She took a deep breath before starting. “Honestly, I’m here because I needed a job. I needed the money. Trust me, I had no idea when I first took this freelance assignment that it had anything to do with writing a fairy tale, or coming to a castle, or dealing with a royal family. That would be the last thing I’d ever want to do.”
When she saw the prince’s surprised look, she realized how rude her words must have sounded. She hurried to fix her blunder. “Sorry, no offense, but you know what I mean.”
The prince stared back at her. “No, not really.”
Kaylie took a deep breath before trying again. “I don’t usually cover feature stories.”
“About Christmas?” the prince asked.
“About anything, especially Christmas,” Kaylie answered. “I don’t do any kind of puff piece stories.”
The prince looked confused. “Puff piece stories?”
“You know, those feel-good, lighthearted stories, simple stories that you usually see at the end of the news,” Kaylie said. “We sometimes call them our kicker stories when we try and leave everyone with something positive.”
“And you don’t do these kinds of positive stories?” the prince asked as he started examining the crystal wine glasses on the dining table and holding them up to the light.
“I do positive stories that help people, but not those kind of positive stories about things that aren’t important, like Christmas decorations and traditions and stuff like that. I cover the news at the top of the newscast. The top stories. The ones that matter most. In my reports, I cover things that are happening to people that need to be fixed. I right the wrongs. I do the serious stuff.”
“So, you don’t believe Christmas stories are important stories?” the prince asked in a tone Kaylie thought was starting to sound a bit judgy again.
She frowned. “You’re making me sound like the Grinch. I just think stories that help people are more important than doing stories about the latest Christmas decorating trends. The series I was going to do was called Kaylie on Your Side. I help people who need it the most. I think that should make people feel really good, right? That’s why I’m an investigative reporter.”
The prince’s head jerked up from the wine glass he’d been studying. “An investigative reporter…”
Kaylie was surprised by his sharp tone and the way he said investigative reporter, like it was something wretched.
Kaylie held up her hands in self-defense. “I already know where you’re going with this. Don’t worry, I don’t sneak around trying to dig up dirt on celebrities or royal families. I’m not paparazzi. I’m one of the good guys.”
The prince’s eyes narrowed.
She hurried to continue. “I’m what my boss likes to call a watchdog for society. I help people who can’t help themselves, people who are getting scammed or ripped off. I go after the bad guys. I try and make things right.”
“I see,” the prince said.
But the way he said it had Kaylie thinking he didn’t really see at all and, for some reason, that really bothered her. This wasn’t the first time, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last, that she had to defend what she did for a living. People usually fell into two camps; they either totally got it and were thankful for the kind of reporting she did, or they just thought of her like the paparazzi, someone who only cared about selling the story and grabbing headlines.
She couldn’t even count the number of times Bob had told her it didn’t matter what other people thought, she knew the truth. But still, it sometimes hurt depending on who was judging her. Right now, she knew the prince was definitely forming an opinion and by the look on his face, it wasn’t a good one. She walked over to him until they were toe to toe. “I’m really good at my job and I help protect a lot of people.”
“And my job is to protect my family and Tolvania from reporters,” the prince said, staring her down.
For a moment, Kaylie thought she saw something flicker in the prince’s eyes that went beyond judgment and disdain. It almost looked like…pain. And then in a second, it was gone.
“It must be exhausting,” the prince finally said.
“What?” Kaylie asked, more confused than ever.
“Always trying to fix things for people,” the prince answered. “Because if you’re Kaylie come to the rescue, or whatever you call it, then you’re taking on everyone else’s problems and being the morality police.”
Kaylie gave him a shocked look. “Who said anything about being the police?”
“I believe you just did,” the prince said.
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. She was exhausted trying to play mental hopscotch and word games with the prince.
“Then you didn’t hear me right,” she fired back at him.
The prince didn’t miss a beat. “Didn’t you just say a second ago that you were society’s ‘watchdog’? That sounds like policing to me.”
Kaylie hated that her own words had trapped her and that he was taking something positive she’d said and twisting it into something negative. He was making it sound like the only person she was helping was herself. She tried to think of a better way to help him understand. Her eyes lit up.
“You say you’re protecting your family and Tolvania, right?” Kaylie asked him.
“Yes, always,” the prince said.
“So, that means you’re Tolvania’s watchdog,” Kaylie quickly added.
The prince thought about it. “In a sense, yes.”
“So, in a way, we’re the same,” Kaylie said.
“We are not the same,” the prince said with conviction. “I would never be anything like a reporter.”
