THE next morning Zander kept rubbing his face where Andi’s hand had made contact with it ever so abruptly only hours earlier, as if revisiting the scene of the crime would somehow change the outcome.
“What in the hell is the matter with that woman?” he said to Lorenzo.
“I told you before absolutely no point in trying to make sense of them. They’re beyond our pay grade.”
“Shit. Pay grade. They’re beyond every psychological study known to mankind.”
“You should’ve stuck with Things One, Two, and Three. You had a sure bet with them.”
Zander shrugged. “Yeah, but they were boring me.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were smitten with that black widow.”
Zander laughed. “Black widow. Perfect description. I bet she’d eat her mate, that one. But yes, to make matters worse, I came up completely empty-handed when all I wanted was a little fun.”
“Looked to me like you were having some fun,” Lorenzo said. “And don’t tell me I didn’t warn you about messing with her phone. Now see what you have to show for it.” He pointed to the faint red spot that a ring on her finger must have left behind, a subtle reminder on Zander’s cheek.
“Before she wigged out on me, it was downright amazing,” Zander said. “It’s like we had some sort of connection. We barely talked, but it’s what we didn’t say...”
“And I surely don’t want to know what the two of you didn’t say. But you were getting awfully up close and personal for this noncommunication communicating of yours. Just be glad that wasn’t a paparazzi moment for you. Imagine if that slap had been captured for the tabloids.” Lorenzo shook his head and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I’m sure as hell glad it wasn’t, because your mother would have my head on a platter for not keeping you out of trouble.”
“You’re not my babysitter, Lorenzo.”
“I know that and you know that, but let’s be honest, Zander. Sometimes it helps with you to have a voice of reason holding vigil over your shoulder.”
“That’s what everyone thinks, but I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions. Besides, I’ll always only be Zander the Spare—a year late and a dollar short in birth order. Being the unnecessary backup prince means there’s nothing much left to do but be the black sheep. At least as royal bad boy I can have fun and provide a little amusement along the way. If royal reprobate is what they want, then I’m more than happy to accommodate them.”
“I know you think that, but we all know you’re so much more than ‘the Spare,’ my friend. Don’t diminish yourself by believing that.”
“That’s easy for you to say. But it doesn’t matter what I do, in people’s eyes I will always be second best.”
Lorenzo got up and went over to his Nespresso machine to make two espressos. He popped a capsule in and started the machine.
“What about your charity. You think that’s of no use? What if you weren’t here? Then where would the Prince’s Trust be? It’s nothing without you. Think about how many people all over the world have been helped by it: refugees in Africa, homeless people in many countries looking for a meal with which to survive, orphaned children in need of someone to care for them. Your work has meant a great deal to so many people. And these are the ones you likely will never hear a thank-you from. But you need to know in your own gut that you’ve had an impact on them.”
He handed Zander a demitasse of espresso and quickly tossed back his own.
“Okay, fine. You’ve got a point there. At least I have little children clamoring for my attention. But yet why do I have this bird smacking me? Here I am just minding my own business, trying to make nice with her.”
“My bet is she was supremely embarrassed that you found that picture on her phone. Shame she ran out on you, as we’ll never know how she came to have it in the first place.”
“Well, that’s one hell of a way to express your shame.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone to see that the battery had died. “Damn thing. Won’t hold a charge for anything. Mind if I use your charger? Hoping I haven’t missed any important messages about my standing in the royal family.” He rolled his eyes.
Lorenzo handed him a charger, and Zander plugged the phone in a nearby socket. Within minutes the phone came alive and dinged to indicate he had a new text.
“My luck it’ll be a nasty-gram from that cranky Andi woman.”
“Clearly she was into you for a while, at any rate. Which shows that beneath that surly exterior there’s a beating pulse,” Lorenzo said. “You just have to figure out how to reach that again. While wearing protective gear.”
Zander shook his head. “Not touching that one with roadside bomb-detection equipment, thanks. I wouldn’t want her to blow off any of my favorite limbs—or worse still, Big Alex—next time she decided to eviscerate me.”
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow. “Big Alex? Really?”
“You don’t want me to call him Little Alex now, do you?” He grinned.
Lorenzo shook his head. “I don’t want you to call it anything. At least not to me.”
Zander glanced at his messages. “Well, I’ll be damned. I’ve got a message from my new pen pal!”
He pointed to his phone where there was a new text from an American phone number. He scrolled down the screen to read it.
“Dear Alexander,” he said aloud, reading from her text. “‘Dear.’ She sounds like such a nice mum. Don’t know how she raised such a raging nutter. This woman seems so sweet and calm.”
He continued. “I wanted to thank you personally for coming to the aid of my daughter. I know it is through the help of strangers that one navigates the world alone. As Andrea’s mother, I always worry about her welfare with her being so far from home. And I wanted you to know how grateful I am to you for your generosity.”
