The Billionaire Prince’s Nanny (European Billionaire Beaus Book 1) Read online

  “What?” This made him furious. “I told you that deviating from the schedule was dangerous, and you insisted that it was fine—”

  “They were fine. Nothing happened to them—it was what happened to me,” Katie said. “A journalist approached me. Papazyan.”

  Papazyan. A notorious gossip-monger who did his best to stir up trouble in Stolvenia.

  “And what? He offered you money? Better pay than I could?”

  “No.” Katie closed her eyes for a brief moment. “He blackmailed me.”

  “Blackmailed you about what?” He had a horrible sinking feeling. What kind of past did she have?

  “He was going to plaster my…work history all over the papers. The story I told you about—the one where I was blamed for making up an affair. It made me rather notorious.” Now she did glance at the floor, then back at him. “That, plus pictures of Papazyan talking to me, which he threatened to publish also, would have been enough to convince you and everyone else that I was nothing more than some kind of yellow journalist hack, taking the job as nanny so I could dig up or invent a new scandal.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me, tell me about the blackmail?”

  “I didn’t know you then—and you didn’t know me. What would your reaction have been?”

  He would have sent her right out of the palace. They both knew it.

  “You—” He shook his head, searching for the words, but there was only pain and embarrassment. “For a little while, I thought I could just be myself with you. Just Armin. But now…”

  “Prince Armin, please—”

  “Now I realize that there’s no way to separate myself from my title. Not really. Not ever. Not if I have to spend my life being vigilant, and that’s clearly what I have to do. I can’t let myself be…open to this kind of—” He struggled for the words. “I can’t let my position become vulnerable.” Not even for you.

  “Armin, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not truly your fault.” He could already feel himself closing off from her, a wall building around his heart. “But of course you’ll have to leave.” He nodded to the bedroom door. “Right away. And you’ve come to that conclusion already.”

  “Yes, I have.” She cleared her throat. “I wish you’d read my letter, but—but what I should really say is that Papazyan told me he has another source in the palace.” Fury flashed across her face. “I don’t know who it is, but I’m not the only person who has been feeding him information. His other source told him about our affair. I tried to deny it, but he didn’t believe me. He plans to publish the story the day after tomorrow. You have the right to know.” Katie reached into her purse and pulled out the private access card that let her in any entrance to the palace along with the girls, putting it gently on a side table nearby.

  Then she looked into his eyes one more time.

  Armin couldn’t speak.

  He watched her disappear into the bedroom, only to emerge a few minutes later with a small suitcase. It was the same one she’d moved in with. Nothing more, nothing less.

  They looked at each other across the room.

  “Goodbye, Armin,” said Katie.

  And then she was gone.

  13

  There was, of course, more packing to do after Katie left with her single suitcase.

  A lot more. There was no way he could walk into the room, seeing that furniture in that arrangement, now that she was gone. It would have to be replaced with something else.

  Armin let the staff handle it.

  He told Natalia to have the room boxed and packed in a clipped tone that he hoped let nothing show, then went to his office and made a series of phone calls during which the conversations seemed to disappear the moment they entered his mind.

  She would be saying goodbye to the girls, he imagined. There was no possible way that Katie would leave them without another word. No matter how angry he was, he knew her better than that—knew that she loved Lily and Seraphine. He half stood from the desk, wondering if he should go and be with them while she told them she was leaving, but decided against it. The three of them were their own kind of unit. They deserved a few moments’ peace before she was gone and life became a little more unsettled again.

  So Armin didn’t interfere. He leafed through a stack of paperwork on his desk, reading the words on the pages once, then twice, retaining none of it. He couldn’t even trust himself to sign on the dotted lines. It would be irresponsible to agree to anything when he didn’t—couldn’t—have all the facts. If he couldn’t concentrate long enough to read them, it would have to wait.

  But for how long? When could he go see his girls, secure in the knowledge that Katie wouldn’t be there? He couldn’t imagine that she would make her goodbyes drawn-out and difficult. She seemed to understand the girls on a level that perhaps he never would. Several times, he went to the door only to turn back to his desk. Armin hated being indecisive like this. On the fifth trip to the door, he went out.

  On the way to the girls’ rooms, he met Natalia in the hallway, talking to a young woman with a taped box in her hands.

  “Prince Armin,” Natalia said when she saw him. “We’re nearly finished. The things will be stored in—”

  “Store them wherever is most convenient. And out of sight.” His stomach curdled at the thought of Katie’s belongings shoved in some out-of-the-way closet or storage room, and then later—what? He doubted she’d take them back.

  He put it out of his mind and went in to see the girls.

  Lily and Seraphine were sitting in the window seat of their bedroom, staring out at the grounds below. They didn’t turn at the sound of the door, though he saw Lily’s shoulders rise and fall in a little sigh.

  Armin’s heart broke all over again.

  He went to the window seat and knelt down, looking out the window with them. There was nothing interesting to see out there.