Kaylie’s jaw dropped open. “Wow, don’t hold back.”
“It’s not personal,” the prince said.
Kaylie looked at him like he was nuts. “It’s personal to me because I am a reporter and proud of it.”
“And that’s the problem,” the prince said. “My life, my family’s life, is private. We don’t talk to reporters, ever. My mother invited you here to write a fictional story, not dig up dirt and create lies about our lives.”
Kaylie’s eyes grew huge. “What in the world are you talking about? I’m not here to do any of that. I don’t lie in my reports. I hate liars. It’s why I do what I do, to expose liars. I’m not here to do a news story about you or anyone else. I don’t even have that job anymore. I told you, I came here thinking I was doing a feature story for an online magazine about a family’s Christmas traditions.”
“But yet, you just told me you don’t do feature stories,” the prince jumped in. “You’re not making any sense. Which one is it? Why are you really here?”
Kaylie’s head was spinning. She pulled out a dining room chair and sat down to try and calm her jangled nerves. She rubbed a throbbing temple and took a deep breath. As she played back the conversation she’d just had with the prince, she realized he had every right to be confused. She had told him two different stories. She had made such a big deal about never doing feature stories and being an investigative reporter, no wonder he was suspicious about her intentions. She motioned to the chair next to her. “Can you sit for a moment, please?”
The prince sat down but he didn’t look happy about it. “I’m listening,” he said.
She took another deep breath before she dived in. “First of all, I owe you an apology.”
The prince’s eyebrows raised.
Kaylie nodded. “You’re right. I’ve been talking in circles.”
“Yes,” the prince agreed.
“The short version is, I was an investigative reporter and I just lost my job, right before a big career promotion. My job is everything to me and I truly do it to help people. It’s how my parents raised me and my sister, to always give back. They are both retired teachers who always volunteered for so many different causes. So, my sister and I grew up volunteering, too. We worked at senior centers, hospitals, after-school children’s programs, literacy programs. We volunteered at our local library because that’s where my parents always took us to get books when we were growing up. Libraries are still my happy place. We come from pretty modest means, but when I was at the library, by reading different books, I could go anywhere and have anything. The stories I read were my escape and I knew I wanted to write my own stories someday.” Kaylie paused. She knew she was rambling and she definitely wasn’t telling the short version, but when she nervously looked up at the prince, she was relieved to see he was listening intently to everything she was saying.
She gave the prince a guilty look. “Sorry, this wasn’t supposed to be my entire family history.”
“It’s fine, please go on,” the prince said.
She nervously unfolded and folded a gold cloth napkin on the table. “I’m sure you have your reasons for not trusting the press, but I’m not here to hurt you or your family. I’m here because I lost my job and I didn’t have any other job offers.” Kaylie, upset, dropped her head into both hands.
It was so silent between them, you could hear a pin drop. The prince finally cleared this throat and stood up.
“Can you do this job?” he asked. “Write a fairy tale for my daughter?”
Her head jerked up. When she looked at the prince, his expression was impossible to read. “I don’t know,” she answered him honestly. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
The prince studied her. “You strike me as the kind of woman that can do anything she sets her mind to.”
Kaylie was surprised by his compliment. “Are you saying you think I can write this fairy tale?”
“I’m saying it doesn’t matter what I think,” the prince answered her. “It matters what you think. My mother brought you here for a reason. I have no control over that…”
“But you want me gone?” Kaylie asked bluntly, already knowing the answer.
“What I want right now is to finish this tour because that is what my mother asked me to do,” the prince said. “Would you like to continue?”
As Kaylie stared up at the prince, she didn’t know what she wanted or what she was going to do about going or staying, but she did know she was tired of feeling sorry for herself and fighting the hand fate had dealt her, starting with her losing her job. She knew complaining about it wasn’t going to get her job back or make her feel any better. She also knew she had to stop being upset about the fact that she was stuck at a storybook castle, in Europe, with a handsome prince, because there were definitely worse fates to have. She always lived by the motto, it wasn’t what happened to you but how you handled it that mattered, and lately she knew she hadn’t been handling it very well. She also knew she needed a holiday attitude adjustment if she was going to try and do any writing about Christmas. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she wasn’t a quitter. She knew she had to try.
She stood up from the table and took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s continue with the tour.” But when a new Christmas song started to play, “The Christmas Waltz” with Frank Sinatra, she froze as she listened to the lyrics…
It’s that time of year
When the world falls in love
Every song you hear seems to say
Merry Christmas
May your New Year dreams come true…
Kaylie caught her breath as a memory from a long time ago came rushing back to her.