The Scandalous Princess

NATALIA stood in front of Ben Jackson’s office building on one of the best streets of the business district and took a deep breath. She’d had a fraught morning. The palazzo was still in uproar over Sophia and Ash’s scandalous elopement, and the paparazzi had hounded Natalia all the way to the door of the chauffeured car that would take her into the city. Fortunately the driver, Enrico, had lost them on the winding, cobbled streets of Santina’s capital city and now Natalia was left mercifully alone. But not for long. News of her volunteering would leak out and then she would be hounded again. She could just imagine how the press would handle her sudden charitable streak. Bad Girl Plays at Being Good. No one would take it at face value, or consider it admirable. She knew that. Her mother might be depending on her to bring in some good press, but Natalia doubted she could be the one to do it.

Sophia had always been the darling of the media, and even Carlotta’s sins were quietly forgiven, since she was so obviously repentant. But Natalia? She was the party girl—shallow, selfish, reckless and wild—and the paparazzi had no desire for her to shake off her role. Neither, it seemed, did Ben Jackson. From their conversation two days ago, Natalia suspected he was quite looking forward to seeing her fail. She straightened her shoulders and started towards the office. Today she would begin proving him wrong … and making his life hell in the process.

‘You’re late.’ Natalia had just stepped into the building when Ben appeared in his own office doorway, tapping his gold and silver watch. ‘Ten minutes after nine, Princess.’

‘Please, call me Natalia,’ she said with exaggerated graciousness. ‘Or if you prefer, Your Highness.’

Ben’s lips twitched even as he narrowed his eyes. ‘We’re informal in this office. Everyone will call you Natalia.’

Natalia glanced at the three people working in the front office, two women and a man, all of their mouths agape, their eyes as wide as saucers.

‘And,’ Ben continued, his voice hardening, ‘everyone arrives on time.’

‘Of course,’ Natalia replied smoothly. ‘It’s just that I had some difficulties avoiding the press. They were parked outside the palazzo all morning. And not on my account, I might add.’ She gave him a smilingly pointed look as she took off her light silk trench coat and held it out. The woman behind the receptionist desk hurried to take it and Ben’s face darkened.

‘You can hang up your own coat,’ he snapped, and Natalia inclined her head in regal acknowledgement. She had a feeling that playing the gracious royal would get right up Ben’s nose. And in actuality, she’d held out her coat unthinkingly. She was used to someone snapping to attention any time she needed or wanted something; that was how things had always been done in the palazzo. Clearly it was not going to be like that here.

She registered the narrowing of his eyes and the flare of awareness as he took in her clothes; she’d worn the T-shirt he’d given her but paired it with a pale grey silk pencil skirt and matching cardigan, and finished the outfit with a narrow belt in black patent leather and a pair of very high heels. Everyone else in the office wore jeans, save Ben, who was dressed in another sober suit. The man, Natalia thought idly, wanted to appear strait-laced. Boring, even. But she didn’t think he was, underneath. Not if that flaring in his eyes was anything to go by. A lot of emotion bubbled underneath that coolly arrogant facade.

Ben introduced her to his staff: Francesca, a competent-looking young woman in her twenties; Mariana, a stout matron in her early forties, and Fabio, a shy young man who blushed crimson as he stammered his hello. They were all islanders, all bilingual, and they all, of course, knew exactly who she was. Natalia greeted them graciously, but she saw the mix of awe and speculation in their faces and wondered what they thought of her. What they’d read, and what they believed. Not that she cared. She wouldn’t let herself.

‘Come into my office,’ Ben said, still sounding annoyed, ‘and you can get started.’

‘So lovely to meet you,’ Natalia told the three still standing with their mouths agape, and they stammered their replies. She strolled into Ben’s office and he closed the door firmly behind her.

‘You can drop the princess act,’ he growled, and she turned around, arching her eyebrows.

‘But I am a princess.’

‘You know what I mean. As long as you’re here, Your Highness, you’re just another one of my employees.’

‘Volunteers,’ Natalia corrected sweetly, and Ben’s eyes narrowed to near slits.

‘Very well. Volunteer. And my employees out there are not your royal subjects as long as we’re in this office.’

‘So you object to my being polite?’

‘I object to you acting like you’re gracing us with your presence,’ he snapped.

‘Oh, I see,’ Natalia said, sitting in the chair across from his desk and crossing her legs neatly. ‘You want me to grovel.’

Ben let out an exasperated breath. ‘I just want you to act … normal.’

