A Thoroughly Modern Princess Read online

  “Which phone calls?” Emmaline asked.

  Her parents were already out of the room.

  “Why don’t we sit down?” Remi asked.

  She gladly sank onto the sofa, desperately wishing that she were alone.

  Remi sat beside her, his expression betraying nothing. She noticed that for a weekday morning, he was overdressed—even for him. He wore a well-cut suit with an ascot.

  “You’re looking a bit shaken, Emmaline,” Remi said.

  “It’s just . . . I’m quite surprised to see you here.”

  “And I was quite surprised to arrive and find that you weren’t here. I was told that you had gone to the Traviata Hotel to visit a friend who was staying there.”

  “Yes, and she had arrived in Chimera quite unexpectedly the night before.” Emmaline stressed the female pronoun, lest Remi inquire further, having assumed that the friend had been Granger Lockwood.

  She wasn’t about to share the fact that Granger had used Brynn’s visit to ambush her. This strained tête-a-tête with her former fiancé was complicated enough.

  “It must have been an urgent visit,” Remi pressed, “if you were so willing to brave the press outside.”

  She remained silent. Perhaps she owed Remi an explanation, but she was too emotionally drained to provide further detail now.

  Remi waited a moment. Then, mercifully, he shrugged and went on, “I’ve given great thought to our situation, Emmaline. I’m sure that you’ve done the same.”

  “Of course I have.”

  But they both knew that it didn’t matter what she thought. The verdict lay in Remi’s hands. He could choose to move on, or he could choose to go ahead with the marriage.

  If his decision was the former, she wouldn’t blame him.

  And if it was the latter . . .

  Well, at least her lie to Granger would be validated.

  She would marry Remi. He would raise the child as his own. Someday, Granger Lockwood’s illegitimate son or daughter would inherit the throne to Buiron, and nobody would be the wiser.

  “What is it that you want, Emmaline?” Remi asked, surprising her with his gentle tone.

  “I don’t know . . .” She shook her head, wishing she could tell him the truth. That she wanted Granger to love her. “I don’t know what I want, Remi. And I don’t think it matters.”

  “It matters to me,” Remi said, taking her hand.

  To her surprise, she believed him. Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh please . . . Don’t, Remi . . .”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t be kind. I don’t deserve your kindness. And you didn’t deserve what I did to you.”

  “No,” he agreed, “I didn’t. But we’ve no choice other than to move on, Emmaline.”

  “Move on?” Did he mean—

  “Move on,” he repeated. “Put the past behind us . . . and get married.”

  Oh. Move on together.

  Was that the answer she wanted to hear?

  Or was it the answer she had been dreading?

  Suddenly Emmaline was so confused that all she could manage was a faint “You want to marry me?”

  “Yes. I’ve concluded that marriage is the simplest solution to our dilemma.”

  She wanted to cry—or laugh—or both simulta-neously—at the irony. Here she was, receiving her second perfunctory marriage proposal in a matter of minutes.

  Remi went on briskly, “I’ve discussed the situation with King Jasper and—”

  “You didn’t tell Papa about my pregnancy!” she asked in horror.

  “Of course not. Emmaline, nobody must ever know.”

  “Nobody ever will.” She pushed aside a twinge of guilt about Tabitha. And Brynn. But both had sworn that they would carry the secret to the grave. As for Granger . . .

  “What about Lockwood?” Remi asked ominously, as though reading her thoughts. “How do we know that he won’t step forward someday to claim paternity?”

  “He won’t,” she said. “He has never wanted anything to do with this baby, or with me.”

  Heart pounding, she forced herself to hold Remi’s gaze.

  Never? she asked herself.

  “Never” wasn’t exactly the truth. Granger had offered to take care of both her and the baby. A hollow offer, sans loving commitment, but a legitimate offer just the same.

  “Just to be sure, I’ll have an attorney draw up a legal document for Lockwood to sign,” Remi said. “Now, assuming that the palace is contacting the abbey as we speak, the minister should be here shortly to marry us.”

  “Here?” she asked in dread. “Now?”

  “Of course. At this stage, a public affair will only become a media circus,” Remi pointed out.

  “It was a media circus in the first place,” Emmaline murmured. “I suppose you’re right. There’s no point in waiting for . . .”

  “For . . . ?” he prompted, when she trailed off.

  For Granger to come to his senses and realize he loves me.

  “No point in waiting forever,” Emmaline said, wishing her heart didn’t ache so.

  “Precisely.” Remi mustered a smile. “We’ll announce the marriage in an official statement to the press this afternoon. Your father is contacting his press secretary now to make arrangements.”

  “Good,” she managed to say around the lump in her throat.

  Remi leaned toward her and pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek. “I’m glad it’s settled, then.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  Staring morosely into space, Granger had taken only a sip of the first of three glasses of scotch he’d had sent up from room service when the suite’s telephone rang.

  “Who can that be?” Brynn asked, lowering her martini.

  That was what Granger loved about Brynn—she wasn’t one to let a man drink alone.

  “Who cares who it is? We’re busy,” he growled.

  “I’d better pick it up. It might be Emmaline,” Brynn said.

