Reading Online Novel

Royal Chase(3)



She stepped out of her dress and put on the blazer. She crossed her arms and glared at me. “You’d better bring that thing back to me in perfect condition. It’s worth more than your life.”

I nodded as I arranged the dress over my arm. I had the momentary urge to play the “my daddy owns an oil company” card but refrained. I tried to stay calm.

“Bless your heart,” I said. That got out some of my frustration, as people who weren’t from the South never quite understood the true implication of that phrase and took it at face value. “I will take care of everything. I’ll be back right quick. Stay here.”

She wasn’t going anywhere. She let out a loud sound of disgust and sat on the small couch, still glaring at me.

I pushed the bathroom door closed behind me, wondering if I could lock it. There were production assistants and grips and lighting guys all over the place, and I pushed my way through them to get to the production hub. I had to find Taylor. She would know what to do.

As I turned down an empty hallway, I felt him before I saw him. The air around me became charged, and every single one of my nerve endings snapped to attention. I knew he was behind me. Then he put his hand on the small of my back and walked around me when I stopped short. I cursed my wobbly knees. Someday, somehow, I would learn to control my attraction to him. Keep him from physically affecting me. It was beyond ridiculous that I still acted like a debutante at her first ball whenever he was near me.

It didn’t help that he happened to be ridiculously gorgeous. His Italian ancestry was obvious—black hair, olive skin, and light brown eyes that literally sparkled. I’d never seen anything like his eyes before, and they had a sort of mesmerizing effect whenever he looked at me. And he seemed to look at me a lot. He was tall and built and always had a clean, crisp scent from an obviously expensive cologne that I could never quite identify and refused to ask about.

Dante stood too close to me. I resisted the urge to shut my eyes as I ordered my nerve endings to behave.

“There you are, Limone.” His voice was silky and laced with humor and an undeniable charm. He only called me limone, Italian for lemon, when we were alone, which made it unbearably intimate and personal. So whenever he said “Limone,” it weakened all my defenses and gave me the shivers.

And I was pretty sure he knew exactly the effect it had on me.

“No kiss hello for your dear friend?” he teased.

“You wish,” I retorted.

“You’re right, I do wish,” he practically purred, like some giant predatory cat, and my heart thumped painfully in response. Goose bumps broke out on my arms, and I accidentally swayed toward him.

Desperate to retain control, I ran through my list of reasons I could never be with him. That usually helped to calm my racing pulse. He was unserious, lazy, unambitious, flaky, a womanizing flirt, and would, without a doubt, cheat on me if I was ever stupid enough to hook up with him.

Unfortunately, every time I reminded myself why Dante and I could never work out, another annoying voice popped up to point out everything I liked about him. His sense of humor. His intelligence and wit. His loyalty and affection for his family. How he would sacrifice for the people he loved—he was only on this show for Nico’s sake. Then my brain happily skipped to the things we had in common, like how we both loved to ski. How he had always been a good friend to me; how even after the incident at the New Year’s Eve costume ball in Monterra he continued to text me funny and sweet things on a daily basis.

I told the voice to shut up. None of that mattered. Kat had told me once that she wouldn’t research Nico online because she didn’t want someone else’s opinion to change how she saw him.

Not me. After Kat’s accident, as I sat next to her hospital bed, I looked up every single thing I could about the royals. Especially Nico and Dante. I devoured every story, every article, looked at hundreds of pictures. I wanted to be informed. And it was then and there that I knew nothing could ever happen between Dante and me, given his propensity to flit from one supermodel to the next.

I knew what life would be like with him. So many of my mother’s friends looked the other way while their husbands ran around with women half their age. Everyone felt sorry for the wives, but they wouldn’t leave—either because of the money or the children or the public embarrassment. If I was with Dante, my humiliation would be on an international scale. I’d be a worldwide laughingstock. I couldn’t deal.

He’d already proven himself to be a player the night after the accident. I saw him in the hallway flirting with one of Kat’s nurses. I was worried about my best friend staying alive, and he was trying to get some. I was wildly attracted to him, but I was always wildly attracted to men who seemed intent on ruining my life, and did. Every man I had ever dated had cheated on me. As part of my resolution to treat myself better, I decided to keep him at arm’s length.