LOL #3 Romantic Comedy Anthology Read online

  Just outside the suite door, three young women stood with their hands folded and looking downcast. All three wore regally slim trousers and sweaters, as that is what one wears apres-ski, and their reserved expressions made them seem untouchable.

  Rae waved. “Howdy, y’all!”

  The woman in the middle shook her black curls, but her black eyes didn’t flash with merriment anymore. Indeed, her quick glance at Rae and the hunch in her shoulders suggested that Marie-Therese Grimaldi was entirely uncomfortable with the current circumstances.

  One of the other two women was also familiar, and when she looked up, Rae recognized her pale green eyes and dark eyelashes. She began to bend in a curtsey, but Marie-Therese grabbed her arm before she could dip very far.

  Marie-Therese said, “Madame von Hannover, may we come in?”

  “Um, sure?” Rae opened the door farther and watched the security guys out of the corner of her eye. They seemed normally alert, not that weird hyper-alert that they supposedly didn’t show, but Rae had already done a short psychology internship and could see when their adrenaline spiked.

  Matthias was watching the three women walk inside the door with more calm interest than a reaction to a real menace.

  Rae led them to the sitting area, where her plate of donut crumbs and a half-bare vine of red grapes gave away that she had been munching, and the three women settled like doves alighting on a rose-covered bush on the far couch by the windows. Rae nonchalantly brushed some donut sugar off her lower lip.

  They all looked at each other, and Marie-Therese was evidently nominated to speak again. “Madame von Hannover, we are not sure if you remember us from Flicka’s wedding.”

  “Call me Rae, and I remember you two were Flicka’s bridesmaids. You,” she held out her hand to the blond woman on the right, “I’m not sure that we’ve met.”

  “Yes, you’re right, of course, and we’re sorry to intrude. I am Marie-Therese Grimaldi.”

  So Rae had that one right.

  Marie-Therese gestured to the green-eyed woman, “This is Josephine Alexandrovna,” and to the blonde, “and this is Kira Augusta Prinzessin von Prussia.”

  Rae knew what all that meant. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. “Nice to see you again, Josephine. A pleasure to meet you,” Rae inhaled to buy time, “Your Highness.”

  The blond woman waved a slim, pale hand as if clearing away smoke. “It’s a deposed title. It’s practically just a name. Please call me Kira.”

  Yeah, practically just a name, but not actually just a name. “Nice to meet you, Kira,” Rae corrected herself. “So, ladies, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  All three women bowed their heads in unison, like they’d been caught with all their hands in the cookie jar.

  Oh, this ought to be good.

  Marie-Therese said, “We would like to apologize. We were misled, and we—not all together but each one of us separately—were doing something rather reprehensible.”

  The fact that nothing particularly bad seemed to have happened reassured Rae. Something must have backfired badly for them to show up begging preemptive forgiveness like this. “Good Lord. What was it?”

  All three shrank further. Josephine shrank the most, and Princess Kira shriveled the least. Indeed, Kira looked not particularly shrinky at all.

  Marie-Therese said, “We don’t want to minimize our own roles. We made the decision to come here.”

  “I was wondering about you when I saw you in the lobby,” Rae said.

  “Yes, that.” Marie-Therese cleared her throat. “We were led to believe that you and Wulfram would not be marrying next week, that he was calling off the engagement, and that he would be looking for a relationship soon.”

  Shock slapped Rae like a wave of hot water in her face, and she reviewed the last few weeks with Wulf.

  He had been conducting twice-daily phone calls to his sister to check on the wedding planning because Rae had been busy surviving finals and growing lungs and kidneys, and his attention to detail didn’t seem like someone who was planning to bolt.

  Last week, he had gone with Rae to a prenatal doctor’s appointment where he heard the baby’s heart beat on the ultrasound and had smiled and nodded his approval until they got back to the SUVs, and then he had held her all the way home, murmuring to her, until they were alone in their bedroom, when he had made love to her so very gently and wiped his eyes.

