The Princess Problem Read online

  “You should probably know that while you were out of the office, you got a phone call.” Artem sank into the wing chair on the opposite side of Dalton’s desk. His uncharacteristically serious expression gave Dalton pause. “From the palace in Delamotte.”

  Great. Just great.

  So they’d already found out. The palace officials knew about Aurélie. They probably even knew about the secret egg. His ambition, coupled with Aurélie’s naïveté, had created an even more profound disaster than he’d anticipated.

  He’d been an idiot to think he could get away with something like this. “How bad is it?”

  Artem shrugged. “Not very. When Mrs. Barnes couldn’t reach you on your cell, she came to me. I took the call.”

  When Mrs. Barnes couldn’t reach you on your cell...

  Memory hit Dalton hard and fast. Unexpected. Bile rose to the back of his throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut. But he could still see the notification on his phone. Clarissa Davies, 19 Missed Calls.

  It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known. He’d seen the calls come rolling in, but he’d ignored them. Every last one.

  Artem spoke again, his voice dragging Dalton mercifully back to the present. “Relax, brother. I handled it. Look, I know how you feel about your phone, but it’s not a crime to miss a call.”

  “Don’t go there, Artem,” he said as evenly as he could manage. “Not now.”

  Artem held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry. I know it’s a difficult subject, but it’s been six years. You don’t have to be tethered to your phone twenty-four seven. Honestly, when Mrs. Barnes told me you weren’t picking up, I was elated. I thought you’d actually gone and gotten yourself a life.”

  Dalton let out a bitter laugh. He didn’t deserve a life. Not anymore. He probably never had, because he was a Drake through and through.

  Like every other Drake man that had ever sat behind a desk, he was good at one thing: making money. Selling diamonds didn’t leave much room for relationships, or for “a life” as Artem put it. Not the way the Drake men did it.

  Dalton had tried it once, hadn’t he? Never again. One dead fiancée was more than enough.

  “It wasn’t your fault, you know. She would have eventually found another time, another way,” Artem said quietly.

  They’d been over this before. The discussion was closed, as far as Dalton was concerned. What good could come of revisiting the past? Nothing. It wouldn’t change a godforsaken thing. “Can we just cut to the chase? Tell me about the call.”

  Artem sighed. “They were calling to see if the eggs had arrived safely. It seems the palace courier, Monsieur Martel, still hasn’t returned to work. There was some concern that he might have absconded with the royal jewels.”

  Dalton should have thought about this detail. He should have quizzed Aurélie about the courier before he’d even agreed to her terms. He was off his game. He’d been off his game since she’d walked through the door of his office. The time had come to get his head on straight again.

  “What did you tell them?” he asked.

  “I assured them the pieces for the exhibition had arrived, and the royal jewels were safely locked away in the Drake Diamond vault.” Artem cleared his throat. “I failed to mention the treasure locked away in your apartment.”

  Glaring at his brother, Dalton exhaled.

  Artem shrugged. “In all seriousness, have you thought about what you’re going to do when they realize she’s missing? Surely someone will notice.”

  Dalton’s response rolled off his tongue before he even realized what he was saying. “With any luck, they won’t before tomorrow. I’m putting Aurélie on a flight back to Delamotte tonight at midnight.”

  He’d been toying with the idea all morning, but hadn’t realized he’d reached a decision until that precise moment. He’d known, though. He’d known all along that he should send her back. He should never have agreed to her silly plan in the first place.

  Now he was just waiting. Waiting for her to show up so he could break the news that he was sending her away.

  Dalton’s gaze flitted to Jacques sleeping on the sofa, snoring loud enough to peel the Drake-blue paint off the walls. He frowned. What was to become of the dog? Surely she wouldn’t leave the mutt behind.

  Forget about the dog. This isn’t about a dog.

  It was about business, nothing more. At least that’s what he’d been busy telling himself as he’d looked up the flight schedules to the French Riviera.

