Chapter Twelve

It's late when we return to the mansion. Luca's already on his one-on-one date with Hannah, and I can't help but be a little relieved that I missed helping her get ready. It's not nice or fair, but I have to acknowledge that it's weird getting another woman ready to go on a date with the guy you just had a date with. Even after someone helped me with my makeup while we were on a date with the same dude.

"I'm going to take a shower," Shelby announces as though anyone cares.

"I'll start dinner." Emily sets her bag down. "Is chicken okay with everyone? I saw some chicken breasts in there."

"I'm sure it's not okay for the chicken," one of the vegan girls pipes up. "Have you thought of the chicken?"

"Well, the chicken's already dead, so I'm thinking he would probably not want to be wasted," Emily shoots back.

I am not hanging around for that showdown. I've got a tray of meatballs I do not want to be forced to defend either physically or morally. I simply want to eat them while I stare out the window and wish I was home, thinking about anything but that man.

"Hey, you're Anika, right?" A short girl with glasses and a headset on stops me before I climb the stairs.

Ah, the new production assistant. The one who took my place. I'm not going to tell her I tried to get her fired earlier. I didn't really, but it would have been helpful. "Yes. And you are…"

She stops, surprise in her expression. "I'm the PA assigned to the house."

I feel for her. I've been her. She should know I'm not going to treat her like a servant who should grovel for scraps. "That is a weird name, but one oddly suited for your job."

She snorts. "Patrick said you were sarcastic. I'm Lily. No one's asked my name. They usually call me PA. Which is funny because Pat's middle name is Arthur, so his initials are PA. He's the one with the oddly suitable name."

I'm surprised she's already so comfortable with her new boss. "You've gotten to know him very quickly. He wasn't that friendly with me."

She shakes her head. "No. I've worked with him many times. This is like our tenth shoot together. I've known him for years. We were interns together."

So that's how they replaced me so quickly. He'd likely been upset he couldn't hire his friend in the first place. "Has he always been so irritable?"

She shrugs. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Or so they tell me. He's always been a wee bit taciturn, but he's a good guy. I think this job is getting to him, though. He's definitely more difficult than he usually is since I would say he's an excellent boss."

"Well, you should understand he doesn't like me."

"I'm not sure he likes anything about being here, though he's on his way up. I was surprised that the director's spending an awful lot of time with him," Lily confesses. "Usually we don't get a lot of face time with a director of that caliber. They have their own assistants. It's probably why he's anxious. He knows if this shoot goes well, he'll get asked to oversee the assistants on Helms's next film. That would be a big jump for Pat."

I don't mention that Helms's already offered me that job. "Well, I wish him all the best. It's good to meet you. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

"Oh, I was told you would say that, and I'm supposed to tell you to spend your time trying to… Well, he thinks you should brush your hair more. Sorry. I guess he can be a dick. I appreciate the offer," she says with a sunny smile. "I needed to let you know that someone from construction brought in another suitcase of yours. I guess one of your friends dropped it off earlier today. The construction chick is working in your room. Something about the electricity. I don't know. She sounded super competent, so I left her. I didn't want you walking in and getting surprised."

So Ivy or Harper had been by, and I wasn't able to see them again. And I hadn't noticed anything wrong with my electricity. Of course I'd been way too busy the night before worrying about my chemistry with a certain royal to explore the room.

It is one more reminder that my life is not currently my own. I get privacy when it's convenient for everyone else.

"Thanks." I start up the stairs as Lily tries to referee the dinner argument.

We have the night off. At least some of us do until Hannah returns from her date, and then we're supposed to do some shots of us talking to her about how the date went. She's specifically asked if Ashley F and I would join her for those scenes. You know the ones where she swoons and we smile like we're not all trying to marry the same dude.

Pure fantasy.

I trudge up the stairs, hopeful that the construction person will finish the job soon because I could use some alone time. It's been a long day, and I still have cameras to smile for. I'm starting to think I'm on a wild-goose chase when it comes to Joseph Helms, but I have to find a way to investigate, and that means not fighting this whole process thing.

But I don't intend to be an entirely good girl since they want us to all hang out together, and I'm going to hide in my room until I have to giggle with Hannah. I hope I have cute PJs. Ivy thinks a lot about comfort. She might only send me the overly large nightgowns that make me look like I'm ready to go to bed in 1897. I stand by them, though. They are warm and comfy.

But I'm all about the camera now.

I walk into my room, and my heart threatens to stop. I didn't realize until this moment how lonely I've been. Oh, I'm surrounded by people. So many people, but not a one of them knows me. The only one who it feels like knows me is Luca, which is probably why I want to be around him so much.

