European Billionaire Beaus: The Complete Series

by North, Leslie

  “That’s true,” she said, but there was a fire in her dark eyes. Katie lifted her chin and met his gaze. “But it’s also true that they’ve experienced a great loss. A tremendous loss. They feel…out of control. They’ve been swept up in a totally new lifestyle. I’ll be the first to say that it is a lovely one—but it’s still strange and unfamiliar, and they needed a little bit of control back this afternoon. I gave it to them with a trip to the park.”

  Armin couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. “Oh, so now your part-time experience as a nanny qualifies you as a child psychologist?”

  She set her jaw. “No. The fact that I lost my own parents when I was a little older than they are now qualifies me to speak on the matter. I’d say that’s pretty relevant experience.”

  Armin was rendered speechless for several moments, and he was not a man who was easily rendered speechless.

  He had been thoughtless, he realized. Totally thoughtless. Though when it came to his daughters, he knew he had the tendency to overreact. Even though they didn’t care for him nearly as much as he cared for them.

  “I’m—I’m sorry, Ms. Crestley. I didn’t know.”

  She accepted his apology with a gracious nod. “It was a long time ago. It still hurts, though—even now. So I know what they’re feeling.”

  “I only want to ensure that…that they’re safe.” He was not used to having to explain himself at all, and the words came out a little roughly. “I want them to have the best future possible, and give them a way to honor their parents.” His throat tightened painfully. No—not here, not in front of the nanny. “They were some of my closest friends. Some of my only real friends.”

  “I understand that.” There was no way Katie could truly understand it, but he very nearly believed her when she said it. “But there’s no way they can grow up to be stable, well-adjusted adults if they never have any freedom to test their limits.” She seemed to sense that she’d raised his hackles, because she quickly continued. “Not limits that would put their safety in jeopardy, of course. But every adult I’ve ever known takes the occasional day off.” Katie smiled tentatively. “Some of them even visit the park.”

  Part of him wanted to give in to her, if only to keep that smile on her face.

  But he couldn’t do that.

  “I’m willing to consider that theory, but the fact is that I can’t have you disregarding the schedule. It was designed for a purpose. If you can’t stick to it, we’ll find someone who can.” He took a step back. “Good afternoon, Ms. Crestley.”

  He was several steps away when she called after him. “I think you’re making a mistake.”

  That stopped him in his tracks, and he turned slowly to face her. “What did you say?”

  “I think you’re handling this the wrong way.” Katie gave a little shrug. “You don’t necessarily know what the girls need. You’re not with them very much.”

  “I see them every day.” A defensive heat washed through his blood.

  “Sure, you visit them for a few minutes before bed. That’s not enough. If you ask me, you have two options. You can do more—in which case I’ll defer to your judgment—or you can let me be the one who determines what the girls need.”

  Armin’s rage was the purest he’d ever felt. “You are out of line, Ms. Crestley.” She flinched at his cutting tone. “I won’t be spoken to like that by a member of my staff.” Armin considered himself to be a thoughtful, measured person, but he was one word away from firing her. “If you step out of line like this again, you’ll find yourself seeking other employment.”

  Katie’s face turned a bright, hot red. She looked as angry as he felt, and his pulse throbbed at his temples. Maybe this was the end. Maybe the admittedly stunning nanny would walk out right now and never look back.

  She let out a breath. “Fine.” Katie crossed her arms over her chest. “I understand how things are supposed to go. And I’m very sorry for having worried you.” She lifted her chin a fraction of an inch. “If you’ll excuse me, the girls are waiting for me.”

  Unlike everyone else who had ever approached Armin in his life, she didn’t wait for him to dismiss her. She simply turned around, went into the nursery, and shut the door behind her.

  He stared at the closed door, his mind racing.

  She was clearly good for the girls. They looked happier by the day. But she didn’t seem to get what palace life was like. This was about safety. This was about the predictability of a schedule. It was what all of them needed.

  Her words echoed in his mind.

  Maybe he should spend more time with the girls. Maybe he could help with the homework, too.

  Armin opened the door, preparing to go in, but all three of them were laughing together, pointing at something on Seraphine’s notepad.

  They didn’t need him in the slightest.

  So Armin went back out, adjusted his tie, and stood up straight. He had a lot of other work to do. They wouldn’t miss him.

  3

  The truth about the orphanage was that there was no time to lose. The weight of Armin’s responsibility pressed down on his shoulders every moment of every day, and a big part of that was knowing that the building wasn’t up to par.

  The structure had been slowly crumbling for years, but while it had been a real concern, it simply hadn’t been a priority. Then Armin suddenly became a father, taking Lily and Seraphine into his own home when their parents had died, and his sensitivity toward anything involving orphans shot through the roof. Their father had been Armin’s friend from university, a man named Baxter. He’d always been delighted that Lily looked exactly like him and Seraphine looked like his wife, Jessica. They’d been a happy family, with a comfortable life. Then Baxter and Jessica were gone, and the girls had watched their whole world fall apart in an instant. Armin had been able to give them a home, but what about dozens of others like them who faced the same losses? Armin couldn’t take in every orphan in the country.