  Artem leveled his gaze at Dalton. “What about the secret egg?”

  “She can take it back with her. It’s just not worth the risk.” Something hardened inside Dalton. Something dark and deep. “Not anymore.”

  “What changed?”

  Dalton grew still as memories moved behind his eyes in an excruciatingly slow, snow-laden waltz of wounded desire. He saw his fingers tangled in the silken madness of Aurélie’s hair, her eyes glittering in the dark like the rarest of diamonds, her lips, bee-stung and bruised from his kisses as she pleaded with him for sweet relief. He saw pearls falling like teardrops, spilling into cupped hands faster than he could catch them.

  What changed?

  Everything.

  Everything had changed.

  He shrugged one shoulder and did his best to affect an indolent air. “I came to my senses. That’s all.”

  Artem looked at him, long and hard. “You sure about this? Because I’ll back you up, whatever you decide. We’re a team, remember?”

  All his life—from the time he’d barely been old enough to walk on the Drake-blue carpeting of the Fifth Avenue store, right up until the morning he’d listened to a lawyer recite the terms of his father’s Last Will and Testament—Dalton had imagined himself running Drake Diamonds someday. Alone, not alongside his brother. Just him. Dalton Drake, Chief Executive Officer.

  He’d never pictured himself as part of a team. Never wanted it. In reality, it wasn’t so bad. One day, he might even grow accustomed to it.

  “Absolutely.” He nodded and gave his brother a genuine, if sad, smile. “I’ve made my decision. The princess is going back home where she belongs.”

  * * *

  Aurélie should have been relieved to wake up alone in Dalton’s pristine apartment. She still wasn’t sure quite how to act around him after mauling him in the car.

  What had come over her? She’d acted as if this person she’d been pretending to be in New York, this impulsive life she was leading, was actually real. It wasn’t. Not at all. This was a holiday, nothing more.

  But the holiday was clearly messing with her head. In a really big way.

  She would have loved to blame her outlandish behavior on the hot dog. Or at the very least, the bearer of the hot dog.

  She’d grown so accustomed to Dalton’s straight-laced businessman persona, that his simple act of kindness had caught her completely off guard. Every so often, he was soulful when she least expected it.

  In those stolen moments of tenderness, she felt like she was seeing the real Dalton. The man behind the serious gray eyes and the Drake-blue tie. A man devastatingly beautiful in his complexity.

  But really, how desperate did a girl have to be to throw herself at a man over a hot dog?

  Sleep provided a temporary reprieve from Aurélie’s mortification, but the moment her eyes drifted open, it all came crashing back—the cold fury of Dalton’s lips, his wayward hands, the way he’d made her forget she was nothing but a virgin princess being married off to a complete and total stranger.

  For one dazzling moment, she’d been more than that. She’d blazed bright, filled with liquid-gold, shimmering desire.

  Until it was over.

  Not here.

  She’d felt herself disappearing again, falling away.

  May
be none of it had really happened. Maybe it had just been a bad dream. Aurélie’s hand flew to her throat, hoping against hope that she’d find the smooth string of pearls still safely clasped around her neck, as she did every morning. But it wasn’t. She found only her bare, unadorned neck beneath the open collar of Dalton’s tuxedo shirt.

  What was she still doing sleeping in that thing? The first night it had been a matter of necessity. It wasn’t anymore.

  But she liked waking up in Dalton’s shirt. She liked the way his masculine scent clung to the fabric. She liked the way the cuffs skimmed the very tips of her fingertips. She liked imagining him slipping it on sometime in the distant future and remembering a princess who lived on the other side of the world.

  What was wrong with her? She had no business thinking such things. She was an engaged woman. Almost, anyway.

  She sat up and glanced around the spacious living room in search of Jacques, but the little bulldog was nowhere to be seen. Aurélie sighed. He’d probably snuck his way into Dalton’s bedroom again. Jacques seemed to be forming quite an attachment to the man, even though the infatuation was clearly one-sided. Aurélie would have probably found it amusing if it didn’t remind her of her own nonsensical attachment to Dalton’s shirt.