But the woman currently standing on a stepladder working on the chandelier in the center of the ceiling knows me. She's known me since we were six years old.

"Harper." I put down the meatballs, and the world gets kind of watery.

"Hey. You're back." She sets down the small pliers she's been using and hops off the ladder. "Ani, we've been so worried about you. They wouldn't let us in to see you when we brought your clothes and makeup. Ivy even pulled out her cast-iron bitch routine and that man was not moving. Sweetie, are you okay?"

I take this moment to burst into tears. It feels good. It feels freeing to be able to cry and not worry that there's a camera picking up my every emotion and logging it for later drama. Harper's arms close around me, and I feel like I can breathe for the first time in days.

Half an hour later, we're sitting on the bed, all of Ashley F's good work drowned in my crying jag.

"So you went on the group date this morning and now he's on a date with the other women?" Harper isn't a big follower of this kind of reality TV. She prefers watching home reno shows where she nitpicks absolutely everything the hosts do. I've seen her throw popcorn at the screen because the host used the wrong wrench. In her opinion. I won't even go into the laughing fits she has when they start talking budgets.

"No. He's on a one-on-one with Hannah. That means they're alone. I mean as alone as you can be with five cameras on you," I explain. "At the end of the night he's supposed to decide to keep her around or send her packing."

Harper looks horrified. "So she will have to come back here and tell you the date went so badly she's getting the boot? That seems harsh."

It's kind of worse than that. "Oh, no. If he sends her home, someone will come and pick up her stuff, and that will be how we find out she's not coming back. No good-byes. Just the long limo ride to the hotel where they'll sequester her so the press can't figure out the elimination order. I know it sounds weird, but it's a big deal. There are whole sites out there dedicated to spoiling every show."

"So that's why I had to sign that contract and turn over my cell phone," Harper muses. "I didn't read it. I know I should have, but it's not like I'm trying to get a new job. I had to set eyes on you physically, and Ivy hasn't managed to hack Pinnacle's system to give us access to credentials."

That sends a thrill of pure horror through me. Ivy has skills. "She did what?"

Harper shrugs. "She failed. Said they've got a surprisingly good firewall, and Heath said a whole bunch of stuff about how he would visit her all the time in prison and maybe try to sneak a file into one of Lydia's lasagnas. Then Ivy didn't know what kind of file he was talking about, and it got weird. It always gets weird around them. It's the whole mad-in-love thing. So that's why I went to your mom, and she got me this temp job. This place is even more amazing than I remembered. Of course, it's also falling apart. I've already had to work on plumbing and the HVAC unit, which was not installed properly and is going to ruin the crown molding. I'm ninety-nine percent convinced it's original. When are you coming home?"

Mom hadn't mentioned she'd gotten Harper a job, but then we'd all been in a hurry to get out of the park when the filming was over. "What did my mom tell you? She was there for the elimination ceremony. Did she tell you that Luca went back on the agreement the director made and kept me?"

"Oh, she did not put it like that," Harper explains with a grin. "She said you were so beautiful that the king couldn't help himself. He had to keep you. She also said it came down to you and some ho-bag moron who complained about gluten in tortilla chips. Her words, not mine."

My mother takes allergies seriously, but she would think someone with a serious gluten problem would know corn contained none of it. Not that it matters. Janice had so many other problems. "The man didn't take one look at me and fall all over himself. That was me. He's keeping me around because he knows me. I'm like his emotional support contestant."

"I don't know," Harper hedges. "Your mom told us he stares at you like she stares at Tonya's coconut cream pie."

I shake off the visual that hits me. Luca doesn't know my mom. And my mom has no idea what's going on with me. "I think I'm the only person he knows. He's not some crazy player, from what I can tell. He's not doing this because he's trying to find love."

"Then why would he do it? Is he looking to hook up with a bunch of women?"

I shake my head. "Not in any way. He's even instituted a rule that he won't kiss anyone on camera until he picks the one."

"On camera? What about off?" Harper asks.

I can feel myself flush. "That's none of my business. What he does off camera."

Intelligent eyes narrow. Harper has the scent now. Sometimes she's like a predatory cat scenting blood. "You told me he didn't kiss you the other night."

"That is true." Let it go. Let it go. I sing the song in my head like a mantra.

"Ani, has he kissed you since then?"

I'm a terrible liar. I'm really bad at it. Ivy can lie like a champ. She can make up the craziest story, and never once wavered when our parents would get mad that we missed curfew or got caught with a bottle of purloined booze. Harper was a cool customer. She would back Ivy, and we would almost be there. We would be so close to getting away with whatever we'd done. Then whichever parent was interrogating us would find the weak link.

