‘Your Highness, I have the final schedule for the state visit to Italy next September.’ Juliana Monroe whipped out the embossed booklet she’d spent most of the past six months coordinating with the Italian Embassy, the country’s diplomatic corps and the mayors’ offices in Rome, Venice, Milan and Genoa, not to mention the Papal council’s army of assistants in Vatican City. ‘I thought you might want to check it over…’
It was a document she was inordinately proud of as she placed it on the desk in front of her sovereign—His Royal Majesty Marco Matteo Antoine Trentino, the King of Romagna.
‘Sit down, Juliana, that’s not why I needed to see you,’ the King murmured, addressing her by her given name for the first time since she’d come to work at the Palace five years ago.
She’d been a lowly second assistant to the King’s chief of staff Emile Ortega back then, desperate to forge a place for herself in Romagna’s royal court. And she had killed herself ever since—working nights and weekends—so she could become invaluable to Emile and by extension the Crown as the chief of staff’s schedule supervisor and protocol adviser.
She loved working for the King. He had never looked at her as a woman, but always as a professional. A strikingly handsome man in his mid-thirties with thick black hair, a lean muscular build and the stern aristocratic features of his forebears, Marco Trentino was Europe’s most eligible bachelor. And a hard taskmaster.
If she had been any other woman, she would have said the King of Romagna was hot.
But she wasn’t.
She hadn’t realised he even knew her first name. But the break in protocol wasn’t what disturbed her the most when his dispassionate gaze flicked over the uniform she’d adopted ever since coming to the Palace. Severe chignon, neutral make-up, unfussy silk blouse, two-piece trouser suit—tailored to camouflage her fuller than average figure—and sensible flats.
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
She cleared her throat. Although her date of birth was known to the Palace’s HR department, most of the staff thought she was years older than she was because she’d deliberately made herself appear as mature as possible. But she could not lie to her King.
‘Twenty-five,’ she murmured.
The King’s eyebrows lifted. She’d surprised him. But then, to her relief, he murmured, ‘Good.’ What he said next, though, confused her even more. ‘That should make the job I’m going to ask of you easier.’
‘I beg your pardon, Your Highness?’
Was he going to reassign her? When she’d worked so hard on the Italian state visit. She thought she’d done an exceptional job, but what if he had not been impressed?
Before she could let her confidence go into a tailspin, though, he said, ‘I require someone to ride herd on my brother for the next few weeks, maybe a month, while he acts as my stand-in.’
‘What brother?’ she blurted out before her brain could catch up with her shock.
‘Alexi,’ he said, the wry tone snapping her back to reality. ‘The only brother I have.’
‘I beg your pardon. Yes, of course,’ she managed. ‘Crown Prince Alexi.’
She’d never met the Trentino family’s famous—or, rather, infamous—black sheep because he never visited the Kingdom. But she knew all about him. Because he hit the headlines—usually in the most sordid scandal sheets—on a regular basis. The man was a reckless, impulsive, serial womaniser who had quite literally partied his way across Europe and the Americas ever since he was a teenager. He sponged off his family’s extreme wealth and seemed to spend every waking moment fornicating with beautiful women and disrespecting his title, while leaving his brother, the King, to do all the work.
The celebrity press—and most women young enough to have a pulse—adored him because he was wild, wilful, extremely photogenic and had a reputation as a spectacular lover.
Juliana, though, wasn’t most women.
From the few things she knew about him, she despised the man.
‘Basically, I need someone who can prevent him from torpedoing the monarchy’s reputation while I’m away.’
‘Where are you going, Your Majesty?’ Juliana asked, her ribs hurting. A sure sign she was in a stress spiral. Why would the King ask her to ‘ride herd’ on his brother when she had never met the man? And where was he going? There was nothing in the schedule, which was planned years in advance, about a leave of absence.
Something flickered in her sovereign’s eyes that looked oddly like shame—so Juliana was sure she must have misinterpreted.
‘That’s not important,’ he replied, sitting behind his desk. ‘Emile tells me you’ve been trained in protocol and etiquette, as well as being the most dedicated and efficient member of his team. Is this correct?’
Juliana nodded, wanting to feel flattered… But somehow not, because the King still had that assessing look in his eyes.
‘You also dress as if you’re ten years older than you are, and yet you’re younger than the women my brother usually prefers. So, the hope is he won’t hit on you.’
‘I…’ Juliana stumbled to a halt.
‘I would have preferred to recruit a man for this job. Because, to the best of my knowledge, Alexi has yet to sleep with one. Although, given his indiscriminate approach to sex, I could be mistaken,’ he mused. ‘But none of Emile’s male staff have the qualifications I require. Alexi is going to need guidance and a firm hand, and he doesn’t take directions well at the best of times. I require someone who won’t play his games. Do you think you can resist him?’
