Page 7 of Royally Knocked Up (Princes of Passion #1)

ENZO

A re you sure you don’t want me to come pick you up? Luca had texted.

Enzo pressed his lips together. He couldn’t believe that he was still telling his friend no. He had been the one to originally come up with the idea of having Luca break him out of this place, and Luca was practically begging to be allowed to aid and abet his escape.

Enzo had been at La Fantasia for a week now.

He would have thought the place would have become unbearable by now.

And there were days when it was. There were days when he couldn’t believe he had spent so much time here, when he thought that if he’d had an easy way out, he would have taken it in a heartbeat.

If Luca’s car had pulled up in front of the resort today, for instance, there was no chance in the world he wouldn’t have gotten in.

It had been an uncommonly rough day. There had been a minor event to coordinate — the first since Enzo had ostensibly joined the events team.

It hadn’t been anything much, just a minor league football team visiting the lodge for a team-building exercise, but Isla had taken their visit very seriously.

She’d had the whole events team working nonstop, and Enzo had been placed on food service.

Food service! What did he know about serving food?

He’d tried to make that point to Isla, but she had pushed back. “What job do you think you should be given?” she’d asked him. “Do you want to be in charge of cooking? Do you want to handle the decorations? You don’t know how to do any of those things either.”

“I should be here in my capacity as a member of the royal family,” he’d told her. “The members of the team should be given a meet and greet with me as a part of their stay here.”

Isla had sighed. “That doesn’t help our team. You were sent here to be a productive member of the team, and that does us no good.”

“It makes the resort look good,” Enzo had argued, but Isla hadn’t agreed, and she’d let him know.

The upshot was that he had spent the entire day in a hairnet, scooping food onto the plates of football players who obviously hadn’t even known who he was — they hadn’t so much as looked twice at him.

It wasn’t that Enzo felt any particular need to be admired for his role as prince — he didn’t mind not being recognized — but by the end of the day, it was beginning to wear on him.

It wasn’t as though he had been treated like a random person who they simply didn’t know.

He’d been treated like he was completely insignificant to them.

Like he meant as much to them as the spatula that was being used to serve their food!

And now he smelled like cheese. Even a long, hot shower hadn’t completely gotten that smell off of him. It was unbearable.

Maybe he would have Luca come and get him, just for a few hours. They could drive up to Vista Grande and lose themselves in some of the nightclubs there. He could be back by morning. No one would ever be the wiser, and it would be a great way to blow off some steam.

His thumb hovered over the button to text his friend back…

There was a knock at the door.

Enzo closed his eyes briefly, knowing that he should have seen this coming. She always came knocking around this time of night. If he didn’t know better, he would have guessed that Hailey had a crush on him.

That was wishful thinking though, and he knew it.

It would have been fun to have an affair with the pretty American while he was stuck here.

He’d fantasized about that more than once.

In fact, what he was experiencing was just standard American directness.

This was probably the way all Americans acted with each other and with everybody else.

He glanced at the phone, then set it down. He might as well see what she wanted. He could always text Enzo afterward.

Hailey was leaning against the far wall and waiting for him to open the door.

She was dressed today in a loose-fitting cable knit sweater that perfectly matched her eyes, and a white pleated skirt, short enough not to leave too much to the imagination.

Enzo swallowed hard. “Hey,” he said, mirroring her favorite greeting.

“Hey,” she said, grinning at him. “Today was a lot, huh?”

“It wasn’t my favorite.”

“I thought those football players were never going to get out of here. Did you see that goalie? I think he was the most arrogant man I’ve ever met!”

Enzo couldn’t help grinning. “I thought I was the most arrogant man you had ever met.”

“Don’t be jealous. It’s unbecoming.” She smiled at him. “You were serving food today, right?”

“Yeah. What were you doing?”

“Garbage detail.”

He laughed. “That does make me feel a little better.”

“Oh, shut up! The goalie was particularly awful to me. I actually brought the trash can right over to his table, he looked up at me, and then he left his trash on the table and walked away.” She shook her head. “So disrespectful.”

“Are people always that rude to people who serve them?”

“You should know. You have servants, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t treat my servants like that.”

“Listen, there’s a really beautiful sunset, and I snagged a bottle of champagne from the kitchen.”

His eyes widened. “You are not supposed to do that.”

“Are you going to tell Isla?”

“Don’t be ludicrous. I mean, you’re planning on sharing, right?”

“That’s what I’m doing here, yes.”

“Where were you thinking of taking this party?” Luca was forgotten.

Even though the bottle of champagne she was offering was a lot less exciting than the Vista Grande club scene, Enzo found that he wanted to stay here and drink it with her more than he wanted to go out with Luca.

He had never had a dull evening with Hailey even though most of those evenings just consisted of walking or sitting around and talking.

