Almost My Prince Page 5

  Yep, what luck.

  “We’re headed to school, too.” She said it in the same tone she’d used to compare her ponytail with my hair. That we were headed to school might’ve been pointing out the obvious, but not when it’s being announced from a garbage truck.

  The light turned green in front of us and he said, “See you both there.” And he sped ahead.

  Both? And why did he seem to emphasize that word?

  Okay, let’s do the math here.

  There were three of us in this truck. Was he referring to her and Jeanne… or her and me?

  This was like an LSAT exam question.

  Please, let the correct answer to this be the one least likely to get me into trouble.

  “Sass Joins the Working Class, Caught Hitching Ride in Garbage Truck”

  -Gossip Weekly

  “Sass to Work as a Teacher in School One Block from Prince Michael’s Royal Offices”

  -Royal Rumor Report

  I pushed myself to sit up straight again, but my stomach clenched and grinded as if it were the garbage truck with all that trash dumped into it.

  Had the principal seen me? Odds were fifty-fifty.

  “So that’s Mr. Princeton,” I commented to no one in particular. I was processing that minutes ago I’d been ogling this man, only to discover he was my boss.

  I’m pretty sure that going gaga over my boss didn’t qualify as “serious and professional” by Stanvard or anyone else’s standards.

  And, no, now was not the time to analyze whether my garbage truck jaunt was either.

  “Why do you call him Mr. Princeton?” Jeanne asked. “Around here, we just call him Princeton.”

  “She’s American, Mama,” Smart Sally said as if that covered a multitude of sins, including the ones I hadn’t even known I’d committed, yet.

  I wondered if being an American could serve as my excuse for arriving to school late.

  I thought not.

  The garbage truck maneuvered into the school’s circular driveway. My ride was coming to an end, and it was like the last leg of a rollercoaster—the part where, after all the fun, reality was about to hit.

  My nerves tightened, prepared for the bombardment of what I’d face at school. I’d have to check into the office late, and I was sure they’d have to document this in my employment record, not to mention dock my pay. Someone would’ve had to cover homeroom for me—now I’d owe whoever it was a favor.

  And, at some point today, I would have to face my principal.

  Odds soared to one hundred percent that it’d be right now.

  The principal stood facing the driveway entrance and crossed his arms as soon as he saw us approach. His wide, warrior’s stance didn’t suggest he was pleased with our late arrival.

  Dear Lord, Jeanne, could you please park the truck anywhere else other than right beside him?!

  I thought not.

  To my right, I dared to glance at him. I couldn’t see his eyes due to his dark sunglasses. Probably best because, given the frown on his face, I imagined his eyes would bore right through me.

  Whoosh.

  That was the sound of the pressure releasing from the truck’s air brakes …or all the air leaving my lungs.

  My boss opened the door for us and, as a matter of pride, I waved off his assistance getting down. He needed to see me as a capable woman, and, really, I could jump off a truck’s two-foot drop without help. Watch me.

  But that rip in the seat, that gash grabbing hold of my butt during the entire bumpy ride, wouldn’t release immediate hold of my skirt. Once my skirt had escaped, it billowed up around me like a parachute.

  Whoosh.

  I jerked my hands down in front of me in a quasi-Marilyn Monroe moment and landed with a kerplunk.

  My principal furrowed his brows at me and, once again, crossed his arms.

  Did anything about that jump convey what I’d intended?

  I thought not.

  Sally leaped down as graceful as a gazelle, of course, and helped me detach my bike off the truck hooks.

  She whispered, “Do you think you should change your clothes?”

  I looked down at the top of my white shirt and, besides some grass stains and dark brown spotting from the blood on my skirt, I appeared to be in decent shape.

  “I could let you borrow my gym shirt or something,” she said. Then she tapped her finger to her mouth, the same way her mother did. “No, that won’t work. It’d be too tight in the…” Her cheeks blushed pink.

