by Lara Hunter
She peeked into the mirror, then, and swiped on a layer of black eyeliner, making her eyes appear large and blissful. Her hair was curled nicely, flowing down her back. She tugged her nicest, newest-looking coat over her shoulders, inhaled sharply, and marched toward the door—feeling as if she were in a dream.
FIVE
The club the Prince had suggested was a mere five blocks from Lisa’s apartment, but her fear of being late forced her to hail a taxi again, her arm shivering in the air as she stood on the pavement.
A taxi squealed to a halt in front of her, and she popped into it, heavy with the cash from the restaurant tip.
“To the B-flat,” she said. “The jazz club. Please.”
The cab weaved through traffic and delivered Lisa at the club five minutes before the Prince’s call time. She tipped the cabbie generously, donned a confident smile, and then rushed past the smokers who hovered around a steaming heat lamp.
She entered the jazz club and was immediately thrust down the steps, toward a cave-like arena, where musicians were already playing.
Standing at the bottom of the staircase was Prince Francesco, his smile crooked and confident. His hands tucked deep within his pockets, it was clear he’d been waiting for her—like a prom date outside the bathrooms. He seemed to shiver with delight as she descended toward him, her heels tentative on the steps.
He extended his elbow, watching as Lisa pushed her arm through it, connecting them.
“Hi,” she breathed.
“You look beautiful,” he said, assessing her.
“Don’t go overboard,” Lisa laughed, tipping her head back.
In the corner, the saxophonist had begun to blare through his instrument, the noise gritty and guttural, before the drums joined and the trumpet blasted. As the music began its colorful jolting, Lisa handed her jacket to the cloakroom staff member, and shivered at the sudden chill upon her shoulders.
“Hard not to go overboard with a scene like this,” Francesco said, gesturing.
He led her to a tiny corner table, with a candle in the center. As he had before, he swept the chair back, allowing her to sit gracefully. As he sat across from her, she realized something: the Prince was by far the most handsome guy she’d ever been on a date with—if that was really what was happening.
As she sat, she forced herself to contemplate the truth of her situation: that she was there to squeeze the best paycheck possible out of this man, and that nothing else in the world mattered. Not his impending marriage, or his unhappiness, or the fact that the bass player bumped along, creating an atmosphere in which to fall in love.
After a pause, Francesco ordered a bottle of wine from the server, casually addressing the fact that he’d already drank one and a half bottles that night. “In Europe, it’s how you live. You inhale wine. It’s healthy.” He winked.
“And I suppose next you’ll tell me cheese doesn’t make you fat?” Lisa laughed.
“It doesn’t. And what is this low carb diet you Americans are always on? It doesn’t make sense. Pasta is a way of being.”
Lisa rolled her eyes playfully, watching as the waiter poured her a large glass of wine. She clinked her glass with Francesco, whose dramatic toast rang in her ears.
“To tonight. To meeting you, Lisa. Thank you for encouraging me to acknowledge my own truth.”
She bowed her head slightly, sipping the dark liquid. For a moment, they sat silently, allowing the jazz club ambiance to melt over them. Lisa felt Francesco’s eyes upon her, tracing her profile. For once, her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth, too uncertain to make the first move.
“Where are you from, anyway?” Francesco asked then.
Lisa looked back up at him, suddenly shy. She sensed his words were far from a boundary she’d set between them. But she offered a single, solitary word, hoping it would help them onto a necessary path, one that would fuel him to tell her more secrets.
“Detroit,” she murmured.
“I see,” he said. “I’m assuming our childhoods were very different, then.”
“I wasn’t royalty, for one,” Lisa smiled, easing up slightly.
“Right. Of course. Sometimes, it’s difficult for me to understand other peoples’ realities; being a prince is the only life I’ve ever known.”
“You couldn’t have had a normal childhood. I’m guessing your mother and father had an arranged marriage, as well?” Lisa asked.
Francesco nodded, his eyes suddenly far away. “He was good to her. He didn’t have any choice, of course, but he ensured that she had every worldly comfort, especially as I was growing up. I don’t think my mother ever wanted to have children. But of course, she didn’t have a choice.”
“Why not?” Lisa asked, leaning closer.
“Well, my father grew up as a prince of Aluzzi. He always knew he would rule one day. My mother, by contrast, was a princess in a neighboring kingdom, and she had no love for the Aluzzi people. She wanted to remain with her brothers and sisters, especially after the crown turned power over to the people, and kings and queens were no more in her country. She hated the notion that people needed rulers. She wanted to live an ordinary life.”
“But she was married to your father before all of that happened?” Lisa asked.
Francesco nodded. “The paperwork was drawn up when she was a girl, and she was married to my father when she was 17. By the time her home kingdom became a republic, I had already been born, meaning she had a family. She was stuck.”
