by Lori Wilde
The Royal Groom
Wrong Way Weddings, Volume 4
Lori Wilde
Published by L&P, 2020.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE ROYAL GROOM
First edition. April 10, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 Lori Wilde.
ISBN: 978-1393292708
Written by Lori Wilde.
The Royal Groom
Wrong Way Weddings Book 3
Lori Wilde &
Pam Andrews Hanson
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About the Authors
Also by Lori Wilde & Pam Andrews Hanson
1
My other car is a limo.
Leigh Bailey returned the heavy gas pump hose and glimpsed the bumper sticker on her shabby little convertible. Rain blew in her face, obscuring her vision for a moment and taking away her breath.
Her chances of ever owning a limo on her salary were nil, but wouldn’t it be nice to sit in a spacious back seat while a chauffeur braved the Florida storm to tank up for her?
Never mind that she shared the same last name as her wealthy cousins, the billionaire Baileys from Detroit. Her branch of the family was church mouse poor.
Well, a girl could dream, couldn’t she? Meanwhile, she had a long trip ahead of her. She sprinted toward the convenience store, unsuccessfully dodging puddles.
The rain tried to follow her into the small building, adding to the water on the floor before she could shut the door. For a storm that was supposed to bypass Florida, Hurricane Jeff was delivering a deluge.
She stood for a moment, letting water run off her red nylon rain poncho, and brushed away the drops streaming down her forehead. Her car was less than twenty feet away at the pump, but she’d still gotten soaked.
In a hurry to be on her way before the storm worsened, she got in line behind a tall dark-haired man in a green jacket. By the time she located the right credit card in her oversized canvas shoulder bag, she realized he was reading, not paying for gas.
In fact, he was literally studying the front page of the Insider, one of the country’s sleaziest tabloids.
“Excuse me,” she said, stepping around him and catching a glimpse of his long, lean jaw and strong features— hardly the kind of profile she’d expect to see buried in a gossip rag.
He gave a small start and hastily shoved the copy of the Insider back on the rack, as though she’d caught him doing something dirty. Without meeting her gaze, he hurried over to the beverage case.
There was something unusual about the way he moved—a grace that was hard to define. She’d never seen anyone who looked less like a tabloid junkie, even though she hadn’t had a good look at his face.
“The power of the fake news,” she muttered under her breath, annoyed by her own curiosity. What was so interesting in the Insider?
She ignored the bored-looking boy waiting to take her card and quickly scanned the tabloid headlines. She didn’t think it was the story on aliens landing in Ohio that had him so intrigued. It had to be the other page-one story: Soap Heiress Dumps Prince Max for Bullfighter.
Darcy Wolridge shocked friends and family by eloping with the idol of the Spanish bullring, Jose Perez, amidst rumors she was number one on Prince Max’s list of prospective brides.
The brokenhearted Maximilian of Schwanstein is believed to be in the U.S. shopping for a bride. Who will be the lucky lady now that lovely Darcy has shattered his hopes?
A huge grainy picture showed the heiress draped on the shoulder of a macho-looking guy in a snakeskin jacket. The article continued on page eleven, but Leigh had seen enough. Darcy and the prince had been an item for weeks in the fairy-tale world of the tabloids. Leigh didn’t want to read some sappy fiction about Maximilian’s broken heart.
Her article about the prince would be classy—if she could find him. And if he’d talk to her.
Her credentials from Celebrity magazine carried more weight than an Insider reporter’s, but only because she worked for the hippest gossip magazine around. A magazine that served up content in print, online, and TV. Both magazines chased the rich, the famous, and the ridiculous, but Prince Max could change all that for her.
If she could convince him to give her a serious, insightful interview, it might be her ticket to a better job. She’d have a good chance at moving to Issues, owned by the same media conglomerate as Celebrity, but a world away in content. Their writers didn’t ride in limos, either, but neither did they have to write about rock stars in rehab and supermodels’ skin secrets.
First, she had to find the prince. All she had to go on was a tip from her uncle Paul Donovan in West Palm Beach. An avid stamp collector, he’d picked up a rumor on the internet that the prince might pay a visit to the president of the Schwanstein Stamp Collectors Society. Max would supposedly stay at a plush Paradise Beach hotel, and that was Leigh’s destination. Her editor thought the lead was solid enough to authorize travel expenses.
Leigh hurried back to her car, trying to believe the weather report she’d heard just before leaving Miami, where she worked out of Celebrity's East Coast office. But if this was only a rain squall, she was Lady Gaga.
Torrential rain, driven by the wind, blanketed the windshield and swept across the on-ramp with the force of a giant fire hose as she crept back onto the highway. She wanted to wait out the storm in some nice dry place, but the prince was notorious for keeping on the move.
