Page 15 of Some Like It Scandalous (Going Royal #2)

Anna

A hysterical fit of the giggles assaulted her when the water splashed against her face.

Chilled from the fridge, it soaked right through her silk shirt and sent a wave of goose bumps racing over her skin—but she wasn’t cold.

Not like she felt when she’d arrived back at his penthouse.

Heat warmed her face and her cheeks ached from holding back her smile—Charlie chased her around the island until he’d dumped the entire contents of the bottle over her head.

She scampered, grabbing a bottle of ketchup from the fridge on her slide by. Whirling, she flipped the cap off and pointed it at him.

“You wouldn’t dare.” But his eyes challenged her and his grin was as feral as it was excited. She squeezed the bottle and he dodged—the ketchup shot across the kitchen in a stream and splatted against the chest of a very nicely dressed, younger version of Armand.

“Oh crap.” She winced.

The man stared at her drolly as ketchup dripped down the expensive fabric to splat against the floor. Armand glanced from her to the newcomer and straightened. He stepped right in front of her, cutting off her view. “George.” He pronounced it Shorge and his accent sharpened. “You weren’t expected.”

His brother.

Fantastic .

The last time she’d seen the younger prince, he’d been barely sixteen, scrawny and long limbed. Heart sinking, she closed the lid on the ketchup.

“Clearly, and I wasn’t aware you were entertaining.” Disdain rolled through the too-cool tone. “But Peterson informed me that all family needed to check in.”

Armand glanced over his shoulder at her and his gaze flicked from her face to her chest and back up again.

She lifted her eyebrows and looked down.

Embarrassment surged and she pulled his damp jacket closed.

The water soaked right through the silk shirt, clearly outlining her breasts, and her nipples stood out in stark relief.

George walked over to tug a paper towel from the dispenser and blotted at the ketchup.

“I’m sorry about that,” she began, looking for the right words to dress the apology up in…

I’m sorry you walked in and I sprayed you with ketchup? I’ll pay for your suit cleaning? Don’t mind the wet T-shirt contest.

Armand’s dress shirt clung to him, hugging the smooth, cut lines of his musculature.

He still worked out. They’d run in college—he a lot more than she—but he’d also enjoyed going to the gym. A habit he’d dragged her into—mostly because watching him lift weights was sexy as hell. She cleared her throat. “I should…let you two talk.”

“That would be pleasant.” Dismissal hung right off the end of George’s statement. Armand’s back stiffened.

“That was rude.” Armand’s voice went flat, cool, and she knew that tone—just like his accent—which echoed so loudly in the words. The tone cried angry.

“My apologies, Your Highness. I am unaccustomed to the polite rules that include ruining a five-thousand-dollar suit. It must be an American thing.” His brother’s tone was equally cold.

She moved out from behind Armand and met the cool disdain in the younger prince’s gaze. He barely spared her a glance, as if she weren’t worthy of his attention. The silence in the room stretched, and Armand’s left hand curled into a fist—the lines around his mouth turned white.

“Of course. It’s a completely bourgeois middle-American way of saying suck on it.

” She beamed and brushed her fingers against Armand’s fist. She’d only ever seen him get into two fights before—the first when a guy in a bar dumped his beer all over her.

It had been an accident, but the belligerent drunk leered and Armand slugged him.

His friends waded right into the brawl that broke out.

Friends—friends who were his security force.

The second had begun as a playful tussle during a flag football match on the field. It escalated so quickly when the other team hit him—and he responded in kind.

But it would be better to not start another brawl in the kitchen. Particularly with him wearing her mustard, mayo and turkey sandwich and both of them soaked from the water play. In fact, the kitchen was quite the disaster.

“Apologize, George.” Armand didn’t bend, his gaze fixed on his brother. “Now.”

The younger prince scowled, but the expression rippled away and disappeared behind a placid, cold remoteness. He turned to look at her and inclined his head in a sharp nod. “My apologies, Miss Novak.”

The words were correct, but the tone told her to go to hell.

She appreciated the distinction. “Please accept mine as well.” Hers lacked the force to penetrate his chilly reception, but in this case—escape might be the better part of valor.

“If you gentlemen will excuse me, I’m just going to change and get to work. ”

Armand’s fingers locked around hers and tugged her back. Or maybe not…

“George can excuse us. There’s a suite downstairs waiting for him.” His grip was like silken steel, gentle but unbreakable. He kept her at his side, his gaze zeroed in on his brother. Her stomach cramped. The tension surged through the room, a chemical electricity that sizzled across her skin.

“As you wish, Your Highness.” George bowed, spared her one cool, scathing look and marched out the way he came in. The door closed in the other room and they were alone again.

She shifted uneasily and glanced down to where his hand held hers. He slid his fingers between hers, interlacing them, and gave her a light squeeze. “He’s young and full of himself.”

