Royal Desire (Maid for the Billionaire Prince Vol 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the entire podium to the front of us. I’m
frankly dazzled by all the lights.
    My hands are numb. Come to think of it, I
can’t feel my legs either. Madame Fournier has made us rehearse
what we’re going to say again and again, but there’s always the
chance of Yvette Dupree throwing us a curveball. She’s a journalist
after all and you can’t curtail the freedom of the press, even in
Moldavia.
    Even if you are royalty.
    Yvette is a stunning blonde. She is not
beautiful if you take her individual features apart. Her nose is
too narrow. Her eyes too close together. Her lips trend to the
voluptuous side. But put together, she is stunning, especially with
her huge mane of hair.
    “Are you ready?” she says in her low, smoky
voice. She is far from deferential, though she is clearly excited.
This is her coup and she knows it. Her career is about to go
stratospheric.
    “Yes,” Alex says.
    He clasps my clammy hand.
    “You’ll be OK,” he whispers.
    It’s like a test I have studied ten times
for. I keep telling myself I’ll be OK, and yet, now that I’m here
and my examination orals have begun, I am tongue-tied and
frozen.
    Oh God God help me.
    The interview begins. Before us, the news
cameras greedily lap up our every word, magnify our every
deficiency . . . every pore on our face. Sweat beads upon my brow
from the studio lights.
    The first few questions are congratulatory
about Alex’s ascension to the throne. Yvette mentions the old
King’s passing and we are suitably somber. Alex talks about his
father in a heartfelt way, dragging up memories of his childhood
with his father. He details the anecdote, as rehearsed, about his
father playing toy trains with him in the royal playroom. I find
myself imagining Alex as a boy and the old King as a far younger
man – sitting together on a humungous toy train as it runs round
and round a track replete with toy stations and toy passengers.
    So we have now established that Alex loved
his father. I hate it that everything is so manipulated for the
media, but we have no choice. And it’s true – Alex did love his
father dearly, even if they didn’t always see eye to eye.
    Alex is magnificent in front of the cameras.
He’s very natural, as if he’s used to being before them all his
life even if this is his first time being officially
interviewed.
    Yvette swivels to me. My insides turn to
jelly.
    “So, Liz. May I call you Liz?”
    “Yes, please.”
    Don’t, don’t throw me a curveball, I
psyche her.
    “So how did you and Alex meet?”
    I take a deep breath. Alex gives an almost
imperceptible nod of encouragement.
    He claimed and took my body against the wall
of a public hotel restroom. The men’s one, to be exact.
    Do not be ashamed, I hear Madame Fournier’s
voice telling me.
    “I was a maid in a hotel in Chicago. Alex
and his father were visiting.” Thank goodness my voice isn’t
shaking . . . yet. I am looking directly into Yvette’s piercing
brown eyes. “I was one of the servers at the state ball thrown that
night by Alex’s father. Alex noticed me.”
    “He noticed you? How?”
    Wait. That isn’t supposed to be in the
script. She’s throwing me a curveball. Yvette’s expression turns
amused. She seems to be saying, Come on now, Liz. Don’t spare my
global audience the juicy details.
    If only she knew.
    I remember what I wore that night – a
harem’s outfit – and I blush. How do I extricate myself from this
now? I’m not good at telling lies. How do I wriggle out of this
without appearing like a harlot? I don’t want the world to know how
intensely sexual our experiences are. I don’t want them to know
about our first ‘date’, and the way he fucked me 30,000 feet above
the ground.
    “I was serving champagne.” I say. I don’t
actually remember what I was serving that night. “I’m kind of a
klutz. I spilled champagne on him.”
    I groan inwardly. She’s going to totally see
through that. It’s the commonest ‘meet cute’ story in