Scandals Of The Famous: The Scandalous Princess
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‘Roosevelt said it better, I suppose, but it’s still true. You’re afraid of feeling weak and out of control and helpless.’
Ben’s hand tightened on the controls. He felt as if she’d just flayed him alive with her words, her perception. ‘I didn’t know you were such a history buff,’ he finally said, and she laughed softly.
‘I’m not the only one who likes to deflect personal questions, I see.’
‘Well, that was really quite personal.’
‘And true.’
‘So why are you scared of the dark?’ he asked, and felt Natalia tense. Amazed at how attuned he was to her moods and her body. He glanced at her, saw the strap of her dress had fallen a little down one golden shoulder. Yes, definitely her body.
‘Does there have to be a reason?’
‘There usually is.’
‘Why are you scared of being scared?’ she shot back, and suddenly Ben burst out laughing.
‘Oh, Princess,’ he said, ‘maybe we should change the subject. Two guarded people asking each other invasive questions is surely a recipe for disaster.’
‘Or at least a few awkward pauses,’ Natalia agreed with a little laugh of her own. ‘Fine. How long have you had your pilot’s license?’
‘I never actually said I had my pilot’s license.’
She widened her eyes in mock horror. ‘You lied to me?’
‘Five years.’
‘Why do you like flying?’
‘This is starting to get personal, Princess.’
‘Really? That’s personal? You are quite the closed book.’
‘So are you.’ He slid her a thoughtful look. ‘A lot more closed than I thought.’ With more secrets and depths than he’d realised. Or even wanted.
She turned away from him and he could see the curve of her cheek, the angle of her jaw. In profile she seemed softer somehow. Vulnerable. He felt that protective tug again and resented it. They should stop this conversation. He didn’t actually want to get close with someone like Natalia.
Did he?
Yet as the darkness of the sky and sea stretched out in front of them, Ben realised he didn’t know what he wanted any more.
Natalia stared out at the darkness dropping like a velvet curtain all around them. Far below she could see a few twinkling lights, perhaps from a pleasure yacht cruising on the Mediterranean. She felt bizarrely unsettled and excited at the same time. Talking to Ben had energised her in a way nothing else had or could. Scared her too. She wasn’t used to telling anybody … well, anything. At least, anything important.
And yet in the space of a few minutes she’d told Ben secrets no one else knew, like her fear of the dark. Why she courted the press. What was it about this man, Natalia wondered, that made her want to spill her secrets? Be known?
‘You didn’t actually tell me where we’re going,’ she said, determined to keep the conversation light. Impersonal. Surely that was what Ben wanted too.
‘Rome.’
‘Very nice. What restaurant?’
‘Il Pagliaccio, on via dei Banchi.’
Natalia nodded. She knew it to be sophisticated, elegant and discreet. She leaned forward to gaze out at the sweep of sea below them, now barely visible in the darkness of night. ‘So you keep a plane on the island? Is that how you get back and forth from London?’
‘Gene rally.’
‘How long are you going to stay on Santina? It must be difficult to be away from work for so long.’
‘I telecommute, but no, it’s not ideal. I’ll stay till the end of the camp, wrap a few things up and then head back to London.’
So a couple of more weeks at most. Natalia felt an icy plunging sensation in her stomach, and realised it was disappointment. How ridiculous. She didn’t even like Ben Jackson … except she couldn’t really say that any more, could she? She was certainly attracted to him. And she was afraid she might feel even more than that. There was something so steady about Ben, so strong and true. She trusted him … perhaps even with her secrets.
She glanced over at him, his gaze steady on the sky, his hands relaxed on the controls. She let her gaze wander over the strong line of his jaw, the powerful curve of his shoulder, the crisp whiteness of his shirt emphasising the tanned column of his throat. He was a beautiful man, she thought with a throb of desire. She wanted to run her fingers along his jaw, loosen that tie and undo the buttons of his shirt, spread her hands along the taut, warm skin of his bare chest… ?.
With a gulp Natalia turned away to stare blindly out the window. How was she going to get through this evening without touching him?
‘Just a few more minutes,’ Ben said, jerking her from her dazed thoughts, and she managed a smile and a stiff nod.