“He loves his brother.” Though he shared none of that affection for her. “I should…clean this up.”

“No. We can clean it up together after you eat.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed one knuckle. The warm touch of his lips sent another wave of awareness tingling through her. Her nipples tightened further if that was possible, stinging against the cold bra clinging to them.

He rescued her half sandwich from the other side of the counter and sat it down in front of her.

“Maybe you should go talk to him? He must have flown a long way…”

Shrugging, he plucked a chip from her hair and nibbled it. “Still crunchy.” He grinned. “And salty.”

“Armand—”

“Do you want a fresh sandwich?” He cut her off.

Sighing, she picked up the half-eaten half sandwich and shook her head. She wasn’t hungry anymore, but he held her hand captive and he wanted her to eat. So she ate. He turned and stretched back to open the fridge, still holding on to her while he got them two fresh bottles of water.

“For consumption—not ammunition.” He tapped her nose with a finger and she snickered, but the humor failed to gain traction in her soul—not the way their earlier fun had.

“Will you answer my question?”

“Which one?” He had to let her go to open the water bottles, but he didn’t move away and she conceded the field on this one, staying right where she was.

“What do I call you?”

He took a long drink of water before tugging his own plate closer. He picked at the sandwich and she thought he might not answer at all. “I told you yesterday, you can call me Charlie.”

“And I said Charlie was a lie.” She finished the thought and sighed. “I’m sorry I said that—it wasn’t very kind.”

“No, but it was honest. You are always brutally honest.” Sadness crept beneath his words and her heart squeezed. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and chase away the melancholy shrouding him.

She chewed her lower lip, peeling the sandwich apart to pick out the meat.

“I don’t know if I know how to do this…” She lacked the words to describe the conflict rending through her.

She wanted to hug him. She wanted to punch him.

She wanted to latch on and never let go.

And terrified that this time, walking away would kill her…

He slid a hand behind her neck, familiar, casual—intimate—and so very him. It took very little coaxing for her to look up at him. The gazes crashed together and history seemed to rewind—it was just the two of them. It had always been them against the world—until the day she left him.

“Miss Novak, I’m sorry—His Highness is in a meeting.” The guard blocked her from accessing the door to Charlie’s office.

“Do you know when Charlie—His Highness—will be free?” She grimaced.

It hadn’t been a full week since they arrived in Norway and she didn’t think he’d slept for a moment.

Certainly, she didn’t see him though she had woken once when he slid into bed next to her—falling immediately to sleep at three in the morning.

He’d been gone when she woke again just three hours later.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t.” The security guard returned to his position and Anna nodded.

Fighting the urge to slide her hands into her pockets, she smoothed her morning jacket.

It took her a moment to find a door exiting into a rose garden.

The well-manicured lawns were a brilliant shade of green and the roses—they came in all shades from a deep rich golden yellow to a vibrant red.

She wandered through the garden for the better part of an hour before she caught his familiar voice. “One moment, gentlemen.”

Charlie strode out the same doors she’d used and crossed the sunny patch of garden to catch her hands in his.

“They said you were looking for me. Is everything all right?” He didn’t kiss her or do more than grasp her fingers.

“I have a meeting with the prime minister and I don’t know how long I’ll be. Is it important?”

Shaking her head slowly, she murmured. “No, of course not.”

Lifting her hands to his lips, he kissed her knuckles. “I will find time for us to talk, I promise.”

Stomach lurching, she forced another smile. “I understand.” She didn’t—not really. Why hadn’t he told her he was a prince? What made him keep the secret from her? Who was this cool, remote man and what had he done with her Charlie?

“Your Highness, the car awaits.”

“I have to go. Have someone take you to the museums. You’ll love them.” And then he was gone. He didn’t return that evening—or at least he didn’t until very late. Anna only knew he’d been in her room by the faint scent of his aftershave clinging to the pillow.

Each subsequent day followed the same pattern—he’d be tied up for hours in meetings. When he did manage to slip away, they were interrupted time and again—his mother, his brothers, attorneys, guards.

“I know you have a lot of questions and I sincerely want to sit down and discuss them all. I have to ask for you to be patient just a bit longer.” Three times he’d said nearly the same words to her. It didn’t seem to matter how patiently she’d waited, he couldn’t make the time.

When she woke to a note apologizing that he’d had to go to Belgium, she’d been sick to her stomach. They didn’t talk, barely saw each other and she had no idea where she fit into this life.

If she even did.

When his trip to Belgium turned into a trip to France and then another to England, she’d booked an airline ticket and waited. Anna had to go back to school. Four weeks in Norway, and her finals still awaited her.

Her finals. Her diploma. Her future. He didn’t have time for her and she was running out of time on the extensions she’d had to file.

Reality sank its ugly claws in her heart and threatened to shred it in half. She’d left him. She’d broken them up.