He was staring at her with an inscrutable expression. And while Juliana didn’t know how to interpret that look—was he angry, frustrated, irritated, or all of the above?—her answer was simple. ‘Of course, Your Majesty.’
Alexi Trentino might be irresistible to most women, but not to her. She had learned not to fall for ‘indiscriminate charm’ the hard way when she was eighteen years old—when her pride and self-respect, not to mention her heart, had been torn to pieces by another man who didn’t know how to live up to his responsibilities.
‘Excellent.’ The King glanced at his watch. ‘He is due to land in two hours. He will be furious when he discovers he has to stand in for me until I return. I’ll be relying on you to make sure he not only does the job, but that there is no scandal. If by some miracle you manage to pull it off, I will pay you a hefty bonus and sanction Emile’s suggestion you take over his department when he retires in October. Something I had previously been reluctant to do, given you don’t have the longevity of the rest of his team.’
A massive bonus and the promotion she had been dreaming of since the moment Emile Ortega, her immediate boss, had told her he was retiring.
Again, her answer was an easy one. ‘I’ll do it. I want very much to prove myself and this is a challenge I am well suited for.’ The King did not need to know she was essentially frigid. That she would not have fallen for his brother’s charms even if he had directed them at her, which she doubted he would, because she was not the type of woman men like him would even notice, let alone consider seducing.
She wasn’t the reckless, impulsive teenager she’d once been and the truth was sex had never been a pleasant experience for her. So Prince Alexi’s legendary ‘skills’ would be completely lost on her.
The King nodded. ‘If he does hit on you, report him to Emile. And I will relieve you of the assignment, no questions asked.’
‘Thank you, Your Majesty,’ Juliana replied. It was good to know the King had her back but she had no intention of passing on this opportunity. And the one scandal she had never heard about Alexi Trentino was that he took advantage of his female employees.
It wasn’t until she’d been dismissed, though, and had a meeting with Emile to discuss her new assignment, she began to realise the enormity of the task ahead. The King had a packed timetable over the coming month, which his brother would have to pick up on short notice.
Two hours later, she dashed across the Palace grounds towards the heliport where the interim monarch was due to touch down in five minutes, so many unanswered questions still swirling in her head.
Why had the King decided to have a man with no experience of royal service—and a well-documented lack of discipline and restraint—take on his responsibilities? They could have trimmed the schedule, but Emile had told her the King had expressly asked them to give his brother only a day’s grace to settle in before being expected to honour every engagement. And where exactly was the King going to be? Why was he leaving so suddenly? And why hadn’t he even given them a date for his return? ‘A few weeks to a month’ was hardly precise.
King Marco was known to be dedicated and extremely hard-working in service to the Romagna Crown. His staff and his subjects respected him for his unassailable work ethic. To the best of her knowledge, he had never taken more than a few days off since taking on his father’s royal duties when King Carlo had a massive stroke ten years ago. Apart from a week, two years ago, when there had been whispers about burnout. The press was liable to go into meltdown when his sudden and open-ended sabbatical had to be announced tomorrow.
Thank goodness it wasn’t her job to handle the press release.
She took a deep breath as she watched the helicopter touchdown against the magnificent backdrop of the White Palace—its baroque turrets and rococo plasterwork making it look like a fairytale prince’s castle. Pride swelled in her chest.
Whatever King Marco’s motives, the Romagna monarchy was a well-oiled machine that would continue to function no matter what. And she was an even more important cog—now His Majesty had presented her with the opportunity of a lifetime.
All you have to do is corral a playboy—and turn him into a prince.
Her heart, though, became lodged under her breastbone as her new charge stalked down the helicopter’s steps and marched towards the welcoming committee.
In jeans and a T-shirt, with a tattoo wrapped around his biceps visible as he hefted a duffel bag on his shoulder, his dark blond hair—long enough to touch his collar—swirling in the up draft from the helicopter’s blades, Crown Prince Alexi looked more like a member of a biker gang than a member of the royal family. His tanned skin gleamed in the midday sunlight, but as he approached her and the other Palace staff in attendance, she noticed his harshly handsome features looked drawn, his expression tight with displeasure.
Directed by one of the ground staff, he stopped right in front of her—and a jolt of adrenaline she didn’t recognise shot through her… Standing at least a foot taller than her own five foot three, he towered over her.
‘Where the hell is my brother?’ he demanded.
She wondered if she had been a tad overconfident. Because the Crown Prince didn’t look angry, he looked incandescent with rage. And all of it was directed at her.
‘His Royal Majesty has already left Romagna, Your Highness. He’s taking a leave of absence from his duties to the Crown and has requested you become his proxy during that time,’ she said, rattling off the greeting she’d composed with Emile.
