Dirty Scandal

by Amelia Wilde

  I adjust my dark glasses and keep my gaze looking forward. I don’t want to appear to be in hurry either and possibly attract their attention.

  Crossing the street, I steal another glance in their direction. The taxi is only half a block away. My heart is pounding and it’s not easy to keep my pace purposeful and not rushed. “You’re an everyday citizen walking down the street in Saintland,” I think to myself. “There’s no need for them to notice you.”

  I’m only ten feet away from the taxi when one of them stops in their tracks across the street, staring in my direction.

  The photographer he’s walking with comes to a halt beside him. I notice the one saying something to his colleague and he points discreetly in my direction. My instinct is to stop, to freeze, but I keep moving toward the taxi, my heart pounding so hard against my rib cage that I’m worried it might burst out of my chest.

  There. I’m there. My hand closes around the door handle to the taxi as prickles of sweat bead on the back of my neck. I open the door and slide into the back seat, struggling to catch my breath.

  I want this to be an uneventful escape.

  I don’t want another media frenzy about me and Alec.

  The gossip sites, after all, exploit their stories internationally, and I don’t want anything more to do with this whole thing once I’m back in New York.

  Safe in the taxi, I whip my head around to look out at the photographers, my eyes locked in panic on their faces.

  “Miss?” says the driver.

  “What?” I say, my voice sharp. I cut my eyes toward him and see that he’s looking at me cautiously. I probably seem like a crazy lady.

  Maybe I am.

  I smile at him and take in a deep breath.

  “Where to?”

  “I’m sorry,” I answer, trying my best to cover up the awkwardness that’s fallen over the car.

  “Airport, please. I have a flight to catch.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  He returns his attention to driving, and shifting the car into gear and signals to pull out from his parking spot.

  As he pulls away from the curb, I look back one more time at the photographers, dreading what I might see. If they have their cameras…

  But they don’t. The one who was staring at me from across the street is now rifling through his bag, a worried look on his face. The other man comes around to his side and peers into the bag, too. They’re clearly missing a piece of equipment or experiencing some other difficulty.

  They didn’t notice me.

  I sit back against the seat and breathe a sigh of relief. But every breath still hurts.

  It might hurt for a long time.

  I remind myself that I have a plane to catch.

  I let that thought fill my mind. I don’t look back at the palace.

  40

  Alec

  Nate drives aimlessly for five minutes, and then he seems to make up his mind about a destination. He doesn’t say a word. The man always understands when I’m not in the mood for chatter, and he’s known me long enough to know intuitively where to go when I’m having one of my moods.

  Ninety minutes later, we’re pulling into Forestbridge, a quaint fishing village on the shore of a massive lake. It’s the kind of place even a crown prince can go without getting mobbed by the media.

  That general depiction of the media may be a bit callous and undeserving. With a few exceptions—that idiot climbing the palace wall immediately comes to mind—the media in Saintland are a different animal from the rabid paparazzi in the United States. Even when the news broke about my fight with Marcus and everyone in the country was talking about it, the television reporters never left their designated spot outside the palace. The photographer who climbed the wall had his credentials revoked immediately. His punishment would have been far greater except, I found out later, he had not been arrested for trespassing on palace grounds at Marcus’s urging.

  Still, Forestbridge is a haven. It’s a town with more pubs than churches, which makes it the perfect destination for a prince on the run from the weight of his own jackass behavior.

  Even if it was, ultimately, the right thing to do.

  But was it?

  That line of thought is interrupted as Nate parks the car by the curb in front of the first of the five or six pubs we’d eventually visit in Forestbridge that day, moving on whenever the mood struck us.

  It’s late afternoon and I’m tired, still feeling the effects of the last pint, when we decide to walk out on the public docks in Forestbridge.

  The summer light is golden and hazy, reflecting its vivid hues on the ripples of the water.

  “That’s a beautiful sight,” Nate says admiringly, crossing his arms over his chest as a breeze plays over us.

  “Can’t argue with you there.” It’s true; the lake is gorgeous. I’ve been desperate for this type of serenity since Marcus died and everything was thrown into chaos.

  But there’s something missing, and I know exactly who it is.

  Jessica.

  It was a stupid thing I did earlier, saying those things to her. And I can’t take them back. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to make things right between us.

  I’m gripped by a sudden and frantic urgency. I reach out and slap Nate on the shoulder, turning quickly away from the picturesque lakeside scene. “Let’s go.”

  “Where to this time?” He hurries to match my stride.

  “The palace.”

  “Miss it already?” Nate jokes.

  “Not a bit.”

  He catches my meaning and walks faster.

  Soon we’re back at the car and I slide into the back seat. Ninety minutes will be an eternity, but then I’ll be with Jessica again, and we can sort all of this out.

  Nate drives at the very outer edge of the speed limit all the way back to Sainthall. The royal town car, with its flags flapping harshly in the breeze, didn’t draw more than a few sidelong looks in Forestbridge—they pride themselves on treating everyone equally there—but in Sainthall, the sight of the royal vehicle parts traffic like the Red Sea. For once, it pays to be the prince.

