The Controversial Princess (The Smoke & Mirrors Duology #1)(95)

BY THE TIME I MAKE it to the hotel, I’m shaking no less, but my racing heart slows to a safer pace with the relief that washes over me. I hurry toward the entrance, but my Uggs pull me to a stop when my mind registers the crowd of people blocking my way. Some have cameras. Some have phones. Some are screaming Josh’s name. My steadying heartbeat rockets again. There’s no way through, not without being seen. I back away, quickly turning before any of them look in this direction, and hurry around the side of the building.

More people, dozens of them, are crowding the pavement with more cameras. I stutter to a stop, panic racking me again. What was I thinking? That I could just wander on into a hotel and ask reception to call up to Josh’s suite? I suddenly feel so very foolish, my anxious eyes darting, searching for a way through all the people. There isn’t one.

Without checking for traffic, I rush across the road toward a doorway, searching for cover. I hear tires skid, and then the angry sounds of a car horn blaring. My body freezes, my legs failing, leaving me standing in the middle of the road with the bonnet of a car virtually touching my knees. “You stupid woman,” the driver yells out of the window, smacking his horn a few more times. I look up through the windscreen, startled, and just as quickly shoot my eyes back down again, forcing my muscles to engage and remove me from the road before the driver registers who he just nearly run over. Falling into a doorway, I will my hands to stop shaking, swallowing repeatedly to stop myself from crumbling under the pressure.

“Please work, please work, please work,” I chant, turning my phone off and on again, waiting for some signs of life. The cracked screen illuminates, flashing green again. I can’t see a damn thing past the fuzz, only the edges of a few icons. “No,” I sob, sagging against the dirty brick wall inside the doorway.

And that’s where I remain for a good five minutes wondering what I do now. How could I have been so stupid? I truly have no idea how to navigate the real world. My education was based on my need for knowledge as a royal in a world protected by status and power, not my need for knowledge as a real person in the real world. Because I’m not a real person. I’m not supposed to be in the real world.

I look left and right, my despair building. And then my mobile rings in my hand, and I shoot my eyes to the distorted screen. There’s no prompt to answer, and I can’t even see who is calling me. I wildly punch at the area I know the answer icon to be. And then I hear him.

“Adeline? Adeline, are you there?”

“Josh!” I’m way beyond the ability to control sounding so freaked out.

“Adeline, for fuck’s sake. Where the hell are you?” If it’s possible, he sounds even more panicked than me.

“I’m outside. I can’t get through the crowds. There are too many paparazzi and fans.”

“Where’s Damon?”

I flinch, shouting at myself for being so irrational. “I’m alone.”

“Jesus, woman,” he all but breathes, and I hear the sounds of his footsteps in the background. “She’s outside,” he says, his voice muffled, like he is covering the phone with his hand. “Where outside? Tell me exactly where you are.”

“I don’t know.” I can feel my voice cracking, the situation getting too much. “At the side of the hotel. I can’t see a street name.” I scan the side of the hotel opposite, desperately searching for a sign to tell me where I am.

“Adeline, listen to me,” Josh says calmly, though I know he’s anything but. “When you were at the front of the hotel, which direction did you head, left or right?”

It’s a straight-forward question. An easy question, but it takes my brain a stupid amount of time to recall.

“Adeline.”

“Right.”

“Don’t move.” The sound of a door slamming in the background pierces my eardrums.

“There’s press everywhere.” My eyes dart left to right constantly, terrified that any one of them will see me huddled in the doorway at any moment. “What’s going on?”

“They’ve been camping there since I came back from an interview. Just stay where you are.” His breathing becomes a bit labored. He’s running. “Just keep talking to me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Christ, Adeline, what were you thinking?”

“I just wanted to see you.”

“How did you get here?”

I’m cringing again, aware that I am about to get a thorough telling off. “Damon’s car.”

“So where is he?”

More cringing. “He didn’t know I was in his car.”

There’s silence, like Josh is trying to comprehend what I just confessed. “You hid in his car?”

“It was the only way I could get out of the palace without being seen.”

“Fuckin’ hell, Adeline. Do you know how stupid that is?” Another door slams, and the background noise is suddenly deafening.

“Now I do,” I admit. “I’m sorry.”

“You fuckin’ will be. Look to your right across the road. The hotel garage entrance.”

I glance up, not sure what I’m expecting to find, maybe one of his security team, but instead I see Josh, being followed not too closely by two of the huge men who protect him, though today they’re not in suits, but casual jeans and T-shirts. I exhale down the line, unable to appreciate the risk he’s taking. I’m too relieved he’s here.