She folded her arms across her chest. “Listen, I love my brother. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken a leave of absence from my job to come here. Maybe I should have waited for him to call back before coming. I might be doing this all wrong, but I love him, and I’m not leaving until I know he’s okay.”
Reggie arched an eyebrow. “So attending his premiere is what would be too much?”
Low blow. “I just want to get to know him.”
Reggie stared at her for an awkwardly long moment; then he smiled for the first time since she’d met him. “Family is important.”
“Exactly,” Rachelle said with relief. Lurch understands.
“Go to the premiere.”
I’ve come this far. Maybe I should.
Oh my God, what am I going to wear?
Crown Prince Magnus Gustavus Valentine de Bartelebon looked out the side window of a Rolls-Royce while rubbing his temple in irritation. London had been his stomping ground in his teens, but there was no longer room for foolishness in his life. His father’s health was failing, and whether Magnus wanted it or not, the crown would soon be his.
His years of freedom, of personal achievement in the business world, were about to come to a crashing halt. King Tadeas had ruled Vandorra with grace and dignity, but it consumed his life. It wasn’t that Magnus didn’t admire his father’s relationship with their people, but Magnus didn’t know if he was capable of taking on that role as well. Few if any of his father’s grand ideas for how to modernize a previously agricultural country would have been put into practice if Magnus hadn’t fought in the trenches for them. Creating employment opportunities to support their growing population required making deals with surrounding countries. Ensuring those deals remained favorable for his people sometimes meant getting his hands dirty.
At the end of the day, it wasn’t his royal lineage that gave Magnus the upper hand in negotiations, it was his reputation for being ruthless. He was neither proud nor ashamed of what he’d done for his people. His father was an eloquent public speaker who advocated peace and harmony. That kind of idealism was only possible when someone was buffered from the harsh realities of the world by someone without those morals.
If Magnus could have vomited up a brother who would wear the crown, prance before the paparazzi, and be the politically correct social media figurehead his father hoped Magnus would become, he would gladly abdicate and continue to work for change behind the scenes. What he wouldn’t do, however, was allow his father’s brother and his greedy, half-brained, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life son to assume any power. They would defund the universities and training programs that were his father’s legacy and reallocate the money to their pockets.
Not while I’m alive.
Respect for his father, despite their differences, ran deep. When his father had asked him to visit a children’s hospital in his place, Magnus had gone. On the advisement of his business partner, he’d brought clowns. According to his friend Jules, it was preferable to the idea of Magnus attempting to converse with them.
How was I supposed to know that clowns scare children? I don’t have children. I don’t even like them.
Once the crying started, Magnus had attempted to stem it by telling the children to stop. They’d cried louder. Magnus had raised his voice above their cries, and only then did silence return.
Magnus would have left at that point, but he didn’t believe in retreating.
He’d walked into the room of the nearest child, a young boy who was watching him with enormously rounded eyes. It was then that Magnus noticed the IV in the boy’s arm and the frailness of his frame. It moved Magnus in a way he wasn’t used to. He took a nearby chair and sat next to the boy. His voice was still harsh when he asked, “If you don’t like clowns, what do you like?”
The boy had visibly swallowed and raised his chin. He was only about ten years old, but he was braver than many of the men Magnus knew. “Water Bear Man.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know Water Bear Man? WBM? He’s only the greatest superhero in the world. Nothing can kill him. Nothing scares him. When I grow up, I’m going to be just like him.” The boy’s face tightened. “If I grow up. I need a new heart. We need to find a donor, and then the doctors say even if I do, I may neglect it.”
A woman walked over and took the boy’s hand in hers. “Reject it,” she corrected softly. “And don’t say that, Finn. Stay positive. We’ll find a donor. All we have to do is believe, and it will happen.”
“Mom, stop. I don’t need you to lie to me.” For a moment Magnus had found it difficult to breathe as Finn searched his face. “You always say what you think even if it makes people angry with you. Do you think we’ll find a donor?”
Magnus looked from the pleading eyes of his mother to the solemn eyes of her son. “I don’t know, but I’ll do what I can to see that it happens.”
“I don’t believe you,” Finn said.
The doctor at the door had gasped. Finn’s mother wiped tears from her cheek. Finn merely held his gaze and waited. Magnus found himself admiring the young boy more.
He’s negotiating for something. “What would it take for you to believe me?”
The boy shrugged and looked away. His fragile shoulders slumped.
And Magnus felt a flash of uncertainty. He hadn’t come to make any of the children feel worse. His father would have had all of them smiling and hanging on his every word. There had to be something he could say that would bring the boy some comfort.
Finn looked up suddenly and said, “I want to meet Water Bear Man. Bring him instead of a clown, and I’ll believe you.”
Magnus had nodded once and stood. “Done.”
That, of course, had been before he discovered that the actor who played the role didn’t take phone calls, not even from royalty. Had he known then that speaking to a narcissistic Hollywood pretty boy would require attending his premiere, he might have negotiated for something less tedious.
Chapter Two
Rachelle slid out of a limo and into a blitz of camera flashes. She was so focused on keeping her knees together and the top of her gown in place that she forgot to smile. Temporarily blinded from one particularly bright flash, she stumbled and grabbed the arm of the driver to steady herself.
“Is anyone else getting out?” one of the photographers asked.
“Doesn’t look like it,” someone else answered.
The flashes stopped.
“Who is she?”
“Westerly’s sister? I forget her name. Trust me, she’s nobody.”
Ouch.
Rachelle thanked the driver and started down the red carpet with her head held high. They were right. She didn’t belong on the red carpet, but her request to go in early had been denied. Had she spoken with Eric before attending, he might have resolved the issue with ease. But even if she had been able to find him, what would she have said? “I know you didn’t invite me, but I weaseled a way in through your publicist. I don’t mean to go all high maintenance on you, but could you also make sure I arrive in the fashion I’m used to—beneath the cloak of invisibility?”
What matters is that when he does realize I was here, he understands it was because I’m proud of him.
Becoming famous as a cape-and-tights-wearing hero who had gained his superstrength and powers by being bitten by thousands of radioactive water bears (a.k.a. hardy microscopic tardigrades) might not have been Eric’s dream, but his fans adored him. At least one child in every first-grade class she’d ever taught had found out Rachelle was related to Eric Westerly, Water Bear Man. She’d even made the mistake once of saying she was. The children had wanted to write to him, FaceTime with him, connect with him in some way that one would expect to be able to when their teacher was his sister.
The dynamics of her family weren’t something she could explain to a room full of six-year-olds, or even their parents when they’d become equally excited. Eventually Rachelle had added a qualifying word out of necessity. Whenever she’d been asked about Eric, she’d said he was her estranged brother, and for those who required more clarification, she’d added, “We don’t talk.”