AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She stared at the one photo she had from her childhood, desperate for Alicia, who’d always known that behind the façade she was terrified.
In truth, she needed someone to tell her it was just a crush. That the way she felt now, at twenty-nine, was just her catching up on the teenage years she’d missed out on.
More than that, though, she wanted common sense.
But, given she’d stalled at the first hurdle in her search for Alicia, Beatrice had to settle for her own advice.
So what if she liked the Prince a little more than she should?
It would never go anywhere.
He was unattainable.
Impossible.
Safe.
CHAPTER TWO
‘SIGNORINA...’THEDRIVERgreeted Beatrice as she boarded the shuttle bus with her cup of coffee.
As she made her way down the aisle, a woman Beatrice recognised from Catering commented in Italian that she was rarely late.
‘Meglio tardi che mai—better late than never,’ Beatrice responded, hoping she hadn’t noticed her red eyes as she took her regular seat, second from the back and to the left.
It had become a habit.
‘Beatrice?’
She glanced up, and the woman who had commented on her being late tapped her security lanyard. Beatrice nodded her thanks, because in her haste she’d forgotten to put her own on.
Then the guards boarded the bus for an ID check, and that delayed things more.
By the time she disembarked, though still easily on time, she felt as if she were running late, and she walked briskly through the rose garden and past the lake, then took the steps down to the basement offices.
‘There are reports surfacing about a party aboard Prince Julius’s yacht.’
Once—just once—Beatrice would have liked to make it to her office before being hauled into whatever scandal the Prince had created. This particular morning, though, she would have also liked to top up her concealer and hide her swollen eyes before facing the world.
She should never have made the short journey to Trebordi, Beatrice knew. Now she felt unsettled, as well as perturbed, and thanks to the evidence her tears had left on her features she felt exposed.
‘Thanks, Jordan,’ she called to the Prince’s overly involved, constantly overwrought PA. ‘I’ll take a look.’
‘Beatrice, wait.’ Jordan came out of her downstairs office to further enlighten her. ‘Prince Julius is—’
‘Oh, please!’ Beatrice called over her shoulder, forcing herself to become the aloof, say-it-as-it-is woman she’d been hired to be. ‘He’s gorgeous, single, and happens to have a sex-life...’
Her voice trailed off as she stepped into her own office and it dawned on her that Jordan had been trying to warn her that she had company.
Royal company.
‘Good morning, Beatrice.’
Damn.
There, leaning against the wall, wearing jodhpurs and boots and a very serious expression, was Prince Julius himself. Utterly calm, with his shoulders resting on the wall. But his pose was one of observation rather than relaxation: his arms were folded and his long booted legs lightly crossed.
His glossy ebony hair was messy, his jaw unshaven, although she knew that soon the slight disorder would be righted and he would be polished, groomed and shaved. But for now she dealt with well over six feet of testosterone in jodhpurs, boots and a shirt that suggested he’d exerted both himself and his horse to the full this morning.
