skin. The way he’d smiled at her, tender and passionate. Heat flooded through her.

  “Afterwards,” she said, and tried to press a hand to her throbbing face. But the dressing there brought her up short. “Afterwards it didn’t seem important. I… I liked not being a princess with you.”

  He was silent for a long moment, looking down at the blanket across his lap.

  Eliza hadn’t been able to talk to his doctor, but she’d finally wrung the information out of Anker that Xavier had undergone several surgeries to repair the damage done by the bullet that hit his upper chest. He’d suffered a collapsed lung which, her fevered late-night Googling had told her, could easily have killed him. If the helicopter hadn’t shown up when it had—

  “How are you doing?” he asked her, and Eliza did what she’d done her whole life and pretended everything was absolutely fine.

  “I’m very well, thank you.” Okay, maybe over-doing it a bit. Xavier’s gaze travelled her body, and while she knew he couldn’t see much under her flowing maxi-dress and cardigan, she felt the throb of every wound the coral had inflicted on her.

  “Your face?” he said eventually, and her hand went up to where her hair didn’t quite conceal the dressing that covered her cheekbone and ear.

  “Not as bad as it looks,” she said, which was a bit of a lie. She still hadn’t been allowed to see the damage, but it was telling that her mother had the best plastic surgeons in London very nearly ready to meet them on the tarmac at Heathrow.

  Apparently the ones in Miami couldn’t be trusted.

  “And is there a reason you’re dressed like a nun, or has it suddenly gotten cold out there?”

  “Nothing wrong with modesty,” she said. “My family disapproves of flashing too much flesh.”

  “Princess, I’ve seen all the flesh you’ve got,” said Xavier wolfishly, and Eliza felt herself go bright red.

  “Yes, well. I had a few cuts from the coral,” she said, which was only a lie if you considered ‘few’ to mean ‘not very many, and mostly small’. “But that’s all healing well. Do you know, they insisted on putting me on a drip. I thought we’d hydrated ourselves quite well,” she added indignantly.

  Xavier smiled. Even under all that hair he was handsome. “You can never be too hydrated,” he said.

  “Actually you can, it happens to athletes all the time. Too much water and not enough electrolytes.”

  His smile widened. “When are you going to tell me how you became such a good swimmer?”

  It would be so easy to tell him. To stay here and exchange confidences, to smile and laugh and touch and kiss—and that would make it even harder to leave.

  “I have to go,” she said crisply, and his smile vanished. “We’re flying home this evening. I have a press conference this afternoon.”

  “So soon?” Xavier’s smile vanished. “Are you well enough?”

  “To sit and answer stupid questions? I’ve been well enough for that my whole life,” Eliza said.

  “I mean to fly home. It’s a long way. Eliza, I saw you hit that coral—” he broke off, and corrected himself. “Your Highness, I saw you hit that coral.”

  Her fingers clenched. “It’s Your Royal Highness in the first instance, and then ma’am, rhymes with lamb,” she explained, the way she’d been explaining since she was old enough to talk. “And to you it’s still Eliza. Nothing has changed.”

  “Everything has changed.” He looked frustrated. “I’ll probably get kicked into a desk job, when—if—they allow me back. Spend most of my time answering questions about you.”

  As if she were a chore. Eliza kept a hold on her temper.

  “My favourite colour is blue and my favourite flower is the white rose, not red. I prefer cats to dogs and only ride horses when forced. I work for an auction house as an assistant in the fine arts appraisals department. The hat was by Philip Treacy. That should cover it,” she said crisply.

  Xavier’s eyes had narrowed more and more with every pronouncement. His nostrils flared.

  “Did I have to call you Your Highness?” he fired back. “Do princesses go to the bathroom like normal people? Do you live in Downton Abbey? Do I know the Queen? Am I going to be a knight? Did I fuck you?”

  She flinched at that, and from his expression he’d intended her to. Her fingers pleated the fabric of her dress.

  “And what will you tell them?”

  Xavier looked at her intently, as if trying to decide what to say. “That you’re a normal person with a famous grandma.”

  “I meant about the last part.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. “I don’t discuss my personal life.”

  Eliza snorted. “Which means yes. You’ve read celebrity interviews. By the time the question is even being asked, the answer has already been assumed to be yes.”

  “You want me to lie?”

  “You’re an undercover cop, I thought you’d be quite good at it by now,” Eliza sighed. “Fine, tell people what you want. Tell them we had a torrid affair. I’m sure you can get some mileage out of that. People have made careers out of less.”

  And he could, if he chose. Handsome police officer who got past the chastity belt of a princess. He’d never need to work another day in his life.

  She turned away as the hurt rose in her.

  “Eliza, no. I didn’t mean—please don’t go.”

