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

  “Good.” He reached out and pulled me into a soft hug, and I clung to his big body for a minute, feeling comforted, feeling safer than I had in a very long time.

  When I finally pulled away, Jack’s eyes were studying me closely, as if he were searching for signs of something I didn’t understand.

  I cleared my throat. “So you understand why things are so complicated for me? I can’t just do anything I want.”

  “I don’t know. I can see why you’d have a lot of pressure. But they can’t make you do things you don’t want to do, can they?”

  “They can make it almost impossible for me to do anything else. I put my foot down about marrying the man my mother had picked out for me and about going to college here, but anything else and she’s going to get desperate. She’s already desperate. That’s why she keeps giving the tabloids leads about me. I’m not important enough for them to bother with otherwise, but if a princess in disguise lands in their lap…” I shook my head.

  “I get that, and I think it’s a shitty thing for her to do. But she can’t do much worse than that, can she? I mean, she can’t force you.” His features twisted into a frown. “Can she?”

  “Not with force, no. With other kinds of pressure. Manipulation. Guilt. That kind of thing.”

  Jack’s expression relaxed. “So that’s the situation, then. I get that it’s hard, but you do have choices. If you want to stay here and go to graduate school, you can. You just have to make the choice.”

  His words should have been encouraging, but they weren’t—since they proved that there were some things Jack would never understand. “I told you before. I’m glad that you see the world as always simple and straightforward, but that’s not how all of us live our lives. It’s not simple and straightforward for me.”

  “There are some things that are simple. Your family shouldn’t pressure you to do what isn’t good for you. And you shouldn’t let them. I still think it’s more that you’re scared of living without a safety net.”

  “That’s not fair, Jack. You have no idea what my family is like.”

  “True, but I know you. And I know it took courage for you to come to college here on your own, but even in doing that, you always had a safety net.”

  I felt more rattled than ever. “What safety net? Why do you keep saying that?”

  “They paid for your apartment, right? They sent you with a bodyguard—which is who I assume that guy who is always lurking in the distance is. You haven’t had to get a job, and you have the biggest wardrobe I’ve ever seen.”

  My chest clenched with pain at the realization that he’d been thinking all of this about me. “You think I’m spoiled?”

  “Anyone in your situation would be. Amelie, I’m not insulting you. You’ve lived a different life than me, than anyone I know. I’m just trying to explain what I mean by a safety net. I get it. I totally get it. You’ve always known you’re going to go back home after graduation, so you’ve never had to really jump all the way into life here. So the thought of doing so and giving up all you’ve always had is terrifying. It would be to anyone. I just think that’s the real reason why you won’t do what you really want.”

  I shifted uncomfortably, trying to be honest with him, with myself. “Maybe. To a certain extent. But there’s more to it than that. I love my family, and I don’t want to cut them out of my life.”

  “Of course not. You can still talk to them, visit them, whatever. But you don’t have to live there in order to do it.”

  I started to argue, since he was making me feel guilty. He believed in what he was saying, but he’d never been a Rothman. There was no way I could make him understand. Realizing this, I closed my mouth and drooped backwards onto the bed.

  Jack lowered himself next to me on his side, his head propped up on one hand. “Amalie, please don’t shut me out.”

  “I’m not trying to shut you out. I just don’t know how to explain my real situation. I don’t think you can know what it’s like—why it’s just not as simple as you think—unless you actually experience what it’s like to be a princess of Villemont.”

  “So show me what it’s like.”

  “How?”

  “Take me with you when you visit home next week.”

  My eyes widened. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “But that would be…”

  “It would be what?”

  “I don’t know. A very large deal.”

  Jack surprised me with a huff of amusement. “A big deal.”

  “No, it would be larger than big.”

  Now he laughed out loud. “No. I meant the expression is a ‘big deal,’ not a ‘large deal.’”

  “Oh.” I smiled at his warm expression. I loved when he looked at me like that, even when he was correcting my American colloquialisms. “It would be an extremely big deal.”

  “So why is that a problem? You say I don’t understand, so let me see for myself.”

  As ridiculous as the idea was, I was actually tempted. Not just because I didn’t like the idea of being away from Jack for a week, when we had so little time left as it was. But also because I wanted to share my life with him, and I could never really do that with just words. After a moment of silence, I murmured, “If you come home with me, everyone will think we are…we are…serious.”

  “Yeah. I can just imagine.”

  “We are supposed to be just casual.”

  He reached out to take my hand in his. “Does this feel just casual to you?”

  Of course it didn’t. It never really had. “Jack…”

  “I know it’s early for us. I’m not asking for anything deeper right now. But I’d like to explore whatever is between us, and I don’t think we can ever do that if you’re planning to move to another continent in a few weeks. So take me with you next week, and we can just see what happens.”

  I gazed at him, my heart so full I couldn’t even speak. I couldn’t believe this amazing man was saying such a thing to me. I couldn’t believe he seemed to mean it.