‘He what? Is this a joke?’ Dragging off his sunglasses, the Prince glared at her with bloodshot eyes. But despite the dark circles and the man’s wan complexion beneath his tan, Juliana couldn’t help noticing the aquamarine colour of his irises, which reminded her of the sea from the Palace’s private beach. The shade was even more intense than his brother’s eyes, which she knew they had both inherited from their mother.
Zara Gillespie had been a beautiful young British starlet who had wed the former King after a whirlwind romance at Cannes when she was only nineteen—something both of them had lived to regret, if the stories about the couple’s tempestuous marriage and acrimonious divorce were true.
Gillespie had died twelve years ago from a drug overdose, at the age of only forty-one, having never regained the promise of her youth.
‘It is not a joke, Your Highness,’ she said.
‘Where did he go? You’ll have to get him back, because there is no way I am staying in this hellhole doing his bidding for God knows how long.’
Hellhole?
Juliana stiffened. Exactly how privileged was this man? That he could refer to the six-hundred-room, seventeenth-century White Palace—the royal residence in Romagna’s capital city of Casona and one of the most elegant, elaborate and revered historical landmarks in the whole of Europe—as a hellhole?
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. The King was clear he was not to be contacted.’
Plus, only a select few even knew where he was. And she was not one of them. But even if she had known, she would not have been inclined to give his brother the information.
‘He did leave a handwritten letter, however.’ She slipped the envelope she’d been given by Emile out of her folder. ‘Which I was instructed to hand to you as soon as you landed.’
Instead of taking the letter, the Prince rubbed his eyes and swore some more.
At least she didn’t have to worry about his legendary charm, she thought, because that seemed to be in very short supply.
She could see why he was such a darling of the gossip mags, though, as he raked his hair back. Even tired and furious, his raw-boned face was striking. The long blade-like nose, the dark stubble covering his jaw and those heavy-lidded eyes, not to mention his tall, muscular physique and the way his chest muscles tensed under his black T-shirt as he glared at her, all made quite a statement.
Thank goodness she was immune. Or mostly.
She swallowed to alleviate the dryness in her throat.
Striking he might be, but he also appeared to be spoilt and indulged and incredibly rude—which was not remotely attractive.
‘And you are?’ he growled, the glare narrowing.
‘My name is Juliana Monroe. I’m the Royal Court Secretary and Emile Ortega’s second-in-command. I’m going to be your handler while you’re here…’
The minute the word ‘handler’ passed her lips she wanted to suck it back in, because his dark brows lowered and the glare became catastrophic.
‘My handler?’ That searing blue gaze raked over her figure from the tips of her sensible shoes to the top of her rigid chignon. Eventually, it landed back on her face. She could feel her cheeks heating. Even though she never blushed. ‘Sweetheart, no one handles me. Especially not women who wear beige trouser suits two sizes too big.’
Juliana sucked in a breath, shocked by the personal—but also surprisingly perceptive—observation. No one had ever noticed she wore her clothes too large to disguise her generous bust, something she had become self-conscious about ever since Casper had told her she was top-heavy.
Blast… And now she was thinking about Casper. How had this awful man dragged the worst mistake of her life out of her subconscious within five minutes of meeting her?
Still reeling from his snarky comment, her caustic reply burst out before she could stop it. ‘My appearance is not your concern. I certainly have not dressed to impress you.’
But when his eyebrows leapt up his forehead and he let out a deep laugh, her non-blush set fire to her cheeks. She slapped her hand over her mouth, horrified by her far-too-familiar response to his goading.
‘Touché…’ he murmured, observing her as a person instead of an object of his fury for the first time.
But the appreciative glow in his eyes only mortified her more.
‘Although shouldn’t that be, “I certainly have not dressed to impress you, Your Highness,”’ he joked, thoroughly amused by her discomfort.
‘Of course, sir… I mean, Your Highness… I apologise. I should not have been so blunt…’ she babbled, desperately attempting to regain her dignity and re-establish the correct protocol.
She averted her gaze, aware of the wicked gleam in his eyes.
What was wrong with her? She never lost her temper, and especially not with anyone who ranked so far above her. She was here in service to the Romagna royal family. That was her job. And however aggravating this man was, he was still a prince of the realm.
‘Hey…’ He tucked a knuckle under her chin, forcing her gaze to meet his. The curious expression only disturbed her more, though, as well as the sensations darting down her neck to flutter in her collarbone from the fleeting touch. ‘Don’t go and ruin it. I was being an asshole. Blaming you for Marco’s fuckery. I deserved the slap-down, Juliana.’
The apology was so disarming, and the way his deep voice caressed the vows of her name so compelling, she found herself momentarily speechless, trapped in that pure blue gaze. Awareness sizzled in the air between them.
