Arabella glances at me, the word sorry written all across her face. I give her a thumbs-up. “We got one right at least.”
She tips back and forth, managing to regain her balance.
“Moving onto question five,” Dylan says. “How many children do you want?”
Arabella has given the safe answer of ‘two,’ while I have written ‘five.’
“Five?” she says, falling backwards and landing on the stage floor.
The audience bursts into laughter. Dylan looks positively gleeful at this revelation. “Well, that’s certainly surprising news for the princess.”
Quickly recovering, Arabella says, “Two, five. Basically the same.”
“Tell that to your lady bits,” Dylan mutters.
“You don’t really want five children, do you?” she whispers.
I shrug. “I love kids.”
“I also love children, but not necessarily in large groupings.”
“Oh dear,” Dylan says. “It looks like these two have a lot to talk about when we’re through here. But first, you’ll need to eat the next item from our Gross Out Kitchen since yet again, your answers didn’t match.”
Arabella tucks her card under her arm and carefully climbs back up onto the post. When she stands, she’s got that determined look on her face that I’ve grown to love.
The dome is lifted and a pungent stench of rotting fish hits my nostrils. My head snaps back and I cover my nose instinctively while Arabella reaches out and plucks a piece off the tray, popping it in her mouth before Dylan can even tell us what it is. She chews furiously, swallows it, gags twice, then says, “Your turn.”
“This is a delicacy from French Polynesia called farfaru,” Dylan says. “It’s fish that has been sunbaked and fermented. Apparently, Princess Arabella is a big fan.”
“Not really. I’d just really like to get down and go home now.”
I pick mine up and toss it in my mouth, swallowing it whole. Here come the fish burps. Blech.
“Well, Princess Arabella may soon get her wish. Last question! And it should be a fun answer. Who won the last argument the two of you had, and what was it about?”
I flip my card over, knowing we’re sunk before I even look at hers. My answer: We haven’t had an argument since we became a couple.
Hers: Me. Bill Paxton, not Bill Pullman, starred in Titanic.
She looks at me. “You can’t lie in your answers and expect us to win.”
“Sorry if I wanted to protect our relationship. Besides, you didn’t win that argument.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you thought Bill Pullman was in Titanic. I’m the one who knew it was Bill Paxton.”
Arabella scoffs, then steadies herself. “Sorry, darling, but you said it was Pullman, remember? You said, ‘the guy from the one with Sandra Bullock about the woman who works in the subway toll booth?’”
“I was mixed up about which Bill was in While You Were Sleeping, but I knew who I meant. I meant Paxton.”
“Well, just because you meant Bill Paxton, doesn’t mean that’s who you said.”
“Oh, to have that conversation recorded,” Dylan says. “Or the one when you leave here tonight!”
Arabella turns to her and asks in a very formal tone. “May we climb down now?”
“Yes, of course,” Dylan says. “Now, because you missed yet another question, we have one last thing for you to eat.”
“I don’t think so. I’m done,” Arabella says.
“What?” Dylan asks, her face falling for the first time this hour.
“I don’t wish to eat anything else. I’m full. And I’m afraid I’ll become ill, which doesn’t make for very good television.”
Dylan tilts her head and scrunches up her nose as if she’s very sorry to be giving bad news. “If you’re full, Will is going to have to eat two because the game isn’t over.”
“Come now, we’ve been good sports and all,” Arabella answers. “We’ve answered your questions and done the challenges, and now we should move on to the next segment. I’m sure the audience has grown tired of watching us choke down disgusting things.”
Turning to the audience, Dylan yells, “Are you tired of seeing them eat things from our Gross Out Kitchen?”
A resounding NO! comes from the crowd. Of course.
The dome is lifted, and on it are two large brown jiggly blobs. “These have been flown in all the way from Canada. It’s called jellied moose nose and yes, it’s exactly what you think it is. They cut off the nose, spice it, add onions, boil it, remove the hair, boil it again, then cover it in a broth that turns to jelly.”
