Chapter One
While waiting for the consultant to arrive, I tabulate my list of woes on a palace notepad. It has the Moldavian crest embossed on each page, a reminder of all the people in the palace who hate me.
Let me count the ways:
1. The Moldavian press hates me. They think I’m a “gold-digging white trash American hotel maid/slut” who is “spending all the prince’s (a.k.a taxpayers’) money.
2. Since the Moldavian press hates me, the European press thinks I’m a figure of fun. And so do the press of pretty much every part of the world.
3. The Queen thinks I can replace the beauteous Lady Tatiana, the preferred engagement partner for her son, in the way a two-dollar brassiere on discount at Target can replace a La Perla pearl-studded bustier. (Yeah, that’s what she really thinks of me.)
4. Claire, Alex’s sister, has been revealed to be the one who alerted the paparazzi to where I was shopping on Alex’s tab. Needless to say, I think she did it because she hates me.
5. Jasper, the King’s Royal Chamberlain (or aide or personal assistant or whatever he calls himself today) thinks I should be tumble-dried in one of the palace’s Laundromats. Of course, I’m going by the level of disdain on his features every time he looks at me.
6. I’m pretty sure they have been keeping my presence in Moldavia from the King, who probably isn’t allowed TV or newspapers or Internet or any chocolate in the Coronary Care Unit. But once he hears of me, I’m sure he will keel over from another heart attack.
7. I haven’t met Tatiana in Moldavia yet, but I’m sure she’s sticking pins into a little voodoo doll of me dressed in a maid’s outfit.
Alex is seated beside me in the East Wing parlor. Most of our activities seem to be confined in the East Wing, probably because the rest of the royals are afraid of contamination by me. I think they probably think I must have white trash cooties, or something.
“You OK?” Alex says in concern.
“Yes.”
“What are you writing on that pad?”
“Nothing. Just doodling.”
I hastily put it away.
“You look very nice.” The corners of his lips curl upward. “Is that something you bought the other day?”
I’m dressed in a pale pink two-piece suit – extremely well cut to show off my curves. My shoes are Christian Loboutin, and my hair is swept back in a chignon. If I didn’t know who I was, I would have mistaken myself for one of those chic French debutantes who get magazine coverage each time they grace a Cannes movie premiere.
Alex is looking extremely nice too. His longish hair is neatly combed back today, but a stray tuft falls over his forehead appealingly. He wears a dark pinstriped suit and tie which show off his blue-green eyes to marvelous effect.
Those very blue-green eyes were hovering above my face earlier this morning when he made love to me. I blush to think of us joined together, his c**k deep inside my pu**y – his wonderful girth filling my every crevice and secret nooks. I recall his unhurried movements as he grinds himself against me. The sex was leisurely, prolonged, languorous, as though we had all the time in the world.
He bent down his head to kiss me from time to time. Slow, sweet kisses, full of mouth and tongue and passion. His hands roamed up and down my body, repeatedly rubbing and tweaking my ni**les even as he increased his rhythm.
My groin clenches just to think of what he did – especially at the end when his se**n gushed forth, completing my climax.
Jasper strides into the parlor, interrupting my indecent reverie.
“She has arrived, your highness.”
“Thank you, Jasper,” Alex says.
A woman in her fifties with short blond hair cut close and a pair of sunglasses dangling off a chain around her neck walks in. She is as thin as a pencil, and she is all angles, as though she is made out of papier mache.
“Good morning, your highness,” she rasps. She has a voice like grated pebbles. She glances at me. “Good morning, Ms. Turner.”
Alex gets up and offers her his hand. “Good morning, Madame Fournier.”
“Morning,” I squeak. The way she is sizing me up frankly intimidates me.
Madame Fournier holds up an iPad.
“Did you see the headlines today?”
Actually, no. I make it a point to avoid them these days.
“Which paper?” Alex says.
She shoves the iPad in front of our faces, and starts flipping the ‘pages’. “American ones. Chicago Sun Times. Chicago Tribune. New York Times.”
Uh oh. So they have gotten wind at home of what I’ve been up to.
I’m famous!
(In the wrong way.)
“Let me see that,” Alex says, taking the iPad from her.
Together, we peruse the headlines with dread. I expected the usual ones: ‘OUT TO GET HIS MONEY AND A PRINCESS TITLE’. ‘AMERICAN LASS SNARES HANDSOME BILLIONAIRE PRINCE’.
Well, they are all there.
And more.
My stomach clenches as I see two sub-headlines:
‘HOTEL MAID HAD SEX WITH THE PRINCE IN A PUBLIC RESTROOM,’ SAYS HER ROOMMATE, DEANNA SMITH.
‘HOTEL MAID QUITE THE SLUT WITH THE GUESTS,’ SAYS HER CO-WORKER, CASSANDRA PELICANO.
I must have blanched, because Alex says, “Liz, are you all right?”
The room spins a little, and suddenly, Alex is propping me up and I’m leaning against his shoulder. Deanna’s face blurs into Cassandra’s, their mouths opening and closing without sound.
Oh shit.
“No,” I say weakly, “I don’t think I’m OK.”
I’m definitely not OK.
In fact, I think I’m going to be sick.
I can take the name-calling from anonymous reporters. Even Alex’s relatives, who have every right to think I’m not good enough for their son or brother or cousin or whomever. But Deanna? And Cassandra?
How could they do this to me?
How?
“Liz,” Alex’s urgent voice filters through my head, “it doesn’t mean anything. They could have been misquoted.”
“That’s a very real possibility,” Madame Fournier says in a kinder tone.
I don’t honestly think anyone could have misquoted something like that without being sued. What Deanna said was true, of course. I did have sex with Alex the very first I met him in a public restroom. But I told her all that in confidence. Did she have to blurb it out to the press for her fifteen seconds of fame?
Worse still is Cassandra Pelicano’s statement. I have never, ever behaved the slut with any of the guests at the hotel I worked at. I have never behaved the slut in my college either. I haven’t even dated regularly until I met Alex.