Page 15

CHAPTER 14

LIZZY

The prince jumped to his feet and Arnold tucked his uniform back around his sizable middle. I stared at them both.

“He asked for an autograph,” Declan said, a blush turning his handsome face pink.

“I.. sorry, ma’am. I forgot myself.” Arnold couldn’t hold my gaze. And for good reason. He was an unofficial member of the King’s Guard, and the behavior I’d just witnessed was a fireable offense. He could be excommunicated for such disrespect to a member of the royal family.

I shook my head. I couldn’t blame him for being overcome, so close to his prince.

I felt a little overcome myself every time I was caught in the glow of Declan’s blue-eyed gaze, whenever he put a hand to my low back as we walked together into a room.

And now, standing there in a pair of long shorts and a T-shirt that proclaimed that “surely not everyone was kung-fu fighting,” I was battling some kind of chemical reaction inside my body that I was powerless to control.

“It’s fine. Should we go?” I asked the prince.

“Yeah. See ya,” he said to Arnold, who still looked frightened and ashamed. Good. I’d have to talk to him later. He’d been appointed as a cover—to keep an eye on the building and report anything suspicious.

As we climbed into Declan’s truck, he tried to explain. “I wasn’t doing anything weird, you know. I just needed better leverage. His tummy was so low.”

“I’d rather not discuss it,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. Totally.” He pulled the big truck away from the curb. “You ready for this?”

“Not even a little bit,” I said. Agreeing to pretend to date was not part of my plan. The only reason I hadn’t refused was because there was a good chance that this access to Declan would allow me to begin to gain his confidence. Once he’d told me who he was, I could be honest with him. It would make everything easier. In the meantime, I had to keep trying to figure out how to make him decide to go home while pretending I had no idea who he was. It was impossible.

We’d barely left the curb in front of my building when Declan pulled the car over and looked at me. “Lizzy,” he said, and his voice carried a low, sexy tone that pulled at something inside me. I looked over at him.

“Yeah?”

“We don’t have to do this. I would never make you do something you’re not comfortable with. I really was just trying to help,” he said. “That, and…” he trailed off.

I shook my head lightly. “That and what?” There was something in the way he was looking at me, the way his gaze dropped to my lips for a second and then caught my eyes again. My stomach twisted and heat flashed through me.

“If I’m honest,” he said, his voice so low it had me clenching my thighs together.

Dammit.

He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, gave a deep, rumbling chuckle. “Well, look. You’re gorgeous, which I’m sure you know. And maybe I should have just asked you out for real, except I’m really not supposed to get involved with anyone who works for the team, and I was 99 percent sure you’d turn me down.”

“I would,” I said, still struggling to get my reactions to him under control. In the small cab of the truck, the prince suddenly seemed so huge, so overwhelmingly masculine. What would it be like to succumb to all that…man?

“So I went with fake,” he said, nodding as if he’d known I would say that. “But just because I find you attractive doesn’t mean I can’t be a total gentleman.”

I struggled not to blurt out that a gentleman was suddenly the last thing I wanted him to be. “Okay.”

“I’m attracted to you. But I’m not a caveman,” he went on. “I want to help you get the team’s trust. And I can do that without acting on… whatever… this is.” He gestured between us. “Only… do you… am I nuts here? Do you not feel this thing between us?”

I did. I felt it winding through me, pushing me to move closer to him, to press myself against him, to let his heat and his overwhelming masculinity take over. To see what kinds of “fun stuff” the prince might have in mind…

But that was definitely not what I was here for, and I couldn’t tell the king that I’d seduced the prince. Forget my fake PR job, that would have me stripped of every commendation I’d earned.

“I’m sorry, Declan. I just don’t feel anything,” I managed. I thought it was pretty convincing too, if you didn’t notice the grip my fingernails had on the leather of Declan’s car seat.

He blew out a breath. “Okay then. Good thing I went ahead and humiliated myself early. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to this dinner, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But Declan? I don’t know that anyone would believe that I would accompany you to a team event as your date so soon after meeting. Especially now that I know that would be breaking a rule.“

“Yeah… Of course.” Declan looked sheepish as he turned his eyes back to the windshield. “Then…we’re just friends,” he said, and something in me sagged a bit as he said it. “Nothing wrong with that.”

