Royal Marriage Market

by Heather Lyons

  “This whole farce feels secondary school-ish,” he mutters, running a hand through his dark hair. And then, “Why didn’t you want me to like you, Els?”

  I open my mouth to correct him, but he cuts me off, smirking. “I mean friendly liking, of course.”

  “It isn’t that I didn’t want you to like me, per se.” The urge to kick myself is strong. Why do I keep saying ridiculous things around this man? “If that makes sense. Which it most likely doesn’t.” I am digging a deeper hole for myself, aren’t I? “I suppose I am on the defensive.” I lamely wave a hand between us. When it grazes his shoulder, I jerk back at the static shock. “As are you, and rightly so.” Good lord, I’m raving once more. And my fingers are tingling, all from a simple brush against broadcloth. “To think I assumed you were the egotistical one, thanks to all of your . . .” I motion toward his face, and then his body, careful to keep my distance. “You know. All of your too-ness. And yet, perhaps it was me and my ego that ought to have been of concern.”

  “My too-ness?”

  He’s shocked. Scratch that—he is amused. And I am officially over this conversation, since the opportunity for me to continue to make a complete and utter arse out of myself is nearly guaranteed. So, I refuse to clarify. “Take the apology as it stands, Christian.”

  “Is that a first, Els?”

  My inhale is sharper than I would like.

  “Because I have a feeling that you don’t apologize very often. Or that you ever lose control enough to be required to do so.” The corners of his lips twitch. “Maybe that’s another first. Losing control, especially in a situation like the RMM, when one must be in control every single second.”

  I cannot even manage to properly gasp, my heart is hammering so hard in my chest. I tell him, hating how husky my voice is, “It’s not three a.m. Does this first count?”

  All of my efforts to keep my hands off him go to naught when he reaches out and gently tucks stray strands of hair behind one of my ears. “I’ll allow it. But just because you’re a fellow founding member of the RFC.”

  My legs are shaking. They are physically shaking.

  “Also, just to let you know: apology accepted.”

  Why did I choose this little nook for us to stand in again? There is not enough airflow in here. It’s way too hot, even though it’s a cool day.

  I force myself to ask, “What’s your first?”

  “I want you to call me Chris. As boring as that name may be.”

  I hate the rush that surges through me when he says this. “Other people call you Chris. That is not a first.”

  “It is a first, when it’s less than twenty-four hours after meeting someone. It took Parker years before he broke down and called me anything other than Christian. There aren’t a lot of people who use Chris, by the way. Less than a handful.”

  I swallow hard. “But what if I want you to be Christian to me?”

  “Then,” he says quietly, “I will be Christian to you.”

  My eyes drift to his mouth. My pulse increases significantly. The air around us completely disappears. “Why Chris?”

  “Chris is familiar,” he says, voice low and warm and crisp all at once. “And…I think I want to be familiar to you, Els.”

  It is impossibly foolish to even consider such a thing, but it’s exactly what I want too.

  chapter 17

  Christian

  “How was the meeting?”

  The question comes from my brother, who miraculously managed to pull himself out of bed (his or someone else’s, I’m not sure) to join us out on the patio surrounding the pool.

  “Torturous.”

  I’m being kind with my description. The two-hour meeting, which in reality was the world’s oldest crown heir spewing his bitterness over how his mother still lives and rules while he continues to age on the sidelines, was nothing short of a trip to the abyss. There were no discussions concerning key political issues in our respective countries, no hints of alliances to be fostered within the Summit. Hell, we didn’t even have a chance to mingle with fellow royals we may have never had the pleasure of meeting in person yet. Nobody else spoke during those two hours. Not a single person. I cannot personally vouch for the others present, but I worried the bastard was hellbent on embezzling any and all joy we might have in our lives until we were nothing but dried husks desperate to escape.

  “There was nothing redeemable about the meeting?” Parker asks.

  Elsa.

  Granted, her eyes were just as glazed over as the rest of the groups, and we didn’t speak (because God forbid anyone get a word in), but there was a shared sense of solidarity in our misery.

  I focused more on her than the so-called speaker. Every move, every shift, every time she crossed her legs, I noticed, even if just out of the corner of my eye. If I’m being honest, I kept hoping she’d tear the arsehole lecturing us a new one if only to break the tension.

  When that never happened, I wondered . . . was it me? Was there something about me that encouraged her to ignore the decorum beat into all of us at a young age? Because what kind of princess goes off the rails like that?

  A maddeningly intriguing one, that’s for sure. And I’ve gone straight to bedlam, because I’m thrilled she’s showing me these true colors. I’ll happily take her brand of feistiness in this sea of boredom.

  But I tell my brother and best friend, “Not a damn thing.”

  Lukas slips his flask out of his coat pocket. “The She-Wolf gave me more specific marching orders while you were at your lame meeting.”

  I don’t know what’s worse—acknowledging I pinpointed that Elsa smells like Tahitian vanilla or anything to do with the She-Wolf. “Who is she targeting?”

  He takes a long swig before recapping the flask. “Can you believe the Hereditary Princess of Vattenguldia is on her list? The one from this morning’s breakfast? I swear, she’s fucking obsessed with those girls.”

  Poor bast—what the hell?

  “I was under the impression that Her Highness was keen on your brother making headway with the younger sister,” Parker is saying.

  Elsa? And Lukas? Jesus. No. No fucking way. Talk about oil and water.

