A Princess Next Door (Rothman Royals Book 1) Read online

  A Princess Next Door

  Noelle Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Noelle Adams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Trophy Wife

  About Noelle Adams

  One

  They say some children are born with silver spoons in their mouths. I wasn’t one of those children.

  I am Amalie Rothman, and I was born with a crown on my head.

  I assume those silver spoons are figurative, unless there are strange goings-on in certain quarters involving newborns and high end cutlery. But the crown on my head was entirely literal. My mother has a photograph of me, only one hour old and wearing a tiara, in her private lounge to prove it.

  She had the same picture made of my older brother and my two younger sisters. She’s very proud of my father’s royal lineage. My parents kept having children, hoping for a spare heir after my brother, Henry, but they only ended up with more daughters. Not that extra princesses of Villemont are useless. After all, there are plenty of dull, unattractive men of distinction to marry us off to.

  For centuries, that has been the primary royal duty of a princess of Villemont—to marry whomever is most advantageous to their family and country.

  My mother had a certain Edward Farmingham Channing IV in mind for my future husband. He wasn’t noble, but he was the heir to a multi-billion dollar fortune. Noble blood is well and good, but money is even better.

  At least, it is if you are a Rothman.

  Four years ago, when I was twenty, I dug in my heels and told my mother I wasn’t going to marry the man. I wanted to go to university and study art instead. After endless rounds of debate and argument, I finally announced I was leaving whether she wanted me to or not. She still says I ran away, although all I did was move to Minneapolis for college to study under a specific art history professor who’d published books I loved. I’d always assumed I’d return home when I graduated.

  That was how I ended up getting whistled at in the hallway of my apartment building.

  I was unlocking my door, but I paused when I heard the wolf whistle. It was so out of place and so unexpected that it took me a minute to even recognize.

  I finally turned my head to see Jack Watson grinning at me from down the hall.

  “Did you whistle at me?” I asked, trying not to smile back as he approached.

  Jack lived in the apartment next door, and he wasn’t anything like the men I was used to, who were all well-groomed, over-educated, and oozing a kind of privileged ennui. Jack was big and handsome with rough edges and a blunt candor that always surprised me. I’d known him since he moved into the building last year, although we only ever interacted in the hall or the parking garage.

  “I did,” he admitted, his eyes traveling up and down my body with open appreciation. “You look good.”

  It was an unseasonably warm day for April, so I was wearing a little green sundress. I thought I’d looked pretty when I finished dressing that morning, and it was nice that Jack thought so too. “But why did you whistle?”

  “That’s what guys do here. Didn’t you know that?” His brown eyes were still warm and amused, but I could tell he was asking a genuine question.

  As much as I tried to speak with a normal American accent, I still sounded European. Villemont is a microstate tucked in the Alps between France and Switzerland. It’s been a sovereign nation for more than three hundred years, but it only spans twenty-five square miles and boasts a population of about 15,000. I’ve been told my accent sounds in between French and German, which makes sense since they’re both official languages of Villemont.

  There was a lot about American culture that was still new to me, but I did know about wolf whistles. “Yes, of course,” I said, answering Jack’s question. “But I thought it was a rude thing men did to women on the street.”

  “It is.” He glanced away, looking momentarily sheepish. “It was dumb. Sorry.”

  I wasn’t used to guys apologizing so easily. “So why did you do it?”

  “Because I do a lot of dumb things around you.” His mouth twitched up slightly. “Haven’t you realized that by now?”

  He’d made no pretense of his attraction to me over the months I’d known him. At first, he’d always been asking me to go to dinner or the movies with him. After a while, when I kept telling him no, he stopped asking me out, but it was clear he was still interested.

  I tried to remind myself that I was graduating next month and would have to return home—probably to marry someone politically or diplomatically advantageous to my family. There was no sense in indulging the flood of attraction that suddenly consumed me when I stared up at Jack’s handsome face, broad shoulders, and sexy smile.

  I’d always turned down his advances because it was smart and because I knew the relationship could never go anywhere. But I was finding myself more and more tempted to say yes.

  “Oh,” I said, lowering my eyes, wishing I was just a normal college girl who could respond to any man I wanted.

  “Are you going out tonight?”

  “No.” It was a Friday night, but I never went out much. I had some casual friends, but it was hard to get close to anyone and keep the fact that you were a princess a secret.

  No one knew who I was here, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  “I was thinking about ordering a pizza. You can come over and have some if you want.”

  I swallowed hard, giving myself a quick mental lecture about how silly and futile it would be to spend time with this man, when a future was already mapped out for me back home. “Thank you. I probably won’t, though.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that, but it’s a standing offer. Just knock on my door any time you want.” Jack wore khakis and an untucked black T-shirt. I knew he ran his family’s sporting goods retail stores, but he rarely dressed up for work. He looked around thirty, and I liked just about everything about him—even the way he always needed to shave at the end of the day.

