Something in the Heir (It's Reigning Men, #1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  What people are saying about Jenny Gardiner's books:

  Something in the Heir

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  First Chapter

  What people are saying about Jenny Gardiner's books:

  "As Sweet as a song and sharp as a beak, Bite Me really soars as a memoir about family—children and husbands, feathers and fur—and our capacity to keep loving though life may occasionally bite."

  —Wade Rouse, bestselling author of At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream

  "A fun, sassy read! A cross between Erma Bombeck and Candace Bushnell, reading Jenny Gardiner is like sinking your teeth into a chocolate cupcake...you just want more."

  —Meg Cabot, NY Times bestselling author of Princess Diaries, Queen of Babble and more, on Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

  "With a strong yet delightfully vulnerable voice, food critic Abbie Jennings embarks on a soulful journey where her love for banana cream pie and disdain for ill-fitting Spanx clash in hilarious and heartbreaking ways. As her body balloons and her personal life crumbles, Abbie must face the pain and secret fears she's held inside for far too long. I cheered for her the entire way."

  —Beth Hoffman, NY Times bestselling author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt on Slim to None

  "Jenny Gardiner has done it again—this fun, fast-paced book is a great summer read."

  —Sarah Pekkanen, NY Times bestselling author of The Opposite of Me, on Slim to None

  Something in the Heir

  By Jenny Gardiner

  Copyright © 2014 by Jenny Gardiner

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  http://jennygardiner.net/

  Chapter One

  Emma Davison had a date with a prince. Well, not really a date, but yes, really a prince. Calling it a date would be a bit of a stretch, considering she would only be within breathing distance of the man by dint of her professional skills. Emma had been hired to photograph His Royal Highness Crown Prince Adrian William Philip Nicholas Winchester-Westleigh, future King of Monaforte, in a series of grip-and-grins with wealthy donors at a Washington, DC charitable event. Which worked out well, considering she’d sworn off dating men, and since a prince was a guy, and guys, well, she was totally over them, it wasn’t like she’d have entertained the idea anyhow. Not that it was even an option.

  Besides, princes were a part of fairy tales, and Emma wasn’t a big subscriber to that sort of fiction. Having already tossed back into the swamp more than her share of warty toads over the years, she knew that at the end of the day, even a prince was just a man. And in her world, men hadn’t exactly panned out. Besides, she’d seen the tabloids: this pretty boy was a player, a new woman on his arm in every city, rumor had it. As far as she was concerned, they could keep him. Prince-schmince. She sure didn’t need another love ’em and leave ’em type in her life. She was here to do a job, and the sooner she did it, the sooner she could go home and take a nice hot bath with a good book and a glass of red wine.

  As she awaited the arrival of His Royal Whatchamacallit, hovering just inside the cordoned-off velvet rope section in the palatial Great Hall of the Library of Congress, Emma mentally ticked off the essentials she needed to keep in mind for the shoot. She’d thoroughly reviewed the protocol handbook with the palace’s press secretary earlier in the week. All forty-six pages of it. She’d been told a curtsey would be a nice gesture, and warned not to shake the man’s hand, which sort of seemed annoying, as if her own wasn’t good enough or something. No doubt royals were snooty, but she was there to earn a paycheck, not to pass judgment on how full of himself the guy was. Which she assumed he was. Not that she was passing judgment or anything.

  Emma had actually practiced how to address the prince for a good while in advance of the event so that she wouldn’t come across like a complete country bumpkin in his presence, repeating in front of the mirror, “Pleased to meet you, sir” till she could say it no more. She was ready. She’d even straightened her shoulder-length chestnut curls for the occasion, thinking straighter hair lent her a bit of gravitas. Yeah, Emma Davison did not care at all about impressing any prince.

  She’d brought along her assistant and best friend Caroline McKenzie, whom she knew wouldn’t screw up—just as long as she didn’t hit on the man herself. Caroline, a green-eyed redhead with a penchant for serial flirtation, was known for her ability to pick up pretty much any guy she wanted. But Emma knew even Caroline had her limits.

  Tonight Emma got to remain on the VIP side of the velvet rope as she set up to shoot the prince alongside all sorts of deep-pocketed D.C. dignitaries, with the President of the United States thrown in for good measure. Normally, it was hard to remain too starstruck in her line of work, shooting famous people as regularly as she did. But a prince and a president? As much as she liked to play it cool, even she had to admit that was none too shabby.

  Caro, standing just behind Emma, squealed in surprise when the prince’s arrival was announced with blasts from those long royal trumpets draped with crimson flags bearing the Monaforte royal crest. It was straight out of a Disney movie when Prince Charming’s arrival was heralded to the guests at the ball. As soon as the trumpets fell silent, a deep blue velvet curtain parted and the prince, followed by his right-hand man, stepped forward to the thunderous applause of the audience.

  Emma was close enough to see that he had mesmerizing bright blue eyes. Dammit, she was a sucker for blue eyes.