  But of course, just that morning, he had quite convinced her that he hadn’t been looking at Marie-Therese.

  Wulf was not a normal man. He could see deep within people and show them what they most needed to see, and his shiny shell didn’t leak any emotion that he didn’t allow to show.

  Rae took a deep breath. If she believed anything, she believed that Wulf loved her.

  “It isn’t an engagement,” Rae said, holding up her left hand. The central stone of her ring set, a blue garnet, flashed dark blue and scarlet in the sunlight, and the diamonds around it threw prismatic sparkles on the walls. Below the engagement ring, a plain, platinum band circled her finger. “We’ve been married for months.”

  The women shrank more. Kira still wasn’t as shrunken as the other two. Maybe she had less to be sorry for.

  Marie-Therese said, “We didn’t know that. Indeed, we were told quite the opposite of that.”

  Rae thought of herself as a nice woman, a decent woman, a kind and forgiving woman, and Westerners are nice people in general, but Rae felt the need to twist this particular knife just a little. After all, these three women had been trying to steal her husband.

  Rae raised one eyebrow and looked straight at them. “And I’m pregnant.”

  Marie-Therese and Josephine bobbed backward like she had slapped them.

  Kira glanced up and to the side.

  Josephine said to Marie-Therese, “I told you that we shouldn’t come up here and bother her. I told you that we should just never talk about it again and it would blow over.”

  Marie-Therese said to Josephine, “We had to apologize. It would have gotten back to her eventually anyway, and then people would know. They’ll talk about it.”

  Josephine turned to Rae. “We’re really, really sorry. It’s a misunderstanding. I was the only one who talked to Wulfram, and practically the first words out of his mouth were that you two were already married and that he was definitely not calling off the religious wedding. We’re really sorry. We didn’t know that you were pregnant. We didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m not upset,” Rae said, lying only a little. “But I want to know who put you guys up to this.”

  Kira drawled, “I don’t think we should say.”

  Josephine jumped in, “Phillipp von Hannover, Wulfram’s father.”

  Rae rolled her eyes. “Oh. Yeah. Shocking.”

  Marie-Therese nodded. Kira just kept looking at the vase of dozens of white roses on the dining room table.

  Josephine added, “We are exceedingly sorry, and we won’t do it again.”

  Even Kira nodded that time.

  “All right,” Rae said, smoothing down her slacks in a classic gesture of self-pacification that embarrassed her in how cliché it was. “If you’re really sorry, prove it.”

  Marie-Therese said, “I beg your pardon.”

  Josephine said, “How on Earth could we do that?”

  Kira raised an eyebrow.

  “Let’s start with why he chose you three,” Rae said.

  Kira blew a quick breath. “I rather imagine because we were available.”

  Josephine said, “Because I dated Wulfram in high school.”

  Marie-Therese said, “Same, but briefly, and I’m surprised that Phillipp called me because I’m Catholic and related to Pierre,” Flicka’s husband, “and you know what Phillipp thought of him.”

  Rae nodded. “And Kira? Did you date him?”

  “Not as such,” she said, still staring away from Rae. “At certain formal events when we were young, like my coming out in
Paris, our parents arranged for Wulfram to escort me. A few centuries ago, that would have meant something.”

  Ah, Prinzessin Kira was the one of the few women of whom Wulf’s father approved. “Did it mean something to you?”

  Kira delicately shrugged one shoulder. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  Rae fought to remember that Wulf had chosen her, had married her, and had gone to great lengths to reassure her of this.

  She took another deep breath. “If you’re really sorry, if you really won’t do this again, then here’s what we’re going to do.”

  While she explained it to them, Kira and Marie-Therese fidgeted, flashing worried glances at each other, but Josephine began to smile with an impish grin.

  CHAPTER 5

  Rae

  Rae leaned back in her chair as the descending sun reflected off the snow and watched the three other women, the princesses. They all sat straight, not touching their spines to the backs of their chairs, wrists and ankles crossed.