  I ignore everyone as I race my way up to the third floor of the palace, my impatience finally getting the best of me. I have to fix this. Or at least do everything in my power to try.

  Jesus. Will I ever be finished getting myself into these situations?

  The door to Jessica’s rooms is propped open. I burst inside, my heart pounding painfully, desperate to see her.

  Her rooms are a hive of activity. There are people coming and going, and at first I can’t understand what the hell is going on. Then I see Claire in the center of it all, directing two assistants, their arms full of clothing.

  “Anything unworn, hang it back on the racks. Then—.” She breaks off as she sees me, dipping her head, fire in her eyes. “Your highness.”

  “What’s going on here?” I demand.

  Claire claps her hands twice, and the motion in the main room comes to a stop. “Give us a minute,” she says, and within seconds everyone has filed out into the hall leaving us alone.

  “Claire,” I say, cold fear mixing with hot anger in my chest. “What in the name of God is happening here? Did Jessica go back to the Diamond Circle?”

  The woman I hired to be Jessica’s companion and personal assistant squares her shoulders in a steely stance. “She’s gone back to the United States, your highness.”

  “What?” The anger goes white-hot, spiking through my gut, making my stomach clench. I feel as if I might vomit. “When?” My voice comes out as a low growl.

  “Her flight left an hour ago.”

  Claire isn’t backing down, and when I see her rigidity, my first instinct is to lash out, shout at her, and tell her she’ll never work in Sainthall Palace again.

  Then it finally dawns on me. This is exactly the kind of shit that gets me in trouble in the first place. With Marcus, with my father—every single time I’ve been hurt, resentful, pisse
d off, I’ve let my emotions get the best of me.

  It also occurs to me that Jessica likely couldn’t leave the country without help from someone, and it would have been next to impossible for no one to notice her leaving the palace to go to the airport, yet no one alerted me. Claire must have helped her. As my employee, she shouldn’t have done that without consulting me first.

  Yet how can I blame Jessica? After the things I said to her, it’s no surprise she felt her only option was going back to New York City.

  And this isn’t Claire’s fault for helping her leave.

  It’s mine.

  All mine.

  I’m the one who did this.

  Defeated, I blow my breath out through my lips, then turn my attention back to Claire. Her shoulders are braced. She’s waiting for me to yell at her. She’s waiting for the characteristic Prince Alexander blowup.

  Those days are over.

  So are my days with Jessica.

  “All right,” I say lamely, and her determine expression changes to one of confusion. “Go on with what you’re doing. Let me know when you’ve finished, and I’ll make sure you get reassigned to another position on the palace staff.”

  “Thank you, your highness,” Claire says, bewildered. She’s speaking to my back. I’m already retreating, heading for the door and out to what can only be a lonely life.

  41

  Jessica

  I’ve been back in New York City for three days, and already Saintland seems like something I imagined.

  It’s what I’m thinking about as I wait patiently inside the lobby of an office in a high-rise remarkably similar to the one that housed Colton-Hayes. After leaving so suddenly and giving absolutely no notice, I didn’t even consider asking for my job back at Colton-Hayes.

  I had gone immediately to Carolyn’s apartment—and mine, too, I reminded myself—when I deplaned in New York.

  She had opened the door, a surprised look on her face, and then pulled me into a hug. “Where’ve you been, Jess? Tell me all about it. Come on. Sit down.” She had taken hold of my elbow and steered me directly to the sofa.

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t find another roommate while I was gone,” I said sheepishly.

  She rolled her eyes kindly at me, then disappeared into the kitchen, emerging a moment later with a bottle of wine and two crystal glasses. “Why would I have done that?”

  “I did disappear…for a couple of weeks. And I still owe you rent money for this month.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Jess. Of course, I didn’t replace you. You needed a vacation.” She shrugged. “I did wonder if you’d be back. It wouldn’t be the first time you decided to up and change everything about your life overnight.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed with a sigh, accepting the glass of white wine she offered to me. “Changing my life on a whim? Those days are over.”

  “What happened?”

  I took a deep breath and a big gulp of wine, then dove headfirst into telling her the entire story, leaving out the finer details of our time in bed. When I was finished, she was sitting on the edge of her seat, mouth open.

  “A prince. And you couldn’t cut him any slack when things got busy?” Carolyn raised her eyebrows in mock dismay.

  I gave her a pointed look. “You’ve dumped guys for less.”

  “You’re right,” she said, sitting back and swirling the remainder of her wine in her glass. “So…what are you going to do now that the fairy tale is over?” Her eyes danced at her little joke.

  I gave her a nudge with my foot and snorted. “Some fairy tale.”

  “Really, though. Are you going to go back to business as usual here in the city?”

  “That’s the plan. Except…”

  “Except what?”

  “I might have screwed up my chances at Colton-Hayes.”

  Carolyn laughed, a pure sound. “Let me guess—you told them you were taking a vacation at about the same time you told me?”