  And I just wished I could hope that, at the end of the week, there would be a future for us, but I knew it was impossible.

  Jack would see then. And he’d never want to get tangled up with a girl who came with that kind of baggage.

  “Okay,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “You can come with me.”

  He smiled as if he’d won some kind of victory. “Good. I can’t wait.”

  I knew for sure he wouldn’t be that hopeful for long.

  ***

  The following Monday, Jack and I were on my family’s private jet, somewhere over the Atlantic.

  We did have a private jet, but it wasn’t a very large one, and we used it as infrequently as possible, since the fuel was ridiculously expensive. But my father was a king, and he could hardly fly commercially, and my mother was so insistent on getting me home that she’d sent the jet to fly me back to Villemont for the week.

  Jack and I were sitting in comfortable leather seats facing each other. I was reading one of the books assigned for my seminar that started next week, and Jack was talking on the phone. He’d had to change a number of meetings he’d had scheduled this week to phone calls instead.

  He was talking about financials. I understood most of the words, but it was very difficult for me to follow the conversation. He obviously knew what he was talking about, and he was deeply focused on the topic. I glanced up every few minutes to watch him.

  It was a side of him I’d never seen before. I knew him as casual, relaxed, and amusing—and sometimes intensely sexy. I’d never seen him working like this before. It was like he stepped out of the role as soon as he left the office every day. No matter how casual he acted on his downtime, he ran a growing business so he couldn’t be any sort of slacker. It wasn’t a huge company. Certainly not a national or international corporation. But eleven stores in three states was nothing to sneer at, and he was obviously very good at his job. I’d never seen him so focused on a
nything except me before.

  I liked it. I liked the authority with which he spoke on the phone, and the understated competence and intelligence of his conversations.

  I wanted to be like that one day too. I wanted to know art just as well as he knew his business. But the only way I could do that was to go to graduate school, and I just didn’t know how I could manage it.

  The thought made me feel a little glum, but I smiled at Jack as he hung up the phone.

  “Sorry,” he said with a rueful look. “I’m trying to get as much done as I can on the flight.”

  “Of course. I don’t mind at all. Are you sure you could afford to take off so much time?”

  “It’s no problem.”

  I wasn’t sure how true the words were, since his expression looked a little strained. He would have had to reschedule his entire week, leaving at the last minute the way he had, and it couldn’t have been easy.

  It was a little thrilling. That he cared so much about me—about exploring a possible future with me—that he was willing to do that.

  “We’ll have time this week,” I told him, “if you need to work on your computer or make more calls. Our entire days won’t be scheduled out for us. I made sure my mother didn’t do that.”

  “Good.” He paused. “Would she have done that otherwise?”

  “Probably. But I told her I wouldn’t come at all if I didn’t have any free time, so I believe she’s making an effort to be good.”

  “What did you tell her about me?”

  “I said you were a friend.”

  “And what did she think about that?”

  My mother hadn’t been at all happy to hear I was bringing a male friend with me on my trip home. She’d asked me all kinds of nosy questions about him, and I’d had to tell her it was none of her business. She’d been hurt and offended, and she’d probably ordered some sort of background check on Jack, looking for dirt.

  I knew she wouldn’t find any. Nothing that would matter to me, anyway. But it felt like an intrusion on my privacy, that she would be looking into Jack.

  It might have been a huge mistake to bring him with me at all, but it was happening so there was nothing I could do about it.

  “She was curious, but she said you would be welcome,” I said, answering Jack’s question.

  “It will be fine then.”

  “Yes.” I swallowed, hoping the words were true.

  I had no idea if this week would be fine or not. I rather doubted not.

  ***

  Villemont is made up of one small city and some outlying rural areas. It takes less than an hour to drive the length of the country, even with all the mountain roads. There is no airport, so we landed in Geneva, where a limo met us to drive just over an hour to the royal palace of Villemont.

  Jack didn’t talk much during the drive. He stared out the windows at the gorgeous mountain scenery.

  “Have you been to France or Switzerland before?” I asked, wondering what he was thinking about all of this. He’d been born and raised in a small town in Minnesota. None of this would be familiar to him.

  “I’ve been to Paris, but not down this way. Did you grow up skiing?”

  “Yes. We skied all the time. It’s not the best time of the year for skiing now, though.”

  “I was never much of a skier. It sure is gorgeous here, though.” He smiled at me. If he was uncomfortable about being here with me or anything he was about to face when we got to the palace, he certainly wasn’t showing it.

  I made myself relax.

  It didn’t matter what happened. If Jack got scared away or disgusted by all of the royal attitudes or aplomb, then we wouldn’t have had a future anyway. Better to find out now, before I fell for him any further.

  It wasn’t long before we reached the top of a mountain and could see the walled city in the distance.

  Villemont had started as a medieval village and had been built out from there. The “new wall” that spanned the circumference of the city proper was a hundred and fifty years old. The palace grounds were within the older wall that was more than four hundred years old.