  The bedroom was empty, of course. No dog. No Dalton.

  On some level, she’d known. The air was calm, still. Void of the electricity that always seemed to surround him, like an electrical storm. He’d left a note in the kitchen with the number to call when she was ready for a driver to come round and pick her up. The note didn’t say where the car would be taking her. It didn’t have to.

  Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go.

  Did the man do anything else?

  Judging by the looks of his apartment, no. With its sleek lines and elegant white furniture, it was the epitome of moneyed simplicity. Tasteful. Pristine. But more than a tad sterile. After living there for a few days, Aurélie still marveled at the absence of photographs. There wasn’t a single picture in the place. No candid snapshots, no family memories. It left her feeling strangely hollow. And sad for Dalton, although she knew she shouldn’t.

  He’d never given her the slightest indication he was unhappy with his station in life. On the contrary, he exuded more confidence than anyone she’d ever met.

  She needed to get out of here, out of this apartment that felt so oddly unsettling without Dalton’s brooding presence. Even if the car took her straight to the glittering store on Fifth Avenue. At least in Dalton’s place of business, she would be less likely to accidentally kiss the stuffing out of him again. Before she went anywhere, though, she needed to check the news to make sure she still wasn’t a headline.

  Dalton’s laptop was situated on the dining room table. Perfect. She could take a look at the US tabloids and then access the Delamotte papers online. She made a cup of coffee, sank cross-legged onto one of the dining room chairs and flipped open the computer. Then she nearly choked on her coffee when Dalton’s screensaver came into view.

  It was a photograph—a picture of a woman on horseback, and she was quite beautiful.

  Aurélie stared at it until a sick feeling came over her. A sick feeling that seemed an awful lot like jealousy.

  Oh, no. She slammed the computer closed. This cannot be happening. But it was. It was happening. She was jealous of a silly little screensaver, jealous over Dalton Drake.

  She was in over her head. Whether she liked it or not, what had happened the day before changed things. She couldn’t stay here. Not anymore. It was time to pack up her egg and go home.

  She opened the laptop back up, steadfastly refused to allow herself even a glimpse at the pretty equestrian smiling at her from the screen and logged onto the internet. Within minutes, she’d booked herself on a commercial flight out of New York that would allow her to get back to Delamotte in time for her portrait session with Lord Clement the next day.

  With any luck, by this time tomorrow she’d be back home, and it would be as though she’d never come to New York, never walked through snowy Central Park, never shopped for vintage clothes in Brooklyn. Never kissed Dalton Drake.

  Her flight left at midnight. Now all she needed to do was get her egg back...

  ...and break the news to Dalton.

  Chapter Seven

  Aurélie dragged her feet for a good long while before leaving the apartment. She made a second cup of coffee and drank it while she watched the New Yorkers milling about on the crowded streets below. Steam rose up from the manhole covers, and snow covered everything, from the neat grid of sidewalks to the elegant spire of the Chrysler building towering over the Manhattan skyline. From above, the city looked almost like an old black-and-white movie—the kind she used to watch with her mother on late nights when her father was out on official crown business. Or so she’d thought.

  She’d been so naïve. Naïve and happy. Ignorance really was bliss, wasn’t it?

  How different would things be right now if she’d never read her mother’s journal? Would she be dreading her arranged marriage so much that she’d actually flee the country? Would she even be standing right here, right now, in Dalton Drake’s quiet apartment?

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  She almost wished she hadn’t. Almost.

  Stop. What’s done is done.

  She turned her back on the window and got down to the business of preparing to leave. She rinsed her coffee cup, put it in the dishwasher. She stripped the sofa of the sheets and blankets she’d been using, washed and dried them, then tucked them away in the massive walk-in closet in Dalton’s master suite. All the while, she gave the dining room and Dalton’s laptop a wide berth.