‘Wonderful.’
A chauffeured limousine was waiting for them at the airport. Ben placed a hand low on Natalia’s back as he guided her into the car. She could feel the heat of his fingers through the thin fabric of her dress, felt her body’s basic and instinctive response to that gentle pressure. This was, she thought with a flutter of panic, going to be a very long evening.
A different kind of anxiety assailed her as they entered the elegant interior of Il Pagliaccio. What did these clients of Ben’s know about her? What had they read—and what had they believed? She swallowed drily, suddenly feeling sick. She didn’t want to be the party princess any more. She wanted to be someone else—someone she’d never dared let herself be.
Herself.
Yet did she really even know who that was any more? ‘Natalia?’ Ben touched her shoulder, his eyes shadowed with concern. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She forced herself to give him one of her usual flirty smiles. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Because you’re looking like you’re about to face your own execution,’ Ben said drily. ‘I thought this kind of thing was right up your alley.’
Of course he did. And it was. Hadn’t she made sure it was? Hadn’t she made that choice years ago, when she realised she could be enslaved to the press and their vicious mockery or embrace it? She’d had a choice. She’d made it. Surely it was far too late for regrets. It was far too late to want to be someone else—or want someone to believe you were someone else. Someone real.
‘I’m fine,’ Natalia said firmly, and with a coolly challenging smile she swept past Ben into the dining room. She hadn’t been sure what to expect of Ben’s clients, but they were all charming, urbane men who treated Natalia with both deference and respect. She saw one or two eye her speculatively on occasion, obviously wondering just how much of what they’d read was true. Natalia didn’t give them a chance to find out. She listened when they spoke, laughed when they told jokes and behaved with gracious aplomb throughout the entire evening. She played the princess, and it was exhausting.
Life had always been a performance; she understood and accepted that. Act like you know the answer. Act like you don’t care. Act like you think someone is interesting or attractive or funny. Act. Act. Act.
What happened when she didn’t want to act any more? When the curtain came down, and the mask came off? What happened, Natalia thought even as she smiled and listened and laughed, when she stopped acting?
She didn’t have an answer, and the not knowing exhausted her as much as anything else. Scared her too. As their main courses were cleared, she excused herself from the table and went to find a few minutes’ solitude in the ladies’.
The room was blessedly empty and Natalia powdered her nose and refreshed her lipstick, touching up her hair and makeup with easy expertise. She was adding some mascara to her eyelash when she caught an unguarded glimpse of herself in the mirror from the corner of her eye, and she felt as if she’d just seen a stranger, someone she’d never met. Herself.
Slowly she lowered the mascara wand and stared at her own face. On the surface it was, of course, completely recognisable. She looked good. Pretty, maybe even beautiful. Her eyes glinted and her mouth curved in her trademark, mocking smile. Princess Natalia. The Party Princess. Then she blinked, and her smile disappeared, and she was left with a face she didn’t know. A face with wide, sad eyes and a mouth that trembled with uncertainty. The face of the person she really was … whomever that woman turned out to be.
Did anyone really want to find out? Did she? Did Ben?
Two women, chatting loudly in Italian, came into the room and quickly Natalia capped her mascara, gave them a fleeting smile and hurried out.
In the narrow corridor that led back to the main restaurant a man was leaning against the wall. Natalia assumed he was talking on his mobile, and she murmured her excuse as she brushed past him. He grabbed her elbow.
She stiffened, turned and recognised one of the men from this evening. Brian, the one who had eyed her so speculatively. She felt a twist of disappointment; this evening wasn’t going to be any different. She wasn’t different. She couldn’t be.
‘Your Highness …’
She gave him a freezing stare. ‘Excuse me,’ she said with haughty politeness, ‘but I believe you are holding my elbow.’
He looked both startled and apologetic and to Natalia’s relief he let go, but he didn’t move and she couldn’t get by without squeezing past him. She stared him down as coldly as she could.
‘I just wondered, Your Highness …’ he slurred, clearly more than a little drunk. ‘I heard you like sailing and I have a sweet little yacht you might like to see … if you know what I mean.’
