The CEO’s cold eyes gleamed with malice. ‘Working alongside Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte as she plans her sister Madeleine’s wedding at the end of the month.’
Lucca threw his head back and laughed so loudly the sound bounced off the walls and came back at him like an echo in a canyon. ‘You’re joking, right? Me? Plan a wedding? I know nothing about wedding planning. Parties? Yes. Weddings? Zilch. Can’t even remember the last time I went to one.’
‘Then this will be a perfect opportunity to learn.’ Christos clicked his pen on and off again as he eyeballed him. On. Off. The annoying sound was in perfect time with that muscle in his jaw. On. Off. ‘You’re reputedly an expert at knowing what women want. Here’s your chance to finally put that expertise to good use.’
Lucca decided to play along. How hard could it be? With the wedding this close, the bulk of the planning would have already been done. He would leave the last-minute work to the people who knew how to do this sort of stuff while he had a bit of time out on one of the beaches on Preitalle.
He was getting a bit tired of the London scene in any case. It used to be so much fun, courting scandal, poking fun at the establishment, doing the most outrageous things he could think of just for the heck of it. Exploiting every situation to his advantage. But there was only so much partying and nightclubbing and sleeping around any man could do. It was exhausting.
Even—dared he say it—boring?
Besides, he wanted more time to concentrate on his art. Not just the ones he was collecting but his own etchings. His passion for drawing had been present from the moment he had been old enough to hold a pencil in his hand. Drawing was his way of retreating into a private world where he could be quiet and centred. It had been his way of anchoring himself during his chaotic childhood. The eye of the family storm could bluster and blow all around him but he could always escape to his inner world of creative peace. He had spent hours sitting cross-legged beneath Graham Laurent’s painting of his mother, desperately trying to capture the features that were fast fading from his memory, yet somehow resolutely captured for all time in the portrait before him. He enjoyed the process of creating those first scratches of a pencil on a tiny canvas to the end result of having a framed miniature painting with his signature in the right-hand corner.
Spending the month of June in the Mediterranean would be just the ticket to indulge that passion instead of his more base ones. It would be easy. He would jump through the hoops and have a whoop of a time doing it.
‘So—’ he rocked back in his chair again ‘—what does the little princess think about having an offsider?’
* * *
‘An offsider?’ Lottie looked at her sister, Madeleine, in wounded affront. ‘Why do you think I need someone to help me? Don’t you think I’m up to the task of planning your wedding? Did Mama suggest it? Papa? One of the palace officials?’
Madeleine held up her hands as if warding off a barrage of enemy fire. ‘Whoa, there! No need to shoot the messenger. It’s part of the deal with conducting the reception at the Chatsfield Hotel. It’s come from the top level of management but I’ve given it my full approval. The CEO is sending a representative of the Chatsfield family to work alongside you in the interest of public relations.’
‘But I’ve already done all the planning.’ Lottie rapped her knuckles on the encyclopedia-thick folder she had brought with her. ‘Every minute detail is set out in there. The last thing I need right now is someone coming in to change everything at the last minute.’
Madeleine lounged back in her seat and elegantly crossed one leg over the other as she inspected her newly painted toenails. ‘I think it will be good for you to have someone to share the workload with.’ She looked up with an I-know-better-than-you look that always grated on Lottie’s nerves like a rasp on a raw wound. ‘Someone young and hip and a little more in touch with the party scene.’
Lottie narrowed her gaze as the back of her neck began to prickle. ‘Who are they sending?’
‘One of the twin brothers.’
She knew her sister thought her a little out of touch with the modern world but did she have to make it so obvious by recruiting someone who did nothing but party? The Chatsfield twins, Lucca and Orsino, were notorious bad boys who were in and out of the press almost weekly with their wild exploits.
Hells bells...please let it not be... ‘Which one?’
‘Lucca.’
Lottie blinked. Twice. Three times. ‘Did you say...?’
Madeleine nodded. ‘Yup.’
Lottie gulped. ‘The one whose photograph has been splashed all over the internet? The one in that hotel room wearing nothing but a studded leather—whatever it’s called?’