Plus, how long he’d be staying in the country was up in the air. He’d intended to head straight back to New York as soon as this assignment wrapped up. With this new knowledge that he’d be inheriting the duchy, it changed things. Theo wasn’t sure how, though. He didn’t want to push Hanna aside at all, nor did he want to be a looming figurehead. He didn’t know how to sort out his feelings about it, let alone evolve a plan.
Talking to Genevieve would be a good start. Or even the men at this table.
Above all else, a change of topic was in order so that he could draw in a full breath again. “Thank you for taking us out tonight.”
The prince waved away the thanks. “I’ll admit now that I saw it as just another royal duty. Genny told me to show you two a good time. After repeating the caveat that this is not a bribe in any way.”
“I know.” She’d said it to Theo twice. And then a third time once she put clothes on, to be sure he’d actually heard her. “You’re to show me that this is a typical weekend for a member of House Villani. No gambling spree in Monaco. No overpriced auction at Sotheby’s. No star-studded gala in Dubai. Hanging with friends. Low-key. Low-cost.”
“Correct. Those were my orders.”
Elias snorted. “I certainly couldn’t afford to do those things every weekend. Not on a Royal Protection Officer’s salary.”
In a voice buoyant with friendly naivete, Simon asked, “But you’d go along as Christian’s bodyguard, wouldn’t you? Funded by the Palace?”
Ahh, good to see that Simon still had his head in the game. Nothing wrong with some subtle detective work while everyone’s defenses were lowered by booze and beef.
Technically, Theo was only auditing Genevieve’s books. However, a fuller picture of how her brother and father spent their money would help inform him as he looked at both what was in the expense sheets—and what extravagances may have been covered by other family members.
It would help him assess the feasibility of their latest brainstorm. One they’d come up with together. Genny refused to deprive anyone of their current job. She would recommend a hiring freeze and a reallocation of responsibilities to ultimately lead to a reduction in the staff not just at Alcarsa, but at all the palaces. Obviously, they’d need to get buy-in from all of the royal households. She seemed convinced she could make it happen.
“I’m not his bodyguard any longer. And when I was, there was always a sharp delineation between when I was on and off duty.” How did Elias manage to squeeze words out of a jaw clenched that tightly? “I didn’t let Christian treat me like his pet dog, along for the ride.”
“No matter how hard I tried.” Laughing, Christian knocked elbows with his friend. “This one’s stubborn and prideful. Probably why we get along so well.”
Simon grinned, giving two thumbs up. “That’s the mark of a true friendship. Theo here refuses to use his title to get me women.”
Bloody hell. Were they really back to this? “I do, indeed. And I’ve also explained that using my title would only get me a woman. Your logic’s flawed.”
“Or I’m desperate to try anything.” Simon turned to Elias with a scowl. “My British accent does not slay the ladies in Moncriano the way it does in Manhattan.”
“Probably because we’ve got Brits here all the time. We don’t all speak English just for the fun of it. Tourist dollars make this kingdom go ’round.”
“And we’re grateful for it.” Theo lifted his glass. “Most of the country being bilingual makes tonight much easier.”
“Yes, thank you, Your High—I mean, Christian. I’m a complete prat for not letting you speak your native language in your own country.”
“We’re happy to put you at ease, Simon. You too, Theo. After all those years away, it must feel like English is your first language now.”
“Never.” The denial popped out before he even thought about it.
“Good to hear. And I’m happy to report that this is no longer a boring, duty-dinner.”
“Speak for yourself,” Elias joked.
It was true. They’d had fun. Shared laughs, stories. Christian hadn’t been at all a stuck-up royal. He came off as a normal guy with a job, just like them.
A very, very different job with an extended tenure.
Damn it, he liked the man. He liked Genevieve’s brother. He liked the freaking crown prince. No, he respected him. Which turned Theo’s entire world view on its side.
A short brunette with breasts barely contained by her low-cut tank top paused at their table. “This is a sad group. No women to keep you company? How about I turn this into a party for you?”