“That’s terrible,” Lisa murmured, imagining that feeling of being trapped, knowing that home, freedom, and family were just a few hundred miles away.
“The next few years weren’t easy for her. She had my sister, a girl who fits the ‘princess’ title far more than Princess Rose, even. A spoiled brat,” Francesco said, scoffing. “And a few years later, I became a teenager, and began to live in the public eye. It wasn’t necessarily my choice. The paparazzi. They latch onto you. They don’t let you go.”
Lisa’s stomach twisted at the words. “I see,” she said. “And what were you up to, to make the paparazzi fawn over you? Surely, there was a story there.” Her eyes twinkled. She hoped she wasn’t giving herself away.
“I’m sure you’d recognize the stories, although they were years ago,” he said. “I was something of a wild teenager, always throwing parties with models and actors and the richest of the rich. Nothing was too grand for me, especially at the time. I felt I had something to prove. I wasn’t the sweet, little prince that I’d been portrayed as when I’d been a child. I was wild. I was free. And I had more money than a god.”
Lisa felt the sarcasm beneath his last words. His sadness was deep. She felt her fingers inch toward his, yearning to touch him.
“But I didn’t really want to be famous. Not after that first year of the tabloids following my every move,” Francesco continued. “It was painful, knowing that my parents could see what the world was saying about me. I would hide away in my chambers, knowing that I was reckless, that I was ruining us all. And I couldn’t stop.”
Lisa paused, tracing her teeth with her tongue. “Was Princess Rose at these parties?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” he answered, his voice somber. “We both knew what our parents wanted, but we assumed we could get out of it. Sometimes, we’d get into screaming matches—each of us with our own agenda. As we grew older, she said marrying would be good for our status. Nothing has ever mattered to her more than that.” He stabbed his finger upon the table, almost in time with the jazz tune that was playing. The trumpet burst in Lisa’s ears, startling her.
“And now, the wedding,” the Prince continued. “Paparazzi are everywhere, declaring to the world that Rose and I are constantly fighting. Cue me renting out every single table in that restaurant, just to avoid them.” He bowed his head lethargically, heavy with sadness. “I don’t know what to do, Lisa. I’ve never been at such a loss.”
Lisa felt entrenched with guilt. As he spoke of the papara
zzi, she began to feel disgust at her assignment. Rocco was a sleazy, ruthless man, standing in his high-rise apartment. And she was a soldier in his army.
She didn’t belong with Rocco. She loved people. She wanted to fight for goodness, for art, for truth.
She cleared her throat, the wine rushing to her head. She felt tipsy. And Francesco’s eyes were too alluring.
“Childhoods are rough,” she murmured, filling the space between them. “No matter how hard you work to escape your circumstances, it seems you never can.”
“Your circumstances in Detroit?” he asked her. His intrigue was unexpected. What interest could he have in her silly little life? And yet, she found herself forming the words.
“That’s right,” Lisa began. “I remember days when we didn’t have food on the table. My mother worked tirelessly at one factory job after another. It seemed she was always being made redundant, always going to the unemployment office, and always driving me a few minutes late to school. It was our pattern. It was our life.”
Lisa smiled sadly, diving into the depths of her past. “I’m sorry if it’s too much information, but I remember the other children making fun of me, telling me I didn’t belong with them. It was my own form of torture. It was my own form of paparazzi. And it was horrible.”
The Prince nodded, his eyes filled with understanding—although how in the world he could even understand it, even glimpse her world, was beyond Lisa. But she appreciated the way he kept his hand over hers on the table, the way he refilled her glass, the way he listened.
“And in high school, when you could begin working? Did things start to get better?”
Lisa nodded, tears beginning to brim in her eyes. “I was a waitress.”
“Just as you are today,” the Prince said, smiling. “Only at a top-tier Manhattan restaurant. See how far you’ve come.” His words were kind, but they came as a painful reminder of how much she’d lied.
She swallowed. “Yes. A waitress. And I made many friends through the restaurant. I loved them, you know. We got into so much trouble together, as 16-and 17-year-olds. But after that, I wanted to focus on getting to the city, while they wanted to focus on something else entirely.”
“What was that?”
“They wanted to focus on getting married, and on having children. And they’ve all succeeded,” she said, shrugging. “Not that I ever wanted that.”
“What did you want, Lisa?”
Francesco leaned closer, and again, Lisa could feel his breath upon her face. She licked her lips, trying to focus once more.
“Um. I want to make enough money to go back to school. I’ve been focused on it for so long, but I don’t always know if it will happen.” She laughed to herself, trying to shrug it off, to make it seem like it didn’t matter. But the Prince sensed the seriousness of her tone.
“What do you want to do?” he asked. “At school.”
