Page 8 of Royally Knocked Up (Princes of Passion #1)

HAILEY

T he champagne was beginning to soften Hailey’s normally sharp senses, and she knew that she shouldn’t pour herself a second glass. She was on duty, after all.

But it wasn’t as if Enzo was going anywhere. As long as she was with him, he wasn’t going to get himself into any trouble. She picked up the bottle and topped herself off, then held it out to him. “You want some more?”

“Yeah, please.”

She poured a bit more for him too.

“The sunset really is something,” he said. “How did you know it was going to be this remarkable tonight?”

“I’ve been watching it every night,” she told him. “I love sunsets.”

“So this is something you do?”

Hailey couldn’t help laughing. “You make it sound like a strange hobby.”

“I don’t know. I know people do this, but I’ve never done it myself.”

“You’ve never noticed a beautiful sunset?”

“Well, noticing is different,” he said. “You’re not talking about noticing . You’re talking about stopping what you were doing to sit here and watch the sun go down.”

She nodded. “I would do sunrises too, except I don’t really like to get up that early.”

“Well, that we have in common.” He laughed. “I can’t imagine getting up before the sun just to… watch it rise.”

“I know what you mean,” Hailey agreed. “But at the same time… there’s something special about this, isn’t there?

I mean, the way it forces you to slow down.

I don’t know about you, but I catch myself trying to speed through my life all the time.

But when you sit down to watch a sunset, it’s going to happen on its own schedule.

I like that about it. I like how you just have to sit still for a while and enjoy what nature is offering you.

There’s something beautiful about that, don’t you think? ”

“I guess I’ve never thought about it that way,” Enzo conceded.

The two of them were quiet for several moments, during which Hailey watched the colors in the sky grow richer and darker.

She was, she realized, extremely aware of Enzo’s presence beside her. She noticed every time he moved — when he took a sip of his champagne, when his weight shifted, even when he took a particularly deep breath.

As a private investigator, it was her job to be very aware of her subjects, so this wasn’t necessarily anything new. And yet, she wasn’t used to that awareness being so visceral. It felt as if she could perceive the very warmth in the air where his body was, even when she wasn’t looking at him.

It was the sunset. She had invited him to come out here with her for what was, in all actuality, a very romantic activity.

She should have thought better of it. She had been trying to charm him a little bit, to make sure he wanted to spend time with her, but there were definitely lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

This had to remain professional, and she couldn’t let things between the two of them go beyond friendship.

She took a step away from him, hoping that the action was subtle enough not to leave him wondering why she had done it. “I guess as a member of the royal family you might not have much time for things like slowing down and watching the color of the sky,” she said.

She expected a laugh, but the prince was pensive and quiet. “I do worry about that,” he said.

“You do?”

“I mean, with my father assuming the throne… life is already starting to change.” He took a long sip of his champagne.

“The way my family and I used to live doesn’t seem to be good enough for anyone anymore.

Not for Giorgio, and certainly not for my father — he can’t stop fixating on everything he wants us to be doing differently.

And I suppose it makes me worry that I’m going to lose myself in this new title.

I’m not the kind of person who wants to sit around watching sunsets most days — although I have to admit I’m enjoying it tonight. ” He smiled at her.

Hailey felt her heart flutter. His smile, when it was unguarded like this, could be so charming.

He must have had no trouble getting women to go home with him during his party-animal days.

Even without being a member of the royal family, he probably would have been someone very few people ever said no to.

It was beyond easy to imagine herself falling for his charms if she hadn’t been working so hard to resist.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” she managed.

“But what if I did want to watch the sunset every night?” he asked.

“What if I discovered a passion for it? Is that the kind of thing the son of the king has time to do? And even if he does, would my father allow it? He’s really tightened his grip on me lately.

” He sighed. “I guess you know that’s what I’m doing here in the first place.

He wanted me out of Luria so that I couldn’t cause too much of a scandal before his coronation. ”

“Yeah, you mentioned something about that,” Hailey said noncommittally.

She couldn’t let on just how intimately familiar she was with the details of his departure from the capital.

“But don’t you think your father is likely to calm down once the coronation is over?

I mean, once he’s officially the king, he won’t have to worry so much about what people think of him.

He’s getting a lot of attention right now because he’s new to the throne, but that isn’t going to last forever.

Soon enough, everyone is going to move on with their lives, and this will all be in the past.”

“I hope you’re right,” Enzo said. “But to tell you the truth, I don’t have a lot of faith in that happening.