She’d directed her questions at Simon. He shrugged, held up his hands. Overly slowly and much too loudly, he said, “I don’t speak your language.”
Theo gave her a smile to soften his rebuff. “Thanks for the offer, but we’re good.”
“Ah, but good’s not enough. I could make you feel great.” She threw a leg over his and then shimmied the rest of the way onto his lap. Great, indeed. Random drunk girl was embarrassing him in front of Genny’s brother, for fuck’s sake. He put his hands at her waist to lift her off.
It didn’t work.
She put both of her hands on his face. “I’m Marta.” Then she pulled Theo’s head down into her significant cleavage. That smelled as if she’d poured an entire beer or five down there.
In today’s culture, Theo was very aware that what he did next mattered. Considering her crotch straddled him, and her boobs smothered him, if she didn’t like the way he physically removed her, she could scream harassment. Undue, unwanted touching. Not at all true, but perception won the day.
Which meant not using his strength to remove her, but his brains. Which, luckily, was also his strength. So he mustered up a smile as he lifted his head. “Look, Marta, I’m a lucky man to receive your offer. But I’m in a relationship—”
She cut him off by lunging sideways. At Christian. “Hey there, Your Royal Hotness. Want me to rock your world? I can work your scepter and orbs like nobody else—”
This time, Marta was the one cut off.
Because Christian’s bodyguard Marko did not hesitate to pluck her off of Theo as easily as pulling a dandelion out of the grass. Her feet didn’t touch the floor until she was at the bar at the very front of the restaurant. Marko stayed there another minute, probably giving her dire warnings about setting foot back amongst the tables near the prince again.
“Oh, it’s good to be the almost-king,” Simon quoted—badly—Mel Brooks.
“I feel so used.” Theo hung his head in mock disappointment.
“And I feel the need to apologize. Both for her disruption in general and the way she crawled over you like a mattress.” Christian’s gaze darted from one stone wall across to the next in a triangle pattern.
Was he scanning for the next problem? Even though he had a bodyguard and a half (because Theo was quite certain that Elias never entirely dropped his guard when in a crowded place with the heir to the throne)?
Did Genevieve go through this? He’d already witnessed the instantaneous surge in crowds when she’d been on official visits. But unofficially? Here in her hometown if she just wanted a quiet dinner with friends? Was that even possible?
No wonder House Villani spent more money on chefs. Staying in was probably far preferable to the hassle of dealing with interruptions like this one. Unbidden, Theo’s hand fisted on his thigh. Had any drunk men ever climbed onto his Genny? Had to be removed by a bodyguard?
His Genny?
Christ, what a time to have that revelation. To feel that primal surge of possessiveness with her brother the width of a napkin away.
“How do you deal with it?” Theo asked abruptly. “People always wanting you.”
Christian smoothed a hand over his blond hair with a smirk. “Well, I am very handsome. I can’t begrudge them being drawn like a moth
to a flame.”
“I’m serious. They seem to feel…entitled to you—or at least a piece of you. Do you ever get to set aside the title and just be yourself?”
The prince’s joking demeanor turned solemn. “My best friend helps with that. He’s never slow to slap me down to size when my head gets too big. Reminds me of all the times he was faster or smarter or stronger than me. Or when literally anyone else in the world is, too.”
“Easy to come up with examples. There’s such a long list of people better than you,” Elias deadpanned.
It wasn’t enough. Not for Theo. Not as he was inexorably being pulled into their highly unusual lives. And worse, forced to watch Genny juggle the pressures. She made it look effortless.
He knew that wasn’t the case. “Being modest can’t be the whole answer. It isn’t just you or your sisters. It’s everyone who lives in the palace, who works in your rarified circle. How do they not get swept up in it all?”
“Nobody would ever claim that it’s easy to keep the stick out of your ass. Or to start believing your own press. But we’re not all caricatures. You can keep your sense of self while in the royal circle.”