Me.

"He did." She doesn't even wait for me to confirm. She knows because I'm sure I've gone super pink. Like bubble gum. It's the curse of my Nordic skin. "He kissed you. Oh my god. Did he even wait until the elimination ceremony thing? Or did he kiss you immediately after the cameras turned off? How did the other women handle that? They must hate you."

Only the truly heinous ones. I'm not normally hateable. "They don't know."

"He found a private place?" Harper is relentless. "It doesn't seem like there's a lot of privacy. I thought they filmed everything."'

"Well, uhm, you're going to find this interesting from an architectural standpoint." She is going to take this way too seriously. "There are tunnels that connect the hotel across the street to this mansion."

Her jaw drops. "It's from Prohibition. I've seen it in some of the older buildings, but I never imagined it would be here. This place was owned at one point by the George family, and there were absolutely rumors about them running booze during the 20s. And the hotel was a speakeasy."

Excellent. I've got her on historical buildings. I'll take that for a thousand, Alex. If she's telling me about the history of the mansion, she's not probing for more information. "That's fascinating. I bet they'll let you walk in the tunnels if you tell them you need to fix things."

"There is so much to fix. I could take this whole place back to its Gilded Age…" She stops and frowns. "What do the tunnels have… He's at the hotel. That's the same hotel we found him at. He came over here after the filming was done? How did he get from the basement?" She snaps her fingers. "Servant stairs. Where's the hidden door? No, wait. Let me see if I can find it myself."

I'm glad she's having fun. She's up on her feet, running her hands over the walls.

"He wanted to tell me a couple of things and get our stories straight since it's not great that we met before the show. Technically that's against the rules, but the producers decided since we hadn't planned the meeting, it's okay to move forward. Lucky me."

"It's here." She knocks on the wall and nods. "Hollow. Where's the mechanism? Ah, there it is." She pushes lightly, and the door swings open. Harper turns my way, her eyes wide. "Anika, are you telling me an actual king showed up in your room last night via secret passageway and he kissed you? Like how was this not the lead story? You're crazy about this guy. Did he turn out to be a douchebag? Ivy thinks he's got big douche vibes, but Heath thinks he's cool. Lydia is already looking into him. We had a meeting and everything."

The last thing Luca needed was to have Lydia get interested in him. "I don't think Luca's going to be filling out any of her shockingly invasive forms."

Lydia says she's found a couple of matches she would like to explore with me, but I'm unsure. What if there isn't a man out there for me? Isn't that the real fear? That there's no one out there. No soul mate. No magical one. Just a life spent wishing for someone to share time with, to build something with.

Harper studies the doorframe. "I wouldn't count her out. Lydia can be persuasive. And Ivy says she's working on a way to get on set. She's real pissed I found a way but wouldn't smuggle in a laptop so she could Facetime us. Where the hell would I shove a laptop? Also, it's a good way to get my ass fired, and it looks like you're here for a while."

"Don't you have a job?" It's not a question I need the answer to. Harper inherited her father's construction company when he passed. She's been working crazy hours for years.

"I already stopped by. We have three jobs going here in Manhattan, and all three are running perfectly," she assures me. "I check in with my foreperson every day. Don't worry about that. So Luca sneaks all the way over here to kiss you?"

"No, he snuck over to talk to me."

"How did he know you would be in this room?" Harper can be an extremely logical person. I know what she's doing. She's looking at the situation from every angle. "Also, how did you manage to snag a room of your own? From what I can tell, they're not using any of the rooms on the third or fourth floor. They've got you all crammed in on two. It looks like this one is set up for three of you."

"Forcing us to live together makes for better drama. I'm surprised they haven't moved someone in here. Luca figured out where they would put me and then eliminated my would-be roommates at the first elimi…" If I'm staying, I need to get on board with production protocols. "…king's choice ceremony."

Harper's nose wrinkles. "That's terrible. But so interesting. He knew about the tunnels, knew he could get here, and he made sure you were alone."

"Like I said, it doesn't look good if everyone thinks the show is rigged. I haven't told anyone but Joe and Christy that we know each other. That's the director and his assistant. The producers know, but they said it's fine and I'm supposed to keep my mouth shut about it." I'm supposed to do that about a lot of things, but it occurs to me that Harper might be helpful. Since I've been displaced from the PA pool, I can't trust that Joe's going to treat me the same way. So far he's been very much a gentleman around me. Even today, he didn't berate me for my clothes, nor did he give me the whole "you could be so pretty if you would only show some skin and smile more" vibe. But that might be different with someone he would consider far below him on the power ranking. Like someone in construction. Harper's a gorgeous woman and my opposite when it comes to looks. I'm short and curvy. She's tall and athletic. I'm blonde. She's got raven dark hair. She might be his type. "So you're going to hang out for a while?"

