Can't Buy Me Love

by Abigail Drake

  “Is he the one you had drinks with the other night?”

  When he nodded, she said, “Cute.”

  “Engaged,” he warned.

  “Kidding. I like my men darker and hotter.”

  The mention of ‘her men’ stung, but he accepted her phone as she handed it to him. He didn’t check for typos as he rushed with the message, entering Jarrod’s number and sending it, all within thirty seconds, just so he could go back to Alix as soon as possible.

  He took advantage of every last second with her, ignoring Jarrod’s calls and messages. Even his mother called and he’d let her call go to voice mail. In the end, he was forced to go to the airport on Wednesday, and escort Alix to the check-in line. Her luggage cart heaping, he helped her push it up to the counter, past four surly figures in dark suits. He hoped she wouldn’t have to sit next to them.

  She asked him to get her a bottle of water while she sorted out the check-in process.

  She looked somber and exhausted from lack of sleep when he returned to her. She only made a tiny sip of water before she pushed the bottle into her purse.

  He didn’t know what to say. Usually, he left before the morning shed light on the consequences of his actions. This time, his insides squeezed at the thought he’d never get to wake up next to Alix again. It wasn’t fair.

  “It’s been …” Alix glanced at him and then dropped her gaze. “Well, I need to go through the customs. Boarding will start in half an hour.” Her voice was croaky. It pained him that he couldn’t tell whether from fatigue or emotion.

  She leaned into him, soft and supple, and it took his breath away. His arms came around her reflexively. Her bed hair was a stark reminder of what they’d been doing minutes before calling a taxi to take them to the airport.

  “This was real, right? I didn’t just dream it?” Seb said.

  He couldn’t quite catch what she murmured into his chest.

  “I’ll miss you,” he blurted.

  She looked up, opening her mouth, but then she pressed her lips together and dropped her gaze to his chest. He forced her face up with his finger under her chin. He kissed her forehead, her cheek and eyelids, her chin and lips, and felt the bitter taste of goodbye intruding on their intimacy.

  His mouth on hers seemed to have unlocked something in her because she finally whispered, “I’ll miss you, too.”

  When she stepped away, he reached to push a strand of her hair from her face, but her eyes—miserable and dark—flitted to his for a second and then she was gone, walking away from him, and then running, her purse swaying from her shoulder behind her.

  ****

  It was like a punch to his gut when Maya showed him the magazine cover. He’d had a cold shower every day since Alix returned home, hoping to cool his skin which had felt as if sunburnt ever since their days of passion. He hadn’t slept well, he was late to meetings, and performed his tasks at work as an afterthought. His father had called him into his office three times to ask what was wrong and Seb lied that everything was okay and promised to get his act together but that was all it remained—a promise. It was hard to face reality through the mist of his daydreams of Alix.

  On his fourth day back home, he lost his phone and locked his keys in his car in a single moment of distractedness. Jarrod teased him this was karmic payback for his previous womanizing ways. Seb didn’t laugh because he suspected it might be true. The next second he questioned what had happened to him for him to start believing in karma.

  And then Maya sent him a message to meet her after work at the diner where they sometimes went for a weekend brunch with Jarrod and friends. Traffic was horrendous and he was half an hour late so Maya’s glare was understandable. She sat at the back of the diner. The fact that Jarrod hadn’t been invited filled Seb with apprehension. What was this about?

  “What’s up?” he asked as he dropped onto the seat.

  “Hello to you, too.” She looked at him sternly as she often did. As though she was his older sister, when in truth, she was five years younger. But then her face softened and she just watched him for a long moment.

  A waitress interrupted and he ordered coffee, black, no sugar.

  “Didn’t you used to drink latte?” Maya asked when they were left alone.

  “Things change.”

  “Apparently.”

  He was getting impatient with her. He liked Maya because she was kind and fun but sometimes she was too much of a meddler. He presumed this was such an occasion because he couldn't see why she would otherwise ask him to meet her. “So, what’s this about?”

  It took her another minute before she spoke. Her staring was getting freaky. At last, she asked, “Did that girl, Alix, tell you who she was?”

  He smiled indulgently. “She’s Alix, a former horseback rider.”

  “But you didn’t Google her?”

  He had been too wrapped up in feeling miserable for that to cross his mind. And now that Maya mentioned it, it sounded banal to Google someone as exceptional as Alix. He shook his head.

  “And you haven’t been in contact?”

  “What is this? An interrogation?” He hadn’t called Alix for the simple reason that he didn’t have her number. He’d hinted at them exchanging their numbers but she avoided the topic so he presumed she didn’t want to keep in contact. She didn’t want it to be any more than a holiday fling. If he’d known he’d miss her so terribly, he’d have insisted.

  “Sorry,” Maya said, sheepishly. “I got carried away. But you’ll understand why when you look at this.” She rummaged through her tote bag on the seat beside her and brought out a bunch of what looked like printouts. “I came across it this morning as I was researching a piece. And please don’t kill the messenger, okay?”

  Maya was an assistant editor at a fashion magazine and he didn’t have a clue how anything she might’ve come across in the office could have anything to do with him. Or Alix.