“If you’ll tell your real story to a sympathetic reporter,” she said, rehearsing her appeal, “it might stifle some of the silly rumors.”
She had a more immediate problem: the taillights ahead of her had vanished in a wall of water. She dropped her speed to a crawl, wondering whether it was worse to hit the car ahead or be rear-ended because she was going too slow.
Traffic was coming to a stop. Flashing red lights were visible through the downpour, and she realized cars were leaving the highway. A policeman in a tent-like slicker was waving everyone off to the right.
Never one to docilely obey, she rolled down her window far enough to shout at the cop.
“What’s wrong, Officer?”
“Highway’s flooded. Keep moving, please.” He made an impatient gesture and looked as if he wanted to give her car a kick to get it going.
She complied. She was an intrepid reporter, not a fool.
Her sense of direction was about as reliable as the weather, so she followed the taillights ahead of her, hoping the driver knew an alternate route north. She certainly didn’t, and she had no cell service for her GPS.
The cars gradually thinned out, making her wonder where all the highway traffic had gone. Apparently, this was an old state highway, neglected after the interstate was built. No traffic was visible in the oncoming lane, but she felt safer moving slowly through the downpour, not having to worry about passing.
Suddenly a great black shape streaked past her on the left, throwing up a ton of water. Her small car rocked sideways, and Leigh’s heart did crazy flip-flops. She saw the aggressively bright taillights of the dark sedan as it cut in front of her, then her right front wheel skidded off the pavement onto the rain-softened dirt shoulder.
“What the devil!” Max saw the car he’d passed slide off the pavement, and for an instant, he was afraid it would roll.
He brought the rented sedan to a stop and flipped
on the hazard lights, unwilling to risk pulling onto the narrow shoulder. Dashing out into the rain, he was relieved to see the driver hadn’t lost control. The axle of the little convertible had sunk in muck, but it was a mishap, not a tragedy. Still, he couldn’t just leave the driver there alone.
Damn!
He’d pulled too close to the car’s rear trying to read the bumper sticker, then been forced to pass because the convertible was moving slower than any car should on a highway.
The real blame should go to the American habit of putting signs on their bumpers. The single sentence on the back of this jalopy was ludicrous: My other car is a limo.
He wouldn’t forget that one in a hurry; it had resulted in one more glitch in his plans. What else could go wrong on this trip? Darcy’s defection still rankled. She’d promised not to let him down this time, but his distant American cousin hadn’t changed since she’d thrown sand in his face when they were toddlers playing on the beach.
His American mother’s cousin was always too busy playing to pay attention to her daughter—unlike his own parents, who’d been stern but loving. He still missed his mother, who’d died seven years ago in a car accident when he was twenty-five.
Sometimes, though, he wished his father would remarry, instead of worrying so much about his son’s single status.
He reached the convertible and opened his mouth to offer assistance, but he didn’t have a chance to speak.
“You ran me off the road. Look at this!” The driver got out in the rain and gestured furiously at her tires, so mired in mud it was obviously futile to try driving the vehicle out.
He knew a calm reasonable response was his best defense, but all he could do was stare at the red-caped woman who was soundly berating him.
He’d never seen such a beautiful face.
Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and plastered to her head by the rain, but she didn’t need salon-perfect hair to give an illusion of beauty.
She possessed the real thing: exquisite bone structure, dramatically slashed brows, and a perfect nose, straight and a trifle larger than the pert little knobs Americans seemed to prefer, but very much to his liking.
When she stepped closer to continue venting anger—and perhaps fear at the close call—he looked into a unique shade of hazel eyes set off by long dark lashes. Her lips were full, especially the bottom one, suggesting a mouth made to give pleasure.
It was a shame she was also brash and rude, common enough faults in American women but highly regrettable in such a sensual creature.
“It’s too bad you weren’t driving your other car,” he said mildly.
“What?”
“Your limo.”
“You were close enough to read my bumper sticker through the rain?”
“I enjoy a good joke,” he said, not wanting her to think he was too naive to appreciate the humor of it. He surprised himself by caring about her opinion of him. “What can I do to assist you?”
“Push my car out of the mud.”
He walked the length of the vehicle, pretending to consider the possibility, but of course there was none.
“I’m afraid you’ll need a tow truck.”
“Does your phone have service?” she asked, frantically pressing the screen of her device.
Max checked his. No luck. “No, I don’t. I’ll be happy to drive you to a phone.”
“Oh, great. I can stay here and watch my car sink in muck or go off with a total stranger.”
She sounded so dejected he was ready to forgive her for distracting him with a bumper sticker—but not for calling him an idiot.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Max Frederick.” He offered her a wet hand—Americans liked their palm-to-palm ritual.
She only stared, and Max had seen that expression of recognition before—too many times. He should have given her another name, instead of the one he used when he traveled.
“Max for Maximilian?” she asked suspiciously.
