Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance)(35)

It's Mother. She must be angry, Jyvaslka is twelve hours behind the East Coast.

I sit at the computer to take her call.

Her scowling face fills my screen, and she folds her arms over her chest. I can see she has just woken up from her puffy eyes and the fact she's wearing a pink leopard-print dressing gown.

"Anastasia," she says, her voice dull with fatigue, "what is the meaning of this?"

I swallow hard as she holds up her iPad and shows me the cover story of The Royal Exposé.

Quarterback's Quest, it reads.

"'Can Jason Powell melt the ice princess's frozen heart'?" Mother reads, glaring at me. "'Get the inside scoop on Princess Anastasia's newest suitor. Are the lesbian rumors true? Could she be bi?'"

"I'm not a lesbian," I shout.

"I know that, but apparently the entire Western world isn't so sure!"

"Mother, it's just a newspaper."

"Your minder Bjorn spoke to me about this. This absurd spectacle must end, Anastasia. I won't have some American jock"—she says the word like a curse— "making a joke of my daughter and heir."

"He's not a jock," I shout, clenching my fists at my sides. "Don't talk about him that way!"

She blinks and jerks back from the camera. "What did you say?"

My chest freezes, and I feel like I'm twelve again, trying to sink through the floor and disappear to avoid her wrath.

"Anastasia, do not dare contradict me. I am your queen, not merely your mother. One word from me and you will be on a plane home by daybreak. Is that clear?"

"He's not doing anything wrong—"

"He hired an airplane! Where did he get an airplane?"

"I don't know," I whimper. "Mother, please—"

"I don't want you tarnishing yourself with this boy or any boy, is that understood? You're going to finish your studies and return home to marry a man of your station to be your prince consort and father your heirs, and that is final."

"Mother—"

"If I learn you're even humoring this peasant, I'll have you brought home immediately. Is that understood?"

"Yes," I say sullenly.

"I didn't hear you."

"Yes," I repeat louder, sitting up.

"Good."

The call ends. I calmly stand up, walk downstairs, and retrieve a potato peeler from the drawer in the kitchen.

"Princess?" Mavra says.

"Be quiet," I snap at her.

I walk into the living room, where Bjorn is watching Storage Wars on television and stand in front of him. I hold up the potato peeler.

"If you ever call my mother behind my back again, I'll skin you alive with this."

I drop it in his lap and stomp back upstairs.

I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.

I will not—

My phone again. Ringing.

Jason.

I answer. "What do you want?"

"You."

I let out a strangled cry of frustration. "Just leave me alone!"

"I can't."

"Jason, I can't date you, do you understand? I can't study with you again. I can't be seen with you again. Mother will have me taken home if I do."

"You don't have to go if you don't want to."

"You don't understand," I almost scream at him. "I want to but—"

"If you want to, then come on. I'm out in front of the library. Just come."

"I can't, Jason. The picture people will see me and I'll be on a plane home by morning. You have to understand. It has to be this way."

"That's not what you want?"

"No."

"What do you want?"

I bite my lip. A tear burns hot on my cheek.

"I want to be like everyone else. My entire life it's been 'Ana do this, Ana do that, Ana go here, Ana study that, Ana talk to this person, Ana don't talk, Ana wear this, Ana wear that.' I'm sick of it. I've never made a single decision for myself since I've been born, and I can't, don't you understand? I'm royalty. I live for my people."

"Who lives for you?"

I blink a few times, and my eyes blur. "Nobody. I can't, Jason. Go home. I'm not coming. One more time and they'll take me away and I'll never see you again."

He's quiet for a moment.

"Nobody locks a princess in a tower when I'm around, sweetheart."

I drop onto the bed and whimper, holding the phone to my ear.

"I'm going to call you in an hour and read the book to you some more. Nobody has to know."

"I'd like that, but, Jason—"

"An hour," he says.

I trudge downstairs. I look at Mavra.

"Dinner. Please."

"What—?"

"I don't care, choose something."

She brings it fifteen minutes later: broiled fish, rice, and stewed plums. Stewed plums are my favorite, but I barely eat, set the plate on the floor outside my room, and lock my door. She can take it. I don't want it.

Curled up on my side, I wait.

Fifty-nine minutes and forty-seven seconds after he hung up, my phone rings. I set it to my ear and listen.