by Tracy Wolff
“I’m okay,” I tell him, and it’s not technically a lie. My heart has stopped racing and I can almost feel my toes and fingers again. That has to be a good sign, right?
“I’m really sorry about this. Normally the limo pulls straight onto the tarmac and we get on the plane from there, but Joss thought this little pap walk would do wonders for Garla.”
“Garla?” I ask, baffled.
He grimaces, but there’s an amused light in his eyes when he says, “Apparently, it’s our ship name.”
“Our ship name?” I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“You know, when fans smash our names together to make one. We’re Garla.”
“Garla?” I repeat, vaguely horrified at the sound of it.
He shrugs. “Could be worse. We could be Gola. Or Larrett. When I was engaged to Felicity we were Ferret.”
“Oh my God!” I slap a hand over my mouth to stop the laughter bubbling inside of me. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. I guess I should have figured out the relationship was doomed as soon as they named our ship after a weasel.”
“Wow.” I can’t think of anything else to say. “Just wow.”
He laughs, then tightens his arm around my waist as we approach the final stretch. It’s a straight shot to the gate that will take us out to Garrett’s plane, but reporters, paps, and private citizens line both sides of the walkway we have to take to get there—all of them hoping for a word or a pic of Garrett. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little overwhelming. Or a lot overwhelming.
Sure, to a certain extent I’ve gotten used to being in the limelight during the last few years as Va Voom Vintage really started taking off. But limelight that comes from getting awards from women’s organizations or fielding offers for book deals that want to pay me money to spill my story is a far cry from the kind of attention we’re getting now. This is the kind of attention you get when the whole world is watching your every move.
To our left someone calls out Garrett’s name, along with a low, pitiful “please.” The words are so low, in fact, that I don’t think I would have heard them at all if Garrett didn’t notice.
But he does notice, stopping dead in the middle of our parade or peoplecade or whatever the hell you call what we’re in right now, and turning toward the voice—and the woman it belongs to. And then he heads right toward her.
En masse, we move with him—the entire security detail sweeping me along as they adjust to his unexpected detour. I don’t have any desire to get this close to the fence line—and all the paps gathered there—but it’s not like I’ve exactly got a choice in the matter. Their job is to protect him and that’s what they’re going to do—even if it means trampling me in the process.
As I get moved along in Garrett’s wake, I take a moment to study the woman who attracted his attention. She’s not that old, but she looks worn out, beaten down. Like life has kicked her a few times and then spit on her for good measure. Her hair is streaked with gray, and deep worry lines are carved around the sides of her mouth and between her brows.
Is that what attracted Garrett’s attention? I wonder as I watch him hold out his hands to her. As I watch him bend down so he can hear her over the sounds of a crowd desperate for his attention.
He doesn’t talk to her long, just a few minutes, but with the whole world watching, it feels like forever. Especially when I realize that a lot of the photographers are calling my name and taking pictures of me hiding behind Xavier, who is my brand-new bodyguard, assigned specifically to me.
I start to freak out, blood rushing in my ears and my breath going all choppy. I may not have had a panic attack in over a decade, but I still remember what they feel like. And I am dangerously close to having one if I don’t get out of here, and fast.
Thankfully, Garrett finishes with the woman and walks back to me so we can finish this insane parade route to the plane. “Sorry about that,” he says as he slides an arm around my waist.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” I answer with a smile I’m far from feeling.
But just because I’m shaken up doesn’t mean I don’t mean every word. I do. These are his subjects and he is their prince. Asking Garrett not to listen to them would be asking him to change who he is—which is something I couldn’t imagine doing. Because the truth is, the more time I spend with him, the more I realize that he’s a pretty wonderful guy. No wonder the whole world is in love with him.
We finally make it to the gate and, as we approach the passageway that will lead us onto the plane, I can feel myself relaxing, one step at a time. It’s almost over, I tell myself as Garrett pauses beside the exit. Almost over, I repeat as he turns me around and says, “Wave,” out of the corner of his mouth. Almost over, I say silently one more time as I lean into him and do what he asks.
Figuring this is the money shot, I give the biggest, most sincere-looking smile I can manage, then start to pull away, hoping no one will mind if I make a mad dash for the privacy of the plane. But Garrett won’t let me go. Instead, he murmurs, “Not yet,” as he pulls me closer.
I stare up at him, wide-eyed, but he just grins as he lowers his mouth to mine in a soft, lingering kiss that is somehow all for show and incredibly intimate at the same time.
The crowd goes wild.
By the time Garrett pulls back, I’m a little shell-shocked. Not to mention pissed as hell at myself for responding to him even though I know the kiss was for the reporters and not for me.
“Now we can go,” he murmurs, as we finally—finally—disappear from the view of the ravenous crowd.
Once we’re on the plane, it takes only a couple of minutes for us to get settled. Five minutes after that, we’re cruising down the runway on our way to Paris.
As we finally take off—about fifteen minutes before the plane I’d planned on taking even starts to board—I settle back against the wide leather seat with a long, heartfelt sigh of relief.
