Who he’d kissed on the cheek. Who he’d undressed in front of. Her cheeks heated at the thought and she pressed the back of one hand to her face.
The time for the party passed, and Alex stared at the clock. She was never exactly on time. Her grandmama the queen insisted that royalty was always five minutes late. Never earlier than that because it showed eagerness, and never later than that because it showed rudeness. But five minutes? That built anticipation. Each minute ticked past infinitely slowly, until she groaned and rechecked her makeup for the hundredth time that evening. Her lip gloss was immaculate, her eyes subtle, her hair blonde wavy perfection. There would be photos taken tonight and she would look as she always did—utterly serene, completely without blemish. A princess doll who smiled and did as she was told.
Pretend to be whatever they think you should be instead of who you really are.
Boy, he really had her pegged with that observation. Alex smiled gently at her reflection, pinched her cheeks to give them becoming color, and then carefully left her private sitting room to go and greet her guests.
***
Luke tugged at the tight neck of his green bow tie. Normally he liked wearing a jacketed suit, but the tie felt like it was choking him. He’d been bulking up for this role and his neck was a little thicker than before. He swallowed hard, encouraging his Adam’s apple to silently break through the silk fabric and leave him with no choice but to go tieless.
Or leave the formal affair. Yeah, that might work.
It was the first time Luke had been invited anywhere quite so . . . intimidating. Red carpets and movie premieres had nothing on being invited to a fucking royal palace. He’d been of a mind to cancel, just because he was in a foul mood lately, but the director had absolutely insisted that his stars go.
“The princess is a big fan of my movies,” Nick had insisted for the twelfth time that day, and it seemed he wasn’t wrong, because here they were, being dropped off at the front steps of Cinderella’s freaking castle. A hundred carved steps led from the cobblestone driveway up to the front of the palace. It looked like something out of one of the period movies he told his agent to avoid—acres and acres of windows and cornices and staff everywhere you looked. Two footmen in livery opened the doors to the palace, and Pamela Jones, his co-star, squealed with excitement and hugged his arm.
“Isn’t this exciting, Luke?”
“It’s something,” he drawled, feeling even more out of place. They were making a high-speed-chase movie about the mafia. Why on earth were they invited to dine with royals? It made no sense.
The interior of the palace was just as posh as he’d expected. Paintings of important royals lined the walls, and everywhere there was antique furniture, Aubusson carpets, and shit far too expensive for the likes of him. Hell. Luke started to sweat. Were they being pranked? They were being pranked, weren’t they? Someone from one of those “gotcha” TV shows was going to pop around a corner and make them feel like fools.
They were led into a formal parlor with more antique furniture and a large marble fireplace, crackling with a fire despite the warm summer air. Over the fireplace there was an immense painting of the queen, seated, one of her trademark fluffy white cats in her lap.
“You think we’ll see one of the cats tonight?” Pamela asked, nudging his arm.
“Dunno.”
One of the servants coughed and clasped his hands, looking at them. “I wish to verify your names for your placeholders at dinner. Please let me know if these are incorrect.” He held up a list and began to read in a sonorous voice. “Miss Pamela Jones.”
“Here,” Pam chimed in.
The servant gave her a disapproving look, and Pam quailed on Luke’s arm. “This is not attendance.”
“Sorry,” she said meekly.
“Lucas Houston,” the man read next.
“Luke,” he corrected. “Just Luke Houston.”
The man made a note of it and continued. “Tony Crawford?” The movie’s villain raised his hand. “Nicholas Stanton?” The director nodded. The servant folded the list and gave them an austere look. “When Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra enters the room, the proper Bellissime protocol is to bow at the waist for men, and for women to curtsy. She is to be referred to as Your Grace unless she gives you permission otherwise.” The look he gave them indicated that it was an unlikely event.
Pam nodded and immediately bobbed into a curtsy.
“Not him, sugar,” Luke told her. “He’s just the staff.”
