Prince Albert Read online

  "Touché," she says.

  "I don't know any other way of life," I tell her.

  Inside the castle, I show her my favorite places, the things that are a part of my family history -- the Chinese pottery that I broke when Alex and I were running through the house when I was nine, thousands of years old and super-glued back together; and the place where my sister and I shimmied off a low overhang from one of the windows when I was twelve and Alex broke her arm. It was the first time I'd gotten in real trouble, grounded from everything.

  Belle and I stand on the roof, looking out over the expanse of the estate, the lawn so vivid it's nearly emerald-colored. Everything out here, in the country, is more vivid and intense than the city.

  This place holds all of the important memories of my life.

  "This is where Alex and I would come up and get high, before I left for the army," I tell her.

  Belle laughs. "This isn't what I pictured," she says. "It's different from what I expected from a royal family."

  "It's all trappings, you know," I say. "All of this -- the castles, and the cars, and the planes, and --"

  "The media stories?" she asks. She stands a foot away from me -- too far, I think -- and glances at me, and I think I see her smile. Teasing me about my reputation.

  "I'd say those stories in the media are greatly exaggerated, but they're probably not," I tell her.

  She laughs. "At least you're honest," she says. Then, abruptly: "Why did you bring me here?"

  "I'm sharing royal stories -- the good ones, not the PR-friendly ones -- and you're not having fun?"

  "No, I. That's not what I meant at all."

  "Relax, luv, I'm just giving you crap," I say. "Other than playing hooky at tea? I wanted to show you the real Protrovia."

  "This is the real Protrovia?" she asks, her voice lilting. "Palatial summer estates?"

  "No, smarty," I say. "I'm just giving you a tour of the summer house. Come on. Now I'll show you the real Protrovia. That way, if you decide to go back to the States, at least you know what you're missing."

  But I don't turn to leave. Not yet. I stand there, and she looks at me for a minute, the expression on her face unreadable. "I'm starting to get an idea of what I'd be missing," she says, her eyes lingering on my face for a split second too long. Then the moment passes, and she clears her throat. "All right, Prince Albert. Sell me on Protrovia."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Belle

  “I’m not sure what I thought I was going to get when I told a prince to sell me on his country, but this was definitely not it.”

  “What?” he asks innocently. “Is it the shoes? Not flattering?”

  “Yeah, it’s definitely the shoes,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. But I can't quite stifle the giggle that erupts in my throat when I look at him.

  Albie is wearing jeans and a grey t-shirt, a navy blue baseball cap pulled down low on his head, looking like any other guy his age.

  Except for the ridiculous, bushy, dark fake mustache over his lips.

  “You need a hat, too,” he says, producing a black baseball cap from behind his back, with the words ‘I Luv Las Vegas” written on it in bright orange typeface.

  I snatch the hat from his hand. “Are you kidding me?”

  “What?” he asks, shrugging, his palms upturned. “You’ll look like a tourist. It's the perfect disguise.”

  “Did you buy that for me in Vegas?” After claiming that he had no idea who I was, he produces something like this?

  “Nope,” he says. “I bought it for myself in Vegas, actually. But, I’ll admit, once you got here, I was going to leave it on your bed as a welcome gift.”

  “But your sense of decorum and propriety kept you from doing that? Nice,” I say, shaking my head. I slip the ball cap over my head anyway, pulling my ponytail through the back. “Fine. Let’s go wherever you’re taking me, Pornstache.”

  When Albie’s bodyguard sees us, he rolls his eyes and sighs heavily. “That mustache. Really?” he says.

  “Noah is just jealous because he can’t grow a sexy 'stache like this,” Albie says, leaning close to me to stage whisper.

  “From what I can tell, you can't either, sir.” Noah holds the car door open for me. It’s a black sedan with a taxi plate in the back corner of the rear window, a few years old and completely non-royal, nothing like the high-end SUVs with dark-tinted windows that are dead giveaways for the royal security detail.

  “Isn’t he coming with us?” I ask, watching as Noah closes my door and walks toward the SUV parked twenty feet away.

  I wonder how the hell Albie gets away with such laid-back security. This is how it was in Vegas, too. There, Albie had no major security detail. None that I noticed anyway, or I’d have definitely suspected something then. He’s the most famous prince on the planet. I’d expect him to have a team of bodyguards, like a rock star or a dignitary.

  “Absolutely,” Albie says, settling into the back seat of the car beside me. He doesn’t make a move, doesn’t put his hand on my leg or do anything inappropriate. I’m not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed with that. “He’s our driver.”

  “Is security always this lax for the royal family?” I ask. Noah slides behind the wheel of the driver's seat, tossing a backpack on the front passenger side.

  Albie turns toward me and winks, wearing his stupid ball cap and that bushy mustache.

  Despite my initial misgivings, maybe the royal asshole isn’t so bad after all.

  “Let’s just say that Noah and I have an understanding,” Albie says. “He knows that I’m perfectly capable of losing him, if I really wanted to. Kind of like today. We could have ditched out of the palace, gone through the tunnels, and skirted around out in town. But this way, he can follow me from afar and trust that I’m not going to try to lose him. At least not today, anyway.”

  “The Prince is under a bit of a delusion, I’m afraid,” Noah says, as he pulls down the drive. “He believes he’s more clever and unobtrusive than he is.”

  I choke back a laugh. “I’ve definitely gotten that impression.”

  “If you don't think my ‘stache is the very definition of unobtrusive, I’m afraid we can’t be friends any longer, Noah,” Albie says.

  “I feel sorry for you, Noah,” I say, shaking my head.

  “Why?” he asks, his eyes forward as he drives us outside of the walled estate and down the weaving, winding road toward wherever the hell we’re going. I realized that I have no idea what Albie's plan is, yet I’m blindly following his direction as if I don’t have a care in the world.

  “I'm sorry that you got stuck with this assignment to guard the prince,” I say.

  “It’s a sacrifice,” Noah says. “King and country and all.”

  Albie laughs, hitting a button that automatically slides up a partition between us and Noah. “That’s enough from him,” he says.

  “You guys are really close,” I note.

  “Noah tolerates a lot of crap from me,” he says. "He came on around the time my mom got sick."

  “I can only imagine the shit he must put up with,” I say, only half-joking. From the magazine articles and media frenzy that surround the playboy prince, I can definitely see how difficult it would be to manage him.

  I expect Albie to laugh, but when I look over at him, his gaze is focused out the window, his expression guarded.

  “How did your mom die?" I ask, even though I already know she died. The death of Queen Sigrid was all over the media after it happened. I was in my senior year of high school. I still remember the memorials, the songs written about her. And like everyone else around the world, I remember the photo of Prince Albert and Princess Alexandra, standing beside their father, staid and unflinching, pain written all over their faces.

  It's one thing to read about the death of someone in an online news article, or to see their face plastered all over the media, but another thing entirely to experience that loss first-hand.

  I should know