She sits back. "Yeah. I convinced the head of construction that I'm an actual expert on restoring buildings of this time period. He's worried because of the deal they have with the owner. They're not allowed to screw anything up or they'll have some heavy penalties, and his expert is only around part time. I'll fill in where they need me, so I'll be here in the mansion most of the time."

"If you get a chance, watch the director for me. If you hear any rumors about him, I'd like to know."

Harper snaps her fingers. "This is why you took this dumbass job."

"I can't…" I begin.

She holds up a hand. "Talk about it. NDA. All right. I'll help out. If there's dirt to be dug, I shall dig it. But we need to talk about Luca because he's not acting like a man who's not interested. Was the kiss bad? Did you find out you don't have chemistry?"

Why am I holding back on her? Probably because I'm having to talk about Luca all the time, but no matter how much I like some of these women, I won't admit to them about how I really feel. "We have insane chemistry."

"Yeah, I kind of got that from the other night. I think it's sweet that he knew what he was going into and so he didn't kiss you then. Now you're in it with him and he's all over you. Have you thought about the fact that this could be a good thing?"

Only every minute of the day. "It doesn't feel good. It feels like the worst mistake I can make, and I'll be making it with everyone watching."

"Who cares?" Harper asks.

"Uhm, everyone watching."

She sighs and looks slightly disappointed in me. "Who cares about them? Ani, what the rest of the world thinks isn't important."

"But it is." I know I shouldn't talk about this, but it's not like Harper is going to be calling up Spoiler Steve to tell him Luca's secrets. "He's a king. He's trying to get attention for his country. They need to bring tourist money back. That's why he's doing this."

"And he's a horrible multitasker? He can't fall in love along the way?"

"He doesn't believe in love."

Harper groans. "That's something dumbass guys say until the minute they actually fall in love. I would bet his parents had a marriage of convenience, and they didn't teach him how a functional couple works. So he's afraid of being a part of a real couple."

"I think he would make a deal with me in a heartbeat if I would say yes," I admit. "He would love to know exactly who he's going to pick so he can start planning the wedding, which probably won't happen."

"Did he say that?" Harper asks.

"He doesn't have to. I know how these things work."

"You know how these things work for other people." She gestures my way. "You're Ani. You're a sparkly sweet unicorn who sometimes uses her horn to skewer the bad guys. You're special, and I think he sees that. All I'm saying is if you like this guy, why not take the opportunity to find out if it can work."

She's forgotten a few important points. One in particular. "Because he's a freaking king."

"He didn't seem like one the other night," Harper muses. "He seemed cool. I think the whole king thing is a distraction for you."

I would think a kingdom would distract anyone. "I can't be a queen."

Harper shrugs like it's not a big deal. "Of course you can. You would look good with a tiara, and you have to admit you love some bling. And honestly, you're way bossier than you think you are. You might follow Ivy and I sometimes, but when you put your foot down, it's down. Remember when Ivy wanted to give that eggs benedict street vendor a shot?"

Just because I won't allow my best friends to get food poisoning isn't a reason to put on a crown. "You can't be serious. I'm a girl from Hell's Kitchen. I'm not going to rule over a country."

"I don't see why not," Harper counters. "I doubt there will be a whole lot of ruling going on. I suspect you can wave with the best of them. And you might be exactly what that country needs."

"Or I could be a disaster." This is silly. I'm not here to fall in love with a guy who is so far out of my league, he has medals dedicated to reminding me of his place in the world. I know. I heard Tiara Kate talking about them.

"You're never a disaster. Well, maybe that once." She grins my way. "When we accidently went to the wrong club, and it was an underground fight club."

I have to laugh. We'd thought it was a dance club, and it was. Only not the way we'd thought. It was one massive mosh pit. "I was very good. No one suspected I would be so mean as to knee that guy in the groin. They always underestimate me. If he didn't want to get hurt, he shouldn't have been in the mosh pit."

"Yep, they always underestimate you." She drops her head to my shoulder. "Don't underestimate yourself. Now, are those your mom's meatballs? Also, what's up with the bear?"

I glance over, and there's a pink teddy bear sitting on the dresser. It's a sweet-looking thing with a red ribbon around its throat. It looks soft and cuddly. "Must be set décor. Which means they probably want to shoot here at some point. Ugh. This is the only place where I can be alone."

"Then I should fix that chandelier." She's on her feet again.

At least one of us is happy with her work.