“Photography,” Lisa said, before she thought twice about it. She cursed herself inwardly, knowing that she should have prepared a lie. But she hadn’t thought she’d divulge a single secret to this man. She’d meant to dip into him, to get to the nitty-gritty of his personality and past. But here she was, pouring it all out for him.
“Oh? Do you have anything I could look at?” he asked her.
Lisa nodded half-heartedly, reaching for her phone. She’d published several images of her personal street photography on her website, which she’d set up the previous year, when she’d had a bit of cash on hand. She swept through them before stumbling upon a particular photograph from the summer before last, taken in Central Park.
The photo was of a three-year-old boy, leaning heavily against a bench, a sucker in his mouth. The sunlight glinted on his hat, which was crooked on his blond curls. He looked awkward, lost. And yet: his mother’s hands were wrapped around his shoulders from above, locking him into place.
“This is it,” she whispered, gesturing. “My favorite shot.”
Francesco took a moment to really look at it: to admire the colors, the positioning, the perspective. “You have real talent, Lisa,” he told her with sincerity. “I can’t say I’ve seen anything quite like this before. And trust me. Many, many people across the world have taken my picture.” He winked at her.
Lisa’s face turned bright pink. She smiled, accepting his compliment.
“Seriously. I think you have to go to school for this. If you don’t ever share your amazing eye with the world? That would be a travesty.”
“I don’t quite know what to say,” she whispered.
“Just keep doing it,” he told her, as another jazz tune filled their ears. “Don’t make excuses to yourself. The world is filled with people who give up and give in. Including myself, if I don’t call this wedding off.”
“You should call it off,” Lisa breathed, not thinking. “You have to.”
“Then we both know what we have to do, now, don’t we?” Francesco laughed, hailing the server. “Now, how about some cocktails? I’m feeling far too excited for wine. And they have some of the best cocktails I’ve ever had.” His gaze landed on a nearby waiter. “Server? Two Fitzgeralds please. And a plate of olives, bread and cheese. We’ve hardly had anything to eat, and I have a sense that this is going to be a long, interesting night.”
Lisa fell into easy conversation with the Prince, realizing that she was flirting and giggling like a schoolgirl. As two hours dripped to three, Francesco leaned toward her and whispered into her ear, his breath hot.
“Why don’t we get out of here?” he asked.
And Lisa found herself following him, almost as if her entire life had been leading to this dramatic precipice—as she flung off everything she knew, and followed this dream man.
SIX
Lisa found herself tucked in the backseat of Francesco’s limousine, pushing away thoughts that the driver had probably recognized her leaving the jazz club on Francesco’s arm. Her brain hummed with drink, and her body seemed to operate with a singular need to be held, to be touched, to be seen—and only by Francesco.
“Back home, sir?” Sergio’s voice boomed to the backseat.
And Francesco said yes, before turning his eyes back to Lisa, and tipping his face toward her, brushing her lips with his. Their kiss was tentative, yet filled with passion. Lisa wrapped her arms around his neck, inhaling his scent. They were connected, without memory of a time when they hadn’t known each other. They fizzled with stories and secrets. And they had no need for anyone else.
The limousine stopped in downtown Manhattan. Francesco told Sergio he didn’t need him for the rest of the night, and he opened the door, allowing Lisa to exit onto the sidewalk, her eyes bright in the effervescent city lights.
She accepted Francesco’s arm once more, and they entered the lavish foyer, the doorman dressed in an immaculate suit, tilting his round hat toward them. “Sir. Ma’am. Good evening.” He pressed the elevator button, assessing Lisa, the outsider. But, like a good doorman, he made no mention that she wasn’t the woman the Prince had left with, earlier in the night. He was no paparazzo. He was invisible.
The elevator was covered with floor-to-ceiling mirrors that perfectly reflected the passionate kisses they shared. They eased into each other’s bodies once more, relishing the privacy of the four walls. Lisa lifted her tongue to his, slipping it along his lip, and sighing deeply. She had never been held so tight.
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to reveal the penthouse suite—the place Francesco called home during his New York visits. The moment the view registered, Lisa’s jaw dropped. The stark contrast of this place to her one-bedroom apartment gave her momentary pause.
But Francesco gave her a coaxing smile and placed his fingers at the small of her back, nudging her forward. “Make yourself at home.”
Lisa giggled as she entered, slipping her shoes from her feet and trotting toward the broad windows, which gave a stunning view of the city below. Lights sparkled; countless windows, all across the city.
She and the Prince were tucked away in their own little world, safe from the autumn wind.
“What do you think?” Francesco asked, appearing at her side. “I had the place decorated by a famous Aluzzian designer.”
The living room was a perfect marriage of modernity and tradition, offering sleek furniture and bright, bold, Mediterranean colors. Tapestries hung on the walls, along with several Roman-looking paintings, which complimented the trendy lamps and modern coffee tables strewn throughout. She felt breathless, unable to put her impression into words.