She dragged herself back from the brink of a precipice that had suddenly opened up beneath her feet.
So that was what the other staff had been talking about when they had mentioned Alexi Trentino’s legendary charm. She’d considered herself immune. Knowing she wasn’t entirely was deeply unsettling.
She took a steadying breath and refused to freak out.
She was only susceptible if she let herself be. She was a grown woman, not the reckless, thrill-seeking teenager who had once been so susceptible to empty flattery.
Of course, Casper hadn’t been as compelling or striking as this man, but she knew now when she was being manipulated. His Majesty had warned her of his brother’s charm, but she was one woman who would not be dazzled by the mischievous twinkle.
She offered him the letter again.
‘I appreciate the apology, Your Highness,’ she said, indicating that she agreed—he had behaved like an asshole. ‘I also understand this is an inconvenience. But His Majesty would not have asked for your help if he didn’t believe you were capable of fulfilling his request.’ Why Marco Trentino needed his brother to stand in for him, she had no idea, but it was above her paygrade to question her King’s actions. ‘Perhaps this letter will explain his motivations.’
‘Yeah, right.’ He snatched the letter but instead of reading it shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans, the scowl returning. Her pulse accelerated because he was staring at her now as if she were a puzzle he was determined to solve. ‘I doubt it. But I guess I’m stuck here… For the time being, at least.’
His grudging acceptance of the situation didn’t feel like a victory, but she would take it.
‘Your first engagement will be to host the Ambassador’s Ball on Wednesday evening.’ Two days away, which would give her a reprieve too. ‘I have a briefing arranged for tomorrow morning, to go over what will be required at the ball and your commitments for the rest of the week. I can answer any questions then.’ She held out the folder she had prepared. ‘Here is a copy of the schedule for this week and next, if you’d like to check it over.’
He glanced at it but didn’t take it. ‘No, thanks.’
She slipped the folder back under her arm, disconcerted by his refusal. ‘I could email a copy if you prefer,’ she murmured, aware their battle of wills had only just begun.
‘Don’t bother, I won’t read it,’ he replied, making her realise he had conceded nothing.
‘Then perhaps you’d like to get settled in your suite so you can relax, Your Highness.’ Maybe he was tired, he certainly didn’t look as if he’d slept much recently.
‘Relax? Here?’ He shuddered, and she wondered what it was he found so unpleasant about staying in his family’s ancestral home. ‘Unlikely.’ He hefted the duffel bag higher on his shoulder.
‘I can get a member of staff to take your luggage.’ She clicked her fingers to signal one of the footmen.
‘I carry my own bag, Juliana,’ he said sharply, surprising her again. After all, he’d lived in the lap of luxury his whole life and must be used to being waited on. She controlled her reaction at his use of her given name. She would have preferred him not to address her with such familiarity, but if she pointed it out he would know it bothered her. Best not to give him the ammunition.
‘Where have they put me?’ he asked, weariness creeping into his tone.
It’s a hangover, Juls. Don’t you dare start feeling sorry for him.
‘I’ll have Gabriel show you to your quarters, Your Highness,’ she said as the footman arrived at her side.
‘Isn’t that your job?’ the Prince asked.
‘Not precisely,’ she said, even though she had intended to escort him originally.
Had he figured out his presence disturbed her?
Instead of pressing the point, though, he shrugged. Then turned to the footman, who bowed. ‘Let’s get this over with, Gabriel.’
‘Yes, Your Highness,’ the footman replied.
‘Name’s Alexi,’ he murmured.
He turned to follow the lad. But just as Juliana’s shoulders slumped with relief, he glanced back. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Juliana. But I don’t do mornings. And make sure this briefing’s brief, because I’m not a details guy either.’
‘Of course, Your Highness,’ she said. But he was already strolling away.
She sighed with relief, but then her gaze dropped to his backside, entirely of its own accord.
Her eyeline shot back up so fast she became lightheaded. She cursed the weird sensations reaching into her abdomen.
Tugging her phone out, she messaged the necessary parties to get the briefing rescheduled. Once that was done, she would edit the transcript for tomorrow’s meeting, which had to run to about two hours.
She would also have to rearrange any events in his diary scheduled before noon. But she welcomed the extra work—and the chance to prove her worth to him as a scheduling ninja.
Maybe they hadn’t got off on the right foot, but she would endeavour to get into his good graces when she saw him next.
Tomorrow was another day. She would be much better prepared to deal with him after a night’s sleep and having done more research on him. He was just a man, after all, and his antagonistic comments had been expected. She hadn’t dealt with them as well as she should have but she would correct that tomorrow, when she was determined to be at her most efficient. And non-confrontational. There would certainly be no more inappropriate comebacks if he got snarky again. And no more sneak peeks at the man’s impressively tight ass. Ever.
