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He would have to do it on his own for the time being, if not forever. But that didn’t mean Armin could pretend that her absence wasn’t an awful rend in his world.
Katie stared into the laptop’s screen.
Well, she’d done it.
She’d written an article about her time with the prince.
Katie had never been prouder of anything else she’d written in all her life. It was an honest article, but it struck a balance between the privacy Prince Armin treasured and the intimacy of letting the public see him for the man he was and not just the figurehead. She had written him exactly as she’d seen him—complicated, determined, and loyal.
So loyal.
Her cell phone rang again, vibrating the pillowcase next to her. She reached for it automatically, in case it was a call from the palace, but of course it wasn’t. Just another unknown number. It turned out that Papazyan wasn’t the only person who kept tabs on the palace. She’d hardly been gone a full day and there had been five calls.
Make that six, if the call she was dismissing now was another trashy paper or online news outlet hunting for details. That’s what they were really doing, even if they pretended to have jobs on offer. Not that they had been so explicit. The first couple of people had wanted her to come in to discuss “opportunities.” No thank you. No comment. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
She’d stayed up most of the night writing the article, and now that she’d slept a few hours, she was going over it again. There were a few phrases to be tweaked and refined, but otherwise, she’d done a good job. It was a fair recounting of their time together without the kinds of sordid details Papazyan wanted.
Honestly, it had never been her plan to write an article, but she’d needed something to do. Her time had been so consumed by Armin and the girls that without that schedule—without constantly going over their needs in her mind, even as she fell asleep—it was a bit like being cut loose from a dock with no sails.
Plus, there was the fact that this was it.
The article was all she had going for her—her only little bit of leverage in the situation. She couldn’t stop Papazyan from publishing, but she could take ownership of her own story. Let the world decide what version to believe. But if Katie was going to make anything from all the time she’d spent at the palace, she had to hurry. Beating Papazyan to the punch was her best shot at maintaining some credibility. But there was the matter of finding a place to publish the article. She could register for a blog, like everyone else on the planet, but that wouldn’t get her any coverage unless she promoted it to news outlets herself. That whole idea made her feel gross. Still, there was the chance it could take the wind out of Papazyan’s sails, and that might be worth it.
Although Katie was beginning to feel like writing anything at all was the wrong choice. Maybe journalism wasn’t her calling after all. Every time newspaper she’d been involved with had just made things worse for herself and the people she cared about. It had started back in the States, and she’d been foolish to think that luck wouldn’t follow her here.
There was another option.
Katie could throw in the towel and move on with her life, leaving everything about the palace—and the prince—behind. She could shut down her laptop permanently and go…anywhere else, she supposed. Nobody like Prince Armin would probably hire her as a nanny again, but she could find another family, maybe for room and board. There were plenty of parents who needed help in Europe.
Had he published yet?
Papazyan had only made the threat yesterday, but Katie had no doubt he was prepared to back it up. The real question was whether he’d stick to the forty-eight hours he’d promised her, or if he’d break his word. She made another search online to see if her name popped up.
Nothing yet.
The waiting was awful.
She looked up Prince Armin, too…just to see.
There was something new.
But it wasn’t about his personal life—it was about the orphanage.
Katie’s heart sank as she skimmed the article. New difficulties with the project, it said. Questions had arisen about his choice of contractors and the royals’ true motivations in the current climate.
God. Nothing could go right, could it?
She fell back against the pillows, angry tears welling in her eyes. The orphanage had nothing to do with ego, or motivations. It was about helping orphans. Armin had worked so hard on the project. She might be out of a job, but it still made her furious to think that people would question his dedication to the orphanage, of all things. He wanted the whole thing to be secret in the first place. He cared about Stolvenia. That was his top priority.
Katie sat up, clicking through the files on her screen, and went back to the article.
She selected the text and deleted the whole thing.
It had been centered around her, and naturally, that was the last thing anyone needed. Her own thoughts about palace life weren’t important.
And maybe it wouldn’t do any good. If her track record was any indication, the whole thing could blow up in her face. But Katie couldn’t stand by and let the press trample all over the man she had loved.
The man she still loved, if she was honest about it. Katie couldn’t blame him for her own shortcomings, or the fact that she had allowed Papazyan too much control over her. In fact, she couldn’t blame him for anything at all. She swallowed down a lump in her throat and began again, the cursor blinking against the white expanse of the page.