  He also couldn’t bear the thought of Lily and Seraphine or anyone like them going to a place like the Stolvenian National Orphanage in its current state. He had to fix it, whether Alexei wanted to work with him or not.

  So Armin had gone directly to the next three available developers within fifty miles of Whitestone.

  He’d gathered them in his private meeting room, and the three men sat listening to him explain things that shouldn’t need explanation.

  “It’s essential that we begin work on this project as soon as possible. The original building was my grandmother’s answer to the devastation of World War II, so it’s a family legacy that I insist on upholding. And this country, frankly, needs a symbol of unity.”

  One of the men cleared his throat. “Unity, Prince Armin?”

  How should he phrase this? “With so many changes happening and privatization on the rise, we need to give all of Stolvenia a symbol to rally around. Something we can all agree on as a people.”

  All three of the men nodded their agreement.

  “I think every citizen would agree that we can’t leave the most vulnerable among us behind. We must provide for them in the most compassionate way possible. And we can’t do that with the current property.” Armin smiled. “Our country grows stronger every day. But as we progress, we need to keep all of our people with us.” He was meticulously careful not to mention anything involving the anti-royalists. Those who opposed his family’s rule wouldn’t agree that the country needed a unifying symbol. Or, if they did, they would not want it to be something spearheaded by the government. Armin swallowed his frustration with that line of thinking and waited to hear from the men sitting across from him. As his pause lengthened, the three of them shared a look between them.

  The youngest man on the other side of the table, one Mr. Klemen, appeared to have been nominated to speak. Armin had had his secretary pull everyone’s full profile in advance of this meeting. Klemen had only recently come to prominence in the industry, but he seemed to have the mettl
e to rise to the very top.

  “Prince Armin,” he said carefully. “Right now, with the public’s faith in the monarchy dwindling, the people want to feel that they are the ones in charge of this kind of project. As you’ve said, the country needs a unifying symbol. This orphanage can’t become that kind of symbol if it’s all directed by the monarchy.”

  “Then don’t make it so obvious,” Armin said. “My name doesn’t need to be connected to the project. I don’t care if anyone ever credits me with any part of it. I want it done, plain and simple. But I can’t fund it with my personal treasury alone, and only the king has full access to the royal treasury. We have too many other commitments.”

  The three men all began speaking at once, talking over each other and to each other while Armin’s publicist, Valentina, entered quietly from a side door. She bent down next to him and slid a fresh newspaper onto the table in front of him. “I’m so sorry to interrupt your meeting, Prince Armin. I just thought you’d want to see this.”

  He flipped the paper over and there they were, on the very front page—his girls.

  A wave of fury swept over him, though he didn’t let it show.

  How had this happened? Preventing this kind of thing was Valentina’s job. There was no reason this photo ever should have been printed.

  Armin took a number of slow, deep breaths, all the while pretending that everything was fine. The conversation swirled around him, rising and falling. Agreement, disagreement, plan. New plan. Backup plan. Back to the beginning.

  “I’ll give it serious consideration.” Klemen’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “I speak for all of us when I say that we’re honored to meet with you about this.”

  “Yes. Thank you all. My representatives will be in touch.”

  Armin went out into the hall, taking the paper with him.

  He had worked so hard to keep them out of the press. He’d given one photo and a single story to a trusted media source when the girls first arrived, just to explain the situation to his people and avoid any appearance of deceit. But after that, he’d done everything in his power to protect them from the spotlight. He had worked so hard to give them a normal life inside his complicated, busy life as the crown prince. And it didn’t matter. Katie Crestley had upended the entire thing.

  Valentina followed him out into the hall, where he waited for her.

  “Prince Armin, it’s not a negative article.”

  “It’s still unacceptable. How were you not prepared for this?”

  “I got the call that the picture was going to run,” she said, confusion in her eyes. “But I didn’t see the need to stop it. How could anyone resist these girls? It’s a wholesome picture that reminds us all that we could stand to go out and play once in a while.”

  Armin’s frustration knew no bounds. “That doesn’t mean throwing off our efforts to ensure their safety.”

  “Of course not. Of course not,” Valentina said quickly. “You’ve been an incredibly engaged member of the royal family for years. I’ve read the clips about you, Prince Armin. I think it’s absolutely wonderful that you’re focused on supporting humanitarian projects in the region. But they won’t help you bolster your family’s image.”

  “They’re not meant to.”

  She smiled tightly. “The fact is that your insistence on complete privacy has given you and your brothers a reputation for being…aloof. Maybe out of touch. People are tired of the same patterns, the same scripted public appearances, repeated again and again. That photograph proves that you’re in touch with the times and ready to do what it takes to bring people together.”

  “Does it?”

  “Yes. There your adopted daughters are, playing in the public park, not a care in the world.” Armin took a closer look at the photo. The black and white of the paper itself stole from the color from his girls’ hair, but they were still just as beautiful as ever. And strong. Lily was one step from the top of a ladder connected to the playground. “In this photo, they’re out in the world, not cloistered in the palace. They’re playing at the same park everyone else uses and loving it. And their nanny—” Now a bigger smile lit up the publicist’s face. “And their nanny isn’t a hundred-year-old schoolmarm.”