“Oh, wow,” Arabella says, turning her face away from the plate.
“At least it isn’t a sour toe cocktail,” I say.
She looks up at me. “Tell me that’s not really a thing.”
I nod. “Up in the Yukon, when someone loses a toe to frostbite, they—”
Arabella holds up one hand, looking slightly green.
“I’ll tell you the rest later,” I say.
“Or not at all,” she answers, staring at the jiggly brown blobs. “And we wonder why Canadian cuisine hasn’t caught on around the world…”
I pick up mine and pop it into my mouth, letting it slide down my throat in lieu of chewing first.
Wow, that was super putrid.
Arabella, beyond caring about seeming rude, clamps her nose with a finger and her thumb. She chews quickly, then gags out, “They missed a hair.” Pulling the hair out of her mouth, she finally manages to swallow it, but as soon as she gets it down, she retches. The producer makes it to her in time with the Bucket of Shame and she lets it all go. Repeatedly.
Compassion pushes away my hurt feelings and I rush over, shielding her from the camera as best I can while I hold back her hair. “It’s okay,” I say, knowing it’s anything but okay for a princess to puke on national television.
When she’s done, she whispers to me, “I have to leave now.”
“All right,” I say, putting my arm around her back like a bodyguard rushing a celebrity through a mob of fans.
We exit the stage while Dylan informs the audience that it’s time for a commercial break, but we’ll be back with more in just a couple of minutes. One of the producers descends upon us with a squad of minions. She talks quickly, trying to pep us up whilst Arabella is ushered to a sink backstage and handed a toothbrush, toothpaste, and mouthwash. She sets to work brushing the moose nose vomit out of her teeth.
The director calls, “Thirty seconds!”
“Okay, you two. The hard part is over. When you get back out there, we’ll have some fans in the audience lob some softball questions at you. No more food challenges tonight.”
“No, we’re done,” I say to her.
“No, you’re not. We’ve got another twelve minutes of air-time to fill and you’re under contract, so you will both be heading back out on the stage.”
“Or what?” I ask.
Arabella rinses and spits, then puts one hand on my arm. “It’s fine, Will. I’m fine. Let’s just get this over with.”
I look down at her, my heart lurching at the sight of her pale skin. “Are you sure?”
She nods. “I signed up for this, right?”
I sigh heavily as I follow her onto the stage.
“How exactly were those softball questions?” Arabella asks as soon as we settle ourselves into the backseat of her limo. “I mean really? How?”
“Yeah, I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever felt so… wiped out,” I say, blinking slowly. “The first question was okay—the one about our favourite moment in the jungle, but then everything… just turned.”
It turned all right. Instead of answering easy questions about the upcoming show, we were repeatedly peppered about our relationship until the time ran out.
Now we’re safely tucked in behind tinted windows while her driver, Norm, pulls out of the ABN parking lot and onto the street. My phone is buzzing away in my suit jacke
t pocket with Google alerts, which means the show has made quite a splash. Great for my career. Horrible for my relationship. “And did you notice who was in the audience?” she asks, throwing her hands up in the air and continuing before I can answer. “It was clearly packed with women in their child-bearing years, who, let’s face it, do not want to see us work. Did Dylan do that on purpose?”
“I don’t—”
“I bet she did. That would be such a Dylan thing to do. Bringing on that nasty Will’s Wild Girls blogger.” Arabella pulls a sour face and imitates the woman who claims to be my biggest fan. “‘It’s a well-known fact that media attention creates tension in even the best of couples. With the two of you clearly coming from two different worlds and barely knowing each other, do you really expect your relationship to survive?’ Umm, yes, bitch. Actually, I do.”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry about her.”
“It’s not your fault,” Arabella says. “I mean, other than being stupidly handsome and daring—which you probably can’t help anyway—you’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Thanks.” I think.
Arabella groans loudly. “And I was a disaster. I basically proved to the world that I’m not up for the challenge of so much as a simple interview.”
“You were not a disaster. You were incredible,” I say, leaning over and giving her a kiss on the temple.