I have a feeling that life is going to be all about rules now that my father is assuming the throne, and I’m not looking forward to living by those rules.

If there was any way out of it, I think I would take it.

I wish I could just abdicate the way my uncle did. ”

“Why don’t you?”

“The truth?”

“Of course.”

He gazed off into the distance. “I couldn’t do that to my father,” he said softly.

Hailey felt the words like a punch to her gut. “What do you mean?”

“It would make him look bad,” Enzo said.

“He thinks I don’t care about the family reputation, but that’s not really true.

It’s just that I don’t think our reputation is quite as fragile as he does.

But to have his son abdicate from the line of succession at the same time as he’s taking the throne — I mean, that’s what the story would be.

That’s what every reporter would want to write about.

It wouldn’t be about my father’s reign anymore.

It would be all about why his son didn’t want to stand by him and the drama in our family.

And I just can’t do that to him, no matter how much I might wish I didn’t have to deal with all this.

He thinks I’m selfish, but I’m not that selfish. ”

Hailey felt as if she had been struck.

This was the man she was lying to. This was the man she was surveilling against his will. He had a perfectly easy path to walk away from the new restrictions on his life — one he would have liked to take — and he was refusing it because he didn’t want to hurt his father.

And meanwhile, his father had hired a private investigator to keep an eye on him. To ensure that Enzo adhered to the very rules he so dreaded having to live by.

Me . I’m the one forcing him into this new way of life.

I’m the one who’s forcing him to live a life he’s not comfortable with.

I’m the one who’s keeping an eye on him all the time to make sure he doesn’t step outside the lines.

As much as he struggles with his father, at least he knows that this is part of the relationship they have with each other.

At least he knows his father has these expectations of him.

But me — I’m lying to him. I’m tricking him into adhering to a lifestyle he doesn’t want.

It wasn’t the kind of thing that had ever made her feel guilty before. That was part of being a private investigator. You had to get close to people under false pretenses. You had to lie to them.

The strange thing here wasn’t that she was doing that. It was the fact that it was bothering her so much.

But as she looked at Enzo now, all she could think was, he is a good man.

She had been thinking of him as someone wayward, someone who needed to be reined in from misbehavior.

She’d been hired, after all, as a glorified babysitter, her job little more than to keep him out of trouble and on the straight and narrow.

But now she thought, was the way he lived his life really so bad?

If he had been a random civilian instead of the son of a rising king, no one would have looked twice at his behavior.

He was afraid of being hemmed in by his father’s crown — and she was helping to do the hemming.

For the first time in all her years of private investigation, Hailey felt a sick wash of guilt.

Could she really go on doing this to him? He didn’t deserve it.

But she had been contracted for this. She was obliged to continue.

It wouldn’t hurt him. After all, if she wasn’t here, King Edoardo would find another way to ensure that Enzo lived the life he was expected to.

It wasn’t just happening because of Hailey’s presence in his life.

What she really felt guilty about was the fact that she had convinced him that she was his friend. She wasn’t being a friend to him.

But did that have to be true? They could be friends in spite of all this. They did like one another, after all. They had a good time together. She was someone he could safely confide in — she wasn’t going to report these things he was saying back to his father or anything.

And yet, she knew perfectly well that if he had been aware of the circumstances that had brought her here, he wouldn’t have been speaking to her about any of this. He would have regarded it as a betrayal.

She turned to face him, not knowing what she was going to say, knowing only that she had to say something.

There he stood — right next to her, right above her, gazing down into her eyes. And for a moment, she forgot everything.

She forgot the beauty of the sunset behind her. She forgot that she had drunk a glass and a half of champagne. She forgot that she was here to do a job.

Even her guilt seemed to slip away as she stared up at him — as he returned her gaze with something that seemed to Hailey like longing.

“It would be nice to be selfish,” he murmured. “My father thinks I’m a selfish man. I’m not. But sometimes… sometimes I would like to be.”

“Sometimes I feel that way too,” Hailey breathed.

He leaned closer to her.

Their lips were inches apart now. She knew where this was heading, knew that it was almost too late to stop it.

She didn’t want to stop it.

No. I can’t. I can’t let this happen.

She stepped back quickly, turning away, forcing a distance between the two of them.

“I should get some sleep,” she said. “It’s getting late.”

He regarded her for a long moment. “If that’s what you think is best.”

Hailey had no idea what was best.

But as she hurried away from his room, she couldn’t help feeling as if she had dodged a bullet.

She didn’t know whether she would have the strength to do the same thing if she found herself in a similar situation again.