  I understood what she meant. “Don’t worry,” I said. “As my Granny says, I’m no worse for wear.”

  “But—”

  “Go, you need to get to class, Sm—Sally,” I instructed. “I’ll be fine.” It was a statement, but from the way Smart Sally was looking at me, perhaps I couldn’t swear it as a fact.

  Yet I’d arrived finally to my first teaching job—behold, Diamond High and its Tuscan sandstone, titan archways, and warm wood accents.

  I wasn’t in America anymore. And this wasn’t the brick and mortar of Grandpa’s William Lawson High School. Would I succeed so far away from home?

  I touched Grandpa’s red and silver Stanvard Law ring that I wore on a chain around my neck. Yes, I’d crossed an ocean, but I was closer now than ever to following in Grandpa’s footsteps. By December, I’d hear back from Stanvard. I kissed the ruby of his ring for luck.

  Smart Sally and I waved off her mama, and the principal stood close behind us. I didn’t need to look, I could sense him.

  I gripped my bike and twisted at an angle to watch Sally head off to class. After Homeroom, I didn’t have a class for first period because technically it’s what they called my “planning period.” I had a good hour to calm my nerves before I saw any more students, but first I had to deal with my boss.

  He said to Smart Sally, “Run along now and tell Ms. Krusher I said it’s okay you’re late.” He smiled and the whole earth was lit up by a second sun.

  My body drew to him like a sunflower stretches towards the sunlight. I was bone-weary and craved the warmth of that smile.

  We both watched her “run along” with her book-loaded backpack through the school’s double doors. Her blond ponytail bounced along after her. And although he wasn’t nearly old enough to be hers, my principal smiled at her retreating form like a proud papa.

  “Sweet.”

  We’d both said it at the same time.

  I had him wrong—under that steely exterior, he had a soft spot.

  Perhaps he was one of those focus-on-the-positive-only principals who didn’t believe in reprimands, and he’d let the whole incident slide.

  “Ms. Wellborn, let’s talk.”

  I thought not.

  I didn’t bother to ask how he knew my name—if Smart Sally had figured it out from a text, then the least I could do was credit this man, ironically named Princeton, to have been smart enough to have done the same.

  “Do you know who I am?” His rich baritone voice melted into my muscles like a thin pat of butter, just enough to tease and leave me wanting more. Not too much. A man as mouthwatering as him had to be bad for me.

  I nodded. “My boss.”

  In the process, I noticed for the first time that my bike basket was empty—as in completely empty. No satchel. No textbook. No handouts. No nothing.

  No, no, no, no…

  They still must be on the side of the road where I’d crashed!

  A sharp pain slammed its way down my head. Without those materials, I’d be standing in front of the class twiddling my thumbs. My brain scrambled to improvise lesson plans. My first day would set the tone for the whole semester, and if I didn’t appear confident, those kids would walk all over me.

  I should remember that when dealing with my principal, too.

  “Then you understand why we need to talk,” he interrupted my thoughts.

  He was the principal. Couldn’t he figure out that I had 150 kids shuffling in and out of my classroom today, staring in
about… fifty-nine minutes—yikes!

  “Yes, I’m so sorry I was late.” I began a march with my bike across the parking lot towards a rack.

  “We need to talk.” He didn’t move a step to follow me. “Now.”

  If this were a test, I didn’t have time to take it.

  “Can’t,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Can’t?” he repeated.

  Yep, I knew that’d be the wrong answer. Sure, I needed a good eval from him, and I couldn’t afford to tick him off. But every teacher knew—the kids came first.

  “Sorry, I can’t right now,” I said. “But perhaps you could pencil me in for some time at lunch or after school?”

  There. In the midst of my personal crisis, I managed to set forth a calm, professional tone.

  “Pencil you in?” he repeated, not so calm, not so professional. “You’re telling me no.” He enunciated that last word to perfection, almost as if the word “no” had never existed in his vocabulary, and he only now was trying it out for the first time at the age of—what, maybe late twenties?