  I screwed my mouth into a twisted grin, shaking my head.

  “You didn’t tell them at all?”

  “I didn’t tell them at all.”

  She laughed again and wagged a finger at me. “Tell people when you want to quit your job, Jessica. Ghosting is for men, not for jobs.”

  “I know, I know. I didn’t plan it, I—”

  “You got swept up on a romantic escapade with the hottest man you ever laid eyes on.”

  One last sip, and I’d drained my wine glass.

  “Well, like I said, I’m done with all that. I need to find another gig. Speaking of which…” I fluttered my eyelashes at her as she leaned forward to pour herself another glass.

  “You know perfectly well that I’ll get you an interview someplace. I can’t promise you’ll like it more than Colton-Hayes, though.” Carolyn listened to me vent about my job at least once weekly. Now that I don’t work there anymore, everything I had complained about doesn’t seem so bad after all. And yet…

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ll be committed this time. I’ll do my best job ever.”

  Carolyn leans over and pats my leg. “I’m sure you will.”

  She didn’t waste any time making right on her promise, which is why less than three days later, I’m sitting in the lobby of Heights Marketing, Inc. wearing a designer skirt suit I borrowed from Carolyn this morning. It’s perfect attire for my interview, but I’m going to need to invest some of my savings into freshening up my own wardrobe. If I’m going to make it in this city, I need to rely less on my friends and more on myself.

  The large picture window in the lobby looks out over the bustling New York streets, and as the seconds tick by, I watch people come and go. Something slowly occurs to me.

  I can’t stay here.

  “Oh, stop it,” I think to myself. “This kind of bullshit is exactly what started the whole series of events that got your heart broken in the first place.”

  But I can’t stop thinking about it. The truth is, I’m never going to feel the same way about this city again.

  Because this city was where I met Alec.

  Even this morning, as I was walking to the subway, I found myself looking at the faces of the people I passed by on the sidewalk in case one of them was Alec, and that he’d come back here, looking for me.

  He’s not going to come back here.

  If I stay, I’ll always be looking for him.

  He’s the one that got away, never mind that I was the one who left.

  I’m walking over to speak to the receptionist sitting behind the desk before I’ve consciously made the decision.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and she looks up from her computer, reaching one hand up to click the mute button on her headset.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat, my voice more confident this time. “I need to cancel my interview with Mr. Bolt.”

  “He’ll be with you in a moment—.”

  “It’s not that. And please pass along that I was very thankful for the opportunity to meet with him.” I take a deep breath. “Unfortunately, today’s not going to work out.” I smile at her, and then turn to head for the door.

  The door to an office located across the lobby opens behind me, and a man calls, “Ms. Reeves?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say over my shoulder in passing, giving a wave. As I step into the waiting elevator and press the down button, I see the receptionist standing, saying something to the man who must be Mr. Bolt.

  This is going to be my last life shake-up, but I’m not going to rush it.

  I know exactly what I’m going to do.

  42

  Alec

  It’s been a week since Jessica left.

  Seven interminable, agonizing days.

  I didn’t realize how much having her here in Saintland meant to me—until she was gone. I don’t know how many times I’ve headed for the queen’s rooms without thinking, only to stop halfway there when I remember that no one is there. They’ve been cleared
of everything…all the clothing I had sent there for her, the sheets and bedding, and even the paintings I hand-picked from the royal collection especially for her have been taken back to storage. There’s no longer a single trace that Jessica was ever here.

  Every day, I wait for the gnawing pain from her absence to subside. But every day, the pain only gets stronger and stronger until it affects every part of me. My muscles ache, my head aches, my entire body hurts. I’m in agony.

  For lack of anything better to do, I throw myself into my work as the crown prince, more determined than ever with a dogged insistence on doing everything my father suggests to the letter. I schedule more media appearances—the summer festival starts in two weeks, and we’ll be welcoming tourists from all over Europe.

  I don’t care about the festival.

  I care about it in that it’s always a boost for the Saintlandian economy and without a doubt our nation’s biggest event of the year, for tourists and citizens alike. But mostly, I’m only putting so much energy into the minute details of my appearances, into the plans for Sainthall Palace, into other random aspects of it because I have to focus on something other than the fact that Jessica isn’t here.

  I’m sure everyone notices my joyless participation, but I only realize how obvious it is during a meeting with my father at which he brings up something entirely unrelated to the summer festival.

  We’re sitting in his council chamber, he with his papers, me with the portfolio of notes I’ve taken to carrying to every meeting. Scribbling down important points gives me something to keep my mind from wandering back to Jessica, Jessica, Jessica.

  That’s who I’m thinking about when my father says, “I’ve scheduled a social outing for you with a woman named Mariana Moretti.”

  “What kind of social outing?” I say hollowly while I scribble the name Mariana Moretti into my portfolio.

  “Dinner and drinks,” he says, his voice cautious.

  “The Diamond Circle, I assume?” I write that down, too.