  His closet was meticulously organized, of course. Even more so than her own closet at the palace. Unlike her walk-in, which was packed with gowns of every color under the sun, Dalton’s was distinctly monochromatic. The spectrum ranged from sedate dove-gray and charcoal designer business suits to sleek black tuxedos. The sole splash of color was the selection of ties hanging side-by-side on two sections of wooden spools that flanked his full-length mirror. All the highest quality silk. All the same recognizable shade of blue.

  Drake blue.

  Aurélie shook her head. The man’s identity was so tied to his family business that he didn’t even own a single tie in a different hue. He took workaholic to a whole new level.

  She found a small suitcase tucked away behind the wall of Armani and used it to pack her new vintage wardrobe. If Dalton balked, she’d arrange to send him a new one after she got home. It wasn’t like he might need it between now and then. She doubted he’d even miss it. She wondered when he’d last taken a vacation. Then she reminded herself that Dalton Drake’s vacation schedule was none of her concern.

  I’ll never see him again.

  She froze. Swallowed. Then forced herself to take a deep breath.

  Of course you won’t see him again. That’s the whole point of leaving.

  It was for the best. The longer she stayed, the harder it would be to walk out the door. She’d already had a nonsensical fit of jealousy after seeing his screensaver. How much worse could things get if she stayed longer?

  A lot worse. No question. Besides, if she didn’t get on that midnight plane, she’d miss her portrait sitting. She was doing the right thing. The only thing. She’d run out of options.

  She folded her new dresses with meticulous care and tried not to think about the fact that she’d probably never wear most of them. They were wholly inappropriate for royal life. But she couldn’t dwell on that now. If she did, she might just fall apart. Anyway, she loved her new clothes. Maybe she’d get to wear them again...someday.

  Keep busy. That’s what she needed to do. Just stay as busy as possible between now and the time she needed to head to the airport.

 
; When at last she’d erased every trace of her presence from the apartment, she asked Sam to fetch the driver. With only a matter of hours left before her flight, she couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. She had to tell Dalton she was leaving and demand that he return her egg.

  As unpleasant as such a confrontation sounded, at least it would take place at the glittering store on Fifth Avenue, where she wouldn’t be tempted to repeat yesterday’s mistake.

  Of course she’d forgotten that making her way to Dalton’s office would involve walking through the Engagements section on the tenth floor. Tightness gathered in her chest as the elevator doors slid open.

  “Welcome.” The elevator attendant’s smile was too kind. Aurélie recognized him as the same man who’d witnessed her last near-panic attack.

  Super. Even the elevator attendant pitied her. “Thank you,” she said, and forced herself to put one foot in front of the other.

  The showroom was even more crowded than it had been last time. A man wearing a Drake-blue bowtie walked past her holding a tray of champagne flutes. Couples sat, two by two, at each and every display case. One of the shoppers even had the word Bride spelled out in rhinestones on her white slim-fit tee.

  Aurélie’s mouth grew dry. Bride. She had trouble breathing all of a sudden. Even remaining upright seemed challenging. She swayed a little on her feet.

  How many engaged couples could there possibly be in Manhattan?

  “It’s a little overwhelming, isn’t it?” said someone beside her.

  “Excuse me?” Aurélie turned to find a woman, blonde, graceful and judging by the size of her adorable baby bump, a few months pregnant.

  “You must be Aurélie.” She gave her a conspiratorial wink. “I’m Ophelia Drake, and believe me, I know how you feel.”

  Ophelia Drake—Artem’s wife, Dalton’s sister-in-law and the head jewelry designer for the company. Aurélie recognized her from the photo in the Drake Diamonds brochure she’d read in Dalton’s office on her first day in New York.

  What she hadn’t gleaned from the brochure was how warm and open Ophelia Drake seemed. But nice as she appeared, she couldn’t possibly know how Aurélie felt. No one could.