Free His Royal Princess: A Billionaire Boys Club Novella by Jessica Clare Page B

mouth. Boy, she didn’t waste any time, did she? It was a bold move, and a ballsy one for the shy princess. He imagined she’d seen the newspaper, and she probably knew he had, too. She was pushing Go on things, then. If he was truly interested in her—mob of photographers hounding them and all—she was giving him an opening. If he wanted to back off, he could decline the formal invitation without too many hurt feelings.
    He folded the invitation shut again and glanced at the waiting man. “Casual or formal?”
    “Palace casual, sir.”
    That probably meant not black tie but still formal. “Please let the princess know I will be there.”
    The man nodded and stepped back into the elevator.
    Luke waited until the man left, and then tucked the envelope into his pocket. He was grinning. Tonight, he’d get to see Alex again. Sly princess.
    He couldn’t wait.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Three Weeks Later
    “It’s a royal media frenzy,” Beckee said into Luke’s ear. He sat in the backseat of the sedan that had been sent for him, and his publicist chatted his ear off, excited. “Ever since Will and Kate’s marriage, people have been nuts over royal families of any kind. The fact that Princess Alex is young and pretty and you’re freaking Luke Houston? The papers are crazy here.” He could hear Beckee shuffling things on her desk. “I’m inundated with requests for you to talk to people—Barbara Walters, Oprah, you name it. Inundated!” She sounded thrilled.
    She
was inundated? She didn’t know the half of it. Luke grimaced as he glanced out the window of the slowly crawling sedan. The media was even worse in Bellissime. It seemed like photographers and reporters from every country in Europe had sent a team to try and get a photograph of him and Alex together. They pestered him at the hotel. They clustered around the doors when he went to the set. They mobbed the car every time Alex sent for him for one of their dates. People had actually started camping out in front of the royal palace gates, trying to get a picture of him (or her). He was beginning to feel like he couldn’t head to the restroom without a posse of bodyguards following him. Privacy was quickly becoming a thing of the past, and Luke had thought he would be used to it after years of climbing the rungs in Hollywood.
    Turned out that dating a royal princess escalated things into an entirely different stratosphere. Hell, they even had helicopters following them around, hoping to get the scoop.
    Was she worth the media frenzy?
    Hell yes she was.
    Alex was an utter joy to be around. He’d never met anyone quite like her. She was fun, playful, intelligent, able to hold a conversation about anything he threw at her, and always managed to surprise him. She was utterly confident in social situations, but shy when it came to him and kissing. Luke was utterly addicted to her. He dreamed about her at night, thought about her when he woke up, and was having a hard time focusing on the movie because he just wanted to spend more time with Alex. She consumed him, and he’d never been like that around other women.
    Beckee continued to babble in his ear, but he wasn’t really listening. He was back to thinking about Alex, his favorite pastime. Tonight she wanted a quiet dinner alone in the palace, because they’d been mobbed at the last restaurant they’d tried to go to (despite disguises). There were royal gardens, as well, and Luke had been daydreaming about sneaking Alex away into them for a bit of late-night heavy petting. They were constantly surrounded by people, so it was hard to get intimate—though not for lack of trying on both their parts. It was like there was an electric connection between them . . . and people kept flipping the switch to Off. Damn frustrating.
    “Do we want to make a comment about the superhero script you’re considering? Get the fans going?”
    “Hmm?” Luke tried to pay attention. “Which superhero script?”
    “There’s more