  The words brought back memories of Armin’s own nanny, who had been terrible. She was so strict and stern that Armin, despite his shyness, actually looked forward to large castle events. When there were so many people around, he could find hundreds of places to hide from her.

  Valentina was busy making a point. “People are responding very positively to this image.” She held her head up high, clearly ready to stand by her point.

  Armin was just as ready to shoot it down. “That’s a dangerous outlook. There are people out there that don’t just think the royal family should be dethroned. The more we expose the girls to the public, the more we risk their safety.”

  By the time he finished speaking, her eyes were giant and her face was pale. “The nanny put the girls in danger. That’s my main issue with this photo.” He snapped the paper under his arm. “Don’t let it happen again.”

  “I won’t. But Prince Armin, now that this article is out there, I wouldn’t be surprised if your favorables were rising rapidly.”

  “What?” It was an extreme conversational turn if he’d ever heard one.

  “People would be…happy to see the change in your personality. But if you turn around and fire Katie, all that goodwill would go right out the window. It’ll look like you fired her for allowing the girls to play with commoners—or, at least, that’s how the anti-royalist press will frame it. The Defender, for instance.”

  Armin glanced down at the photo. “At least they look happy in the picture.”

  * * *

  This was a disaster.

  Katie paced back and forth in her room while the girls had their piano lesson. The copy of the paper had been delivered by an unseen hand—she hadn’t ordered one—but it was clear why it had come to her in the first place.

  They were all in the picture on the front page. It looked to have been taken at the moment Katie went to coax the girls down from the play structure. She had her hands raised toward them and a big smile on her face.

  Katie thought they all looked quite happy in the photograph.

  But that didn’t mean it was a good thing. Quite the opposite. It had been taken from the vantage point of the bench where Papazyan had been sitting and harassing her. It was a completely creepy feeling, knowing that he or one of his associates had snapped a photograph the moment she’d turned her back.

  Katie read the article over one more time. The tone seemed unfailingly positive, so that was a plus…and a little odd. Knowing Papazyan, it could have been some kind of expose or scathing critique of Prince Armin.

  She got back to the bottom of the columns and beamed to no one in particular. “My Stolvenian is really coming along,” she said to her own reflection. “I read that entire article.”

  It had been slow going, the past few weeks. Katie knew from the moment she was hired that she’d have to lean more than just hello and goodbye. It didn’t matter that everyone spoke English. She was looking after two girls who were part of the royal family—it was part of her job to make sure they knew the history and traditions of their new country. That meant she needed to know them, too, so even though her eyes burned at the end of the day, she made herself study the language for a few sessions. There was an app on her phone, thankfully, that helped her do it. She felt a flash of pride when she glanced at the article one more time. It wasn’t a short piece, and she hadn’t found any impossible words this time.

  Katie was still trying to decide how to feel about the photograph and the article when her phone buzzed with an incoming batch of emails. She opened her mail app quickly, out of habit, and scrolled through the subject lines.

  One of them was a forwarded message from a long-abandoned work email from her disastrous previous job. She’d forgotten the password, but the forwarding was st
ill set up, so Katie had received—and deleted—an alternating bevy of hate mail and SPAM.

  But the message wasn’t either of those things. It was from Papazyan. And he was demanding a meeting.

  Katie’s thumb hovered over the screen. Deleting it would be the best choice—she knew it. But the more she thought about the way he’d acted in the park, the more she wanted to know what the hell was up with the man. Had he taken the photo? Why had he made it part of such a positive article if his goal was to turn people against the monarchy? What was he really after? Curiosity was a journalist’s biggest curse—and greatest asset. Katie didn’t know how to turn hers off, and the only way to satisfy it was to go to the meeting.

  But Prince Armin would hate it…if he found out.

  She glanced at the time.

  There was just enough of a window to go and come back if she hurried.

  Under the spell of her own adrenaline, she grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

  The shop that Papazyan had named was a café about five blocks down from the castle. Katie arrived out of breath from having speed-walked all the way to the café. She had to be back soon for the end of the piano lessons.

  Papazyan sat right in the front window, raising a cup of coffee to his lips. He raised his hand in a greeting that struck Katie as bizarrely casual, given their limited past history.

  She slid into the seat across from him. “I don’t have much time. I only came to find out why you sent me that newspaper—why you published the picture of the prince’s daughters. Was it some kind of threat?”

  Papazyan shook his head furiously. “Making things difficult for innocent children is not on my agenda. But my people and I—we want to see equality come to Stolvenia.”

  “Equality?”

  “The way you have it in the United States. You’re an American. Of course you understand the need for democracy and equality.”

  Katie blinked at him. It was an extremely simplified view of how life actually worked in the United States. “Sure? But it’s not my place to topple monarchies. And besides, you guys have a parliament. Stolvenia is hardly a dictatorship.”