‘This is normal for me.’

‘Really?’ He looked irritatingly skeptical. ‘Some how, Princess, I don’t think any of this is within the realm of your normal activities.’ He glanced pointedly at her demure outfit, and Natalia knew he was thinking of the rather outrageous outfit she’d worn at the engagement party. It had been a very short dress.

Natalia gave him a cool look. She would not let him rile her, even though her heart had already started thudding hard both with anger and trepidation. She was outside of her realm of normal activities. And her comfort zone. ‘Tell me, Ben,’ she asked in as friendly a tone as she could manage, ‘why do you want me here? To teach me a lesson or to have me actually help?’ His eyebrows snapped together, but he said nothing. ‘Because,’ Natalia continued, leaning forward, ‘if I’d offered to help without you first arranging this ridiculous bet, I doubt you’d be scolding me in front of your staff and calling me “princess” in that sneering voice.’ She saw realisation and something close, perhaps, to regret cross his features, darkening his eyes and tightening his mouth.

‘But you didn’t,’ he finally said, biting off the words.

‘So I’m to be punished?’

‘I’m just treating you like everyone else who works here, Prin—Natalia.’

‘Ah, with respect and courtesy then.’

For a second he looked completely flummoxed, and Natalia felt a savage surge of satisfaction. He may have got the better of her in their last conversation, but she was determined to give as good as she got today. She smiled, her point made, and leaned back in her chair. ‘How long has this office been going?’

He looked surprised by the turn in conversation, but he took it in his stride. ‘About six weeks.’

‘And you’ve been here that whole time?’ How had she not come across him before?

‘No, I flew in for a couple of days, that’s all. But now I’m going to be on site for the running of the first camp, before I return to London.’

‘What a coincidence,’ Natalia murmured, ‘that your sister is now engaged to the country’s future king.’

‘Not that much of a coincidence. I knew Alex was in London. I met with him about this camp, so it’s not too much of a leap of the imagination to think he came across Allegra.’

‘And proposed on the spot?’

‘I met with him months ago,’ Ben explained coolly. ‘They obviously had a few months of dating. And,’ he finished with a dismissive shrug, ‘when you know, you know.’

Obviously he didn’t like anyone casting doubt on any of his family. The man was amazingly sensitive about his unruly clan. ‘You know?’ she repeated. ‘Are you talking about true love?’ She imbued the words with as much skepticism as she felt.

Ben’s face remained expressionless. ‘Obviously you don’t believe in it.’

‘Do you?’

‘We hardly need to discuss my feelings on the matter,’ Ben said crisply. ‘You’re here to work, not gossip.’

She uncrossed her legs and straightened in her chair. ‘Very well.’ The fact that he hadn’t answered intrigued her, even though she knew it shouldn’t. What on earth did it matter what Ben Jackson thought about true love? She certainly didn’t believe in it, not after seeing the enduring frosty civility between her parents, and Carlotta’s heart being trampled on by that no-good ambassador. Not to mention her own foolish attempt at a real romance. She had no time or interest in love, true or otherwise … which was why she’d been so relieved to have her own engagement broken.

Ben rose from his chair, and so did Natalia. ‘Francesca will be in charge of your duties in the office,’ he told her. ‘Next week, when the camp starts, you’ll report directly to me.’ Did he say those words with rather grim relish, or was Natalia just imagining it?

She gave him her most saccharine smile. ‘As you wish.’

‘Music to my ears,’ Ben murmured, and led her back out to the front office.

The first few hours of Natalia’s enforced volunteering went, to her relief, surprisingly smoothly. Francesca gave her a large pile of photocopying to do, and operating the machine was well within Natalia’s abilities, albeit rather tedious. Still the monotony was made bearable by the presence of the others, who kept up a stream of cheerful chatter about books and films and summer plans, to which Natalia contributed, although her intent to cruise the Cyclades on a friend’s private yacht left them all silent, as did her airy admission that she’d seen the film they were discussing at its world premiere in Cannes last year. Natalia didn’t talk so much after that. Ben kept himself closeted in his office, so at least she didn’t have to endure his scowling observation.

By the time lunch rolled around Natalia was starving and exhausted. It annoyed her that one morning tired her out, but she decided that everyone could use a break, and she offered to take her three colleagues out to lunch.

‘We usually just have sandwiches—’ Mariana said, and Natalia waved this aside. After being cooped up in an office the whole morning, they all deserved a treat.

‘But you do get a lunch hour, don’t you?’

‘Yes—’