Elias leaned over the table and kept his voice low. “It isn’t that it doesn’t matter. Being a bodyguard to a pop princess, for example? Well, you’re still pledging your life to keep theirs safe. But Clara isn’t just bodyguard to Princess Genevieve. She’s guarding seven hundred years of a dynasty, seven hundred years of tradition and leadership, and it is her job to make sure that thread doesn’t break.”
Simon swallowed so hard that Theo swore he heard the man’s Adam’s apple hit bottom. “When you talk like that, I’m struck by the fact that I don’t deserve to be sitting at this table with you, let alone the heir to the throne.”
“You’re not sitting with the heir to the throne.” Elias sliced his hand sideways through the air. “That’s my point. You’re with Christian Villani, a man who chose to go into the family business. The trick of it is knowing who you are. What you want from life separate from the pressure of the entire kingdom and what they want.”
“And you wanted Princess Kelsey. Despite what anyone else might’ve wanted for her.”
“Exactly. But Christian’s still sensitive about me being with his baby sister, so let’s move along.”
Good-naturedly, Simon turned to the prince. “What do you want, Christian?”
Those violet eyes that matched Genny’s practically bugged out of his head. His cheeks turned bright red above the open collar of his white linen shirt. “I’ll tell you what I don’t want. I don’t want to get fucking married.”
Theo made a show of wiping off his pants and shirt where Marta had left behind a faint, sour stench of beer. “Won’t women keep crawling over your friends to get to you until you do?”
“Yeah, that’s not a real good reason to pledge to spend the rest of your life with someone. To be chained and fettered to a random stranger for the next sixty years.”
Simon did the ubiquitous British bluster/chortle/snort combo. “Yikes. You’re really anti-marriage.”
“No. I’m anti-arranged-marriage.” The prince scrubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes. “Which appears to be the only option for the heir to the throne of Moncriano.”
“Uh, didn’t the royal family in my rainy but beautiful land blow that tradition to smithereens? You’ve got options now, thanks to England.”
“Ha! Hardly. No offense, but the House of Windsor’s barely cracked the century mark. My country’s not taking their cues from newbies. The House of Villani has held this kingdom for seven hundred years.”
Theo couldn’t help but point out the flaw in Christian’s complaint. “As king—or even the almost-king—don’t you get a say? Can’t you put your foot down?”
Christian ticked off points on his right hand. “Against the Grand Duchess, my father, the prime minister, Parliament, and oh, the entire kingdom? While we’re already in a shaky position with the vote to join the European Union? While anti-monarchy movements are growing all around the globe?”
“So that’s a no?”
Elias rolled his eyes. “He thinks he shouldn’t buck tradition. Whereas I say he’s a coward. That maybe things need a shake-up after that long.”
Christian’s glare said fuck you and the horse you rode in on more strongly than even voicing the words themselves. “I think you’ve shaken up my family enough.”
Okay, then. Kelsey was off the hook, but Christian and Genny would be required to follow tradition rather than their hearts.
Duly noted.
At least that would make the end of…this…whatever they were doing uncomplicated. Genevieve couldn’t possibly see him as anything more than a fling. She couldn’t let herself see Theo as…
Well, it didn’t matter what they might be, were they in different roles. Theo saw that as plainly as he saw if a column of numbers added up correctly.
Christian raised his empty wineglass. “No wine for me. But also no wife,” he shouted triumphantly. “I’ll take Lady Sif from Thor to my bed or no one. She’s a badass.”
Shit. Terrific that his new friend felt comfortable enough to vent to them. Terrible, though, if he let Genny’s brother cause a scene and get photographed bitching about his inevitable bride. Theo weighed his privacy against the prince’s. He’d have to take action.
So he pushed out of the booth. “We should head to the secret whiskey room. Get you out of the public eye before Marta texts all her friends that you’re here.”
“A secret room? Here?” Christian slid out next to him then thumped his chest twice with his fist. “I shall command they let us in. Unless you know the secret knock?”
