The Scandalous Princess

Ben felt a surge of triumph, as well as a reluctant wave of admiration. The woman had courage. And pride. Too much of it, of course. He shrugged, spreading his hands. ‘Whatever needs doing, really. Office work to begin with—’

‘Office work?’ For a second she looked panicked, which surprised him. Surely office work would be preferable to getting mucky with the children on a football pitch.

‘The camp doesn’t actually launch for another week,’ Ben explained. ‘When the Santina schools have their spring holiday. We’ll start our first three-week camp then. Until it starts, you can help organise things here.’ He gestured to the reception room out front that had been a hive of happy productivity, at least until Princess Natalia had stormed in and stunned them all into silence. ‘You might not be able to type a hundred words a minute,’ he allowed generously, ‘but I assume you can handle a photocopier, do a bit of filing? Read?’ He smiled, expecting her to laugh or smile back even if it was haughtily, but she didn’t. She jerked her startled gaze upwards to his and for a second, no more, she looked terrified. Then her expression closed up completely and she jerked her head in what Ben supposed was a nod.

‘We could make another bet,’ he offered. ‘If you can hack it here for thirty days—’

‘Thirty days—’

‘A month,’ he clarified, and she narrowed her eyes to slits.

‘I can count, Mr—Ben. Thank you very much.’

‘Glad to hear it. Read and count. You’re really quite accomplished.’

She said nothing, but her eyes blazed fury and something even deeper. Darker. Hatred, almost. The emotion in her eyes surprised him; the princess had been giving as good as she got. He felt a stirring of unease at the possibility that he’d actually hurt her.

‘If you manage to stay the required month,’ he said after a moment, keeping his voice mild, ‘required by your father, I should add, then our original bet still stands. I’ll be yours to command for the day.’ Last night that had seemed an almost enticing possibility. Now Ben rather thought that if he was under Princess Natalia’s command she would order him to carve out his own liver with an oyster fork.

She stared at him for a moment, her expression still closed and really rather remote, so he had no idea what she was thinking. It was almost as if she’d physically, or at least emotionally, retreated from him, so even though she still stood in this room, her lithe figure splendidly encased in the pink shift, she was in actuality a million miles away. Ben was surprised to feel a little pang of regret. Despite her aggravating personality, he’d enjoyed their sparring.

‘You don’t think I can do it,’ she said at last.

He could not keep himself from replying, ‘You have given me little cause to believe you can.’

Another flash across her features that he couldn’t quite discern before her expression closed again. ‘You don’t know me.’

‘I’ve read about you—’

‘Do you really believe everything you see in the papers?’ she scoffed, although he still detected a trembling thread of uncertainty underneath her disdain. ‘Your family has been fodder for the tabloids plenty of times. Maybe you’re the pot calling the kettle black now.’

Ben stiffened. He hated the kind of press coverage his family generated, had been trying to rise above it for, it seemed, his entire life. And he particularly hated any personal media exposure, having been dogged by it all too often when he was younger. Even now he could remember the look on his mother’s face when she’d read the papers. She had never been able to resist reading them, seeing and even studying the photos of Bobby Jackson with his latest mistress. Seeing the photo of Ben himself, his tear-streaked face, only four years old. She’d let out a cry of anguish then that still reverberated through Ben thirty years later and made him avoid reporters and their invasive cameras as much as possible. ‘It’s true my family has fed the British press for far too long,’ he told her evenly, ‘but it’s been my experience that even the most outrageous stories hold a grain of truth.’

‘A grain.’

‘Are you saying you’ve been maligned?’

She pressed her lips together. ‘I’m saying I’ll do it,’ she finally said. ‘Clearly I have no choice, and in any case I look forward to winning this ridiculous wager of yours.’ She drew herself up, her eyes glittering, her cheeks high with colour. She really did look magnificent. ‘I look forward,’ she told him, ‘to telling you just what you can do with yourself for an entire day.’

Ben let out a reluctantly admiring laugh. ‘And I look forward to obliging you, I’m sure.’ He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out the T-shirt he’d reserved for her. ‘Here’s your uniform.’ He tossed it to her, and she caught it on reflex, staring down at it in incomprehension.

‘It’s a shirt,’ he explained kindly. ‘You wear it.’

She stared at the logo on front, her brow furrowed. Was she really going to object to wearing a shirt with his name on it? From what he’d already experienced of her, probably.

‘Jackson Enterprises Youth Sports,’ she read slowly. She glanced up at him, gave him a wicked smile. ‘You’ve got your name all over this project, haven’t you?’

‘What should I have called it?’ Ben snapped. He leaned forward, suddenly goaded into proving himself, even though he knew it was ridiculous. ‘These camps mean a great deal to me, Princess, and I’d advise you not to stretch my patience too far. You have no idea what I’m capable of.’

