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Her eyes are wild as she yells, “Stay away!” She clamors back to her feet, clutching her head.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, and she shakes her head, her eyes searching the floor.
She must be looking for her tiara.
“It’s over there.” I point at the tiara on the ground, still in one piece.
She grabs it and turns back to me. “I—please don’t tell anyone.”
“Okay.”
She doesn’t say another word, instead she turns on her heel and dashes away, rounding a corner and disappearing from sight.
I stand, rooted to the spot, my brain scrambling to make sense of what just happened. I sought a brief moment of refuge in a cupboard only to be attacked by a beautiful woman in a tiara with an American accent.
My nose throbs painfully as realization dawns on me.
She's Madeline, the American here to claim the throne. The woman a nation has pinned their hopes on.
The woman who wields a strong right hook.
Chapter 9
Maddie
Barely believing what just happened, I round a corner. My heartbeat is racing, my hand throbbing as I hold onto my skirts, the tiara I feared broken or lost digging painfully into my palm.
My dignity? Well, I'm not sure what my dignity is doing right now, but it sure as heck left me a while back.
All I know is that man could have been anyone and he could have done anything. I had to hit him. I had to show him that I wasn't some pushover he could take advantage of. Or murder. Or worse! Who knows what his intentions were?
I mean now that I think about it, I did hear him muttering about a meditation app.
Do murderers use meditation apps?
And do murderers check if you’re okay when you run away from them and accidentally land flat on your face, and then show you where your tiara landed?
And, if I was being entirely honest with myself, I’d admit that dressed in his red jacket and sash he looked a lot like Prince Alexander. The Party Prince himself.
But it couldn’t have been him. What would a man like him be doing in a hallway closet, searching for a meditation app? Isn’t he the prince of all things fun and sexy? He should be flirting with women and telling jokes, the life and soul of the party.
Oh, I don't know.
I did what I did and all I can hope is that the man—Prince Alexander or not—is true to his word and doesn’t mention what happened to anyone. Then we can all get on with our lives.
Now, I'm horribly late for this whole princess presentation that, personally, I'd like to skip altogether. And not only because I’m dressed up like a doll, from the tiara that’s supposed to be on my head to my blue gown and high heeled shoes covered in diamantes. But I’d barely managed to get past feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing—the very reason I was taking time out in the closet in the first place—when my intruder turned up and it all took a turn for the crazy.
Talk about not the way I wanted things to go tonight.
“Princess Madeline!” a familiar voice calls and I slow my pace.
Turning, I plaster on as brave a smile as I can manage as Vladimir strides toward me.
“Vlad, there you are,” I say as though I haven't been hiding from him and everyone else for the last 10 minutes.
We both know I'm bluffing, but he has the good grace not to mention it.
“I’ve been looking for you for some time, ma’am. I was concerned about you,” he says in a surprisingly fatherly and tender way, and I feel bad for giving him the run around.