  He took the papers from her and glanced at the one on top. It looked like a magazine cover. A French one. There were several smaller photos with subtitles, but the large photo at the center of the cover attracted his eye right away. During the three days he’d spent with Alix in Florida, they left his hotel room only twice to get food. On one of those occasions, they took a stroll on the promenade, kissing and cuddling along the way, gorging on ice cream and each other. Someone took a snap of them as they laughed mid-kiss, oblivious of the world around them. Somehow that photo ended up on a French magazine cover. He hadn’t been familiar with competitive horseback riding but Alix made it seem like she was a decent rider but not one of the stars. So how …?

  Then the words beneath the photo sunk in. He didn’t know French, but it didn’t take much imagination to interpret them. Or at least some of them.

  La princesse et sa nouveau prince.

  “What the …?”

  His breath came short and he felt simultaneously shocked and confused and betrayed. He propped his forehead in his hand and kept staring at the page as if it would go away if he stared long enough. It took him a moment to hear Maya speaking.

  “I never saw her in Florida. I’m not sure I’d have recognized her anyway.”

  “Recognized her?” he asked, still perplexed.

  “She’s Alixandra, heir to the throne of Norrone. The tiny island kingdom between England and France. One of the richest countries in the world. That’ll all be hers one day.”

  “She could’ve told me,” Seb said, the words tearing out of him, leaving a sore spot in his chest. How could she do this to him? He’d told her on their last day together who his family was, hoping—naively, stupidly—that the promise of money would tempt her to change her mind so she’d stay. He was smitten, he’d do or say anything just to keep her a little bit longer. But why would she stay when she had not only money but a fucking country?

  “Fuck!”

  “For what it’s worth, Seb, I don’t think being a member of the royal family is easy,” Maya said softly. “Everyone w
atches her constantly … It’s …”

  “She lied to me. She told me she was a rider, for fuck’s sake.”

  “She was. But that’s just a hobby for her. I imagine it helps her forget who she really is.” Maya took the papers from his hand and searched for another one which looked like an interview with the Princess. “Here, read this. It’ll explain a lot.”

  “No matter what I read, it won’t explain why she lied.” Seb pulled at the collar of his shirt until the top button popped, rolled across the table and vanished under Maya’s seat.

  “Did she lie?” Maya asked, her eyes almost pleading as if she were defending her.

  “Withholding the truth is the same thing as lying,” he bit out. How could she do this to him after the tender moments they’d shared during their three days together? He’d felt as if they had really connected. Apparently, she hadn’t shared his sentiments.

  If only he had her number to call her and tell her what he thought of her deceitful ploy. He should just fly to Europe and storm right to her palace, castle, fort or wherever the hell she lived. But he knew he wouldn’t do it, no matter how mad he was. Those three days in Florida were the best days of his life and what angered him more than her lie was that he would never get to relive them again. If he’d had any hope of meeting her again before, it was shattered now. A princess wanting to see him? What a joke. She’d probably marry an actual prince who drove around in carriages and wore a sword as part of his uniform not an American with a Volvo and an iPhone.

  “Look … Maybe she just wanted to enjoy a few quiet moments with you. I mean, you get all pissy when your mug appears on covers. I think it must be worse for her because she’s a woman and royalty.”

  “Why are you defending her?” He needed to direct his anger at someone and Maya was the most convenient target right now.

  “Because I may not be a princess but I’m a woman and we always get judged more harshly than you guys. So maybe I understand her.”

  He couldn’t believe she was turning this into a lesson on feminism.

  “How many girls did you lie to about who you were?” she asked, looking pointedly at him.

  “That’s—”

  “Different? How?” Her voice was sharp.

  He leaned his head in his hands and closed his eyes. She was right, it was no different. And Jarrod was right, karmic retribution was after him. And Seb was paying dearly. It wasn’t fair that Alix had walked away scot free while he muddled through his life for the past few days, unable to eat, sleep or work.

  “Why do you even care?” he asked, dejectedly. It didn’t matter anymore, did it? Alix was gone and he was hurting. Justice was done.

  “Because you need to understand why she did it before I give you her phone number,” Maya said, sounding stern and smug all in one.

  “Huh?”

  “Remember that first night of your tryst?” She made a face. “You messaged Jarrod about delaying your return home?”

  Slowly details emerged out of the fog of his heartbreak. “So?”

  The smugness was definitely there now. “Well, the smart woman that I am, I memorized the phone number before Jarrod deleted the message in the careless way you men usually throw away vital information. Because if I’m not mistaken, you sent that message from her phone, didn’t you?”

  Heat and chill swamped him in the same instant. Could it be that Maya really had Alix’s number? He could call her? Did it even matter? A royal aide would probably answer, thinking him a fanatic stalker and send the police after him. Or Alix would tell him directly that their thing meant nothing to her, that he was just a distraction on her holiday.

  Before he could decide which of the two options was worse, Maya was sliding a piece of paper across the table. There seemed to be an awful lot of numbers on it. How could Maya memorize them all? Jesus.

  “I should warn you, though,” she said. “You probably have a couple of days before this thing hits our newspapers. Because once they recognize your face, you’ll make front page news.”

