Page 2 of Royally Roma
Chiara was Julia’s closest friend, hence the lack of filter. That hadn’t made her assessment of the situation any more flattering, though. Less so, if that were even possible. “Crazy or stupid? Those are my only options?”
Chiara had shrugged. “I’m willing to throw hopelessly naïve into the mix.”
That had been Julia’s breaking point. The point at which the wheels in her head had begun to turn with a speed that rivaled the Fiats and Vespas that notoriously flew through Rome’s narrow cobblestone streets. She despised the idea of anyone thinking she was naïve. She’d already played the role of the trusting innocent. Once upon a time she’d been that wide-eyed girl. And her story couldn’t have ended further from the land of happily ever after. If there was one thing Julia most definitely wasn’t, it was naïve. Not anymore.
But that’s exactly what theentire worldwould think once this story broke, assuming it did, in fact, break. And it would. Julia was all too familiar with the bloodthirsty nature of the press. Stories like this were destined to end up splashed across the front page. No one with an HRH in front of his or her name could sneeze without photos ending up online and in the gossip magazines.
Prince Harry’s naked backside as he stood beside that infamous billiard table back in America was forever burned into her memory. If what happened in Vegas didn’t, in fact, stay in Vegas, what hope was there for Rome? None whatsoever.
And hadn’t there been another prince in the news as recently as yesterday? Yes, there had. Something about skinny-dipping with the entire French women’s swim team in Paris.
Julia narrowed her gaze at the prince in her bed. What if it had been him? She felt sick to her stomach all of a sudden and resisted the urge to sniff him for chlorine.
Possible headlines flashed before her eyes.
Crown Prince of Lazaretto Spends Night with Daughter of Wall Street Embezzler Lucas Costa.
Disgraced Wall Street Princess Falls into Bed with Lazaretto’s Prince Charming.
World’s Luckiest Girl Claims, “I Didn’t Know He Was a Prince.”
World’s luckiest girl. What a joke.
Just when things were finally turning around. Just when she’d thought fate might actually be on her side for once, she’d gone and met a prince. He’d lied to her. He’d gotten her fired from her job. He’d led her on a wild-goose chase through Rome. Then he’d made her want things. Dangerous things. And now all of that would be front-page news.
They would call her flat a hovel. She would be picked apart, from her messy ballerina bun—emphasis onmessy—to the loafers that she’d always thought of as Audrey Hepburnesque but Chiara had declared a disgrace to Italian fashion. She’d be the laughing stock of Italy. Reduced to little more than a scandal.Again.Laughable. Even worse, unemployable.Novella 2000would only be the beginning. Her face would be on every newsstand on every street corner in all of Europe, right alongside “His Royal Hotness.” God, it was nauseating.
They would dig up her family’s past. Bring up everything that had been front-page news in the States. They would accuse her of trying to extort him.Like father, like daughter.
Even worse, they would all say she’d thrown herself at him. If her best friend didn’t believe her when she said she hadn’t slept with him, then no one would.
She couldn’t allow it.
It wasn’t like that. This wasn’t about sex. Or romance. Or the fire he’d somehow lit inside her when he’d pushed her against a centuries-old wall of stone and taken her mouth with his. A fire that somehow still smoldered low in her belly, even now that she knew what a royally wicked man he was.
Okay so maybe this was a little bit about sex. Only a little. The smallest possible amount.
Right.Her pulse throbbed, warm and wanting—liar, liar, liar.She tore her gaze from his ridiculously lush torso.
This was about a more pressing need than sex. Even the best near-sex she’d ever had in her life. This was about self-respect...
...and money. He owed her. A lot. And she wasn’t about to let him out of her sight until he’d paid up. She’d made that mistake once. Lesson learned.
What was it that he’d said at the end of the day when she’d presented him with the bill for a full day’s guided tour?
I never carry money.
That’s a bad habit, she’d said, deadpan, certain he’d been joking.
He hadn’t.
Of course he didn’t carry money. He didn’t have to. He probably had a whole team of people to carry it around for him. Large steamer trunks full of crisp one-hundred-euro notes. She’d even gotten a glimpse of one of those people he had at his beck and call. If only she’d said something to the stranger he’d met at the café. Why had she just sat there, watching? The man owed her a thousand euros. And she intended to collect.
What had the past two days meant to him, anyway? Why was he even here? Was she just some royal joke?
She had the very sudden, very real urge to cover his arrogant, princely head with a pillow and smother him. The jerk.
He was a prince, and she’d dressed him in a glorified trash bag in the pouring rain.
