Royal Hearts (Love At The Lake #2)

Chapter 10

Ten

WINTER

T he morning progresses exactly as expected after that with cameras in my face, up my armpits, and way too close to my junk. The cameraman is doing his due diligence and getting all the skin shots they could ever want. At this point, America is going to know how many moles I have.

“More walking,” Marco shouts. “Robbie, get him at an angle, too.”

My mohawked shadow nods.

I’ve been walking up and down this beach for an hour. Any originally curious onlookers have long forgotten the cameras and ignore us. Robbie, the handsome man with the blue-tipped mohawk, is my personal tail. A few other cameras seem to be focusing on everything else around us, even the crew.

“Are we done yet?” I can’t help but whine as I rub my chest, baby soft now after the oil treatment, and still a little sensitive after Cat’s smack. I do a few knee-high jumps to try and warm up. “I’m a fucking icicle.”

“I am starting to pick up goosebumps,” Robbie says as if it’s a dire situation.

“Cat, warm him up!” Marco shouts. “We need a few taglines from him, then we can move inside and get ready for the formal interview.”

She runs at me with a sleeping bag flowing behind her like a massive kite she’s trying to launch, throws it around my shoulders, and pushes up on her tiptoes to rub at me vigorously.

“Cat got your tongue?” I ask when she says nothing about having to be my personal warmer.

“I hate it when people ask me that.”

I huff. “Enjoying being my assistant that much, huh? You’re in a lovely mood, Bloom.” Ever since what happened in the trees, her face has been hard as stone when I look her way.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve this hellish situation, but no, I don’t have to like it. Right now, I have to get rid of your goosebumps.”

She’s still working me over with the sleeping bag like a mom drying their kids on the beach while the crew mills around and waits for my ass to dethaw. If I’d had a comforting mom, if I’d had anything like the picturesque childhood portrayed in the American reruns I watched with Annie growing up, this would be a charming moment.

My mouth forms a hard line. “You know exactly what you did.”

She ignores me and says, “Why are you an ice block right now? It’s not that cold out.”

If she really wanted to warm me up, I know what would do it. The words are on the tip of my tongue: another oil session like we had in the trees. I hate to admit that I felt fire in my chest when her hands were on me. Normally, I’d joke about it. I’d ask her to dinner. I’d certainly acknowledge the fact we both felt something .

But I can’t, not with Cat. For so many reasons, but most importantly, because this whole charade is about getting even, not getting turned on.

My emotions jumble as I will myself not to react now to her touch. With her close like this, her arms around my shoulders, I can admire the cupid’s bow in her top lip. It’s so pronounced. Thoroughly lick-able—when she’s not grimacing. And she’s not grimacing now, she’s panting a little from the workout of rubbing me down as if her life depended on it. Her bossy mouth is popped open as she continues to breathe hard, and I want to trace that divot in her lip with my finger.

“Can you sit? You’re too tall,” she grouches.

I grin down at her. She’s attractive when she’s grumpy. I can despise her while still admitting that.

We move to a spot on the beach with a few chairs assembled in a circle as a makeshift break room, strewn with equipment and a green cooler full of water bottles. I plop on a folding chair and debate this miserable turn my life has taken. Just when I thought I was a run-of-the-mill, needy only child and reluctant prince, now it appears I’m a masochist who’s attracted to my enemy, too.

A black knit beanie flashes in front of my face, pulled from her back pocket, I think, before she shoves it on my head and moves between my legs to continue rubbing at the blanket like I’m a wet dog.

My senses fill with lavender, and her.

I shake my head and try to think of something else. I could be in Ibiza on a yacht right now, surrounded by women who don’t hate me. But then, I’d be surrounded by people who couldn’t care less about me other than my useless title. At least here, I pay my dues when my parents demand it, but I get to live with a small group of friends who enjoy my company, in a town that has always sheltered me and ignored where I came from.

But what am I going to do about Cat Bloomfield?