“Your view is better than mine,” she told him. “We could just drink it on your balcony.”

“My view is better than yours?”

She laughed, pushing past him to enter the room. “It’s like you still don’t realize that you have one of the best rooms in the whole resort.”

“It’s a staff room.”

“You’re too hung up on that fact. Yes, it’s one of the staff suites. It’s the nicest one on the property. Do you even know who lived here before you did?”

“I heard it had been empty for a while,” Enzo said.

“Right, well, the resort managers have always lived here,” Hailey said.

“How do you know that?”

“I asked. You’d be surprised what you can find out if you ask.”

“You asked who had lived in my room? Why’d you ask that?”

“No,” Hailey said. “I asked why there wasn’t a manager living on property, since so much of the rest of the staff seems to.

And Isla told me that historically, managers used to live in the suite you’re occupying now, but when they decided to start living off- property that suite was left empty until you came along.

Then it was given to you as a sign of respect for the royal family. ”

“I’m willing to bet my father doesn’t know that,” Enzo said.

“You don’t think so?”

“He wouldn’t think much of me getting any sort of special treatment.”

Hailey hesitated. “You don’t think you’re already getting special treatment?”

He looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “It’s really not any of my business.”

“No, I want to know what you meant by that,” he said. “What special treatment am I getting?”

“Well, it’s just that most of the people working on the team here have some sort of events planning education or experience,” she said.

“You’re the only one who’s here with no qualifications, and it’s just because your family owns the place.

That seems like special treatment to me.

I’m not saying that you haven’t been doing the job as well as anybody else, but I do think your father didn’t have a problem with you receiving special treatment.

It’s the only way you’re here in the first place. ”

“Wow,” he said. “You really don’t have a problem with saying whatever you want to me, do you?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m really not trying to be rude.”

“No, I asked,” he said. “It would have been ruder to deny me the answer after I insisted on it. I’m just not used to people speaking up to me like that. It must be an American thing.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She blushed. She was pretty when she blushed. Enzo filed that away, wondering if he might be able to bring that color to her cheeks more often. “I think my family would be pretty appalled if they heard me speaking to a member of the royal family like that. My mother would die.”

He laughed. “If that’s not the way you were raised, where did you learn to do it?”

“I’ve got an older brother too. You and I have that in common.” She smiled at him. “You probably know as well as I do how it teaches you to stand up for yourself, and not to be afraid of speaking up to people who are more powerful than you are.”

“I think I learned that from being related to kings,” Enzo said.

Hailey nodded. “I guess you would.”

She uncorked the bottle of champagne. “Do you have glasses for this?”

“Sure.” He went to get a couple of them and took the bottle from her so that he could pour. “I still can’t believe you were able to get this. Isla usually controls the alcohol with an iron fist. I’m not even allowed to order from the bar.” A thought occurred to him. “Are you?”

“No,” she said. “I think Isla was just feeling celebratory tonight because the event went so well. You should try asking her after the next time we have one of these things. Or rather — maybe you shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, you had a lot of attitude today.”

“I did not!”

“Please. I saw you scowling at the football players.”

“You were complaining about them too. You had nothing good to say about that goalie.”

“Yes, but I had the sense to wait and talk about him behind his back,” Hailey explained. “Everyone could see on your face all day long how above it all you felt, how you didn’t think you should have to be there or be doing what you were doing.”

“I just think I could have been put to better use than serving food,” Enzo explained. “Who doesn’t want a meet and greet with the prince?”

“See what I mean?”

“What?”

“Special treatment.” She took a sip of her champagne. “Why don’t we go outside and watch this sunset?”

She was already walking toward the balcony. Enzo watched her go, feeling rather shell-shocked. He would have expected to be angry if anyone had ever spoken to him the way she was. He would have thought he would banish the person from his company.

Instead, he couldn’t seem to stop wanting to spend more time with her, and he didn’t know what to do about it. It felt like something that needed to be gotten under control. Enzo wasn’t used to the feeling of yearning for something that he couldn’t just go and get whenever he wanted to.

He also wasn’t sure where he was hoping this was going to go.

He was attracted to her, yes, but he had already decided that it would be a bad idea for anything to happen between the two of them — so why was he so continually drawn to her? What was there to gain from this time they were spending together?

The truth was, it was what she had offered him in the beginning. It had happened exactly as she had said it would.

Very simply, Enzo was beginning to want her friendship.

Time spent with her meant more to him now than time spent with Luca could have, even though Luca had wanted to take him out to a club and Hailey only wanted to sit here on the balcony sipping champagne and telling him how he only had this job because his father had given it to him.

There was no reason at all he should have preferred this over getting away to Vista Grande for the evening.

And yet, inexplicably, he was glad that he had stayed.