“I’m sorry about that,” Garrett tells me.
“The kiss or the pap walk?” I ask without bothering to open my eyes.
“The pap walk.” He leans closer, until I can feel his breath against my cheek. “I love kissing you way too much to ever apologize for it.”
Then he presses his lips to mine in another kiss, one that has my toes curling and my heart racing for reasons entirely unrelated to panic. I should pull away, should take the next forty-five minutes to compose myself since—according to the schedule—there will be another pap walk at Charles de Gaulle.
But I can no more pull away when Garrett is kissing me than I can fly under my own power.
Instead, I wrap my arms around his neck. Pull him closer. And let him do whatever he wants to me.
What he wants is to kiss me over and over again. To kiss me and kiss me and kiss me, until my lips are tender and swollen and my whole body is on fire. There’s a tiny part of me aware of the fact that there are a dozen people sitting in front of us on this plane, a dozen people who could turn around and catch sight of me all but climbing into their prince’s lap.
I should be mortified. Instead, I’m too caught up in Garrett to care about anyone or anything else.
He pulls away first and I whimper, as I try to keep our mouths locked together for just a little longer.
He groans low in his throat, mutters, “Fuck!” against my lips, then dives back in for a kiss that lights me up from the inside and shakes me to my very core.
This time, I’m the one who pulls away first.
It’s just a publicity stunt, I remind myself as Garrett presses his forehead to mine and we both take deep, gulping breaths. Just a chance for Garrett to get the throne back.
But it doesn’t feel like a publicity stunt. And it sure as hell doesn’t feel fake. Not anymore. Instead, it feels like I’m about to jump out of this airplane with only a 50–50 sh
ot that my parachute will work.
Any rational person would walk away from those odds. But it’s too late for that—I’m all in, whether I want to be or not. Now all I can do is hope the landing is gentler than the fall.
Chapter 22
I’m exhausted by the time we make it through the second most grueling pap walk of my life—otherwise known as the international terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport. This time around, I didn’t pay much attention to the crowds or security or anything but keeping a smile on my face and putting one foot in front of the other.
I know Garrett notices, because in Wildemar his arm around my waist was purely for photo ops. This time he’s supporting me, using his never-ending strength to keep me upright and moving forward even as he murmurs how sorry he is over and over again.
I know it’s not his fault, know this is something I agreed to. But right now, that knowledge doesn’t make this any easier. Neither does the fact that these pics are going to be seen all over the world—including at my office, the place where I’ve worked so hard to be seen as a professional instead of as the secret love child of a Vegas showgirl and the scion of one of America’s most respected business dynasties.
By the time Garrett and his security detail get me in the back of a large, black SUV, I’m little more than a limp rag. Which seems ridiculous considering all I did was walk through two airports and take a short ride on the most tricked-out airplane I’ve ever seen in person. All I can say is that it’s a lot harder than it looks.
“I don’t know how you do it,” I tell Garrett as he leans across me to fasten my seatbelt.
“Lots of practice,” he answers, settling down next to me.
“I don’t think there’s enough practice in the world to make me look as natural as you do.”
“They’re my people. Not here in France, obviously, but in Wildemar. I answer to every single one of them.”
“Like that woman you stopped to talk to.”
A shadow passes over his face before he wipes it deliberately blank. “Yes, like her.”
I want to push, want to ask what she wanted and why he chose her. But he’s got No Trespassing signs all over this one and I don’t want to upset him. Especially not when I’m too emotionally drained to take care of him if I do.
Instead, I settle for telling him, “You’re really good at this king thing.” I rest my head on his shoulder and my hand on his thigh, relishing the way I can feel him relax—just a little—under my touch. I don’t have much experience with the whole giving-comfort thing, but Garrett’s taught me a few things since I met him.
He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Kings don’t get themselves abducted. Future kings, either, for that matter.”
Indignation slams through me, but I shove it down. That’s not what Garrett needs right now. “That’s what your father thinks? That you ‘got yourself’ abducted?”
“I don’t think he cares how it happened. Just that it did.” He’s looking out the window now and, under my hand, his thigh has once again gone rock hard.
“Is that true? Or is that just what you think?”
“People are dead because of me.”
“People are dead because of some insane fringe militia group with a grudge against the monarchy. Not because of you.”
He shoots me an annoyed look. “I know that.”
“Do you?” I want to see his face so badly, but he’s turned completely away from me at this point, staring out the window as if the Parisian streets are his only chance of salvation.
“It doesn’t matter what I think. It only matters what happened. And what happened is that people died. They died, Lola, and all the talking in the world isn’t going to change that fact.”
“Beating yourself up won’t change it either,” I tell him.
He whirls on me then, eyes blazing with a pain that breaks my heart. “You don’t have any idea—”
“So tell me.” I scoot closer to him, try to take his hand where it’s balled up on his knee. But he won’t unclench his fist and he won’t say anything more, his jaw working like it’s taking every ounce of control he has to keep his shit together.