As he pulled away from the curb and my body began to relax once again, I felt something else—disappointment. I liked being the center of his attention. Not only did it appeal to the woman I had become, but it spoke to the kid I once was, the poor girl who had a prince’s full attention and affection. I missed that feeling, that certainty that someone saw me for who I really was… And I wanted more.

But more was something I couldn’t have.

The atmosphere in the Teakhouse Tavern was very different than it had been the night after the attack when I learned of the prince’s affinity for pink wine. The team was here, gathered around several tables and impossible to miss. The mood was boisterous and fun; teammates laughing heartily, slapping each other on the back, and generally behaving like little boys whose parents were sitting at the grown-ups table and looking the other way.

Declan and I walked in and the noise level dropped significantly. Heads began to turn, each set of eyes taking in the two of us together before each face tried to mask a surprised expression.

“There you are.” One man stood from the head of the table, and I recognized Coach Merritt. He did not look especially happy to see either one of us, and I gathered that Declan was late. “And hello,” he said to me looking confused about my presence at the team dinner. "You’re the PR person, right?" The coach’s face was somewhere between irritated and confused, and I sensed that maybe coming with Declan had been a big mistake.

"Coach, hey," Declan said. "I thought Lizzy here would benefit from getting a real feel for the team dynamic. Maybe pick up some great stuff she can use to help promote us.”

“Yeah,” Sly Remington called out. “She can tell the world about how many cannolis you can put away after an entire tray of lasagna, Deck.”

“Or maybe she can post an Insta reel of Solamentes snarfing Pepsi out his nose again,” John Samuels suggested.

“It was one time,” Mario Solamentes said, looking hurt. “And that was Rock’s fault. He made me laugh.”

“Can’t help that I’m fuckin’ hilarious,” Rock Stevens chimed in, rocking back in his chair until he was at a precarious angle.

“That's enough!" The coach roared. "Well, you're here now. Might as well sit down. And Deck, don't think I didn't notice that you're fifteen minutes late as usual."

I followed Declan to two open spots at the far end of the table, somewhat relieved not to be sitting near the coach.

"So these team dinners, what is the purpose exactly?” I asked.

Declan pulled out my chair for me and I sat, John Samuels on one side of me and another player I hadn't met yet directly across from me. Though I had asked the question to Declan, John leaned in.

"The idea is to help us bond. So that we gel as a team on the ice and off the ice."

“And does that work?" I asked. I thought about the dinners I’d had with other operatives to work for the King’s Guard. Generally those dinners were full of one-upmanship and suspicion. There were usually cherry opportunities on the line, we all knew it, and no one liked to lose. It was part of what made a good agent, that sense of competition and the desire to kick anyone's ass.

"I don't know," said the guy sitting across from me. "They did make me like you better, Sammy.”

Declan leaned in. “Not everybody was a big fan of the new goalie when he stepped up last year,” he explained. “Harry here was a big Mizzoni groupie.”

“I wasn’t a groupie,” the man Declan had called Harry said indignantly. I guessed he must be Harry Foranian, one of the centers on the team. He went on, trying to explain. “Mizzoni was just, he was like…”

"You had a poster of him on your wall like all the rest of us did,” said Declan.

"Yeah, because he was a legend,” John said.

Declan whispered in my ear again sending a shiver across my skin. “Mizzoni was totally a legend. I had a poster of him too. Retired last year.”

“All right you two, let’s get your drinks and food ordered and get on with it,” the coach yelled from his end of the table. Coach Merritt, though clearly good at his job based on the team’s record, left a bit to be desired in terms of congeniality. He had been welcoming enough initially, but it was clear he wasn’t excited about my presence here, which made it even harder to do a job I had no idea how to do in the first place.

Declan and I ordered sodas and food, having come in behind the rest of the team. And as soon as we finished ordering, the coach began yelling again.