  Just then a quartet struck up a tune and the music shattered her momentary reverie. She knew she had all of about two minutes to greet the prince and then get started with the host of images she needed to capture. There were titans of industry, political muckety-mucks and a collection of pandering celebrities already queued up, desperate for their own eight-by-ten glossy with famous royalty that they could mount on their wall like some taxidermied bear head. She had no time for gawking.

  The prince walked slowly down the line, greeting one by one the organizers of the charitable event and members of the Monafortian embassy staff, all standing in the VIP zone near Emma. Everyone seemed to do a perfectly fine job with his or her allotted three seconds of undivided royal attention, making casual chitchat with the prince. Until it came to Emma. Because as soon as the man approached her, she felt as if her tongue had become a sandbag weighted down in her mouth. And while a curtsey wasn’t mandatory, it was what she’d planned on, until that very moment when he
r eyes made contact with his deep, sapphire ones, and she knew for certain she’d face-plant on his expensive royal bespoke Italian shoes if she dared try any tricky maneuvers.

  Without staring too much like a creeper at those amazing eyes, Emma tried to give him a discreet once-over, but it felt awkward, like gawking at a stranger’s tattoo, or trying to read the T-shirt message on the chest of a person walking by. She knew she’d only look a bit stalkerish, and stalker-chic so wasn’t her style. But then she found herself focused on his thick, wavy black hair, which led to a fleeting fantasy that involved burying her fingers in it while he was busily...Oh, stop it! She tamped down that betraying though, dismissing it as some stupid latent celebrity crush, all the while recognizing that her darned body was selling her out and swooning over the guy despite her strong inner protestations.

  So when Prince Adrian bent his head down but raised his gaze and continued to fix it on Emma’s eyes only, reaching both hands out for hers — totally defying royal protocol — she simply stammered, and wished that he’d lean more toward her mouth, darn it! And when he pressed his lips to the top of her hand, she could only gulp as she tried to clear what felt like a giant hairball lodged in her throat.

  “Peas to greet you, slur,” she said, failing miserably to just mouth correctly those five simple words, turning about fifty shades of red in the process. She felt certain she was going to be fired on the spot.

  But instead of calling for his royal bodyguards to toss her out into the cold December night on the grounds of insanity, he clasped her hand in both of his for a moment longer, his eyes continuing to hold hers, and smiled broadly. Emma could feel her heart beating in her throat, and she wondered for a minute if he was only holding onto her hands until someone else could grab them and haul her away. In handcuffs maybe. You’re under arrest for complete and utter lunacy.

  “The pleasure is all mine. And please, call me Adrian,” he said in what seemed barely a whisper, adding with a wink, “Oh, and by the way, I’m most peased to greet you as well.”

  Emma was so glad she wasn’t prone to throwing up because if she were, that would’ve been the unfortunate outcome of her moment in the spotlight with her “date.” Instead she let him cling to her hand a second longer while she trembled just a bit and hoped to God her palms weren’t sweating too badly.

  The spell was broken when Caroline blurted out, and not in her inside voice, “Oh, my God. His accent is orgasmic. And did you get a look at that friend of his?”

  Adrian and Emma’s heads followed her friend’s pointing finger, which led right to the tall, handsome brown-eyed blonde man standing beside the prince.

  “You mean Darcy?” Adrian said, waving his hand dismissively. “He’s hardly anything to write home about!” He laughed as he elbowed his friend in the ribs.

  “Don’t listen to a word he says,” Darcy said. “He’s just jealous that women always choose me over him.”

  Which meant those women must have been certifiably insane, if they didn’t want Adrian to keep for all eternity. Maybe she could stuff him in her camera bag and no one would notice. And then she could have him all to herself. To join her in that bubble bath even. Which was an insane thought, considering she’d just met the man minutes ago. But he was obviously so good at charming the pants off of a girl, how could she not maybe at least ponder having her own pants charmed off, at least for a second or two?

  By the time Emma snapped out of that stupid fantasy, the prince had finished going through the receiving line and was speaking with some member of Congress. That was her cue to get to work, so she raised her camera up to her eye, her other hand turning the zoom on the lens to frame the shot, and started making pictures.

  A short while later, a syrupy-drawled senator approached and glad-handed the prince with a too-firm grip and slap on the back.

  “You gonna tap that one?” he said to Adrian, his booming voice resonating. He nodded in Emma’s direction, rubbing his paunchy belly like he’d had a satisfying meal, as she snapped the two of them in conversation. He might as well have been licking his chops like a starving dog. It wasn’t the first time she’d been exposed to obnoxious good-old-boy comments from an old fogey politician. Such crassness seemed to be elevated to an art form in this town.

  “You mean my photographer?” the prince asked, playing along. “Actually, she’s the woman I’m going to marry.” He gave her a wink, assuming she’d be complicit in his joke.

  Instead Emma blanched, mortified that they were talking about her as if she was some inanimate object, for their amusement.