  He was so different from everything I was accustomed to.

  “Okay. Thank you.” I inhaled deeply and then let my breath out, forcing myself to turn away and finish unlocking my door.

  I glanced back one more time before I stepped inside. He was still standing there, gazing at me with those deep brown eyes and an almost wistful smile.

  Damn, it was hard to say no to him.

  But I was Amalie Rothman. I was a princess of Villemont. And Jack Watson wasn’t for me.

  ***

  My apartment was in a very nice building in downtown Minneapolis, not too far from my university campus.

  When I’d decided to go to college, against my mother’s wishes, I’d planned on getting a job and trying to make it on my own. That wasn’t acceptable to my mother, however. She wouldn’t sleep sound unless I had a very nice place with extra security and a bodyguard from the Royal Guard.

  I was fine with the secure apartment, but I objected to the bodyguard. We finally compromised that Hans, my bodyguard, would have to maintain a discreet distance at all times, so people wouldn’t know who he was. So he dressed like another college student—one who took all the same classes as me. My
father might be a king, but he wasn’t an important man in world politics, so kidnapping wasn’t a real threat for me or my sisters. But I wasn’t going to be stupid and refuse protection completely. Hans was good about lurking in the shadows. Only a couple of people had noticed him, and they’d assumed he had a thing for me. It never occurred to anyone that he was hired to protect me.

  In addition to the apartment, my mother had insisted on sending me here with a collection of the Rothman family antiques for décor.

  As in everything else, her tastes were more lavish than the family coffers could easily afford, which was why it was so imperative to marry us off to wealthy men.

  I did like my little apartment, though, with its high ceilings, wood floors, and expansive views of the city skyline.

  That afternoon, as I walked in the front door, I knew immediately that something was wrong. I heard a dripping sound, and that couldn’t be good.

  When I passed the short wall that divided the entryway from the kitchen, I found the source of the dripping.

  The ceiling above the dining area had caved in, and water was leaking in a slow trickle from above.

  Right onto the Elizabethan sideboard that had been in the Rothman family possession for three hundred years.

  My reflexes are not like lightning. I tend to be more of a thinker than a doer. But I was hit with a panic that couldn’t be denied and ran over to the sideboard immediately. The polished mahogany surface was covered with a pool of water. I moved to one side and tried to push it out of the way of the waterfall, but the piece was heavy and I couldn’t budge it.

  I tried for a minute, only managing to move it about an inch, and then I straightened up, almost crying as I saw the water was covering the entire surface.

  My mother would be heartbroken if the sideboard was irreparably damaged.

  I had to get it moved out of the way, so I followed the first instinct that came into my mind. I ran out of my apartment and down the hall to Jack’s unit next door.

  I pounded on the door.

  He swung it opened in less than a minute, blinking as he saw who it was. “That was fast,” he said with a slow smile. He must have been in the process of changing clothes, since he held his shirt in his hand and his chest was bare.

  I know I had other things to worry about at the moment, but I couldn’t help but notice that his chest was very fine indeed with a scattering of dark hair and well defined muscles.

  I dragged my eyes back up to his face. “Can you help me?” I gasped, a little breathless from my anxiety and my attempt to move the sideboard on my own.

  His expression changed, and the concern on his face was strangely comforting. Since I’d moved here, I’d felt mostly alone, and it was nice to know there was someone I could rely on for help. “What’s wrong?”

  Figuring it would be easier to show him than to explain, I said, “Can you come look?”

  He followed without argument, and when he’d entered my apartment, it didn’t take him long to size up the situation. “Whoa. Either a pipe burst or a tub is overflowing upstairs.”

  “The sideboard is an antique.”

  He acted immediately. He strode over to push the sideboard out of the way, making it move with impressive ease, given how hard it had been for me to push it even an inch.

  I hurried to get a couple of towels and wiped down the surface. The vase of flowers I’d had on top were soaked, but that was no serious problem. The polished surface was dulled by the water, but it didn’t look like the mahogany itself had been damaged.

  “Thank you,” I told Jack, who was staring up at the hole in my ceiling. “I appreciate the help.”

  “No problem.” He turned to smile at me sympathetically. “Is it totally messed up?” he asked, gesturing toward the sideboard.

  “I hope not. It belongs to my family. My mother is already angry with me. She’d never forgive me if I damaged a family antique.”

  “Why is she mad at you?”

  I swallowed, realizing I probably shouldn’t have shared such personal information. Just because Jack felt familiar, safe, incredibly attractive, didn’t mean I could get close to him. “She, uh, she didn’t want me to go to college at all.”

  Jack’s frown deepened. “Why the hell not?”

  “It’s a long story.” I gave the surface of the sideboard one more swipe with a dry towel. “I think it’s going to be okay. You saved it in time.”