“You’re staring,” she says.

“So?”

With all her physical effort to warm me, her sweater has slipped a little, and an intricate lace strap demands my attention. So does the dainty curve of her exposed shoulder.

She clocks my gaze and keeps rubbing. “Don’t.”

“You really shouldn’t show your cards, Bloom.” I’m not the only one physically reacting to our proximity, I’m just not trying to hide it. What’s the point? But Cat is, and she has no game, breathing heavily, pupils blown. I’m a thirty-four-year-old man who enjoys the company of women. I can read the signs.

When I’m about to explain that we can hate each other and still feel physical attraction, that we’re human and it’s perfectly normal, she looks down at me. I look up. “Why are you doing this to me?”

My heart stutters in my chest, and I turn my head toward the water and the little island in Paradise Bay. When I was a kid, the guys and I used to swim out there and play pirates all day until Annie called us back for sodas and bowls of hot soup.

“Winter?” she prods.

I turn back to her. “I hate people like you. People who want power and fame. People who will do anything to get it. People who think they’re entitled to take. People who step on others to get what they want.” What I’m doing right now is reminding myself that I don’t want anything to do with her.

I don’t.

She takes a step back. “That’s what you think of me?”

I hold her gaze and after a moment I reluctantly answer, “That’s what I know about you.”

She steps back further, her expression full of disdain. “He’s all yours, Marco,” she shouts, turning in the sand on the heel of her boot.

It seems we can’t touch each other without fire and ice clashing to make a Molotov cocktail of emotions inside me. An unexpected kink in my plan, for sure .

I already knew she hated me, but she really hates me now that I’ve told her exactly what I think of her. It’s for the best. Now, I can focus on getting through this ridiculous show, and move on with my life.

Cat Bloomfield hates me. So, what?

That was the point.

We shoot for another twenty minutes while Cat and Marco shout taglines at me. I have to say things like I’m a prince, just looking for my princess about a hundred times over.

When the sun hits the horizon, I’m hoarse and desperately need a shirt, and socks, and shoes. I never knew my feet could hurt from cold.

“Okay, Mr. Shivers, let’s get you to the barn.” Cat hauls a duffle bag to her shoulder. “Marco gave me your interview questions.”

“ The barn ?” I protest, dropping my head and feeling seriously sorry for myself. I want a fire, an enormous blanket, and my bed—though, I wouldn’t mind checking in on the horses.

Cat shakes her head at me. “Keep the theatrics up. I’ve dealt with worse, pretty man.”

We make our way across the property but most of the crew stays behind. It’s me, Robbie, Cat, and one assistant Cat calls to come with us toting a small basket.

Once inside, I take them on a tour of the space. “These are my horses.” I gesture down the aisle of stalls, “The arena is off the side of the barn.”

“How many?” Robbie switches lenses and hangs back, trying to give us some space.

“Six. Four of them are draft horses for sleigh pulling. And this is Daylight and her new baby, Destiny. Your sister was here when she was born.”

“I heard about that.” She follows me down the long hall with stable doors on either side, chandeliers lit up overhead, and the smell of straw and oats in the air .

She gets me settled in a mucked-out stall filled with fresh bedding next to my horse Daylight, one foot propped up on a haybale as if this would ever happen naturally in a horse barn, and begins reading questions off a piece of paper.

I look ridiculous.

“Okay, Winter, answer honestly. Stay relaxed,” Cat says. She’s all business now and pulls a pair of socks and my boots from the duffle bag she’s carrying. She chucks them straight at my face.

I catch them and she scowls.

“Thanks,” I say, pulling them on and groaning. It occurs to me she’s got her own game of torture to play, she could have given me these on the beach. “Can I have a shirt now? Please ?” I say through my teeth.

“You may.” She pulls a sweater from her bag, hunter-green. Gone are the shaking hands and heavy breaths she had in the woods. She seems totally unaffected by our working relationship as if she’s already gotten me out of her system by simply willing it to be so.