“Oh. Right.” Pam rubbed her nose. “I’m just nervous.”
They all were. The servant turned and left, closing the doors behind him, and the three actors were left alone with the director.
“I told you she’s a big fan of mine, didn’t I?” Nick said for the millionth time that night. “She loves my movies.”
“Is she old?” Tony asked. He seemed unruffled, but Tony had been acting longer than Luke had been alive, so maybe this was old hat to him. “I don’t recall seeing pictures of the royal family in tabloids.”
“Bellissime’s royalty isn’t as well known as Monaco or the Brits. They like to keep a lower profile.” Nick gave them a knowing nod, as if he were intimately familiar with the royal family. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled strings to make sure that we set the movie here. Big film buffs, all of them.”
“Wow,” Pam said, impressed.
Luke held back his snort of derision. He doubted anyone in the royal family knew anything about films.
The doors opened behind them, and two footmen stepped inside. Strangely enough, Luke’s heart thumped. The pomp of the place was staggering, he had to admit.
“Her Royal Highness, Princess Alexandra Olivia the Third, Duchess of Beaulac and Heir Apparent to the throne of Bellissime.” The footmen stepped aside and bowed.
Everyone else bowed as well, except Pam, who dropped into another curtsy. Luke felt awkward as fuck, like a puppet dressed up for someone else’s amusement.
“Rise,” came a smooth, familiar voice.
Astonished, Luke straightened, and when he did, he looked up into blue eyes with strong brows, an elegant but not pretty face, and a dimple that he remembered all too well.
Oh, sweet Jesus. He’d called the fucking royal princess a hooker. He was horrified. Almost. Then he noticed the impish look on her face.
And he laughed aloud. She’d gotten him good, hadn’t she?
CHAPTER FOUR
Dinner was . . . wonderfully awkward.
Alex ate her meal delicately, kept the conversation flowing, and listened to the director’s incessant rambling with an attentive look on her face. All the while, she wanted to stare at Luke, to pull him aside and ask him what he thought of her now. She couldn’t, of course, not with three other people in the room. But oh, she wanted to so badly.
She tried to give them a bit of Bellissime culture through dinner. The wines were a special kind grown in her own vineyards, and each course was served with a variety of sauces traditional to Bellissime dining. They mostly guzzled wine and ignored the carefully prepared menu, growing louder with every refill of their wineglasses. An expert at handling dinner parties—even bad ones—Alex paid attention to each guest, noticing what they ate and what they didn’t. The director and Tony drank and ate with gusto, ignoring anything that looked “unfamiliar.” The actress next to Luke also drank quite a bit, but pushed her food around her plate more than she ate.
Luke drank only water and ate small portions of chicken and plain vegetables, and ignored everything else.
Talk turned to the movie at one point, which she’d been expecting, and Nick boasted that they were going to have a box-office smash. As she watched, Luke grabbed a saltshaker, poured a bit into his hand, and threw it over his shoulder.
This sent Pam into drunken hysterics. “You’re not supposed to do that at the royal
palace, silly!”
He froze, as if realizing what he’d been doing.
“Quite all right,” Alex broke in smoothly. “Truly. Are you superstitious, then, Mr. Houston?” She fixed her gaze on him, excited. This was her chance to have a conversation!
Before he could reply, Pam giggled drunkenly again. “Oh, god, yes. He’s totally batshit about anything with the film. There was a ladder on set once and we had to reshoot a scene because he kept coming too close to it and refused to walk under it!”
Luke’s expressive mouth flattened and he took a sip of his water, silent.
The conversation carried on without him, and Alex was disappointed. While the other three were carousing and in high spirits, Luke was quiet, only speaking when directly addressed. Was he not enjoying the dinner party? Was he annoyed with her? Her palms sweated at the thought.