  What could he possibly say to make this better?

  “Why did she leave us?” Seraphine asked softly.

  A million explanations rose to his lips, some of them lies. The one that came out on top in the scuffle was that Katie had been a nanny, a person hired to care for them, and she had to leave because she had broken the rules. That was the simplest explanation. It was the one his parents would have given him.

  But he was not his parents.

  “Sometimes, we all must make very difficult decisions.” His voice must have sounded different enough to catch their attention, because both of them turned to look at him. “Katie didn’t want to leave you. She loves you both very much. But she…she had some important things to do.” It was Seraphine’s turn to let out a sad sigh.

  “More important than being with us?” Lily asked, and Armin thought he’d give anything for this moment to be over.

  “No, not more important. Only…different.” They were so young. “I know she’ll always be thinking of you, and caring for you, even though she can’t be with us. Just like I am always thinking of you and caring for you, even when I can’t be with you.”

  Seraphine bent her head and rested it sadly on his shoulder.

  After another moment, Lily did the same.

  Armin wrapped his big arms around the both of them, drawing them in close. The scent of their berry shampoo hung in the air in the window seat, filling him with a kind of aching warmth. The girls were so sad, and so hurt, and his own heart tore with every beat. They were all equally devastated. He could feel that as keenly as everything else.

  “Oh—” Lily made a little noise that he felt to the core of his soul. “I miss her.”

  “I do too,” he admitted.

  They sat there for a long time in silence, Armin holding the girls even when his knees dug into the carpet and his back began to ache.

  But that was what fatherhood was, wasn’t it? Doing the hard thing, even when it hurt. Even when it was, frankly, excruciating. Still, Armin didn’t find himself shying away from the challenge. As much as he wanted the girls to be happy, as
much as he wanted them to feel less of this horrible pain, he also found the strength to stay in the moment with them. For a moment, he wished that Katie was there too, to soothe and calm all of them, but no—he could handle it. He would handle it.

  For the first time, he thought he had a chance of doing this right.

  Maybe that’s what they’d do from now on. Somehow, he’d find a way to add full-time parenthood to his duties as a prince. Surely, someone had done it before and figured out how to make it all work.

  Yet even through his dogged determination, he missed her.

  He missed her when he took the girls’ hands and invited them to dinner.

  He missed her even more after he tucked them into bed and retreated back to his rooms, silent and empty without her.

  He would have to do it on his own for the time being, if not forever. But that didn’t mean Armin could pretend that her absence wasn’t an awful rend in his world.

  Katie stared into the laptop’s screen.

  Well, she’d done it.

  She’d written an article about her time with the prince.

  Katie had never been prouder of anything else she’d written in all her life. It was an honest article, but it struck a balance between the privacy Prince Armin treasured and the intimacy of letting the public see him for the man he was and not just the figurehead. She had written him exactly as she’d seen him—complicated, determined, and loyal.

  So loyal.

  Her cell phone rang again, vibrating the pillowcase next to her. She reached for it automatically, in case it was a call from the palace, but of course it wasn’t. Just another unknown number. It turned out that Papazyan wasn’t the only person who kept tabs on the palace. She’d hardly been gone a full day and there had been five calls.

  Make that six, if the call she was dismissing now was another trashy paper or online news outlet hunting for details. That’s what they were really doing, even if they pretended to have jobs on offer. Not that they had been so explicit. The first couple of people had wanted her to come in to discuss “opportunities.” No thank you. No comment. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

  She’d stayed up most of the night writing the article, and now that she’d slept a few hours, she was going over it again. There were a few phrases to be tweaked and refined, but otherwise, she’d done a good job. It was a fair recounting of their time together without the kinds of sordid details Papazyan wanted.

  Honestly, it had never been her plan to write an article, but she’d needed something to do. Her time had been so consumed by Armin and the girls that without that schedule—without constantly going over their needs in her mind, even as she fell asleep—it was a bit like being cut loose from a dock with no sails.

  Plus, there was the fact that this was it.

  The article was all she had going for her—her only little bit of leverage in the situation. She couldn’t stop Papazyan from publishing, but she could take ownership of her own story. Let the world decide what version to believe. But if Katie was going to make anything from all the time she’d spent at the palace, she had to hurry. Beating Papazyan to the punch was her best shot at maintaining some credibility. But there was the matter of finding a place to publish the article. She could register for a blog, like everyone else on the planet, but that wouldn’t get her any coverage unless she promoted it to news outlets herself. That whole idea made her feel gross. Still, there was the chance it could take the wind out of Papazyan’s sails, and that might be worth it.

  Although Katie was beginning to feel like writing anything at all was the wrong choice. Maybe journalism wasn’t her calling after all. Every time newspaper she’d been involved with had just made things worse for herself and the people she cared about. It had started back in the States, and she’d been foolish to think that luck wouldn’t follow her here.

