Once Upon a Billionaire(78)

Curious if Griffin was there, she picked up the thick paper and then headed to the counter. The clerk gave her a curious look, but said nothing. He rang her up and Maylee paid with Griffin’s business card that he’d given her a few days before. Then, she headed back out to the sedan.

“Back to the palace,” she announced, tucking the box of condoms into the seat next to her. When the sedan crawled out onto the crowded streets again, she picked up the newspaper and began to flip through it. There were pictures of Alex and Luke in various stages of life, which were charming. After the first ten pages of photos dedicated to Luke and the princess, the paper began to include other members of the royal family. Several pages were dedicated to the queen herself, then her children. There was Alex’s mother, a distant-seeming woman. There was the widowed HRH Sybilla-Louise, looking just as regal and incredibly unpleasant as usual. Next came the grandchildren of the queen, and Maylee paused at a man who seemed a lot like Griffin. George, Duke of Calcaire, the paper read, eldest son of HRH Sybilla-Louise. That must have been Griffin’s older brother. He didn’t look pleasant either, she decided. No wonder Griffin never wanted to spend time with his family. She looked at the pictures of George with his wife, a timid-seeming blonde with a child at her side. One page was entirely devoted to George’s notorious philandering, and Maylee felt sorry for his poor wife, who had to endure public humiliation.

But that’s not the only royal who can’t keep it in his pants, the bottom of the page proclaimed with a big red arrow indicating that the reader should turn the page. Obligingly, Maylee did so, curious.

And stopped, stunned.

There was Griffin.

Griffin, unsmiling and staring ahead at the camera, at his mother’s side in an official palace photo. Another photo of Griffin, blurry and grainy, sitting with her on the park bench and sharing ice-cream cones and kissing. Someone had been following them that day.

But the worst was a picture of Griffin at the ball, standing with a tall, beautiful woman in a low-cut dress. She was leaning in to touch Griffin’s face as Griffin was smiling at her.

He was smiling at her. At this strange, beautiful woman. The caption of the photo read, Viscount Montagne Verdi cozies up with Her Royal Highness Princess Heloise of Saxe-Gallia. Will he finally make an honest woman out of her?

The caption under her picture with Griffin, of that innocent day on the park bench sharing gelatos? Lord Verdi sows some wild oats with one of his American mistresses.

Maylee felt as if she’d been slapped in the face.

One of?

Her gaze flicked back to the picture of Griffin with the princess. Make an honest woman out of her? Her? Trembling, Maylee folded the newspaper and brought it closer so it was easy to read despite the blur of tears in her eyes.

Old friends Lord Verdi and HRH Heloise snuggle at the princess’s wedding ball. Rumor has it that the viscount returned to Bellissime specifically to request her hand in marriage, and sources say that the two have never been closer. The viscount’s family has reportedly been pushing for a match between the two royals, as it would connect the house of Bellissime with the royal house of Saxe-Gallia in a much anticipated union  . The two have been friends since childhood. “It’s only a matter of time,” says a close confidant of the pair. “Mark my words. He’ll marry her when he’s ready to settle down.”

She dropped the newspaper onto the seat, repulsed. She’d been flirting with the man, undressing and showering with him. Sleeping in his bed. Kissing him. Hell, she’d gone out to buy condoms today, and all the while, he was flirting with a royal princess who he intended on marrying? Who was Maylee to him if she wasn’t his girlfriend?

With a sick lurch in her stomach, she remembered her attempt to hold his hand that morning. He’d turned her away. Not right now.

She understood what that meant. Not in public.

Not where others can see us.

Not if he was going to marry a princess.

He didn’t want to be seen with her if she was just a convenient fuck.

Maylee burst into tears.

“Madam?” The driver looked back in the rearview mirror at her. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, sure,” she said, and only cried harder. She felt so stupid. She felt . . . crushed. She’d really thought they had something, that she’d seen who the real Griffin was underneath that starchy exterior, but now she wondered if he’d only changed because he’d wanted someone to fuck before he proposed to a princess.

It hurt so much.

“Here, take this,” the driver said, and Maylee looked up to see him passing her a small box of Kleenex through the glass partition to the back seat.