Once dinner was over, they took a few photos for the inevitable press release, and she asked them if they would like a tour of the palace, since it was the polite thing to do. They jumped at the chance, and only looked a little disappointed when she handed them off to the royal housekeeper, who took care of all the tours.
Princesses did not act as tour guides, of course.
She excused herself from her guests and retreated back to her private parlor down the hall, and tried to ignore her frustration. Maybe she should have been forward and just invited Luke to dinner instead of all of them. But she hated to give the papers fodder right now, especially when her mother was already doing her best to make the royal palace’s publicist have a nervous breakdown. Hot weekend in Monte Carlo, indeed.
Alex sighed. Sometimes she wished she were as brave as her mother and didn’t care what the world thought. Maybe then she’d have been able to shove all the others aside and go to Luke and say I like you. I want to talk to you and not these fools. Will you talk to me?
But protocol had been beaten into her from the moment she could stand. It had taken her mother nearly fifty-five years to get the courage to do what she wanted. And maybe . . . maybe it was for the best that she didn’t talk to him. She’d just get all giggly and stupid over him and he’d think she was a fool. Alex thumped down on an elegant settee, sighed, and put her head in her hands.
“Am I intruding?”
Alex looked up in surprise to see Luke—the famous Hollywood star Luke for-goodness-sakes Houston—leaning on the door that she’d closed behind her. She’d been so wrapped up in her own angst that she hadn’t heard him open it.
He gave the door a small knock as an afterthought, and a lopsided grin appeared on his face. “Hi.”
She blinked. A thousand thoughts raced through her head. You shouldn’t be here. This parlor is for royal family members only. Where are your friends? The staff is going to see you.
All that came out of her mouth was a small, “Hi.”
“So . . . can we talk for a moment? Because I feel we really should talk.”
Alex rushed to her feet and waved him forward. He took a step inside, and as he did, she quickly shut the door behind him and leaned on it. With it shut, she was able to breathe again. At his confused look, she gave him a small, apologetic grimace. “If the staff see you in here—”
His eyes widened. He gestured at the door she leaned on. “Should I go?”
“No!” Her hands pressed to her mouth after she blurted the word, horrified. “I mean, no, please, sit down.” She gestured at a chair.
Instead of listening to her, he leaned on his shoulder, arm on the door, his face moving close to hers. She could smell his aftershave, spicy and delicious, and his height was exactly the same as hers. Alex could look him right in the eye, and it was a little disconcerting and a lot exciting. Luke grinned wider. “So were you going to tell me you were a princess?”
“You had me all figured out.” Goodness, she was finding it hard to catch her breath. “Why correct you?”
He chuckled. “I’m just glad I didn’t do all the things I was thinking about doing to you.”
Oh. Did she think it was hard to breathe before? It was impossible now. “Such . . . as?”
“Well, I admit I was intrigued by the prim hooker disguise, but I liked you.” He flicked a finger at her hair. “This the real color?”
She nodded.
“Your wig was terrible.”
“I know. It was so the paparazzi wouldn’t follow me.”
“So you were sneaking around? Naughty princess.”
Alex felt rather flushed and excited at his words. “Good princesses don’t get what they want, so I decided to go rogue.”
He grinned again, as if utterly delighted by the thought. “I’m a fan of rogue princesses myself.”
“Are you?” Oh, sweet lord have mercy, he was flirting with her! She caught herself and added, “But not rogue escorts.”
His laughter barked out, echoing against the walls. “No, not a fan of escorts.”
“I’m curious . . . why did you immediately jump to escort? I didn’t think I was dressed like one.”
“You weren’t. I just . . .” He rubbed his face with a hand—a big hand, she noticed. “I was having a rough week on set, and some directors have been known to ‘encourage’ their leading men by sending them masseuses or escorts or drugs to help them relax.”
Her eyes widened in horror. “Drugs? Illegal drugs?”
“No, they send them sinus medication,” he said sarcastically. “Yes, illegal drugs.”