She rests her head against the seatback. “Liar. I was a sweating, snotting, vomiting, insulting disaster.”
“Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad.”
She looks at me from under her eyebrows. “You needn’t coddle me. Especially not after how I insulted you out there.”
The sting of her answers comes flooding back, but I dam it off, wanting to concentrate on how I can use this situation to bring us together instead of tear us apart. “Listen, that was a highly pressurized environment—one in which we won’t find ourselves again, so there’s no use in overanalyzing it. I say we move on to bigger and better things.”
I lift her hand and kiss her knuckles, hoping to show it’s all right.
But it doesn’t work. Arabella shakes her head and purses her lips, clearly on the verge of tears. “I called you a know-it-all and led the world to believe I think my brother to be smarter than you.” She sighs. “Not to mention the stupid yacht/shell thing. That can’t feel very good. Why did I write that down?”
“Because you wanted to win. I wrote it down too, in case you forgot,” I say.
“And we both made you look like… I don’t know what.”
“A cheapskate?”
“I was going to say poor, but yes, I suppose it does both.”
Ouch. She must be able to see through my smile because tears are pooling in her eyes now.
“So what? I’m on the edge of having my career bust wide open, Belle,” I say, shifting in my seat so I’m facing her. “This is it for me. I can feel it. Besides, when people see the show, they’ll realize why you bought me the yacht. I can hold out until then knowing the world thinks you’re my sugar momma.”
Arabella lets a tiny grin escape her lips, then she shuts it down and goes back to grimacing. “I can’t. I want them all to know how amazing you are and how lucky I am to have you.”
“Isn’t it more important that the two of us know how lucky you are to have me?”
That worked. She snort-laughs. “I suppose so, but I still want the world to know what you had to do to get that shell for me.”
Shrugging, I say, “In a way it’s nice to have our little secret about why the shell means so much, isn’t it? It’s like having a piece of our story that no one can touch.” I kiss her again, gently at first, then with enough passion to let her know we’re okay. Tonight was hard, but it was also a step forward for me career-wise.
After a few minutes of snogging each other senseless, the car comes to a stop. I look out the window and see we’ve arrived at Dwight’s. “Come in for a while so I can show you how hot your sense of justice is.”
She laughs, then her face falls. “I want to, like, with every bit of my sense of justice, but I really can’t. I have to go do damage control with the advisors. They’ll be holding an emergency meeting right about now, and if I don’t show up, they’ll make decisions neither of us will like.”
Well, that’s the worst thing I’ve heard all day, which is saying something. I give her a nod and smile. “After the meeting? Maybe I could sneak into the palace for some alone time?”
She gives me a skeptical look.
“I heard it too, yeah. A palace probably isn’t the easiest place to sneak into, is it?”
“Not really, but sneaking out isn’t all that hard.”
“Really?”
“Really. I have some serious apologizing to do.”
“I promise to accept. Over and over and over…”
7
Welcome to the Promotional Circuit. It’s Everything You Dreamed It Would Be…
Will
“Wake up. Will, it’s time to get up,” Dwight says, his voice muffled by the door.
I open one eye and look at the alarm clock. 5:30 a.m. “Go away. I had a late night.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. I could hear everything, so thanks for that.”
I wince and pull my pillow over my face, then, realizing I need to apologize like a man, I get up and cross the small room to the door. When I open it, Dwight takes a few steps back, clearly put off by the sight of me in only my underwear. I give him a sheepish look. “Everything?”
“Enough.”
“Sorry, mate, it’s just that she was so upset when we left the studio, and I was really hoping to make her feel better about how the interview went.”
“Oh, you made her feel better all right.” Dwight, who is already dressed in his suit, taps on his wristwatch. “Now, you’ve got to hustle over to KLAM for their morning show. Your segment starts in forty-five minutes.”
“Right. I forgot about that.”
“Not all that surprising, really. Now, make sure you look presentable because as soon as you finish there, you have to hightail it over to VTV for the Mona in the Morning Show. You’re going to be teaching the audience how to tie knots or something.”
