LITMIR.BIZ

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not just Izzy. My dad used to play football in the Premiere League,’ she explained. ‘He’s like royalty here—except…’ She hesitated then looked into his eyes, saw his brief nod and knew she could go on. ‘It’s just one scandal after another. Last year there was an unauthorised biography published about him.’ He watched the colour swoosh up her cheeks. ‘It was terrible….’

      ‘Inaccurate?’

      ‘Yes,’ she attempted then shook her head. ‘No—it was pretty much all true, but you know how things can be twisted.’

      ‘Is that why you didn’t want to report your boss?’

      He was way too perceptive, Allegra thought.

      He was also right.

      ‘They’ve had a field day with the Jacksons recently.’ She told him about the scandals, about her mother, Julie, and the affair that her father had had with Lucinda, that he was now married to Chantelle, but still friendly with Julie. She talked about Angel, who was Chantelle’s daughter, and Izzy, who belonged to both Bobby and Chantelle. Allegra even had to get out a beer mat at one point and draw a little family tree. ‘The book made it all sound so grubby.’ She looked down at the beer mat, saw that perhaps it was. ‘It really hurt my dad—oh, he said it didn’t, did his usual ‘any publicity is good publicity’ spiel, but I know it upset him. I’m trying to put it right.’

      ‘How?’

      ‘I want to write an authorised one—I’ve started it actually. I’ve got loads of memories, hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures.’ He saw the flare of something he recognised in her eyes—that mixture of focus and passion that met him in the mirror each morning, the commitment that meant it was killing him to walk away from his work. ‘I want to set the record straight.’

      ‘Well, you’ve worked in publishing so you’ve got the right contacts,’ Alex said. ‘Write it.’

      She laughed, as if it were that easy. ‘You’ve no idea how much work—’

      ‘You don’t have a job!’ He smiled but she shook her head; he simply didn’t get it—and why would he? It hurt too much to sit and talk about impossible dreams, so instead she asked about him.

      ‘What about your family tree? I’m sure it’s a lot less complicated than mine, a lot less scandal.’

      ‘Actually…’ He stopped then, for the most bizarre moment he had been about to tell her, about to speak about something that was completely forbidden, even within palace walls, especially within the palace walls—the constant rumour that his sister Sophia was possibly the result of an affair with a British architect. He looked to her green eyes staring out from beneath her heavy fringe and thought how nice it would have been to tell her, to admit as she so readily had, that his family might not be completely perfect.

      ‘It’s pretty straightforward,’ he said instead.

      ‘Lucky you.’ Allegra sighed. ‘I’m the boring, reliable one, of course. They won’t believe that I’ve lost my job.’ He watched her snap her eyes closed on panic. ‘If I don’t get a job soon I won’t be able to keep up my rent and I’ll end up back at Dad’s and be sucked back into the vortex.’ He did understand that feeling, her eyes told her that he did, for he leant over and his eyes held hers.

      ‘That is how I feel. That is why I don’t want to return just yet. I know that the moment I do…’

      ‘I know,’ Allegra said, and she spoke some more, except he was only half listening, his mind elsewhere. He looked to the table where he had sat just last week, with a man on the edge of his dreams who now lay cold in the ground, and he looked to the window and he saw the rain. He did not want to be lying there, cold with the rain and a life half lived, dreams undone. He wanted more for his business, wanted a couple more years before he returned to the fold—but how?

      ‘Can’t your brother do it?’ She pulled him from his introspection and she saw him frown. ‘If you don’t want to be king…’

      ‘I never said I did not want to be king,’ Alex corrected. ‘Just that I would like more time.’ He frowned at her. ‘Matteo and I have had different upbringings. Of course, were anything to happen to me, he would step in, but…’ He tried to explain it, for though he never expected her to understand, today he wanted her to. ‘You said earlier, that is how people feel at funerals… that people get upset…’

      ‘Of course,’ Allegra said. ‘Everyone does.’

      ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘When I was seven my grandmother died. The funeral was massive. At the cemetery…’ He did not really know why he was telling her this; he had not thought of this for years, but somehow he had to make her understand. ‘Matteo was upset, my mother hushed him, then my father picked him up—I remember because it was one of the pictures in the newspaper. I started to cry,’ Alex said. ‘Not a lot, but a little. The coffin was going down and I could hear my brother, and… I started to cry and my father gripped my hand and then he gripped it tighter.’ He took a breath. ‘He was not holding my hand in comfort.’

      ‘I’m not with you?’

      ‘When we got back to the palace, before the guests arrived, my father took me to the study and removed his belt.’ Alex wasn’t saying it for sympathy; it wasn’t a sob story she was being told. It was facts being delivered. ‘He said he would not stop till I stopped crying.’

      ‘You were a seven-year-old boy!’ She was the one who was appalled—not Alex.

      ‘I was a seven-year-old prince who would one day be king,’ Alex explained. ‘He had to teach me difficult lessons. A king does not cry, a king does not show emotion….’

      ‘You were a child.’

      ‘Who would one day be king,’ Alessandro said again. ‘And around and around the argument goes. You can despise him for it, but it was a lesson my father had to teach—which he did. He taught his firstborn son—perhaps he knew it was a tough lesson, for he gave my brother more rein at least till he was older. I have what it takes—I have been raised for this purpose.’

      ‘I’m not surprised you want more time.’ Allegra blew up her fringe. ‘Before you have to go back to—’

      ‘I could always fall in love.’ His voice halted her midsentence. ‘Our people know it is not a love match—Anna knows that too. Surely if I met someone and fell in love… there would be scandal, but it would blow over.’

      Allegra looked to him. ‘Maybe you should try talking to Anna.’ She gestured to the table behind them, to the ladies that had been vying for time with him. ‘Maybe she’s the one…?’

      That made him laugh.

      ‘I will not fall in love.’ He said it so assuredly. ‘I have no time for such things. But if I said that I had…’

      There was a flag rising, an alarm bell ringing, but they were slow and in the distance because by the time she registered them, she had already spoken on.

      ‘Said that you had what?’

      ‘Fallen madly in love. That love had swept me off my feet, that I had become engaged.’ He indulged in a smile at the ridiculousness of the very thought. ‘Of course, in a few short weeks I would come to my senses and realise I had made a mistake, that my new fiancée and I are not suited after all, or more likely the people would strongly object. But by then it would be over between Anna and me, and my family would want me here, in London, at least for a year or two, till things had settled down.’

      ‘Well…’ Suddenly her throat was dry. ‘Good luck looking.’ She watched as he went to top up her glass, except the bottle was empty and he summoned the waitress but Allegra shook her head. ‘Not for me.’ She needed space, because her mind was bordering on the ridiculous. For a moment there she’d thought he was talking about her, that they were plotting together, that this might be real.

      She

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