“All right yahoos, we leave day after tomorrow for North Carolina. You know we’ll be facing the Vikings, and those guys are pretty damn good. They’ve got that aggressive forecheck, and last time they pinned us deep and forced bad turnovers. Their wingers—especially #17—love to crash the net hard, so our D needs to box them out early and clear those rebounds. And watch their center on the power play—he’s got that quick one-timer from the right circle, and we gave him way too much space last game. We tighten up, play smart in our zone, and keep our heads up on the breakout, and I know we can take this one.”

Declan and the rest of the team were cheering and nodding as the coach delivered this confusing jumble of terms and directions, but they all seemed to understand what he was saying. The part I was focused on was the travel.

I knew Declan would be traveling with the team during the season, and it worried me. There had been one attempt on his life already, and the team schedule was public knowledge. It would be much easier to get to him in some unguarded hotel somewhere than it would be here where I had eyes on him at all times. For a moment, I forgot to play the demure PR rep, and words were coming out of my mouth before I had thought them through.

“What kind of security do you guys use while you travel? And where will you be staying?”

Every single head at the table turned to look at me and half of the mouths dropped open. Oops.

“Security?” The coach asked, tilting his head at me.

“Yeah, I mean… I just wonder how you deal with all of the fans?” I scrambled trying to cover my error in some way that might relate my security question to public relations.

“Well I guess you’ll be finding out,” the coach said. “Since the owner told me in no uncertain terms that you were going to be traveling with the team.”

I had suggested to the king that I would need to travel with the team, and he had told me he would make this request to the owner. However, the owner had not liked the idea, and I had thought that it wasn’t happening. It was something I had intended to worry about when the moment came. Now that the moment was here, it seemed that there was less to worry about.

“Oh, right. Sure. That’s good.” I was not sounding entirely professional.

“Now that we’ve got the PR side of things buttoned up, let’s talk about strategy against the Vikings.” The coach continued.

For the rest of dinner, the team discussed their last few games against the Vikings, naming certain players, and using several very colorful descriptions of their abilities. It had never occurred to me that a hockey player might skate like a turnstile or a Dollar Store Gretzky, but evidently those were things that were possible.

When the game talk had concluded and all the plates had been cleared, the coach got up and left rather unceremoniously. He probably said goodbye to the players sitting next to him at the table, but he didn’t wish anyone else a good evening. Things were done very differently here in Wilcox than they were inside the palace, that was for sure. I glanced at Declan to see how he handled the lack of etiquette, but he’d been in the states for a long time now, surrounded by athletes, who obviously didn’t put as much stock in the rules of society as those he’d been raised with did.

“So,” John Samuels asked me. “How’s it coming? The whole making the Wombats a household name thing?”

I was about to speak when Declan spoke in my place. “It’s going to be awesome, man!”

I glanced at him and he winked at me, sending a shiver that I did not want down my spine. Knowing that Declan felt something for me, or at least was attracted to me, had only made my job more complicated. Because his attraction, coupled with my own undeniable attraction for him, could be explosive. I didn’t need the prince winking at me, fake dating me, or otherwise complicating my efforts to protect him and convince him to come home. And this somewhat unwarranted faith he seemed to have in my public relations abilities was also unsettling.

“She’s putting together this really amazing movie, you guys,” Declan said.

“A movie?” Mario Solamentes asked, looking suddenly interested.

“Well, it’s just one idea we had. I mean, I had,” I said.

“I think a movie could be really awesome,” said John Samuels. “Won’t you need some kind of like anchoring story?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Declan interrupted. “I was going to ask you guys, do any of you have a blind sister?”

The men around us exchanged confused looks and I narrowed my eyes at the prince, not that he noticed. I turned back to the other men. “I do need some kind of centering story,” I said. “I thought I might try to build something around the sport of hockey being a unifier.”

“What does that even mean?” Solamentes asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said, thinking. “But in my head, it’s something about everyone being from a different background, coming from different parts of the world, even, and finding that you’re all part of a family because of this game you play, this team.”

I looked at Declan to see a strange expression on his face. His eyes slid toward me and narrowed slightly, and for a second I worried if I had gone a little bit too far. But I needed to start building a connection to his real life to give him the ability to tell me who he really was.