  The four of them had drawn up dining room chairs to sit knees-to-knees, and Josephine held her cell phone in her palm in the center of the group and looked at Rae with her huge, pale green eyes. She spoke aloud across the phone in English, for Rae’s sake, “Hello? Your Serene Highness?”

  Rae almost rolled her eyes, but her father-in-law was the type to insist on that.

  Prig.

  No, that was too unkind. This was Wulf’s father.

  A masculine voice that sounded eerily like Wulf, but hoarser, came out of the speaker, “Ja? Grand Duchess Josephine?”

  “Um, yes, sir. I wanted to tell you that you were correct. I approached Wulfram on the ski slope this morning, and he said that he was breaking it off with the other woman, that he had already broken it off and was interested in forming a new attachment.”

  “Splendid,” he said in Wulf’s voice again. “I knew that he would tire of the commoner.”

  Josephine winced and bit her lip, but Rae waved her off. She hadn’t expected anything else. Indeed, she was counting on him underestimating her.

  Josephine said, “And he said that he is thinking of marrying someone of his own status very soon. He asked me to have hot chocolate with him to discuss it.”

  “Good,” Phillipp said. “I am pleased he is being logical about this. Marriages should be for logical, dynastic reasons, not personal ones.”

  “Indeed, I’ve always thought that, sir.” Her green eyes laughed with Rae, who had sucked her lips into her mouth to keep herself from giggling.

  She was enjoying this far too much and would probably be ashamed of herself when she got around to it.

  Someday.

  Josephine continued, “And so I had chocolate with him, and he asked me to marry him, and soon! In a few weeks!”

  “Splendid!” he said. “I am glad to welcome you into our family as a properly bred daughter of the House.”

  “We’re having supper tonight to finalize the details.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Thank you for alerting me to his situation.”

  “The pleasure was all mine, Josephine.”

  Josephine tapped the phone and asked Rae, “How long should we wait?”

  “Just a few minutes,” Rae said, reaching behind herself to the room service cart for another donut. “Hot chocolate sounds good. Should we call room service for a pot?”

  “Yes, please,” Josephine said.

  They each had a cup of the creamy hot chocolate from the kitchens, and Rae leaned back, twiddling her fingers on her softening belly. The three of them had probably all been at Le Rosey, the Swiss boarding school where Wulf had developed such a taste for his twice-daily hot cocoa. She sipped her cup, the rich chocolate gliding over her tongue. The dark scent reminded her of kisses stolen in his office at home.

  Rae cleared her throat. “Marie-Therese, your turn.”

  Marie-Therese pushed her black curls behind her shoulder as she took her cell phone from her purse and dialed. “Monsieur von Hannover? This is Marie-Therese Grimaldi, and I wanted to let you know that I have spoken with Wulfram.”

  “Yes?” Phillipp asked. His tone was positively chipper, which should have pissed Rae off because she knew exactly why he was so damn chortley.

  Rae smiled. Here came the second punch of the jab-jab-uppercut.

  Marie-Therese continued, “He said that he had broken it off with the other girl—”

  “Yes, yes.” He sounded impatient with the rehash, but Marie-Therese should have no idea that he had already heard this story.

  “—because she didn’t understand him, and he was very interested in renewing our relationship.”

  “He did?” All the chortle had gone out of Wulf’s father’s voice, and confusion took its place.

  “Yes, he said that he had had a revelation.”

  “Yes, about the commoner.” His dismissive tone amused Rae because he really should be paying much closer attention.

  “No, about God,” Marie-Therese said.

  “God.” Phillipp’s voice had gone flat.

  Across the phone, Marie-Therese’s black eyes flashed with laughter at Rae. “Yes, and he said that if I were open-minded, we could discuss a very important matter at supper tonight.”

  Josephine clapped her hand over her mouth when Marie-Therese said supper, and her thin shoulders shook with giggles.

  “Supper? Are you sure that he said supper?” Phillipp asked.

  “Oh, yes. He said he had reserved a table for four at a private room in the restaurant.”

  “For four?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. I have to go. I’ll call you tonight and tell you how it went.”