“Okay,” I say, rubbing my eyes.
Dwight starts to walk away, then turns back. “Oh, I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to KLAM, but they’re in the shock jock business, so they’re going to do their best to piss you off. The worst thing you can do is lose your temper because they’ll make you look like a complete jackass. Laugh it off, promote the show, and get the hell off as fast as possible.”
“Got it. Stay calm. Keep it light.”
“Exactly,” he says, pivoting and heading toward the kitchen. When he’s part way down the hall, he calls over his shoulder, “And don’t forget to strip the sheets and burn them.”
“Welcome to K-L-A-M radio in the morning. I’m your host, Bowser.”
“And I’m Candace the Cutie. And with us as always is Dopey Dan.”
“That’s right, I’m the dumb one.”
Sound effect of an audience making an awww sound plays.
Yuck. This is way too much energy for six a.m. My eyes aren’t even fully open yet. I have a sip of the stale coffee they offered me when I got here and watch as the three hosts, all dressed in sweatpants and hoodies, pretend they’re crazy-excited to be here.
Candace yawns and continues, sounding surprisingly peppy. “It’s Friday, so you know what that means!”
A recording of an audience shouting, “No Knickers Day!” plays.
“That’s right! It’s No Knickers Day, and I, for one, am extra excited because at this very moment, I am looking at none other than Avonia’s sexiest man, the fellow all the guys want to be and all the ladies want to be with—Will Banks of the highly anticipated new show, Princess in the Wild.”
“I was hoping it would be Princess in the Buff,” Bowser says, hitting the button for an old-timey car horn sound to play.
I set
my jaw, then tell myself to relax because the worst thing I can do is get angry. That’s what they want, but I have news for them. I’m not going to play their game.
“Tell us the truth, Will,” Candace says. “Are you wearing underwear? I’m asking for a friend.”
Okay, could I feel any cheaper right now? I laugh off the question without answering while I dream of a day when I don’t have to step foot in a radio station again.
“I bet every day is No Knickers Day for Will,” Dan says. “He looks like a total free-baller, doesn’t he, Bowser?”
“You know it, Dan. Free Willie!” Bowser says, prompting them all to laugh while I sit and wait for an actual question.
Bowser looks at me. “Willie, what about your girlfriend? Does she wear knickers? And if so, what kind?”
Time to change the game. I sit back in my seat and take off the headphones, which garners an immediate reaction from all three of them. They start shaking their heads, and Bowser covers his mic with one hand and says, “Okay, okay. Don’t leave.”
I give him a long glare until Candace says, “That was offside, Bowser.”
“Yes, you went way over the line,” Dan says. “Don’t mind him, Willie. He ate a lot of paint chips as a kid. But seriously. Let’s talk about the show because that’s what you’re here to do.”
“Thank you,” I say, putting the headphones back on and leaning toward the mic. “The show airs every Thursday night on ABN, and it’s a wild ride right from the second we’re dropped from a helicopter into the Congo.”
“Sounds cool,” Bowser says. “I’ll be tuning in for sure. Any hard feeling toward Princess Arabella? I mean, here you had a terrific show, The Wild World, a total testosterone fest—man vs. nature at its best—and then she prances in and takes over. That’s got to feel like a hair up your arse, no?”
“Definitely not. I’m more than happy to share the limelight—”
“—Oh, wait a minute folks, the bullspit metre is climbing!” Candace says. “It’s at a level six and still moving up.”
Canned laughter.
“Seriously, Will, tell us what happened last night after you two love birds left the studio after your disastrous interview,” Bowser says, scratching his shaggy grey beard. “For those of you who missed the show last night—and based on the ratings released by ABN this morning, it was almost nobody in the entire kingdom—you and your new leading lady were on ABN for a pre-show game show of sorts to get people all hyped up to watch your boring nature documentary—”
Royally Wild (Crazy Royal Love Romantic Comedy Book 2) Page 6