‘Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, Brian,’ Natalia said coolly. She knew he was referring to a ridiculous article about a three-day orgy she’d supposedly indulged in on a yacht last summer. The reality had been far tamer, and frankly rather boring.
‘I just thought …’ he mumbled, starting to blush. Natalia almost took pity on him.
‘Don’t embarrass yourself any further,’ she advised, and started to move past him. Her hip nudged his and yet something else caused a bolt of awareness to electrify her like lightning, rooting her to the spot, freezing her senses. She looked up and saw Ben blocking the entrance to the corridor, his expression completely and dangerously unreadable.
CHAPTER NINE
BEN wasn’t prepared for the blaze of jealousy that fired through him at the sight of Natalia standing so close to his client, their heads bent together, their lips mere inches apart. Clearly they were having a cozy tête-à-tête, he thought savagely. Perhaps they were planning to meet up later for a drink—or more. A lot more. Natalia would give Ben one of her sly smiles and slip away from him, as insubstantial as smoke, as trustworthy as a broken promise. And then she’d leave with Brian. The thoughts raced through his mind, exploded like fireworks, obliterating all rational thought.
Then Natalia looked up and he saw her eyes widen, her body freeze, as tense as a bowstring, and his doubts disappeared in an instant. He was being ridiculous. He knew this woman too well. He knew her. And she wasn’t flirting. Not with Brian anyway.
Yet the realisation that came on the heels of the first was far more alarming, far more frightening. Why the hell was he so jealous? Why did he care what Natalia did—or with whom? And how could he really know someone like Natalia, even if he wanted to?
‘Ben …’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper.
‘Brian,’ Ben said coolly, inclining his head in acknowledgement. He knew what Brian had been doing, loitering by the ladies’ room. He bet Natalia did too.
Brian hurried past with some mumbled apology, and Ben was left alone with Natalia. His heart was pounding, adrenalin racing through him from both the assumptions and unwelcome discoveries he’d made. They stared at each other, unmoving, transfixed, and the moment stretched into something taut and focused, as if they were balanced on a pinpoint, a knife’s edge.
‘I wasn’t—’ she began.
‘I know,’ Ben said, closing the space between them in a few long strides. Then he did what he’d been aching to do for far too long.
He kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet or thoughtful; he didn’t ask permission. He kissed her with all the raw pent-up fury he’d felt and had been feeling for far too long for wanting this woman at all.
And she kissed him back the same way.
This woman gave as good as she got, Ben thought, always. And then he stopped thinking because his mind was on overdrive registering the softness of Natalia’s mouth, the feel of her body pressed against his, his thigh already moving insistently between her legs, the citrusy scent of her perfume and the ragged gasp of her breath that drove him mad.
Their mouths still locked, he half stumbled with her until her back came against the wall, and his hands were already under her skirt, skimming the silky skin of her thighs. He’d never been so driven by need. Talk about being out of control and weak and helpless. This was desire; this was fear.
She arched towards him, her head dropping back, one leg twining around his, pulling him closer, her nails digging into his back. Her breath came in short mewing gasps as he took mastery of her mouth, his tongue delving into and discovering the depths of her softness.
Then a door opened, and he heard a burst of feminine laughter. Disoriented, he lifted his head from Natalia’s and saw two women standing in the doorway of the ladies’ room. He registered their amused expressions and Natalia’s dazed one, but before he could step back or do anything at all she’d already slipped past him and was disappearing down the hallway, her heels clicking on the tile floor, her hands smoothing her rumpled skirt. Then she was gone.
Natalia forced herself not to tremble as she walked down that endless corridor. Her legs felt so wobbly she was amazed she could even stand. She pressed one shaking hand to her mouth. Her lips felt tender, swollen. She’d never been kissed like that before. When she’d met Ben she’d noticed his latent strength, leashed fury. She’d wondered what would happen if he lost control. Well, now she had an inkling and it scared her half to death.
She wasn’t ready for that much passion. That much emotion. That much everything. A man like Ben … he’d demand everything from her. He’d take it too. And then what would be left? She’d thought she wanted to be known; she’d wanted someone to understand her. But now the thought filled her with a panicky fear.