Elias squinted at Theo with suspicion. “I thought you were new in town? How do you know about the hottest underground speakeasy in the kingdom?”
“I know this place. Just this one,” Theo emphasized. “Simply a random personal connection.” He tossed some bills on the table.
As Christian dug for his own wallet, he said, “Sounds like there’s a story there.”
And Simon didn’t move his ass—just gaped at him. “This is your bar?”
Theo sighed. He hadn’t known this was where they’d end up for the night. Which meant not having the chance to warn Simon to keep his mouth shut. They weren’t girls. He couldn’t drag him off to the bathroom to whisper secrets.
“It isn’t an interesting story.”
“I’ll buy you a glass of the oldest whiskey in the place if you give it up. Hell, I’ll buy you the bottle.”
Trying to slough him off, Theo gave a short laugh. “Thought tonight wasn’t about bribing me, Your Highness?”
“I’m not bribing the royal auditor.” Christian slung an arm around his shoulders, like they’d just won a football match. “I’m bribing my new mate into sharing. This is a lesson in how to be yourself. I’m carving you off from the palace and your official parliamentary assignment and just talking to Theo.”
Bloody hell. They walked down the hallway past the bathrooms to where a tapestry of a white peacock family in the palace courtyard covered the stone wall. Theo pressed on the center tail feather in each bird. Then the whole thing swung toward them, revealing an elevator with an attendant in a top hat.
“Passwor—oh, Your Royal Highness!” The man struggled to bow and still keep his hat on. “This is indeed an honor. Do step right in.”
As the panel closed and the elevator sank, Elias turned to him. “What’s the password?”
“No way. I’m already giving up one secret tonight.” Theo smirked. “Consider this me holding on to my sense of self.”
“Stubborn bastard.”
“And proud of it.”
“Enough stalling, Theo. What’d Simon mean, this is your bar?” Christian waved expansively at the small, mirrored car.
Damn it, but
Simon would owe him. Theo liked to hold his cards close to the vest. And he very much hated to brag—or anything that could be connoted to be.
“An old classmate owns it. He worked, trained for years. He was on the brink of starting renovations when he lost all his funding. Remember that investment firm a few years ago that took all their client’s money and disappeared?”
Christian shook his head as they filed out to face an iron-encrusted cannon marking the entrance to the whiskey bar. “That wasn’t here in Moncriano.”
“No. But Klaus had been in the States working at a distillery. He held his money over there. When he lost everything to those assholes, his friends started a GoFundMe page. It caught my eye. I’d just come into the bulk of my trust fund and wanted to find a worthwhile investment.”
Elias hooted loudly quickly followed by an apologetic nod to the patrons in low-slung leather chairs gathered around whiskey casks for tables. “And you picked a restaurant/bar? For a man who eats, sleeps, and breathes numbers, that strikes me as supremely un-strategic. You must know these places have the same lifespan as a fruit fly.”
“I didn’t invest in a restaurant. I invested in Klaus. It’s a small but significant detail. I researched him. Talked to him. And I wanted my money to make a difference here, in my home country.”
Mouth dropping open, Christian said, “You’re a patriot.”
This was why he’d shared the story with nobody…except for Simon. Embarrassed, Theo signaled for a waiter. “I’m merely a savvy investor. One who reads people along with the balance sheet. It’s why they hired me to do your audit.”
“I call it impressive that even though you spent so long out of the country, you still help our people.”
“Long story short, I didn’t leave by choice. I love Moncriano.” And that should’ve been the end of it.
Simon wasn’t done with the topic, though. “Not enough to use your title to jump us past the six-month wait list for reservations at Per Se.”
“I don’t want anything I don’t earn.” Deciding to push the whole friend-not-prince approach to the evening, Theo continued. He put his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands. “That’s my problem with royalty. All that adoration, the blind following—you haven’t done anything to deserve it.”
Ruling the Princess Page 18