  Many of the streets were still made of cobblestones and were too narrow for larger cars to drive through, but there was a wide paved road that led to the palace, and that was the one we took.

  Jack stared out the window, occasionally asking questions but mostly just taking it in.

  If I’d been hoping for an easy entrance, I’d have been disappointed. My mother loved ceremony of every kind, so she’d arranged the full treatment for us. The green-liveried Royal Guard was in position as the limo stopped, and my mother and father were standing at the bottom of the main stairs up to the palace. A small crowd had gathered—mostly palace staff and a few friends of the family.

  “Whoa,” Jack said, seeing what was waiting for him.

  “I’m sorry. This is what they do.”

  “Every time someone comes home?”

  “Only if you’ve been gone as long as I have.”

  He swallowed hard and reached to open the limo door. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  Jack hated to be the center of attention. I knew this about him. He also hated a lot of fuss and hoopla, as he called it. He was bombarded with all of it now, as we got out of the car and were greeted by my parents.

  My mother was always formal when other people were around, so she simply kissed my cheek and took Jack’s hand as she introduced herself. My father hugged me and gave Jack a pat on the shoulders, smiling warmly.

  My father was genuinely glad to see me. I was sure my mother was too, although you couldn’t tell so from her behavior or expression. Jack was trying to be polite as he said hello, but he looked trapped and uncomfortable. He’d rather have been anywhere else right now.

  We had to greet a few other people before we were allowed to make it into the huge entrance doors. My mother wanted to take us right into the parlour for tea, but I pleaded fatigue and the need for a shower so I could get Jack up to his room to recover a little.

  We were put in separate rooms, as I’d known we would be, but at least we were on the same floor in the same wing, so there was just a hall between us. I managed to get rid of Madame Giselle, our long-time housekeeper, and the two footman who had carried our luggage, and then Jack and I were finally alone in his suite of rooms.

  I was relieved they’d given him one of the best guest suites—on the corner with a private balcony, a large updated bathroom, and some very good, not-to-feminine antique furniture.

  “Wow,” Jack said, staring at the closed door. His face looked a little strained. “That was…a lot.”

  “I did warn you.”

  “Yes, you did.” He smiled, looking more like himself, and reached out to pull me against him, his arms wrapping around me. “The worst is over. It’s going to be fine.”

  I wasn’t at all confident that the worst was over, but I liked the tone of his voice so I didn’t argue too vehemently. “I told you they’re having a dinner party tonight, didn’t I?”

  “Yes. I’m fine with that. I’m usually good with people, you know.”

  “I know. But this won’t be pizza in the living room.”

  “I won’t embarrass you.”

  I looked up at his face. “That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m quite sure my family is going to embarrass me.”

  He leaned down to kiss me gently on the lips. “I’m pretty tough. I can take whatever they dish out.”

  I sighed and tightened my arms around him, but I had a sick feeling in my gut.

  Jack hadn’t seen anything my family could throw at him yet.

  Six

  That evening, I was zipping up my evening gown when there was a knock on my door.

  My mother had probably sent one of the lady’s maids to help me. I’d always preferred to get dressed on my own, but on special occasions she liked for me to have a second pair of hands.

  “Come in,” I called out, still working on my zipper. Another pair of hands
would actually be convenient at the moment.

  A few seconds later, I heard a husky male voice saying, “Now that is not at all what I expected to be greeted with.”

  I gasped and whirled around to see Jack closing the door behind him, looking incredibly handsome in a tuxedo the staff had found for him. “I didn’t know it was you!”

  “Would you have zipped up if you’d known I was coming?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then I made the right decision by not warning you.” His eyes raked up and down my body with a possessive look that made me shiver. “You look good enough to eat.”

  I was wearing a deep red sleeveless gown that clung to my body. The material was thick and lush enough for my mother to decide it was an appropriate gown for a princess, but it was definitely sexier than I normally wore. I’d never liked the gown as much as I did right now, though. “I’m still trying to zip the silly dress.”

  “I can help with that.” Jack came over, and I showed my back to him. I could feel his warm fingers against my bare skin.

  The zipper didn’t seem to be elevating.

  “It goes up,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at him.

  He gave me a wolfish smile. “I’m working on it.”

  He leaned forward to press a kiss against the bare skin at the back of my neck. Then lower, between my shoulder blades.

  “Jack.” I tried to make my tone chiding, but it was shaking from rising excitement. Nothing had ever felt as good as the touch of his lips so soft against my skin.

  “Mm hmm.” His hands were moving now too, skating up my belly until he was cupping my breasts with both hands.

  “Dinner begins in fifteen minutes.”

  “We have time.”

  I gasped when he caressed my nipples and gave the back of my neck a little lick. I was almost limp with desire, and my cheeks were blazing beneath my makeup. “We don’t…have much time.”

  “I can be quick.”

  “What about me?”

  “I’ll make sure you’re satisfied.”

  He always did. I’d only been with two other men in my entire life, and both of them had been decent in bed. But neither had been as attentive and considerate about my needs as Jack was—every time.