Alex’s cheeks flushed and she felt foolish. What a stupid question. “Of course.”
“Bit sheltered here in the palace, Princess? Sorry, Your Grace?” He grimaced. “Guess we’re both out of our element a bit.”
“Please, call me Alex.” She waved a hand, dismissing the thought of her titles.
“Alex,” he said slowly, and she shivered at the way he said her name. It was nice. Maybe too nice. “I’m Luke.”
“I know.” She bit her lip. “I’m a bit of a fan.”
“I knew that part.”
“But I’m not a fan if you do drugs or fornicate with escorts.”
He laughed, his smile returning and widening so much she got a flash of pearly white teeth. “I’m not a fan of those things, either. If he’d wanted to make me happy, he should have sent my personal trainer up for a good workout.”
She gave him a timid smile, relieved. The thought of her glowing image of him tarnished had hurt more than she’d liked to think.
He studied her face, his gaze flicking from her eyes down to her mouth. He studied her there for a long second, and her entire body screamed KISS ME. KISS ME. But he didn’t. Instead, he straightened. “Anyhow, I just wanted to apologize to you, Princess. I was pretty sure I’d offended you the other day by kicking you out of my trailer.”
“Not at all,” she breathed. Heck, she still thought every night about the perfectly tanned, rounded globes of his butt as he’d dropped the towel and slipped on his boxers. “I was intruding.”
“Not really. I should know better than to think things are private on set.”
That reminded her of something he’d said earlier. “You were having a bad week? May I ask why?”
“You may,” he teased. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned on one of the heavy oak wood chairs her grandfather had been fond of, looking slouchy and delicious all at once. “The director and I aren’t seeing eye to eye on everything.”
“Oh? But you’ve worked together before, haven’t you? On Pirates.”
“That was married Nick. Single Nick is fond of hookers and not fond of changes to the script.” He grimaced. “And it’s not a good script.”
Nick had given her a copy on her tour of the set, and she’d paged through it. She’d thought it was terrible, too, but assumed it was her own ignorance at how Hollywood scripts should read. “Can you talk to him about it? I’m sure he wants t
o keep you happy. You’re his leading man.”
“Some directors are very firm about the script. I’ve tried making small changes as I go, you know? Improv-ing on scene. Tweaking things here and there to give them more depth. He immediately freaks out and makes us reshoot. And I know that when the movie’s in the can, I’m going to look like a big wooden idiot and I’ll get panned everywhere.” He blew out a breath in frustration and got back to his feet, pacing. “He just can’t see that the script is bad because he wrote it himself. He has every line memorized.”
“Oh, dear.” Alex bit her lip. “What do your peers think?”
“My peers? You mean the other actors?” He shrugged. “Tony’s on a downward spiral because his last few movies have been flops, so he’s just happy to get work, even if it’s not headlining. Pam’s a paycheck player. She shows up for the movies but she’s more into red carpets and celebrity. No one seems to give a shit about the movie but myself and Nick, and we’re on opposing sides.”
“You’ll figure something out,” she soothed, and then felt like an idiot. She was just parroting useless phrases while he told her about his work frustrations. But what could she do? She wanted to have him keep talking, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. For the first time in her life, making conversation was hard.
Luke gave her another lopsided grin. “Guess so. Sorry to fill your ears.”
“Don’t be sorry. I enjoy hearing you talk about your work.” She paused and then clasped her hands. “I still think you should try and talk to Nick. Let him know your frustrations.”
“It’s a nice thought, Princess, but he doesn’t seem to respect anyone’s opinions but yours.” The look he gave her was half amused, half frustrated.
She thought for a moment. “Then clearly, I shall have to influence him.”
Luke stilled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if he respects my opinions, we need a plan.” She tapped a finger on her lip, thinking, and then felt all disconcerted when she realized Luke’s gaze went to her mouth. “I’ll come to the set next week. We need a signal for when you are changing a scene.”
His Royal Princess Page 3