Zander shook his head. “Her daughter must be adopted. Either that or she didn’t get the loving-kindness gene from her mother, because it’s hard to believe those two could be blood relatives.”
Lorenzo laughed. “Maybe it’s a mellowing-with-age thing.”
“Who could tough it out that long to see with that one?” Zander said. “Maybe I should be going after the mother instead.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you. But I’d also suggest you not go there.”
“I might be a bird dog, but I’m not a creeper,” Zander said. “I don’t do mothers. Literally.”
“Thank heavens for small miracles.”
“Stop with the Zander-shaming. Lest we forget, I’m one of the good guys. Now let’s get back to mama here. Come to think of it, we’re not even on a first-name basis. Wonder what she’s called? Gladys? Harriet?”
He typed on his phone, speaking it to his friend as he wrote, “Hello, Andi’s mother. I don’t even know your name! You’re a gem to thank me. It was my pleasure. You have a lovely daughter, by the way.”
“Whom I’d have loved to bang, if she hadn’t gone and bashed me in the face and run off like some weird Cinderella from an alternate universe,” he said aloud to Lorenzo.
“Definitely say that to her mother. She’ll want you as a son-in-law for sure if you tell her that.”
Zander put his hand to the side of his mouth and said to Lorenzo, “I’m not going to say that! Though no way am I mother-in-law shopping. Besides, I’m the master at laying it on thick. Women swoon when you get in good with the mother.”
“Considering your audience is me, I’m not quite sure what your objective is, then.”
“Practice, my friend,” Zander said. “Practice makes perfect. It never hurts to butter up the mama. Let’s see what she’s got to say now.” He held his phone out as if focusing on her words.
“Please, call me Peggy. I hope you don’t think I’m bragging if I agree with you, but I am awfully proud of my girl. She’s a remarkable young woman. To go off like she did, completely on her own. I’d never have been brave enough to do it. And with all the good work she’s done.”
Zander typed in Good work?
“Andi’s been volunteering in refugee camps in Africa, and in every country she’s in she seeks out some sort of charitable work to do. It’s her way of paying it forward, I suppose.”
Zander frowned at Lorenzo and cocked an eyebrow. “She’s actually nice?” he said, shrugging his shoulders in a “who knew” kind of way.
Of course you have a wonderful daughter. How could you not, with her having such a lovely mum? he typed.
“I’m blushing. But believe me, I’ve been around the block. I’m not nearly as sweet and innocent as my Andi. Besides, who’s the one going to work in a soup kitchen today—me or her?”
I assume you are?
Zander winked at Lorenzo with his little inside joke, since he figured Andi to be a demon seed who would not only not help impoverished people, but would rather eat them for dinner, perhaps with a nice glass of Chianti. And maybe use a tiny leftover bone for a toothpick afterward.
“Heavens no! But Andi said she was taking her host and his girlfriend to work at one in Rome.”
Zander shook his head. “So she’s nice to bloody strangers but she’s mean to me? What the ever-loving hell?”
“Maybe she took one look at Big Alex when she snapped the picture and wanted to run screaming as far away from you as possible?” Lorenzo said. “Took off for Africa just to get away from that scary thing of yours.”
“They don’t say I’m royally hung for nothing,” Zander said with a wink. “And now having seen with your own eyes, I think you’ll agree.”
Lucky all those hungry people at that soup kitchen who get to lay eyes on your beautiful daughter, Zander typed.
“I noticed you haven’t mentioned anything about wanting to never see the whites of her daughter’s eyes ever again.”
“Are you kidding? I’m tempted to seek out every soup kitchen in Rome just to see what she’d do to me next.”
His friend shook his head. “Oh, sure. Just what you need: that girl with a meat cleaver, your appendages nearby. You got some sort of chase-me-beat-me thing going in your demented head?”
“I want to show her I can take whatever she can give me.”
“You might want to tell your therapist that.”
Zander returned to texting. If you talk to Andi, please tell her I said hello and would love to see her again. He grinned like he’d just gotten away with a bank robbery and was rolling around in a pile of cash.
“I told Andi she should get to know you,” Peggy typed. “She can be fickle, that one. I’ll put in a good word for you.”
“Fickle? Andi is to fickle what dogs are to elephants.”
Lorenzo knit his brows. “I’m not even going to try to understand that line.”
You’re the best, Peggy, Zander wrote.
“Thanks for being Andi’s knight in shining armor!”
At that, Zander stuck his phone back in his pocket.
“Knight in shining armor,” he said with a little laugh. “I could do her one better and make that a prince. Wouldn’t that surprise her?”
“I think you’ve done enough tempting fate today, Z.”
“In that case, it’s time for me to find that fun I never had yesterday. You game?”
Lorenzo just shook his head, grumbling something about having his hands full.