Page 4 of Some Like It Royal

He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. He should call his attorney. He was likely to be facing a harassment suit. Not that she would be wrong. Of course, maybe she would just get a restraining order. “Penniless Princess takes out restraining order against CEO—news at eleven.”

But she’s living in her car.

That single fact tumbled around and around in his brain. He hadn’t really believed the PI’s report—or his own eyes—when he saw her sleeping in the car until he got a good look at the supplies stored inside. Clothes, blankets, pillow and a ratty stuffed bear missing one eye.

The damn bear got to him.

What good would it do to call him now? He needed aplan,but he struggled to focus on the drive. He’d put his foot in it. No mistaking that, but he could recover the situation. She needed help. He had help to offer. The exchange could be advantageous to both of them.

Or you can just suck it up and let your products speak for themselves.

Spherecast developed top-of-the-line software and had rapidly climbed as the go-to company for corporate network security and intrusion prevention. His reputation in the States was impeccable and he’d developed strong contacts and even better contracts, including a near billion dollar one that would launch them throughout South America. But Europe continued to elude him. It wasn’t that the software didn’t work; on the contrary, it performed brilliantly. The design prevented hackers from access by turning tunnels back on themselves or leading them into trap algorithms. The programs then automatically recorded incoming packet locations and waited for specific handoff signals, and if they weren’t received—well, the resulting virus the hacker got back was nasty. Penetrating the old guard of networking connections that dated back to lords and their serfs held him firmly at bay. Then there was the EU itself. They protected their own resources and had some of the strictest laws with regards to internet protocols and privacy.

The Andrastes offered him the best opportunity for corporate synergy. They had the connections, the pedigree, and even better, they were already established there. He’d tried the direct approach with the Andraste family and slammed up against stone wall after stone wall—most he’d been able to trace back to the grand duke’s legal team.

He’d carved out a niche for his company, investing in his own skills and reinvesting in the talent that worked for him. They were thebest. The lack of title shouldn’t keep him shut out of Europe. Not when his damn product was the best thing out there. But the old guard didn’t see it that way. His Bolshevik roots probably didn’t help. But the Voldakovs were three generations deep in the US and he barely understood the Russian his grandmother had sung to lull him to sleep. Parking, he swallowed his temper and headed for the elevator. Dwelling on what hadn’t worked wouldn’t get him anywhere. He needed a plan.

Okay, I need anewplan…

Arriving at the office ahead of his staff wasn’t that unusual. He took the time to trade his shirt for a fresh one he stored in the bottom of his desk and checked the ties in the drawer above it for one without a stain. His secretary, Lucy, was fantastic about these things.

Settling in behind his desk, he flipped open the folder the P.I. delivered the day before. Photographs of Alyx spilled out, digital time stamps giving him a good idea of her schedule. She worked most evenings at the restaurant—where he’d first set eyes on her—and she split her daytime hours between auditions and classes.

When she’s not sleeping in her car.

If not for his mother’s passion for all things royal and the umpteen gajillion documentaries and news programs she watched about all of them, he might never have made the connection. But one only had to look at Alyx to see the family resemblance. He’d dined there three nights in a row trying to figure out where he’d seen her before, and it was only by accident that a news bite on the grand duke late one night helped him put the pieces together. The facial structures were strikingly similar. The rich, vibrance of her deep red hair might be more vivid than the rest of the family, but it fit. Her jaw was softer and rounder, but the eyes—they could have been twins.

He would never be sure which idea occurred first—hiring the investigator or coughing up some royal blood to grease the wheels. Martin cracked a joke about borrowing a title to get their foot in the door. If it hadn’t been for another frustrating series of stalls on the EU inspector’s part, he might have just asked her out on a date.Hell, I still want to ask her out on a date…

Picking up the phone, he dialed his attorney’s number. Martin answered on the first ring.

“Martin Grange.”

“I spoke to her this morning,” he began without preamble.

“Oh, for the love of God, Daniel. We talked about this. Are you in jail? Do I need to come bail you out?” Martin was definitely not on board with his idea. In fact, his attorney labeled it foolish and told him to just play on the up-and-up. It would take them time to make their mark, but by then, the European companies would be coming to him—not the other way around.

“No. I’m at the office.” He toyed with the pen on the desk and drew a squiggly line down the center of the blank legal pad. On the right side he wrote pros and the left, he wrote cons. “She wasn’t thrilled with the opportunity.”

“You sound surprised.” Martin, however, did not.

“She’s sleeping out of her car.” He wroteneeds a homeunder pro. “Her car. She parks it at the top of a public parking garage off La Cienega and climbs in the back to go to sleep. She has no security. Just takes one whackjob to knock out her windows and she’s in trouble.”

“That’s her choice. You know, there are plenty of shelters out there for the homeless and it’s not like she doesn’t have a job. She works at one of the swankiest steakhouses in Beverly Hills. She has to make three to four hundred a night.”

Daniel added dollar signs under the pro column along with two question marks. If she did make that much in tips, then why didn’t she have a place of her own? Apartments in L.A. were expensive, but she could find one in North Hollywood for about a week’s worth of tips. It would be small, but her car was hardly a palace. “Exactly. The report says she went to the University of California on scholarships, but the three she received couldn’t have covered all of her tuition and her housing—that means student loans.”

Martin sighed. “Daniel, stop. You rescue puppies in the pouring rain when you’re wearing a five-thousand-dollar suit. Not to mention what wet dog smell does to a Lamborghini. Just let this go.”

“That was my Lexus, not the Lamborghini. And the detailer got the smell out and the dog got a home.”Needs help.He wrote that down beneath the prosandcircled it. He studied the list—two items on the pros and none on the cons did not make a fair argument.

“Has the grand duke returned any of our calls?” They’d been courting Andraste for months, subtly. They’d used connections and parties to try to get closer to the man, but the grand duke’s entourage was not easily penetrated. Getting access to him proved more difficult than finding Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. It irked the hell out of Daniel that his “new” money bourgeois didn’t merit a call above receptionist.

“No, but that’s not a reason to?—”

Daniel’s cell phone rang and he glanced down at it. Only three people had that number. His secretary never called him before nine and Martin was on the phone. “Martin, I have to go. She’s calling.”

“Daniel, wait—” But he hung up on his attorney’s protests and thumbed the answer button on the cell.

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