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Until the veil between them was dotted with stars—well, for Beatrice at least.
And even if she’d messed up back there, it had been worth it.
She didn’t know how to describe it.
She only knew that it really felt as if it could have been a whisky kind of night.
Whatever that was...
CHAPTER SIX
STARRYNIGHTSFADED,THOUGH, and pink clouds were fleeting when you worked for Julius.
Beatrice happily hid in her office for most of the following week.
There were not many drop-ins from the dashing Prince.
He was busy doing fly-in, fly-out visits to a couple of the smaller islands and so was barely around, and even when he was, he was vague and polite.
Thoughts of that odd encounter—the kiss that had never happened and the almost-row—dispersed as Beatrice got through the week.
And it was quite a difficult week in the end, because the dancing-on-a-boat shots hadn’t just lit a twinkle in Beatrice’s knickers...there was glitter everywhere she looked!
Everyone, it seemed, had a story, or a photo, and Beatrice spent most of her time playing whack-a-mole with all the reports and counter-reports that has been generated, trying to keep her newly wholesome prince’s image intact.
On Friday, she had no choice but to go up to his offices and access the computers, and get Jordan reluctantly to let her into the archives.
‘I don’t have time for this,’ Jordan muttered, typing in a code for her. ‘I finish at two...’
‘I know.’
‘It’s not you,’ she said. ‘It’s this damn “Dancing King” thing. He’s been invited onto a ballroom dancing TV show...’
‘He’s not going to do it?’ Beatrice gaped.
‘God knows! Can you believe the King actually called him this morning to discuss it?’
This place!
Beatrice was cross-eyed from cross-referencing the Prince’s exes as lunchtime approached.
‘Who’s the Marchioness?’ she asked.
‘Oh, my God!’ Jordan gave a dramatic wince, ‘Don’t ask.’
Beatrice did as she was told and didn’t!
Not that it stopped Jordan from telling her. ‘She was seriously connected. I mean, real hetaera material...’
‘A long-term mistress before marriage?’
‘Oh, yes, it happens all the time. Anyway, she was newly widowed after having nursed her husband for years. There was no mourning period for the Marchioness—she wanted soirées...’
Beatrice rather guessed she was looking at Julius’s one-on-one Latin American dance tutor.
‘Well, at least he’s behaving now.’
‘He’s being discreet, you mean.’