‘Princess Natalia!’ The men chivalrously stood as she came back to the table. Smiling graciously, utterly refusing to think about what had just happened, Natalia sat down and proceeded to play the princess like she never had before.
Two hours later she and Ben were back at the airport. Natalia felt as brittle as a bone, as if she might snap or break at any moment. They hadn’t spoken since they’d left the restaurant, and the very air was taut with unspoken questions. She wanted to say something just to break it, but her mouth was too dry to form a word.
She’d never felt like this before.
‘After you,’ Ben murmured as she slipped out of the limo, and with a huge effort Natalia finally managed to regain some of her insouciant composure.
‘I think that went rather well, don’t you?’
‘A roaring success,’ Ben agreed without expression. Natalia didn’t look at him as she clambered up into the airplane. Good Lord, it was small. It had seemed cozy when they’d flown to Rome; now it felt positively airless. She couldn’t breathe. She stared out the other window as Ben climbed into the cockpit and adjusted the controls.
He didn’t speak again as the little plane took off into the night sky. Soon Rome was nothing but a cluster of tiny pinpricks of light beneath them. Natalia leaned her head back against the seat and let out a shuddering sigh. Ben gave her a sideways glance.
‘Tired?’
‘Exhausted,’ she admitted.
‘So does acting the princess wear you out?’
‘Completely.’ And that kiss—and all it might mean—had drained her too.
‘I would have thought it would revitalise you,’ Ben said, a slight edge to his voice. ‘Don’t extroverts get their energy from socialising?’ He spoke with a trace of mockery that was all too familiar. So it was going to be like that. Fine. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Light. Safe. Not real. Not like that kiss had been.
‘Perhaps I’m not an extrovert,’ she said, her head still resting against the seat, her eyes closed. Ben let out a short little laugh.
‘Not an extrovert, Princess? I find that hard to believe.’
She opened her eyes, turning her head so she could look at him. His shoulders were tense, a muscle bunched in his jaw. ‘You don’t know me,’ she said quietly. ‘Even if you think you do.’ Even if she wanted him to. Even if she was afraid for him to.
Ben was silent as he gazed back out at the night, his hands flexing on the plane’s controls. ‘What are you saying?’ he finally asked. ‘That you don’t enjoy all those parties? All those affairs and scandals? Everything you get up to—it’s just an act?’
That’s exactly what I’m saying. The words were in her heart, on her lips, yet she could not speak them. She’d tried telling him earlier, tried to explain she did it as a way to feel in control. Strong. But she knew now she could not risk making herself so vulnerable, not when it was so obviously not what Ben wanted to hear. He wanted her to be exactly what he thought she was. The shallow, spoilt princess. That was easier for both of them, wasn’t it? Anything else was scary. And this was a man who hated fear, who was scared of being scared. He might not know her, but she understood him all too well.
She turned her head away from him and closed her eyes. ‘An act?’ she repeated with a little laugh. ‘How exhausting it sounds.’ Ben didn’t reply, and neither of them spoke again.
By the time the plane landed on the airfield with a bump Natalia felt more depressed than tense. The hour of silence had left her with far too much time to think. To remember. She could quite distinctly and deliciously remember the feel of Ben’s lips on hers, his hands sliding under her dress, those strong arms pulling her closer. It had all felt so amazing, and not just physically. Emotionally she’d felt something too. She’d felt something stir to life and awaken inside her that was more than just desire or need. Natalia was afraid to think of what it was.
She could not fall in love with this man.
She’d slid him a couple of sideways glances during the course of the journey, but his rather grim gaze remained on the stretch of night sky in front of them. She had no idea what he was thinking. Was he regretting the kiss? Wishing it had never happened? Why had he kissed her? Was it just simple lust or something more?
And was she willing to ask herself the same question? What was this potent mix of excitement and fear, hope and need, that she was feeling? If she ignored it, would it go away? Would life be safe again? Did she want it to be?
Too many questions, and no answers. She felt as if she were teetering on the edge of a precipice. She had no idea what lay waiting for her far below, or on the other side. She had no idea just how far she’d have to jump to land safely. Maybe she didn’t even want to be safe any more.