  I halted and, in a few long strides, he caught up with me.

  Oh, how the expanse of his chest and shoulders blocked even the sun from my view.

  And I still couldn’t see his eyes—those sunglasses were a Berlin Wall between us. I had the impression that no matter what I said, I couldn’t penetrate beyond where he would let me.

  “I’m trying to tell you politely that we need to meet at a more convenient time,” I said. “It’s my first day of class and I have a million things to do”—I thrust my hand on my hip—“and as you know, I’m already late.”

  He crossed his arms and, by the subtle movements of his head, I could tell that behind those sunglasses he was letting his eyes skim over every inch of my body.

  My heart did a flip-flop and tingles ran along my veins, from the tips of my fingers all the way down to my toes.

  He repeated another slow, leisurely assessment, as if he had all the time in the world. “Until I’m satisfied that you’re here for the kids, Ms. Wellborn, and not some selfish reason, then you’re not stepping a foot into one of my classrooms.”

  What?!

  “Well, I didn’t travel halfway around the world to go shopping,” I sassed back. “Why else would I be here?”

  “So you’re not in the market for a husband,” he said. “One with a title.” His words walked a tightrope between a question and a statement.

  Oh, he was good. Grandpa would’ve loved sparring words with him.

  I was left to handle him alone. So perhaps he’d heard some rumors, but at least he’d not seen the pictures or articles about me. Prince Michael had promised me Maravista was a tabloid-free zone.

  This was my clean slate, a chance for my new boss to see me beyond the tabloids. But that wouldn’t happen if I fed into any rumors.

  “No comment.” I’d tossed him crumbs, even though I doubted they would appease him.

  “Ms. Wellborn, I don’t know what your game is, but I won’t have it played out in my school,” he said. “I don’t need you here.”

  I don’t need you here…

  I swallowed the words, but they wouldn’t go down. Did he really mean that?

  “School Insider Confirms Sass Almost Fired on First Day of Work”

  -Gossip Weekly

  “Sass Wears Questionable Outfit for First Day of Class”

  -Royal Rumor Report

  “You don’t need me?” I repeated.

  “No, I don’t.”

  My plans had shattered. I tried to swallow again, but it was as hard as forcing broken glass down my throat.

  After Stanvard’s rejection and the other school letting me go, I had enough experience to guess I’d just been fired.

  Now what? A scheduled pickup for Jeanne to come haul me away in her garbage truck?

  “Before you finagled your way in here,” he said, “I hired a new teacher from MU.”

  MU?

  “As in Maravista University, as in the international party school dubbed Margarita U?” My voice might have squeaked, but I wouldn’t admit to it.

  The university earned that moniker, not only from its infamous partying students, but also because the popular men’s magazine, Margarita Girls, almost exclusively hired MU college girls to fill its naughty pages.

  He wanted some Margarita Girl over me?

  “So you don’t need me?” Dear Lord, help me, but for all the times Mom had used it against me, I had to flaunt it—I just had to. “A Harvard grad?”

  He settled one of his hands under his chin, as if he was assessing something. But what was left to figure out?

  I couldn’t be more humiliated than to lose a teaching position to some ill-prepared girl who had her degree training at a party school.

  And why would Michael have his staff assign me to this school if the spot was already taken?

  Oh, I got it. My boss was a sore loser. I was pushed on him, and now he was pushing me out. He’d probably use some lame excuse about me being late.

  Seriously?! Well, okay, I was late.

  But I’d left my Granny, my home, and traveled for seven hours to Maravista, and he couldn’t give me a courtesy, half-hour grace period? Perhaps because this Margarita Girl offered to share her “lucky charms” with him.

  Ignore what I just said. I’m sure this other girl deserved the job as much as I did, and fact was, she had the job first. Not me.

  Not her fault. Not his fault.