He barely nodded, mesmerized by the way she ignored the rain pelting her face and head. He couldn’t think of any woman of his acquaintance who would stand in a downpour without worrying about how she looked.
Did this one realize she was a ravishing beauty in any circumstances, or was she free of vanity? The answer seemed important, but this wasn’t the time or place to explore it.
The prince.
It made sense, but still, she was stunned. “Maximilian Augustus Frederick of the Principality of Schwanstein?”
“If I were this prince,” he said in lightly accented English, “would you get into my car and end this ridiculous conversation in the rain?”
“I don’t have much choice, no matter who you are.”
“Come on, before my car gets hit. I didn’t dare pull off the highway.”
Dumbfounded at recognizing him, Leigh didn’t resist when he grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward his lights. She had to half run to match his long-legged stride, but she wasn’t going to let him drag her.
Prince Max!
He’d run her off the road—sort of—just because he was curious about her bumper sticker. Now he was going to rescue her—in a manner of speaking.
“Wait! I need my purse!”
She jerked her hand away from his, surprised at how his palm had been warming her, and ran back toward her car. Half afraid he’d abandon her, she grabbed the shoulder bag and her duffel, knowing this was no time to be without her tape recorder. Then, more by habit than conscious thought, she locked the car door and raced back to the prince.
Even in this blinding storm, he opened the door for her. Her teeth were chattering so hard she could hardly mutter a thank-you.
“Do you have a chill?” he asked solicitously as he slid behind the wheel.
“No, my teeth always chatter after a narrow escape from death.”
How rude, she thought as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Oh well, it was better than having him suspect how excited she was to be in the same car with him. Forget limos! She was with the prince.
She’d interviewed hundreds of famous people since coming to Celebrity magazine five long years ago, but this opportunity was special. She told herself it was only because he could give her career a tremendous boost, but pictures didn’t do him justice. He was gorgeous—even if he didn’t have enough sense not to tailgate just to read a bumper sticker.
“Help me watch for a place to stop,” he said. “The storm’s getting worse.”
“Hurricane Jeff is supposed to miss Florida.”
“Now all the little boys named Jeff will have a new nickname—Hurricane Jeff.”
“It doesn’t seem fair, does it?” She clenched her jaws to stop the chattering, appreciating the small talk. It gave her time to regain her composure. “They’re such nasty storms; they should have names no one would ever give their children—Hurricane Dracula, Hurricane Frankenstein...”
His laugh came from deep inside his chest, and his good humor didn’t seem contrived. “Let me see, do we have any female monsters? There was Medusa.”
She wanted to keep the game going, but her mind was too full of the man beside her to come up with any diabolical females.
“How did you recognize me?” he asked, abruptly switching from the safe subject of naming hurricanes. “I had a full beard until recently.”
She hesitated a moment to weigh her options and decided it was a bad idea to try to deceive him. After all, she didn’t work for a rag like the Insider. Not quite.
“I’ve done a little research. You were clean-shaven until three or four years ago.”
“How odd you should know that.” His voice lost some of its warmth, and his accent seemed more pronounced.
“The truth is, Prince— What should I call you? Your Highness?”
“You can call me Max, unless you’re one of that infernal breed who call themselves reporters.”
“Your Highness,” she said, struggling for a way to win him over without actually licking
his boots.
“I take it that a reporter’s exactly what you are. My luck on this trip,” he said woodenly, “has been incredibly bad.”
“I don’t work for a sleazy tabloid like the one you were reading at the gas station,” she said. “Celebrity magazine is a monthly, and what I hope to do is a really insightful piece about you, something to quiet all the rumors.”
“What you hope to do isn’t what you’re going to do,” he said. “As soon as I find a safe place to leave you, our brief acquaintanceship is over.”
“You’re above talking to a legitimate magazine writer, but you didn’t seem to have any scruples about reading the Insider—without even buying it.” She knew it was self-defeating to antagonize him, but he had no right to look down his nose at her profession.
“It’s not a habit of mine, I assure you. I had a very good reason this time.”
“No doubt you did. Some people love to see their names in print, and we both know you made headlines in the Insider—again.”
“You couldn’t be more mistaken, but then, I’ve never met a reporter who didn’t excel at leaping to conclusions. Are you watching for a phone booth? Do they even have those anymore? Never mind, I see some sort of motel up ahead. I’ll stop there.”
“Why were you so interested in the Insider?” she persisted. “And why lump all reporters together?”
“I didn’t choose to satisfy your curiosity the first time you asked, so why persist? That, Miss...”
“Leigh. Leigh Bailey. If you’re going to insult me, at least acknowledge I’m a person with a name.”
“Miss Bailey, do you have any idea how much grief your profession causes? I can’t live a normal life because paparazzi hound me and reporters harass me.”