Royal Ruse - Emma Lea Page 0,25
flash for my trouble.
“What the hell?” I yelled as I held my arm up over my eyes. “You need to get out of the way and let me through.”
“Tell us how it feels to be engaged to a prince!” Someone else yelled.
“He’s not a prince,” I growled, trying to push through the crowd which seemed to have thickened considerably. “You need to get your facts right. What kind of journalist are you if you can’t even get that detail correct?”
“When’s the wedding, Francesca?” Another voice called.
“Move out of the way! Why would I tell you vultures when my wedding is? And my name’s Frankie,” I yelled as I forced my way to the front door of the bar.
“Frankie! Frankie!”
Thankfully, the door opened, and I was grabbed by the elbow and dragged into the bar. The door closed behind me, shutting out the shouted questions and cries of my name.
“What’s going on?” I asked Sean, one of the security guys and the person who’d saved me from the mob outside.
“I thought you’d know more about it than me,” he said with a shrug. “They showed up about an hour ago asking for you and have been waiting for you ever since.”
“Damn,” I muttered.
I’d turned off all the social media notifications on my phone because Maya’s constant posting about Lucas and me had been getting on my nerves. It had been a week since that first stupid video and now it looked like Lucas’ mother’s efforts to get it noticed by the media had paid off.
“The boss isn’t too happy,” Sean said.
“Yeah, I bet,” I said with a sigh. “Is he in his office?”
Sean gave me a nod, and I headed out the back to put my stuff away. I needed to speak to Chris, my manager, about the idiots out front and I really hoped he didn’t decide to fire me. There had been an uptick in patrons since the first video, but this mass of media would scare the regulars away. Chris liked me, but he didn’t like me so much that he would jeopardize his business for me.
I shoved my coat and bag in my locker and then knocked on Chris’ door.
“Frankie,” he said, looking up from his paperwork.
I stepped into the office and sat down across from him. “I’m really sorry about all that out the front,” I said.
“They’re disrupting business, Frankie,” he said.
“I know. If I’d known this would happen, I’d—”
“You’d what? Turn the guy down?”
“No, but I would have tried to stop his mother from alerting the media.”
“Is he really a prince?”
“No,” I said with a grimace and shook my head.
“But he’s royal?”
I sighed again. “Yeah, sort of. It’s an extended family kind of thing…I think. He’s a markissios.”
Chris raised his eyebrows in question.
“Like a marquess.”
“Nope, doesn’t help,” Chris said with a shake of his head.
“He’s a minor royal, and they have asked him to join the royal court.”
“Some Greek island, right?”
“Not Greek, no, but close to Greece. It’s in the Mediterranean, which is another thing I need to talk to you about. I need some time off.”
“I think that would be good,” Chris said. “At least until this all dies down.”
“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant. I’m going to Kalopsia with Lucas. I’ll be gone a month or so.”
“I can’t hold your job for that long, Frankie.”
I groaned. “Yeah, I figured that.”
“Besides, if you’re marrying this guy then you won’t be working in a bar.”
Yet another complication. How did I explain to my boss I wasn’t really getting married without ruining everything for Lucas? Short answer? I couldn’t.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I replied.
“I have your check,” Chris said sliding it across the desk.
“You’re firing me?”
“No, well, yeah. I can’t have those vultures on my sidewalk stopping people coming into the bar and if you’re moving overseas anyway, it’s probably better for both of us if we call it quits now.”
I didn’t need the money, but that wasn’t the point. I loved my job. I got to talk to everyone and people watch. I found people infinitely fascinating and what better time to observe them than after a couple of drinks when they’d loosened up and relaxed. Dates were my favorite thing to watch. First dates especially. I had a pretty high success rate of guessing whether the drinks would extend to dinner. I’d even gotten to witness a few second and third dates. And then there was the endless fodder of Tinder dates that paraded through the bar. Some of those were hilarious to watch.
“Fine,”