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They had recorded Jessie’s interviews.
She needed to get her hands on those so she’d know what she had said.
His eyes narrowed at her continued silence. Darn, she usually thought fast on her feet. In her line of work she had to. What was it about this guy that had her acting like some knock-kneed teenager in heat?
“You want someone to sweep you off your feet, marry you and make lots of babies,” he continued in an almost mocking tone, as if he, personally, found the prospect repulsive.
Jessie had said that? Nausea rose in Jill’s throat. Her sister better not rush into motherhood. Visions of changing baby diapers and walking the floor at all hours during the night caused Jill to shudder. She had enough responsibilities just looking after her sister without adding a little munchkin to the clan. Jessie better stay on her birth control or else.
“Don’t you remember what you said during your interviews?”
“Of course, I do.” She hadn’t said a thing. Jessie, however, had given an embellished mixture of both her and Jill’s lives. Mostly Jill’s from what her sister had admitted during her teary goodbye at the airport. “Isn’t a girl allowed to change her mind? Maybe I could read over those transcripts?”
“A woman’s prerogative and all that jazz, huh?” He stared a few moments longer with a cocky grin on his face, shook his head, then, walked across the large room with proud, confident strides. Several people scurried after him.
She sighed in relief. He’d bought it. He’d believed she was Jessie. He hadn’t offered to let her read the transcripts, but oh my God, she’d pulled it off.
“Jane?” A well-dressed thin man with a friendly face, paisley silk shirt, and too tight pants walked up the moment Rob disappeared through one of the high-arched doorways of the castle turned set.
She blinked. Twice. Jane. Oh yeah, that was her.
“I’m Gregory Bell. I’ll be doing your hair and make-up,” he explained as he stunned her by kissing both of her cheeks. “How are your accommodations?”
Her accommodations? They were staying in a castle. “Like something straight from a fairy tale.”
The dashing man winked, bowed his head, and gave a wave of his bejeweled hand. “Well, you are royalty.”
“So I’ve read.”
He clicked his tongue. “You don’t sound as if you understand the coup you’ve landed. You were chose
n out of thousands of hopeful women to play her royal highness Princess Isabella Jane Strovanik.”
“Coup,” she muttered as she followed him to a catchall room slash beauty salon. He pointed to a parlor type chair.
“You’re not cutting my hair.” She grabbed her long tresses, free from their usual clips. She hadn’t cut it for the police force. She sure wasn’t cutting it for these TV jokers.
His mouth fell in exaggerated horror. “Absolutely not. Just a little snip here and there to give you some verve.” He stepped around her. “And a few highlights.”
She didn’t release her protective hold.
“Don’t worry,” he assured. “I’m just going to take you from beautiful to absolutely breathtaking.”
“I hope you’ve got the fairy Godmother and her magic wand stashed back here some where.” She looked around in vain.
He laughed and patted the chair. “In you go.”
She sighed. What could a trim and a few highlights hurt?
# # #
Jill stared at her reflection in the antique full-length mirror set up in her suite. Gregory had taken her drab brown hair and added subtle streaks that caught in the light, making her resemblance to Jessie even stronger. He’d plucked her brows to almost nothing and performed magic with his make-up brushes. That stunning woman couldn’t be her. She was a tomboy, not a homecoming queen—or princess as the case was supposed to be.
With one last look of disbelief, she left her spacious room and descended the elaborate curved staircase. Masterpiece paintings of ‘her ancestors’ lined the walls. An intricately designed crystal labara hung from the embellished ceiling.
Three men stood in the large marble-floored foyer. Gregory, an older man she’d yet to meet, and God’s gift to women. Rob Lancaster. Her heart fluttered. Man, he was gorgeous.
Her steamy reaction to his magnetism surprised her. She’d rarely dated since her break-up with Dan two months ago. She’d thought Dan had been the one--that special someone just for her. They’d gotten along so well, perfect partners on the force, having complete trust in each other. Too bad there’d been no passion. She’d accepted mediocre sex as a small price to pay for the affections of a man like Dan. Obviously he hadn’t been willing to make the same concessions.