She stared at him, the T-shirt clutched to her chest with one fist. ‘And I’ll say the same to you,’ she said quietly. ‘You have no idea what I’m capable of, Ben Jackson.’

Natalia stood outside Ben Jackson’s office building, blinking in the bright sunlight and willing her heart to stop thudding.

Thirty days.

How could she do it? How could she survive? Ben Jackson’s mocking voice echoed in her head, reverberated through her body.

Read and count. You’re really quite accomplished.

He had no idea. Thirty days in an office would be a month of living hell. She’d had Carlotta’s help to cover herself in school, but now …? How long would it take Ben to figure out her weaknesses? Mock them?

And yet despite the fear that coursed through her like liquid silver, Natalia felt something else just as strong: a blazing streak of determination. She wanted, more than anything, to prove Ben Jackson wrong. Annoying him in the process would be a pleasant bonus.

Her mouth curved into a grim smile as she imagined just how aggravating she could be to Ben. After all, he hadn’t qualified his bet with any sort of progress or achievement on her part. All she had to do was show up and stick it out. And make his life miserable in the process … just as he would undoubtedly make hers.

And then, after thirty days, she would have won. Now she smiled with anticipation as she imagined what she would command him to do. Fetch her slippers? Write an abject public apology in the press? Have him follow her around like a lap-dog? Another tantalising possibility slid through her mind, a sly whisper of just what Ben Jackson could do for her … and to her …

She pictured those broad shoulders and trim hips, those eyes darkened with desire … those long-fingered hands roving over her body with languorous intent. Then she pushed the images away. No, she had no interest in that. Ben Jackson was too autocratic and arrogant to be anything but her boss. Besides, she might flirt and date and have it written up in a tabloid as a torrid affair, but in reality she was very choosy with her relationships. That was one lesson she’d learned all too easily.

The smile died from her lips as she considered what lay between her and winning the wager. Thirty days. Thirty days of working hard—Ben would do his best, she knew, to keep her nose to the grindstone. She sighed, her shoulders slumping before she drew herself up again. She wasn’t afraid of working hard. She just didn’t know if it could produce any meaningful result.

Back at the palazzo Natalia was surprised to find her father closeted with a handful of advisers and her mother in a ferment of anxiety. She asked for Natalia to come to her private rooms upon her return, which she did. Despite her party-going antics, Natalia had yet to disobey a direct order.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked, and Queen Zoe raised perfectly plucked eyebrows.

‘What’s going on? Only that your foolish sister has run off!’

Natalia slid her sunglasses up onto her head. ‘Sophia?’ she guessed, thinking of her father’s words this morning. Her own twin, Carlotta, had already shamed the Santina family by having a child out of wedlock and was trying to live a quiet life in Italy. Natalia didn’t think on top of that she’d just disappear.

‘Yes, Sophia,’ Zoe said with a worried huff. ‘Apparently she would rather ruin her reputation than marry Prince Rodriguez.’

‘Really,’ Natalia said, and didn’t even bother sounding surprised. Wasn’t she the same? She just hadn’t possessed the courage to take it as far as Sophia apparently had done. ‘Where has she gone?’

‘She has stowed away on the airplane of the Maharajah Ashok Achari.’

‘Ash?’ Natalia said incredulously. Ash was one of her brother Alex’s oldest friends, and as such had visited the palazzo several times. Sophia, Natalia suspected, had always had a bit of a crush on him. But to stow away on a plane …! She felt a thrill of admiration as well as envy. She might have made a few scenes, caused a few minor scandals, but she’d never done something really brave.

‘The media is going wild,’ Zoe said in disgust. Both of her parents hated the press, though they recognised the need to appease the people’s desire for press coverage of the royal family. ‘Between this and how they’ve taken to Alex’s intended—’ Her mother stopped abruptly. ‘Really, I cannot conceive what your sister was thinking.’

She’d taken her future into her own hands—in a way Natalia never had.

Zoe sighed. ‘The media is having a field day with Alex’s choice of bride and now Sophia and Ash are having a hasty, patched-up wedding. Your father was quite right in having you volunteer for the Jackson boy. In these precarious times we must do what needs to be done.’

Ah, Natalia thought, royal duty. Of course.

Zoe turned to Natalia, her expression now one of kindly appeal. ‘I know this volunteering might be a bit … difficult for you,’ she said, and Natalia stiffened. Her mother’s sympathy was far worse than her scold. ‘But the positive publicity really is important now.’ She smiled sadly and spread her hands wide. ‘We’re depending on you, Natalia.’

CHAPTER THREE