  “Wait! Are you sure he said four?”

  Marie-Therese hung up on him.

  The giggles that Rae had been holding down bubbled up in her throat, and she laughed. Laughing was so much better than screaming and crying.

  With a little luck, if word of this got out, Rae might never have to fend off another interloper. Wulf thought that upper-crust social intrigues were oh-so devious, but this was nothing compared to the machinations of a small town cut off by culture and distance from most forms of entertainment.

  Kira smiled at Rae, a small, regal smile of reserved amusement. “When shall I call?”

  Rae checked her own phone for the time. Wulf would be home soon, and she wanted to clear these women out before he came back. No use explaining this to him. Wulf had enough emotional baggage, and Rae didn’t need him to fight her battles for her, not when she had an army of princesses to do just that. “Let’s give it a minute.”

  Marie-Therese’s phone rang with a German number, so she let it go to voice mail while the four of them giggled at what must be happening inside Schloss Marienburg. Rae only hoped the castle’s servants weren’t bearing the brunt of it.

  Rae’s phone clicked over to the next minute, and her predatory smile widened. “Kira, your turn.”

  An evil light flashed in Kira’s pale blue eyes.

  She might actually be enjoying this, and a joyous energy filled Rae that she had been even a small part of Kira’s rebellion.

  Kira said into the phone, “Herr von Hannover? ’Tis I, Kira Augusta. I have happy news for you.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Wulf

  Wulf emerged from the elevator and crossed the hallway, flanked by his men. Hans opened the door to the suite and preceded him in.

  Inside, a scene out of some of his most vivid nightmares took shape.

  No, not those nightmares, not the blood-soaked morning when Constantin died nor any of the times that a bullet rang beside his head, nor beside Rae’s, nor beside his younger sister Flicka’s.

  Other nightmares also haunted Wulf, and surely, his beautiful Rae surrounded by two of his ex-girlfriends and the woman whom his father had attempted to pressure him to marry ranked among the worst of them.

  The other women encircled her.

  Having failed to dissuade him, they might be filling her ears with
lies.

  Cold dampness gathered beneath his suit. If she looked at him with pain in her huge brown eyes, he would fly to Germany and take his father apart with his bare hands.

  Kira, a Princess of Prussia, held a cell phone out flat, like they all were listening to the speakerphone. They had drawn up chairs to sit with their knees touching, and Kira said into the phone, “Yes, I’m as shocked as you are, but this is what you and my parents planned. I’m just worried about the veil.”

  The other three women—Viscontessa Marie-Therese Grimaldi, Grand Duchess Josephine Alexandrovna, and his own wife—clamped their hands over their mouths, repressing giggles, while their eyes danced merrily and threatened to break Kira’s concentration.

  Relief washed over Wulf at Rae’s laughter. He drew in a deep breath.

  Rae and the other two silent women inhaled hard through their noses so as not to laugh out loud. They were so intent on the phone that they didn’t notice Wulf as he walked over the wooden floor to them.

  He leaned into their circle—the light floral scent of their rose and jasmine perfumes rose like a mist around them—and said, “This can’t be good.”

  Kira looked up first. Her pale blue eyes met his. She said into the phone, “I must go. I’ll speak to you soon.”

  Her finger was just falling toward the phone’s screen when Wulf heard his father’s voice squawk out of the phone, “You can’t mean it! Surely not!”

  Oh, God in Heaven. Wulf plucked the phone out of Kira’s hand before she could hang up. “Father, what have they told you?”

  “Wulfram!” his father’s voice, beginning to sound hoarse around the edges, grated out of the phone.

  Wulf straightened and held the phone near his mouth. “What did they tell you?”

  “Three different women have called me and said that you had thrown over the commoner but that you had converted to Islam and you have proposed to all of them to live as your multiple wives! And they all accepted! Good God, Wulfram!”

  The four young women now had their hands clapped over their mouths, though their giggles leaked through. They were enjoying his father’s agony far too much, especially his own wife whose gleeful snicker threatened to erupt into full-blown evil laughter.