  He couldn’t even think about that right now. He grabbed the phone number like it was the most important piece of a puzzle. Perhaps it was.

  He stood up to go, and then turned back to Maya. “Thank you,” he said, bending down to kiss her cheek. “You’ll be the best sister-in-law.”

  He couldn’t wait to get home to call. He didn’t even consider the time difference. His hand shook as he typed in the foreign number. As he waited for the call to connect, the pressure on his chest made him fear his ribs would crack. He hadn’t been this nervous when he waited for the Japanese to reach a decision about his business proposition the first time his father had sent him to represent their company at just twenty-five years of age.

  “Oui?”

  The breath was knocked out of him when he heard her silky voice. He’d planned what he’d say and how he’d say it. All nonchalant and suave so she couldn’t see how much he’d missed her, how he’d ached to see her again, and despaired when he thought he wouldn’t get the chance.

  “You’re a friggin princess and you didn’t tell me?” That was suave, all right. Moron.

  “Pardon? Who’s thi—?”

  He could hear her intake of breath but he couldn’t interpret the silence that followed and it ate at him this frighteningly long pause.

  “Seb?” she finally asked, her voice tremulous. His heart squeezed at how good it was to hear her say his name. If only he could see her and hold her in his arms.

  “How could you keep something like that from me, Alix?” he asked, sounding more hurt than angry. “I told you about my family. I told you things I haven’t told anyone before. And you …” He didn’t know anymore what he’d wanted to say.

  She was silent for a long moment. He thought she’d disconnected the call. At last, she said with a small voice, “I didn’t tell you for the same reason you didn’t tell me who you were until the last minute. I don’t answer just to my family, Seb. I answer to a country. I can only have a life if I hide.”

  “For Christ’s sake, it’s the twenty-first century not the middle ages, Alix.”

  “For you, perhaps. For me, it’s my days scheduled to the last minute, royal etiquette, reporters and two million inhabitants who feel entitled to judge my every misstep.”

  “So I was just a misstep?” The next second, he regretted asking. He wasn’t sure he could handle the answer.

  “No.” It was such a soft word he first thought the long distance call distorted it. The word rendered him speechless. But then he didn’t have much to lose if she was telling the truth. “So go out with me. Let’s talk about this.”

  “What point would there be in us talking? We belong to entirely different worlds. I can’t escape mine and you won’t leave yours. So why?” Even though she spoke softly, there was bitterness in her words. It hurt him that she had so little faith in them.

  “Because I’ve missed you terribly. I haven’t slept properly in days. My father’s breathing down my neck because I’ve screwed up at work more times since Florida than in the past ten years. Without you, I’m not myself anymore, Alix.”

  He could imagine her biting her lip as she’d done every time she couldn’t decide what to do. The silence stretched and the tightness in his chest progressed from uncomfortable to painful.

  At last, she said, throatily, “I can’t leave at the moment. You’d have to come here. Since it’s already out in the papers, you’d have to be sneaky about it.”

  “I can do that,” he said and nearly laughed with relief. “I’m the master of sneaky.”

  He could hear the smile in her voice. “Okay.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alixandra

  Had Seb really just walked out on her only a day before their wedding? This was not happening. It couldn’t be.

  She had to catch him before he did something crazy like buy a plane ticket to the States. The library door had barely closed behind him when she opened it again.

  “Alixandra
.”

  Agh, the Queen. “Yes, Your Highness?” Alix itched to run down the hall, leaving the stunned faces of the lawyers and the incensed face of the Queen behind her. But she stopped. She realized, surprised, that she did it not because it was the Queen but because she was her grandmother. Alix had wanted her to accept Seb. She needed her to accept him because he meant to her more than anyone else in the world apart from her grandmother. Although Seb thought Sophia hated him, Alix knew different. The Queen was only merciless with the people she respected and wanted them to achieve only the highest standards. She’d been the same with Alixandra, still was.

  “Would you care to explain what is going on?” Despite the Queen’s measured tone, Alix could see the bewilderment in the milky blue eyes. When you were queen, every family spat represented potential scandal or political catastrophe. It was a heavy burden to shoulder. People didn’t slam doors in the palace or refuse to sign documents. Everyone followed regular procedures or else.

  “Just a minor misunderstanding, Your Highness. I will sort it out.” But first, she had to find Seb.

  When the Queen didn’t say anything else, Alix bowed and turned to leave.

  “Alixandra.”

  “Yes?” Alix’s heart beat in her throat with the urgency.

  “Don’t give him false promises. For your sake. Or you two won’t have a future.” A shadow passed across the Queen’s lined face as if she knew the consequences of promises unable to be kept.

  “I know,” Alix said without hesitation because she knew how true the Queen’s words were. As the heiress to the throne, she could not improvise and play it by the ear. The rules were clear and she had learned to obey them. It annoyed her. Sometimes it hurt, but she did it anyway, because it wasn’t just about her.

  When the Queen gave a short nod, Alix walked away. As soon as she turned the corner and was out of the Queen’s sight, she broke into a run.

  She was about to knock on Seb’s door when his butler, Jerome, opened it.