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With the lights of the city bathing their bodies with a soothing glow, still wrapped in each other's loving embrace, Alex and Paris drifted into an exhausted sleep.
Neither of them heard Alex's phone buzzing insistently from the pocket of his pants in the corner of the room. The screen lit up:
Whitney – 17 missed calls
The In-Laws – 10 missed calls
Mom – 1 missed call
11
Whitney couldn't explain why she was suddenly so pissed. But when the bartender refused to be roused from his drunken stupor, she found herself stewing over the fact that Alexander was planning to blow her off for the rest of their trip.
This wasn’t the first time, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last, and usually she didn’t care. They would lead separate lives, which suited her perfectly, but she also didn’t appreciate being ignored. The more he ignored her, the angrier she became.
They'd specifically come to this god-forsaken city for a few photo opportunities and to show off for the paparazzi, and yeah, he had some stupid political stuff to do, but now he wasn't going to see her at all? For five days? That was unacceptable.
She'd already put in several late night, drunken phone calls to her parents, who were also apparently hammered at some sort of cocktail party. After considerable pouting and empty threats of suicide (her trademark), her daddy had agreed to call Alexander's parents and make him, at the very least, show up at her fashion show the next day.
Once she'd cleared the mini-bar of all its liquor, and put a call in for more, she was starting to feel a little better.
Then, the bartender started to stir.
That was more like it.
* * *
It was 4am in Dalvana. The private line in King Alexander and Queen Catriona’s bedroom was ringing off the hook. Alexander cursed at the ceiling and finally rolled over to pick it up. He hadn't even said “hello” when a drunken Leonard began screaming at him over the background noise of a party. Catriona rolled over, her sleep mask still obscuring her view of the room, but her ears still perfectly capable of hearing every word being shouted over the receiver.
Alexander lay back down and set the receiver on his stomach, letting Leonard yell into thin air. Cat pulled off her mask, sighed, and rolled over to her husband. “So what did our son do now?”
12
The soft morning sun filled the bedroom with light, gently rousing Paris from a dreamless sleep. She stretched her arms out wide into the empty space around her, a deep yawn escaping her plump lips. As she reached out beside her, she realized all at once that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. A dingy little room hardly bigger than a broom closet at the hotel in the shady district of the city she had been staying at, this most definitely was not.
She blinked several times, trying to get her bearings. The events of the previous day came flooding back to her.
“Well, Paris, I don’t think you’re in Kansas anymore…” she murmured to herself, her words echoing in the large bedchamber.
She also realized in that moment that Alex wasn't in the bed anymore. Paris sat up pin straight, searching the room through sleepy eyes, but finding no one. She felt a pang of nervousness in her stomach, briefly afraid that Alex had disappeared and left her here in this strange, although gorgeous, hotel room.
Paris was just about to pull the sheet from the bed to cover herself up, when she noticed a thick robe lying on a chair in the corner of the room, with a calla lily placed gently on top of it. She smiled to herself as she crawled out of the bed and padded across the soft, plush carpet to the armchair, and as she slipped the robe onto her naked curves, she sighed at the feel of the downy fabric against her smooth skin. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror—her hair wild in that ‘I just had sex’ sort of way—and she gave herself a wry smile.
Paris opened the bedroom doors that led into the living area of the penthouse, and she was almost blinded by the sunlight pouring in from the balcony windows. The room was filled with the smell of fresh pastries and blooming flowers, and Paris felt her senses becoming overwhelmed in the best possible way once more. At first, she couldn't see Alex anywhere, and that initial feeling of panic returned, the fear that he had left. But then, all at once, he was there, larger than life, filling up every space in her mind. She shivered with delight as she remembered the way he had filled her body as well.
Alex was standing on the balcony, leaning on the stone wall, his long legs clad in striped pajama pants, and his large bare feet crossed over each other. He was shirtless, his muscular torso and back elongated as he stretched out to take in the vista of Paris in the morning. His thick auburn hair was still messy from sleep, but somehow it looked even more perfect that way.
Paris felt her breath catch in her throat, suddenly overcome with the desire to touch him, the same desire she felt next to him on the couch last night. She didn't know how long she'd been staring at him, but when she finally looked up from his perfect back, she realized his head was turned, and he staring back her, smiling.
“You're awake, beautiful! I ordered up some croissants and coffee and juice. And they sent some fruit too. I hope you're hungry.”
Alex's face was beaming, and Paris was drawn to him. S
he walked out to the balcony and stood next to him, her whole body alight at just the closeness of their skin. Alex inched over closer to Paris, so their arms were touching, and kissed her softly on the cheek.
“How did you sleep? Well, I hope.”
Paris let out a long, contented sigh. “Better than I have in ages. That bed was amazing. And you wore me out, I don't mind saying.”
Alex laughed, warm and loud, and gathered Paris into his arms. He kissed her slow and deep, letting his tongue explore her mouth, and Paris let herself melt into him. They were both so lost in the moment, neither of them noticed the flash of a camera from the street below.
They definitely didn't see the self-satisfied smirk of a paparazzo as he mentally calculated how much he could charge for a few pictures of the Crown Prince of Dalvana cheating on his fiancée.
* * *
After a long, leisurely breakfast, Paris found herself wondering if this was going to be the end of her time with Alex, if perhaps, despite all of the romance, maybe this truly was going to be a one-night-stand. As she stared absentmindedly out the penthouse windows, Alex seemed to be reading her mind.
“I know you said you had a few days before your classes started. I'd like to spend the day with you, if you don't have any other plans. Perhaps do some more sight-seeing?”
Paris felt her stomach flip-flop. She knew so little about this beautiful man in front of her, and yet she couldn't bear the thought of being away from him. Now, as she contemplated spending another day with him, seeing Paris through his eyes and learning everything he knew, she was elated.
“Yes, I'd love to spend the day with you. What did you have in mind?”
Alex felt his stomach flip-flop. He suddenly remembered Whitney's fashion show, and the fact that the epicenter of Paris would be taken over by the fashion industry. They couldn't go anywhere where they might be seen by Whitney, her parents, or most dangerous of all, the press. Where is the one place no one in Whitney's crowd will be today? Alex thought.