It’s not my place to push any more than I already have. I don’t know what he went through when he was captured, don’t have a clue how much psychological and physical damage was done to him. Picking at him without having a clue what I’m doing—or what I’m bringing to the surface—seems like a really bad idea.
Fuck. Why don’t I ever think before I jump in? “I’m sorry, Garrett. I’m being an asshole and you don’t deserve that.”
This time when he laughs, it sounds like he means it. “You’re not an asshole. And you don’t have to apologize. Everyone’s got an opinion about my abduction. Why shouldn’t you?”
I start to correct him, to tell him that that’s not what I meant, but before I can figure out what to say, we pull up to the hotel.
Correction. We pull up to a hotel that very definitely is not the hotel where I have a reservation.
“What are we doing here?” I ask as I look up at the placard for the Four Seasons George V, one of the most exclusive—if not the most exclusive—hotels in Paris. “We’re supposed to be staying at the Pullman—”
“We can’t stay there,” Garrett tells me. “I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean we can’t stay there? It’s a perfectly lovely hotel. I stay there all the time. It’s not as fancy as this, obviously, but I think that could be a good thing. Who would think to look for you there?”
“No one, be—”
“Exactly. I want to go to the Pullman, Garrett.”
He closes his eyes, rubs the bridge of his nose. For the first time since I’ve known him, he looks exhausted, defeated, and I can’t help feeling guilty for making a fuss. But this is my trip, not his. He’s only here because he wants to keep the pressure on his father by making sure new pictures and articles about us appear in the press daily. Which is fine. But this is a business trip for me and I’m going to treat it as such.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I start when he doesn’t say anything else. “I’m not trying to be difficult, okay? I picked the Pullman because it’s close to a lot of the places I’ll be going in the next few days, which cuts down on the hassle of renting a car, fighting traffic, et cetera. If we stay here, a lot of that goes out the window.”
Plus, I’m pretty sure I can’t afford the suite Garrett is sure to have reserved for us. And since this is my business trip, I need to be the one paying, not him.
One of his bodyguards opens the car door. “The lobby’s been cleared, sir. We have you two checked into the Presidential Suite, so if you’re ready—”
“Give us a minute, Bastian, will you?”
Surprise flashes across his face, but then he nods and steps back. “Of course, sir.” The car door closes firmly.
“I’m going to the Pullman,” I tell him. “If you want to stay here in the Presidential Suite, feel free to do so.”
“You’ve got to know that I want to be wherever you are, Lola. But I can’t stay at the Pullman. The security isn’t good enough.”
“I don’t understand. You have your own security.”
“Yes, but even so, there are certain security protocols that all the members of my family have to follow when we travel abroad. Those protocols were put into place by palace security and they are pretty much indisputable. We’re staying at the George V because their security fits within these protocols, while security at the Pullman doesn’t.”
His explanation isn’t what I was expecting, but it makes sense. Of course it does. Old prejudices of mine notwithstanding, Garrett isn’t the kind of guy to just override my plans for the fuck of it. Damn it.
There’s a part of me that wants to say to hell with it, I’m staying at the Pullman anyway. But that would totally be a case of cutting o
ff my nose to spite my face and I’m smart enough to know it. Partly because I want to be wherever Garrett is, even if it’s in the Presidential Suite of this hotel, and partly because I know if I make a big enough fuss, Garrett will try to give me what I want.
And that’s not fair to him—not when he explained things to me the way he just did. Because, after everything he’s been through, Garrett deserves to feel safe. He deserves to feel like he doesn’t have to worry about his own safety, the safety of his people, or my safety. If staying here will do that for him, then I’ll suck it up. Just like I’ll suck up the fact that there is no way in hell I’ll be able to afford the Presidential Suite.
“Okay. Let’s just go in, then.” I reach for the door handle, but he stops me.
“I really am sorry. If I could let you have the Pullman, I would. But safety protocols have become even stricter since the abduction. My hands really are tied.”
“I know.” I lean in for a kiss. “That’s why it’s so easy for me to let it go. Well, that and the fact that I can’t even imagine what the Presidential Suite in this place looks like.”
When he laughs, the storm clouds in his eyes dissipate, turning them back to the pure crystal blue that I love—especially when they gleam a little wickedly, like they’re doing now. “There’s a nine-foot-long tub in the master bath, with a view of the Eiffel Tower. I mean, in case you’re interested.”
“Nine feet? Really?”
He nods.
“Well, then, what are we waiting for? Let’s go try it out…”
* * *
—
We never make it to the bathtub—through no fault of the George V, the Presidential Suite, or Garrett. No, we don’t make it because I totally freak out before we even get to the room.
While I’ve had my phone on for most of the day, I’ve been ignoring it. I turned my Google alerts off yesterday—the article about me being a whore was more than enough to teach me a lesson on that front.
As we walk through the hotel, I dart into the small necessities shop in the hopes of grabbing a couple of Tylenol to relieve the low-grade headache I’ve had since the airport. But I barely make it in the door of the shop when I’m ambushed by pics of the two of us staring out at me from nearly every magazine cover and the front page of every newspaper in the place.