  That was one thing he couldn’t stand about Brynn. The woman was prone to delusions.

  Granger snorted. “Yes, it might be Emmaline—and that glass you’re holding might be filled with fruit punch.”

  “She might have had a change of heart,” Brynn told him. “Or maybe, if you would at least speak to her again, you will.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh come on, Granger,” Brynn said, walking toward the ringing phone. “You can do better than you did when she was here.”

  “Meaning . . . ?”

  “Meaning I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation through the bedroom door . . .”

  He snorted again, and took another gulp of scotch.

  “. . . and I must say, your proposal left a lot to be desired. You didn’t even tell Emmaline that you love her.”

  “Love her?” he sputtered, as Brynn, distracted, lifted the telephone receiver.

  He didn’t love . . .

  Oh yes he did.

  You do?

  I do.

  I love Emmaline.

  His jaw dropped.

  He loved Emmaline?

  He went absolutely still as the truth enveloped him, welcome as a dryer-warmed comforter on a chilly winter night.

  He loved Emmaline.

  He plunked the glass on the table so hard that the amber liquid sloshed over his fingertips. Heedless, he stood and paced to the window, gazing absently at the cobblestone street several stories below.

  He loved Emmaline.

  Then he had to do something.

  Before it was too late.

  “Hello?” Brynn was saying into the phone. “Yes, this is . . . Excuse me? . . . Excuse me? I don’t know what you’re talking about. No, I don’t . . . No, he isn’t. Goodbye.”

  She slammed down the receiver.

  Granger barely noticed, caught up in the wonder of his discovery.

  He knew nothing about love. Nobody had ever loved him before—or at least not in a very long time. H
e supposed his parents might have loved him, but they hadn’t shown it.

  Nor had Granger ever loved anybody. Not in decades. There was a time when he might have felt more than occasional affection for Grandfather, but the old man had long since succeeded in transforming their relationship from familial to professional.

  As for the women who had come and gone . . .

  He certainly hadn’t loved any of them. Some he had even disliked.

  But Emmaline didn’t belong in that category. How could he ever have assumed—

  “Granger!” Brynn’s tone alerted him that she had been trying to get his attention.

  Dazed, he murmured, “What is it?”

  Everything happened at once.

  The phone rang shrilly again . . .

  Just as Granger noticed the chaos on the street below . . .

  Just as Brynn said, “They know. The whole world knows about you and Emmie.”

  “Are you ready, Your Highness?” Tabitha asked, hovering nearby as Emmaline surveyed her reflection in the full-length mirror in her dressing room.

  No. No, I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready for this.

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  Lies. When had her whole life become about lies?

  She turned away from the mirror, not caring that there was an almost noticeable gap between two midsection buttons on the simple ivory suit her wardrobe mistress had hastily prepared for her impromptu wedding.

  Tabitha cleared her throat. “Your Highness, the buttons—”

  “Are straining across my stomach. I am quite aware of that, Tabitha, thank you.”

  “Would you like me to locate a seamstress to—”

  “No, thank you.” Emmaline sighed. “The palace florist is sending a bouquet from the greenhouse—I can hold it so that it will conceal the gap. Besides, it will be a five-minute ceremony at most. No photographers, and I’ll change my clothes right afterward.”

  “All right, then. The minister is here. They’re waiting downstairs in your father’s study.”

  Emmaline nodded and began walking toward the door, and her future.

  It’s going to be all right, she silently told the baby. I’m doing this for you. So that you’ll have a future . . .

  Her own future be damned.

  Ensconced in her top floor suite at the Traviata Hotel, Debi Hanson was on the telephone with Jack in New York when she heard an abrupt knock on her door.

  Not just a knock. More a violent pounding.

  She ignored it, but Jack broke off in midsentence to ask, “What the hell was that?”

  “Just a chambermaid. Go on, Jack.”

  “Where was I?”

  She said, over another eruption of door banging, “You were congratulating me on my—”

  “Debi Hanson?” A male voice boomed in the hallway.

  “That doesn’t sound like a chambermaid,” Jack informed her.

  Debi sighed. “Hang on a moment.”

  She set down the receiver and stalked to the door, not bothering with the peephole. After all, rapists and murderers didn’t knock. It must be another fruit basket or bucket of champagne being sent up from management.

  Still, even a newly sought-after person such as herself should be able to have an uninterrupted conversation with her boss.

  Debi yanked the door open and demanded, “Just what is so urgent that—”

  A handsome stranger she immediately recognized as Granger Lockwood stood in the corridor.

  “I need you,” he said abruptly. “You and your camera crew. Right away.”

  Emmaline stood facing Remi before the fireplace in her father’s study, flanked by her parents, her sisters, and Tabitha, whom Emmaline had insisted be allowed to stay.

  She looked down at the bouquet clutched in her quaking hands.

  Roses. The florist had sent roses.

  “All right then,” the minister said, and cleared his throat. “Shall we begin?”

  Emmaline looked up at Remi.

  He nodded slightly, his expression benign; resigned.

  Emmaline looked at her parents. They were beaming.

  So was Genevieve.

  Not Josephine. Her eyes glistened with tears.