  There was another option.

  Katie could throw in the towel and move on with her life, leaving everything about the palace—and the prince—behind. She could shut down her laptop permanently and go…anywhere else, she supposed. Nobody like Prince Armin would probably hire her as a nanny again, but she could find another family, maybe for room and board. There were plenty of parents who needed help in Europe.

  Had he published yet?

  Papazyan had only made the threat yesterday, but Katie had no doubt he was prepared to back it up. The real question was whether he’d stick to the forty-eight hours he’d promised her, or if he’d break his word. She made another search online to see if her name popped up.

  Nothing yet.

  The waiting was awful.

  She looked up Prince Armin, too…just to see.

  There was something new.

  But it wasn’t about his personal life—it was about the orphanage.

  Katie’s heart sank as she skimmed the article. New difficulties with the project, it said. Questions had arisen about his choice of contractors and the royals’ true motivations in the current climate.

  God. Nothing could go right, could it?

  She fell back against the pillows, angry tears welling in her eyes. The orphanage had nothing to do with ego, or motivations. It was about helping orphans. Armin had worked so hard on the project. She might be out of a job, but it still made her furious to think that people would question his dedication to the orphanage, of all things. He wanted the whole thing to be secret in the first place. He cared about Stolvenia. That was his top priority.

  Katie sat up, clicking through the files on her screen, and went back to the article.

  She selected the text and deleted the whole thing.

  It had been centered around her, and naturally, that was the last thing anyone needed. Her own thoughts about palace life weren’t important.

  And maybe it wouldn’t do any good. If her track record was any indication, the whole thing could blow up in her face. But Katie couldn’t stand by and let the press trample all over the man she had loved.

  The man she still loved, if she was honest about it. Katie couldn’t blame him for her own shortcomings, or the fact that she had allowed Papazyan too much control over her. In fact, she couldn’t blame him for anything at all. She swallowed down a lump in her throat and began again, the cursor blinking against the white expanse of the page.

  First things first—she had to set her feelings aside. It still hurt, having to leave Armin and the girls, and more than she expected. But this project had to go on.

  Katie hesitated, hands over the keyboard. Then she began to type.

  You don’t know me. You’ve probably never heard of me. But it’s time for me to speak. My name is Katie Crestley, and I had the enormous pleasure of being a member of Prince Armin’s household these past months. He’s not the man I expected, and not the man you imagine he is…

  14

  “Sir?”

  Armin looked up from the papers on his desk, which he’d been working through for the last three days.

  Three days without Katie, and the girls were still devastated.

  Armin was too, but he couldn’t let them see him fall apart. He wouldn’t let anyone see him fall apart. So he had forced himself to read and understand all his paperwork and move on with his life. Even if it meant facing the latest conundrum about the orphanage. More whispers, more rumors. They’d called his motivations into question—of course they had. And the press had run with it. Nobody in his household was safe from being questioned. Being more accessible to the people only meant taking on more criticism. Armin didn’t have a problem with criticism, but this half-hearted nitpicking that was only meant to delay the project was driving him to madness.

  Meanwhile, orphans who had been entrusted to the care of the nation went without.

  It was infuriating.

  He’d directed a greater portion of his charity funds to the orphanage, but the needs were much more than he could meet on his own. And now, suddenly, every contractor in the country was second-guessing the deals they’d negotiated.

  He realized h
e’d been lost in thought, leaving Natalia standing in the door holding a printed paper in her hands.

  “Yes. What is it?”

  “An article.” Natalia came into the room and put the paper gently on his desk. “By Ms. Crestley.”

  He ignored the stab to his heart. Of course she’d taken all her insider information and used it to get attention on a national scale. “Another scandal,” he said sharply. “What is there to do? Manufacture a larger scandal so that this one will stop following me around like a ghost?”

  Natalia shook her head. “I don’t think that’s what it is.”

  He glanced down at the paper. “You’ve read it?”

  She cocked her head to the side. “It’s…very touching, honestly. And quite frank.”

  “So she’s printed private information, then?” Armin had never been so torn in his life. He wanted badly to read the words Katie had written, and equally wanted to throw the article into the garbage and move on forever.

  “Not exactly.” A little smile played around Natalia’s lips. “People were talking about it in the bakery this morning. It’s good for you, Prince Armin. And…if you’ll excuse me saying so, I think you should respond publicly.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Is that so?”

  Natalia nodded, a crisp little movement. “I do.” Then she excused herself. “I think you should take a moment to read it.”

  The moment Natalia was gone, Armin snatched the paper from the desk and read it, his eyes flying over the words so quickly he had to go back and read them again.

  It was unbelievable.

  It was raw.

  It was all Katie.

  He lifted the phone from his desk. “Send Valencia in to me immediately.”

  The publicist appeared a few minutes later, a little flustered and out of breath. “Prince Armin.” She fumbled for a notepad and pen. “You wanted to see me.”