I wish I were that strong-willed. I also wish she hadn’t somehow managed to flip the power dynamic between us so quickly.

“Shall I grovel at your feet in thanks?” I grumble under my breath as I drag the cozy knit over my head.

“Not necessary. Watching you suffer is enough. Ready, Robbie?”

The cameraman nods.

“Winter, tell us what it’s like to be a real prince?” she asks sweetly.

Oh for fuck’s sake. My horse grunts her agreement and I take a minute to press my forehead to hers before speaking.

“When you’re ready,” Robbie prompts.

“Royalty, at least for me, is about loving your country. Denmark’s beauty is what I’m in love with. My little town of Skagen has a history of raising artists in a fishing village full of lively people. Hans Christian Anderson spent time there, and my great-grandmother wrote numerous diary entries about that time.”

Who knows how long I go on. When I talk about my country, I always lose track of time. Until something catches my eye off camera.

It’s Cat, dipping into a basket. “Am I boring you?” I holler so my voice will carry to the back of the barn.

Robbie huffs and turns to Cat, “I think I got enough. You good? I can go run this by Marco.”

She’s holding the basket with all our cell phones. Rummaging through it, and without a look, she says, “Yeah sure, we’ve got enough footage of him to last a lifetime. Thanks, Robbie.”

I charge toward her. “Going through withdrawal?” I growl.

“Winter, you’re mic’d. If I get caught I can’t make this post.”

“Are you leaking details about the show? It’s a picture of me no doubt.” I’ve come to terms with the fact I’m making a mockery of myself on national television. Hell, that’s probably the real reason she took this job, to make me look bad. She’s beating me at my own game.

She turns on me slowly, still looking at her phone and pecking at keys. “Of course, you think this is about you. Everything is about you, right, pretty man?”

I snag her phone.

“Hey!” she protests in a whisper yell.

Someone fake coughs.

We both freeze and look up. Robbie is watching, but all he does is laugh and walk out of the barn without another word.

When I look at Cat’s screen I expect to see a post about me, or one of her doing some sort of silly dance for likes. But it’s not. It’s a post with a picture of an elderly couple holding up cups of coffee from behind a barista bar.

“What is this?” I ask.

She snatches her phone back. “It’s my clients, the Rushmores. I’ve handed most my projects off, but they need to up their foot traffic.”

“So, you’re posting from your account about a coffee shop? This has nothing to do with me?”

She rolls her eyes. “A struggling coffee shop. Their contract is up with Brand Hub, they couldn’t afford to renew. So, I’m doing what I can to boost their special this week.”

“Their special?” I ask incredulously. “Are we talking about lattes in . . . where is this quaint establishment?”

“They’re in L.A. It’s a tough market. Yes, we’re specifically talking about a sugar cookie latte. Mrs. Rushmore puts sprinkles on top. And not the cheap tasteless kind, the good sugary kind.”

“Can I help?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

Why does that keep happening to me around her?

“What?” she snorts, and her gaze snaps from her phone to meet mine. “You want to help?”

“I do. Is that so hard to believe?” It’s hard for me to believe I’m offering to help her. This is not the plan.

“Yes, it is. And you can’t, it’s against your contract to use your image for any sort of promotion while you’re on the show. You can’t post on any media outlet while you’re filming.”

“And you can?”

“I’m not the one being married off by Streamflix.” She glares at me and I catch something in the molten chocolate of her eyes, a punishment? She’s mad at me, but not for the reasons I thought.

She hits send. I see a flash of the post and then she dumps her phone back in the basket.

I don’t like having my hands tied, and I can’t unsee those cheerful, wrinkled smiles holding that damn pretty sprinkle latte. The walls needed paint and the counters were scarred beyond charming.

And I can’t un-know the fact that Cat Bloomfield is trying to help out of the goodness of her heart, not for personal gain of any kind.