  Emmaline was startled by the sight. She had never considered Josephine the type to cry at weddings. Perhaps her sister had been concealing a sentimental side all these years.

  The minister began speaking.

  Emmaline didn’t hear him.

  She heard only Granger’s voice, echoing in her head.

  It’s my baby, too. I want to support it. I want it to have the best of everything . . .

  She inhaled deeply, and her nostrils filled with the scent of roses.

  Roses . . .

  “I can’t do this,” she blurted, just as a sharp knock sounded on the study door.

  The others gaped at her.

  “I’m sorry, Remi.” Emmaline shook her head. “I can’t marry you. I can’t.”

  There was another knock at the door.

  “Yes?” the king asked impatiently.

  The door opened.

  His press secretary breathlessly announced, “Your Majesty, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid all hell is breaking loose. You must turn on a television.”

  “Are you ready, Granger?” Debi Hanson asked, facing the cameraman who stood poised before them.

  Granger nodded. He was ready. He had been ready for this for much longer than he’d realized. Now he only hoped that it wasn’t too late.

  “Just remember our agreement,” he warned Debi Hanson. “No personal questions about anything else.”

  “And you remember your end of the bargain,” she replied. “When and if you decide to do a sit-down interview, you’ll do it with me. I get the exclusive.”

  “Of course.”

  Yeah, right.

  This was a one-shot deal. He would never again be willing to speak to the press about his personal life. He had turned to her out of sheer desperation.

  “All right, then. Let’s roll, Lenny,” Debi ordered the cameraman.

  A spotlight went on, nearly blinding Granger.

  Better get used to it, he told himself. Whether it worked or not, he had been thrust squarely into the limelight.

  He hated this. He hated giving this artificial blond barracuda exactly what she wanted. But this was his only option—his only chance. And if it didn’t work . . .

  No. It has to work.

  Granger took a deep breath and prepared to take the biggest gamble of his life.

  Emmaline stared at the television screen in disbelief.

  There, an emaciated supermodel named Millicent was being interviewed in a live feed from Paris.

  “I had no idea that my beloved Granger was involved with the princess,” Millicent said, weeping suspiciously artificial tears. “And now, to discover that he is the reason that she abandoned her fiancé at the altar—and that she is carrying Granger’s baby . . .”

  Emmaline felt sick inside.

  It was all over.

  The media knew. Her parents and her sisters and the minister and the press secretary knew. The world knew.

  The news about her pregnancy—and the fact that Granger Lockwood was the father—was being beamed around the world.

  “Emmaline . . . ?” Queen Yvette turned away from the TV to stare at her daughter in disbelief.

  “I’m sorry, Mother. And . . . everyone.” Somehow, she maintained her composure, even as her mother put her arms around her.

  “Oh, Emmaline, I wish you had told us,” her mother said. “When I think of all you put us through when you vanished—”

  “I left a note,” she said feebly, looking from her mother to her father.

  They were stunned, yes. Stunned and dismayed. But miraculously, they hadn’t condemned or disowned her.

  Yet.

  “I’d have told you if I could,” she said, her voice wavering. “But we—Remi and I—we thought it would be best if—”


  “How on earth did this get out?” Remi cut in, his eyes glued to the television. “It has to be Lockwood. He must have—”

  “Granger would never go to the press!” Emmaline protested.

  “No, but he clearly told his supermodel girlfriend.”

  Emmaline didn’t know what to think. “He swore to me that—”

  “Shh!”

  Startled, she broke off to look at the press secretary, who had belatedly remembered protocol and appeared mortified. “I apologize for the interruption, Your Highness, it’s just . . . Look! Listen! Something is happening!”

  Emmaline followed his gaze.

  The televised interview with the allegedly heartbroken Millicent had given way to an anchorman announcing a breaking news bulletin.

  Then the screen shifted to a live shot from Chimera and a vaguely familiar blond reporter wearing a smug expression.

  “Good morning again,” she said. “I’m Debi Hanson, and I’m live in Chimera with Mr. Granger Lockwood, the American tycoon whose name is suddenly on everyone’s lips.”

  “You see?” Remi snapped. “I should have known better than to—”

  This time it was the king who said, “Shhh!”

  “Mr. Lockwood, let’s cut to the chase. Following in the footsteps of Prince Remi of Buiron, you have contacted me . . .” Brimming with self-importance, Debi Hanson paused to bring greater emphasis to the word before continuing, “. . . because you have a special message that you wish to send to Princess Emmaline. What is it?”

  The camera zeroed in on Granger. He looked directly into the lens. Emmaline felt as though he were looking directly at her.

  “Emmaline, I hope you’ll forgive me,” he said. “For this. And for everything else. For not telling you how I feel.”

  Emmaline held her breath, trembling all over.

  “I have so much to say to you . . .” Granger cleared his throat and added, “In private. But right here, right now, in public, for the whole world to hear, there’s only this: I love you.”

  Emmaline gasped.

  He loved her.

  He loved her!

  The camera cut back to Debi Hanson.

  Emmaline didn’t wait to hear what she had to say. She was already headed for the door.

  The room erupted behind her in a chorus of dismay.

  “Emmaline!”