  “Yeah, in your dreams, buddy,” she said as she continued to snap pictures, handily obscuring her face and thus her emotions. Her royal subject squinted his eyes at her and pouted, as if she’d hurt his feelings, and she immediately regretted her words. It made no sense to be annoyed with the prince; he was simply defusing the obnoxious comment made by the senator. But it was too late. Within a minute he had his arm draped around the sexy trophy wife of a well-known lobbyist, and so Emma did what she always did to hide from the world and resumed snapping pictures.

  ~*~

  “I’m so ready to get out of this place,” Caroline said as they sipped sparkling water while taking a five-minute break. “These old geezers around here with those gold-digging floozies on their arms are giving me hives. Maybe I can kidnap blondie over there and make a run for it. Think his friend would notice?” Once again she pointed toward Darcy, dominating the conversation in a circle of women nearby.

  They’d been warned by the event coordinator that the president would be arriving shortly, so Emma was taking advantage of a momentary break to run to the bathroom and make sure her equipment was ready for the big event.

  When she returned to Caroline’s side, they worked their way back toward the front of the crowd to get in position for the president’s arrival. She noticed how Caroline’s gaze rarely left Darcy.

  “Forget about it,” Emma said. “The place is crawling with Secret Service, at least until the president’s gone. You’d be hauled off for interrogation by Homeland Security, never to be heard from again.”

  Her friend shrugged. “Yeah, though some of those Secret Service guys might be willing...”

  “You do know you’ve got a one-track mind, don’t you?”

  Caro shook her head in dismay at her friend. “At least there’s something going down my track. Ever since that last derailment with Richard what’s-his-name, yours has been a whole lot of nothing.”

  “Please,” Emma said, anger flickering in her hazel eyes. “I do not need to be reminded of that regrettable relationship. The jerk still owes me five hundred dollars I lent him. Not to mention my dignity, which he took off with along with that stripper from his buddy’s bachelor party.”

  “Yikes. Sorry for getting you worked up,” Caroline said, holding her hands up in defeat. “I forgot I swore I’d no longer resurrect your painful break-up stories. At least not while at work. Though you gotta admit, it was sort of funny to watch him on YouTube jamming fifties in her g-string. Just think how romantic it is that one day they’ll be able to show their grandchildren the video of the very moment they met.”

  Emma made a grumbling sound. “At least I figured out where my money went.”

  “And it was money well spent, darlin’, if it meant finding out the truth about that one. Way cheaper than alimony.”

  “Which I’d have had to pay since he couldn’t keep a job for more than six months.” Sometimes Emma wished there was a punching bag nearby, just to get out her aggression toward the loser. Instead she silently reviewed her mantra in her mind: Waste of time, waste of effort. Not gonna be duped again by a dude who lies, cheats and mistreats.

  Their conversation was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of drums and bugles that precede “Hail to the Chief.” Emma snapped one wide shot of an audience’s worth of hands raised in the air, smart phones at the ready for their very own money shot with the president. She was grateful to not be in t
he throng, as one of these times someone was going to be clocked in the head with a dropped phone.

  The president parted the velvet curtains, waved to the crowd, then greeted the prince and his entourage while Emma clicked away on her camera. After a brief, five-minute address, he was whisked away by a coterie of security guards, tout de suite.

  Once the headliner was gone, the crowd began to dissipate quickly. Emma managed to pop off a handful of shots with other guests and the prince, and finally the embassy press secretary thanked Emma for her service and dismissed her.

  She scoured the room in search of Caroline, who’d taken another bathroom break, just to let her know she was off the hook and could leave. She found her friend chatting up a cute bartender.

  Emma tapped her on the shoulder, trying to draw her attention away from tall, dark and hottie, who seemed intent on slinging mixed drinks to impress. He was, weirdly enough, shaking cocktails atop his head like he was dancing the Watusi. Not exactly staid Washington-like behavior at one of these gigs.

  “I’d tell you that you can leave but it looks like you don’t want to have a reason to slip out quite yet,” she said.

  Caroline startled and gasped, as if caught in the act —of what, was anybody’s guess. But not a big deal. Caroline’s working motto was love the one you’re with, so Emma had faith nothing much would come of her current bartender lust. “You scared the crap out of me!”

  “Just wanted you to know you’re technically off-duty in exactly T minus ten seconds,” Emma told her, pointing at the time on her cell phone. “Obviously you can feel free to stick around and latch onto some useless guy, but if I were you, considering the caliber of this crowd, at least I’d aim a little higher.” She smiled, knowing Caroline knew precisely what she meant.

  “Yeah, yeah, but you know I’m no gold digger, girlfriend,” Caroline said. “I’d far rather find me a hot bartender with some good moves—” she said, pointing over to Hot Diggity, “— than some snooty, rich country club-type who wouldn’t abide my less-than-uppity ways.” She lifted the tip of her nose with her pointer finger as she said that, her long, straight red hair falling into her face.