  “That’s me. Savior of sideboards and damsels in distress.” His tone was light and teasing and ironic, and I really liked the sound of it. “Why don’t you call the building manager, and I’ll go upstairs and see if I can figure out what’s going on?”

  Since this was a very reasonable idea, I nodded and went to find the phone number, telling myself that this was all the interaction with Jack Watson I should indulge in.

  I’d be graduating in just over a month. I’d have to go home. No use to get too attached to my sexy American neighbor if I’d just have to leave him in five weeks.

  ***

  An hour later, the leak had been stopped by the simple step of turning off the bathtub the idiot upstairs had left running all day.

  The manager had come by to inspect the damage and promised to get someone in to fix the ceiling the following day. Everything was taken care of, and I was left alone in my apartment with a gaping hole in my ceiling.

  I told myself to ignore it and tried to focus on what I wanted for dinner.

  What I mostly wanted was to get out of this apartment, since the sight of the stained and torn plaster made me feel kind of depressed, and the smell was faint but noticeable. But I had nowhere to go except a hotel, and that would make me feel like I was just a spoiled rich girl.

  I wasn’t really a rich girl—at least, not if I continued to refuse to marry Edward Farmingham Channing IV.

  Please understand, the Rothmans weren’t poor by anyone’s standards, and by most of the world’s criteria we were loaded. But when you’re the king, your lifestyle expenses are ridiculously high, so I’ve spent my life on this strange high wire, teetering between indulgence and financial anxiety.

  I was staring into my refrigerator, telling myself to stop being ridiculous about wanting to get out of the apartment, when there was a knock on my door.

  No one ever knocked on my door, so I just stood in a daze for a moment until I realized the best way to find out who was there was to go and open the door. Hans wouldn’t have let anyone in from outside without letting me know they were coming up, so it had to be someone from the building.

  It was Jack. He’d changed into sweats and a T-shirt, and he was grinning at me from across the threshold. “Just thought I’d offer pizza and beer again. It’s got to suck to be stuck in there with a hole in your ceiling.”

  My mood took a sudden upward lift. I gave him a little smile. “It is kind of depressing.”

  “Then come on over. Just friendly. I promise I won’t make a move on you or anything obnoxious.”

  I might have giggled. Just a little. The truth was I wouldn’t be entirely opposed to his making a move on me, especially now when my defenses were low. “Okay,” I said at last, not able to stand the thought of the empty, damaged apartment this evening. “Thanks.”

  Jack looked pleased—and maybe a little surprised—and we both went over to his place next door.

  I’d changed clothes and was wearing a pair of black leggings and a long, soft top in a pretty shade of pink. My mother would be horrified if she knew I was in “mixed company” in such an outfit, but I didn’t think I looked too bad.

  And it wasn’t like Jack was any more dressed up than me.

  The pizza had evidently just arrived, since the box was sitting unopened on his kitchen counter. He grabbed two beers from the refrigerator as we entered and waved me over toward the couch.

  His apartment had almost the exact same layout as mine, but his was sparsely decorated. The living area consisted of a recliner, a couch, and a television. The leather couch
was obviously good quality, though, and the high-end entertainment system must have been expensive.

  Jack might not be much of a decorator, but he obviously wasn’t hurting for money.

  He’d brought the pizza, plates, and napkins over with the beers, and he sat down next to me on the couch. He opened the box, handed me a plate, and told me to help myself.

  “It’s greasy,” I said, as I tried to separate a piece from the others.

  “That’s what makes it good.”

  I’d had pizza before—mostly since I’d been in the States—but what I’d had before wasn’t as thin and greasy as this. I had a little trouble maneuvering the piece to my mouth so I could take a bite. When I felt grease on my chin, I dabbed at it with my napkin. After a couple of bites, I got the hang of it, pleased when I could manage a bite without making a mess.

  I’d been taught manners and etiquette since I was five, but none of those lessons really covered this.

  I’d been so focused on eating that I didn’t immediately realize that Jack was watching me.

  “What?” I demanded, when I finally felt his eyes on my face.

  “You really are a princess, aren’t you?”

  I gasped. How could he possibly have known? “Wh—what?”

  He was grinning as he wiped his mouth haphazardly with the back of his hand. “I’ve never seen anyone eat Mike’s pizza as neatly as you.”

  I almost slumped in relief when I realized it was just a figure of speech. He didn’t know I was actually a princess. He was just calling me that for fun. “What’s wrong with being neat?”

  “Nothing.” His brown eyes had changed, igniting with a hot expression that was unmistakable. “I like it.”

  A shiver ran down my spine. I couldn’t help but wonder what that voice, those eyes, those hands would feel like in bed with me.

  I brushed the thoughts away and straightened up. “You could use a napkin yourself, if you want to know the truth.”

  He chuckled and picked his up from where it was lying on the couch beside him. “So how old are you?”