  But she still came from a party school.

  See, there it was again. That muck rooted in the very hub of my heart. Sometimes my heart surged with too much of it, and it overflowed out of my mouth or into my thoughts.

  It was because of my eyes. There was something wrong with these damn emerald eyes of mine. They refused to cry.

  Too proud. Too stubborn. Too much like my father.

  And because the tears couldn’t seep out when they needed to, they built up inside of me until they burst and left behind all the heartache that created them. My heart mopped it up and wrung it out of my mouth.

  The mopping wasn’t done, yet.

  I was having a helluva time with the muck generated by four little words:

  I don’t need you...

  I was as capable of mopping up the havoc in my heart caused by those four words about as well as, let’s see, that rough, gritty snot rag of a paper towel Granny had used to wipe her tears when she found out about my Stanvard Law rejection.

  Safe to say, the hurt was drowning me. And it was all the excuse my mouth needed to run amuck.

  “Have a great day.” My last grasp at professionalism because next I lashed out, “Good luck with your Margarita Girl.” A Brazilian bikini could’ve covered up the sarcasm better than I did.

  I wrangled my bike the opposite direction, towards the exit, and shoved it along.

  Ouch!

  I hit my sore knee against the bike pedal. It stung, but I couldn’t be bothered. I had to get out of here.

  I didn’t like this arrogant man who touted he didn’t need me—well, good luck when the bell rang and he had no teacher for today. That is, until he could get his Margarita Girl back.

  I don’t need you here… because he wanted his Margarita Girl over me. My nerves stung like pure alcohol poured over an open wound.

  Why not me?

  I could hear his steps behind me, and—Dear Lord, help me—my heart pumped harder at his nearness, as if my heart mimicked Smart Sally’s Churchill lesson and now was trying to beat out a message to this man in Morse code to choose me, to need me.

  Traitorous heart.

  Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

  “I picked a man,” he said from the other side of the bike, only an arm’s length away from me.

  “Not a Margarita Girl?” What did it matter? Hadn’t I been technically let go when he said he didn’t need me?

  “Here’s the bottom line,” he offered. “Instead of the man I wanted,” he said, “I got
a woman I didn’t want.”

  I waited a breath to see if there was more to that statement because those words could be interpreted in oh-so-many ways.

  “I’m not here to judge your preferences.” I gave a curt wave and turned to continue on my trek back to the WD, back to Bella’s flat, back to America.

  I had a long way to go, and I hadn’t even left the parking lot. What would happen to me now? My heart hammered its staccato against a lead weight that had sunk down into my stomach.

  Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

  He lightly touched my forearm with his fingertips to stop me. His fingers feathered against my skin as he swept his hand away.

  I could feel the electricity of his touch even after his fingers had left me.

  We both inhaled a surge of air.

  Oh, how I wished I could see his eyes behind those sunglasses.

  “Let me assure you I have nothing against women.” His languid baritone rolled down the curves of my body, but my brain also processed a serrated edge to his tone.

  “But you have something against me?” If my guess was right, then of course he did—about a thousand pictures’ worth in the tabloids.

  He confirmed it by nodding his head.

  “How did you even see those?”

  Michael had placed a media blackout on me that extended all the way to the WD. Although the WD was a bit of a gray area, since technically it was outside of Maravista.

  France and Italy had honored Prince Michael’s blackout by forbidding paparazzi within the WD, but the paparazzi had found a loophole. They didn’t step foot in the WD, but they didn’t need to because their high-zoom camera lenses could still reach me.

  New pictures still surfaced to the outside world of what they could get of me in the WD, but I was untouchable inside Maravista. And never was anything reported about me in the Maravista media, nor even the WD’s. So while I was a media celebrity to the outside world, I was nothing more than a new teacher here to everyone else—except to this man.

  “I have my sources.” He shrugged.

  “I’m more than those pictures,” I said. “Did you even bother to read my resume introductory packet?”