‘We’re here,’ Ben said, startling Natalia out of the endless looping reel of her thoughts. She straightened, smoothed her skirt.
‘Brilliant,’ she said, and cleared her throat, the sound loud and awkward in the confined space of the cockpit. Ben turned to look at her, and Natalia’s breath froze in her chest.
‘About that kiss …’ he began.
Here it comes, she thought. The apologies or accusations, it didn’t matter which. It was a mistake. Let’s forget it ever happened. Maybe that would be for the best. Safer. She lifted her chin a notch. ‘What about it?’
Ben stared at her for a long, endless moment. It was too dark for Natalia to make out his expression. ‘I can’t stop thinking about it,’ he finally confessed in a ragged whisper, and then he was pulling her towards him, and she was on his lap and his mouth was on hers and that was all they needed to say about that kiss.
This one was even better.
Ben’s hands slid along her body, his thumbs grazing the sides of her breasts before coming to rest on her hips, guiding her even closer so her legs splayed on either side of him, her body pressed intimately to his. It felt so good, Natalia thought hazily, but not good enough. She wanted more. She needed more. She shifted, pressing against him, her fingers fisted in his hair, raked his back in an agony of sensation, anything to get closer.
His hands were hard on her hips as he pressed back, and desperately Natalia thought how they were wearing too many clothes. Too much between them. Ben must have thought so too for impatiently his hands pulled at her dress, her underwear, his fingers finding her, and Natalia lost all train of thought, the sensation was too great, too much.
Until the cockpit was suddenly awash with light and someone tapped on the hatch of the plane. Ben jerked his mouth from hers and in one quick movement pushed her from his lap so she was sprawled most inelegantly, her dress up around her waist, half on her seat, half on the floor.
Natalia blinked, too shocked to even push her dress back down. One of the airport’s security guards was shining a torch into the plane, but he’d immediately grasped what was going on for he backed quickly away.
‘Scusi … scusi …’
Reality returned in a sickening rush. Humiliation too. Carefully Natalia pulled her dress back down.
‘Sorry,’ Ben muttered, and reached for her hand. Natalia ignored it. It wasn’t easy to act sophisticated when she’d just been dumped on the floor, but she tried.
‘That’s not quite how I envisioned this ending,’ she murmured, giving him a tart look even though inside she felt sick with humiliation and hurt.
‘I thought it was the press.’
Ah. Well, that explained it. The last thing Ben wanted was to be caught in flagrante with Princess Natalia. ‘The press, camping out at the airport after midnight?’ she remarked drily. ‘I know you don’t like the paparazzi, Ben, but I think that’s verging on paranoid.’
‘Sorry,’ he said again. He didn’t look at her as he said it. Natalia felt her heart start to splinter.
‘Sorry you thought it was the press, or sorry for dumping me on the floor like so much rubbish? Or,’ Natalia continued, making sure to keep her voice dry, as if this were all so amusing, ‘sorry for kissing me in the first place?’
Ben didn’t answer. His expression had become so irritatingly unreadable. ‘Perhaps you’re sorry for all three?’ she suggested. ‘That would be a nice hat trick.’ Ben remained silent and she finished adjusting her dress, her chin held high, her hands trembling.
‘I’ll drive you home,’ he said after another interminable moment, and Natalia didn’t bother to reply. She didn’t think she could.
Nothing had gone the way he’d expected. Fury and regret pulsed through him as Ben drove Natalia home. She sat next to him, her posture ramrod straight, her chin tilted at an impossibly proud angle. Had he hurt her?
Of course you did, you bastard.
He’d dumped her on the floor. He’d pushed her away from him as if she disgusted him. It had been an instinctive response, one borne of self-protection and even fear. He’d had his moments of weakness exploited all too often. A tear-streaked face at four years old. Sullen and alone at twelve. The agony of his knee injury at sixteen. The paparazzi had captured every moment of emotional vulnerability and anguish he’d ever experienced and plastered them across their papers so the whole world had seen. So his mother had seen, and been heartbroken. Oldest Jackson misses his Daddy. Another Jackson Disappoints. Ben Jackson’s Dreams Shattered.