  She clenched her fist, staring at the floor. Princess Elizabeth, the stupid one, let’s all laugh at what she did next. Fell for a pretty face.

  She made herself take a deep breath and try to sound businesslike. “I have the press conference.”

  “After that. Come back.”

  “I’m going home. It’s all organised.”

  “Don’t. So soon. Stay.”

  I would. I so definitely would. Oh God, how much she wanted to throw herself at him, to curl up against his chest and touch his skin and taste his lips. To just be Eliza, and not a princess.

  But she said, “I can’t stay. You know I can’t. I have a life in England.” A small, boring life. “I have royal duties.” Once in a blue moon, when absolutely nobody else could be prevailed to undertake them. “I can’t stay.” Because the more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to. And that… that just wasn’t possible.

  “I have to go and be a princess,” she said.

  Xavier said nothing. Eliza, against her better judgement, turned
back to him, and he reached out his free hand. She sighed, and took it. His fingers curled around hers, strong and warm and right. She let him pull her closer.

  “What happened on the island stays on the island, huh?” he said.

  “I think it has to.”

  He looked up at her with those beautiful eyes, and Eliza leaned in to give him one last kiss. Xavier took full advantage, kissing her back with such passion that for two pins she’d have climbed into bed with him. But the door opened behind her, and a voice said very blandly, “Ma’am.”

  She froze, and straightened up. Xavier looked rueful.

  “Is there any point asking you to stay in touch?”

  Eliza fiddled with her hair, flustered. She’d got a new phone. She could give him the number. Except…

  “If you ever need anything, call… do you have a pen?”

  One was found, and she scribbled on the card from a bouquet of flowers. The number had been the same since her childhood, and purposefully easy to remember. “Call St James’s. Ask for Acker, that’s my mother’s private secretary. She can get through to me.”

  Xavier watched her, clearly recognising the brush-off for what it was.

  “Right,” he said, softly. “Well, goodbye then, Princess.”

  “Goodbye,” she said, and found a smile for him, and didn’t cry until she was back home in her own bed in rainy Norfolk.

  Chapter Seven

  RoyalGossip.com: Princess Elizabeth flaunts her scars in Harley Street

  Princess Elizabeth, who recently spent three days on a deserted island in the Caribbean with Miami hunk Xavier Rivera, came home with a scar on her face reportedly from crashing into a coral reef. Yikes! Any surfer will tell you to avoid those! Here she is displaying the gruesome marks on her right cheekbone and ear as she exits a Jaguar on Harley Street. Let’s hope she was visiting a plastic surgeon!

  “Another beautiful day in paradise,” said Perez, putting Xavier’s coffee down in front of him.

  “Paradise isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.” Xavier tilted his sunglasses and peered in the donut bag. “Any jelly donuts?”

  “Should be a couple.”

  Perez watched him look through the bag in search of treasure. “Man, you are living the cliché.”

  “And proud of it.”

  Coffee, donuts, and a beach view. Almost like being back on the job, if the job also involved hours of physical therapy, PTSD counselling and nagging from his family.

  “How’s it going?” Perez nodded at the sling.

  “Little better. PT’s worse than a workout.”

  “Your grandmother still saying rosaries for you?”

  He snorted. “That’s the only reason I’m still alive, apparently.”

  They ate their donuts and looked out at the beach. Fit, tanned people played volleyball in skimpy outfits.

  “When d’you get the medal?”

  “Perez, there is no medal.” His friend scoffed, and Xavier relented and explained, as he’d been explaining for two months. “The department has to apply, and that can’t happen until May, apparently. And besides, all I did was get shot.”

  “You rescued a damn princess, man!”

  “I—” Xavier opened his mouth, but was interrupted by a woman squealing.

  “Ohmigod! You’re the one who rescued the princess! Ohmigod. What’s she like? Does she, like, wear a tiara? Do you know the Queen?”

  Xavier cut his eyes at Perez, who just laughed and drank more coffee.

  “No, and no. Although a tiara would have been handy on the island,” he said. “Diamonds are excellent cutting stones—”

  “You’re, like, so handsome. Can I get a selfie?”

  He let her, because it was easier than saying no. Eliza must go through this every time she leaves the house, he thought, not for the first time. If she was a forgotten Royal before the kidnapping, everyone would know who she was now.

  Especially with the scars. He’d seen the pictures in the papers, some of them captioned pretty cruelly, as if being thrown into a coral reef was something she’d done out of carelessness or stupidity.

  He smiled a little stiffly as the girl tried to find an angle she liked, “for me, not you, because you look amazing in everything…”

  It hadn’t been long before the nasty theories had arisen, everyone on social media with their own sad little take on it. Apparently Eliza had planned her own kidnapping to raise her profile, because people kept confusing her with her sister. The kidnappers had intended to get one of the ‘good’ Royals and wound up with her, which was why they’d ditched her. She’d bossed him around on the island and forced him to act as her servant, the stuck up British bitch.

