The Prince's Scandalous Baby by Holly Rayner Read Free Book Online Page B

had angrily thought about him since finding out about his lie to her had been confirmed.
     
    “Do you want me to go around again?” the cab driver asked.
     
    Juliette said yes without thinking, and then wished she hadn’t. More time spent looking at the fountain where the man she hadn’t thought she needed to see wouldn’t be wasn’t going to make it any better.
     
    But then, just as they were completing the second drive-by, Juliette saw him.
     
    He was dressed differently than he had been the day before. He was dressed more like she imagined a modern-day prince usually dressed. And when she managed to pull her eyes from him, to look at the people around him, she could see that he was drawing a great deal of attention. When he was pretending to be someone else, people thought they recognized him from somewhere, but couldn’t place him—just the way Juliette had.
     
    But now, in his impeccably-tailored, bespoke suit, with an expensive watch and perfectly coiffed hair, he was unmistakably the men from the television and newspapers. He was royal, through and through, and the people around him caught onto it immediately. He was carrying a single purple flower; Juliette didn’t know the type.
     
    She sat up in her seat and looked out the back window as the cab drove away. There was no chance of him seeing her now, she thought, though she could tell that he was looking. He was too busy with bystanders coming up to him. For the slightest moment, Juliette thought he might see her, even through the crowd, and the tiny back window of the cab. She thought she might see a smile on his lips…
     
    In her mind, she willed the car to stop, even as she kept her lips firmly shut to keep herself from saying so. To her surprise, the cab stopped anyway.
     
    “Do you want to get out?” he asked, apparently having seen her change in countenance and the scene at the fountain.
     
    Juliette was torn. She wanted to tell him yes, and go and see the Prince. But as she watched him, and the people around him, she saw that his smile was for the people.
     
    He was a prince, and she was an unemployed student from Wisconsin. In a week’s time, she’d be living in her old bedroom and sending off resumes. In a week’s time, he could be doing any number of things, and all of them would likely be more important than anything she was likely to do for the rest of her life.
     
    “No,” she said, settling back into her seat and staring straight ahead at the seat in front of her. “I don’t want to miss my flight.”
     
    ***

At the airport, Juliette checked her bags. Everything seemed so easy, so effortless. Italy’s legendary inefficiency seemed to have taken a day off, just so that her departure would go easily.
     
    Some part of her, deep down, wished it hadn’t. She wished there had been some snafu with her flight, or that there would be a cancellation, or that her passport would be wrong somehow; she wished for any one of the infinite things that could go wrong with an international trip. But, as she sat at her gate, waiting to board, nothing did.
     
    Nothing went wrong as the plane taxied to the runway and took off. Nothing went wrong during her layover in Dublin. Nothing went wrong when she got off the plane in O’Hare and headed to her domestic flight to Milwaukie. And nothing went wrong as she put her passport on the customs desk, in front of a tired, middle-aged, but friendly-looking customs agent.
     
    “And what was the purpose of your trip to Italy?” he asked her.
     
    It had been a long journey, and Juliette was tired. So tired, that she almost teared up. The answer that leapt to her mind wasn’t the answer she wanted it to be. She didn’t want to think that the purpose had been meeting Giancarlo, but that was still the thought that leapt unbidden to her mind.
     
    She cleared her throat.
     
    “I was studying,” she said simply. “I’m a translator.”
     
    The man nodded, stamped her passport, and handed it