  At best they called her stupid for ditching her security. Plenty said she deserved to be drugged, kidnapped and sold into slavery. The trolls who lived on social media suggested she deserved even worse than that. Xavier tried not to pay attention to what they were saying about a woman he knew to be brave and smart and spirited, but it stung. He couldn’t imagine how it made her feel.

  “You’re quite the hero,” said Perez, who was the other side of forty and married to his paunch. He ate another donut, and watched the girl wiggle away.

  “Isn’t that why we all join up? To serve and protect—and get girls passing us their phone numbers,” Xavier added, noticing the pink Post-It with Tiffani’s phone number written on it. She’d dotted the i’s with hearts.

  “Hey man, you’re a heart throb. You’d better get used to it.”

  He didn’t want to get used to it. Xavier knew what he looked like, and he’d always enjoyed attention from women. But now…

  …now he was seeing the ugly side. While Eliza was vilified by the press, he was glorified. The heroic cop, sexily injured in the line of duty. Photos of him had adorned every local and national paper. Gifs and memes appeared online. Talk show hosts flashed his face every week. One had even begun a recurring gag, formulating some ridiculous form of distress and then pretending to spy him in the distance. “The unrealistically handsome cop is here! I’m saved!”

  It was embarrassing, and boring, and stupid. And that was what happened when they liked him.

  He’d thrown away the card Eliza had written down the phone number on. A call to her mother’s secretary was hardly a friendly invitation to chat any time.

  “Two more witnesses came forward against the Lopez gang,” said Perez. “We’re building a case, bro.”

  “Good.” The gang, and all the time he’d spent with them, seemed so far away now. As if he’d been a different person entirely all those months, and was only just waking up now, back in his own life.

  “You know who I swear I saw the other week?” Perez said. “On TV, at the game?”

  Xavier sighed. “Was it a princess?”

  “No. Although goddamn, I swear she thinks she is one. Your Marisol.”

  The hair, the heels, the temper tantrums—yeah, his ex-wife had been bucking for princess her whole life. If only she knew…

  “She’s not mine,” said Xavier evenly. She hadn’t been for a long time, if ever.

  “I know, I know. Couldn’t have been her though. In a box with the VIPs?”

  Xavier held up his hands. “Dude. What is the one rule about my ex-wife?”

  Perez sighed. “That we don’t talk about your ex-wife.”

  “You are correct.” Xavi saluted with his coffee, and took a sip. He hesitated. Speaking of terrible past relationships… “You ever hear from Celia?”

  Perez shook his head. He drained his coffee. “I heard she and her mother went up state. She enrolled in nursing school.”

  “We have one of the best university hospitals right here.”

  Perez cut him a look, and Xavier nodded. He didn’t blame her.

  He and Celia had never been seriously dating, but when her sister began to get into trouble he’d gotten more involved than he planned. Benita showed signs of drug addiction, and against his better judgement he’d allowed her to ge
t sucked into an operation that was supposed to expose a trafficking scheme. But instead, Benita went missing, and nothing he or his department could do ever found her. All they’d gotten from the operation was one name: Jorge Lopez.

  Celia used to call up sometimes, asking if there was any new information, but she always asked to speak to someone other than Xavier.

  He’s in jail now, Xavier told himself. Even though the case was turning out to be increasingly complicated, Jorge and at least two of his associates were behind bars and they already had enough evidence to keep them there.

  “Maybe your princess can get them put in the Tower of London,” joked Perez, and Xavier found a smile from somewhere.

  Henrietta, Princess Royal, peered at her youngest daughter and said, “Darling, how much did you drink last night?”

  Eliza jerked away from her touch. “Not much,” she said, and swallowed the bile in her throat. “Just a bottle or two.”

  It was a lie, but she needed something to account for how rough she looked.

  “You need to be careful, sweetheart. Can’t have you looking like this every day.”

  Eliza sat down carefully on the sofa in the Morning Room and reached for the papers. That still hurt. There was a gash just behind her right arm that had done something to her ribs, and while the scar was healing, thanks to the stringent attention of every doctor Harley Street could muster, the ache was taking longer to go away.

  “You look the same as you did yesterday.” That was her sister. Drina flounced into view, tossing her hair and throwing herself onto the other sofa. “Still ugly.” She stuck her tongue out at Eliza.

  “At least I don’t look like you any more.”

  “You poor thing.”

  At least Drina wasn’t treating her any differently now. The first few days had been shaky, because Eliza wasn’t used to her sister actually overtly showing she cared, and it unnerved her. Eliza knew she was recovering well when Drina told her she looked frightful.