  “She says that if my bro here can’t bag the sister, I’m to go hardcore after the heir. Says . . .” He runs a hand through his dark hair and glances around the patio we’re sitting on. There are a few people about twenty meters away, but they’re easily out of earshot. “Says we will obtain an in into their shipping registries, no matter what it takes. Romantic as all shite, right?” A grimace spreads across his face. “But that’s the She-Wolf for you. Doesn’t care if she fucks over her kids, just as long as the ink on a trade agreement is legit.”

  Parker gives me a meaningful look. Arsehole. I ask my brother, “Elsa’s her top pick?”

  “Secondary. But she wants me working,”—he flashes air quotation marks—“both angles, just in case.” His tone informs me that it’ll be a cold day in hell when he follows through with such an order.

  Even still, I say flatly, “You better start looking at others on that list the She-Wolf made for you.”

  “You doubting my prowess?”

  I tug his flask away and unscrew it. “Prowess?” I shake my head as I take a sip. It’s whiskey; he came through on his promise to find us the good stuff. “Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth?”

  He rips the flask back out of my hand once I’m done. “Do you doubt I could land that Vattenguldian chick if I tried?”

  “Actually,” I tell him, more annoyed than I ought to be, “I do. And don’t be disrespectful. You do not call future monarchs chicks, nor do you talk about landing them.”

  He’s wearing sunglasses, but I’m pretty sure he just narrowed his eyes at me. And I realize maybe a little too late that I’ve just offered him some kind of challenge. Well, shite.

  Parker gives me yet another meaningful look.

  “How convenie
nt,” my brother says. “There’s the girl in question.”

  Across the pool, I spy Elsa and her sister talking to some other people on a terrace overlooking the area. And that reminds me, I’m supposed to go have tea with Isabelle in a quarter of an hour. Fantastic.

  Lukas stands up, shoving his flask into his pocket. I’ll be damned if he goes over there. So I say quietly, “Sit your arse back down unless you are prepared to give the She-Wolf exactly what she wants.”

  He turns, eyebrows rising over dark plastic.

  I keep my voice low and pleasant, lest anyone overhear us. “You’ve never been the good soldier, following marching orders. What makes today any different? Are you really ready to just roll over? Bloody hell, Luk. I never thought I’d see the day. Might as well cut your balls off and pickle them for her.”

  Now he’s just pissed—and incredulous, because we both know, if anybody follows the She-Wolf’s marching orders, it’s fucking Prince Perfect.

  “Your next meeting is in ten minutes, Chris,” Parker says smoothly. “Prince Lukas, I believe you have one at the same time.”

  Amazingly, Lukas sits back down. “What the fuck? I’m not the heir. Spares aren’t supposed to go to meetings.”

  Mat wanders up to where Elsa and Isabelle are standing. Are they to have tea, too?

  “My mistake,” Parker is saying, which is a joke, because Parker doesn’t get shite wrong. Ever. But then, he was merely handling my brother before; he knows just as well as the rest of us that Lukas’ sole purpose this week is to be a stud for sale. “I thought I’d heard during orientation that there was to be a few meetings for . . .”

  “Go ahead.” Lukas leans against the cushions of his chaise. “You can call me the spare. Damn, Parker, you seriously need to lighten up. The She-Wolf isn’t present. We’re mates, remember? You don’t need to treat Chris and I like we’re—”

  Parker smiles thinly. “Royalty?”

  Mat leads the Vattenguldian sisters back up the stairs. “Who else?” I ask.

  They both appear confused, so I add, “On the She-Wolf’s list.”

  Lukas’ sigh weighs down in the air. “The true target is some royal cousin who has been dragged here from Spain. The She-Wolf thinks Dad will appreciate it or something. Like it’s some kind of warped peace offering.” He scoffs. “Like that will matter to Dad. Like he’ll ever think anything good can come of this fucking farce.”

  “Us,” I remind him quietly. “He would argue he got us.”

  Lukas merely grunts, nursing his flask.

  “Have you met this Spanish girl?” I ask. “And also, let’s not call her this Spanish girl. What’s her name?”

  “Maria-Elena, but she said she prefers just Maria or Mari.”

  I’m impressed he knows this. My brother isn’t always the best at collecting names.

  “To answer your questions, though, yeah, we’ve run into each other a few times now. She’s hot.” A small smile slips out. “I might have, uh, gotten a little friendly with her before I knew she was my bloody intended. What about the Vattenguldian girl, Chris? The one with an icicle stuck up her arse. Any hope there?”

  No. No hope for either girl, unfortunately, even though I think I might wish for it differently otherwise.

  Which is a truly irresponsible wish indeed.

  chapter 18

  Elsa

  I fight the urge to yawn, but it is a battle I’m losing. So I attempt a closed-mouth yawn, with my eyes widening alongside an added head nod so it doesn’t appear as if I’m as bored as I truly am. And tired. I’m running on all of about two hours of good, solid sleep.

  Mat slides the book he showed me back onto the shelf he found it on. “Not so much a fan of the classics?”

  The antique book had been about finance. “Is it truly a classic?”

  “To some, perhaps.” His morose yet easy smile attempts to coax one out of me, but all I feel in return is crabbiness. Forced relationships can do that to a lady, even with a man as decent as this one. Especially after one’s father has forced her to spend some so-called “quality” time with said man.

  “Do your duty,” was His Serene Highness’ response when I pressed why I couldn’t have tea with my sister instead. But no, she’s having tea with Christian, and I am here trying to manufacture small talk with Mathieu.

  But small talk we must. “Where exactly is it that you call home nowadays?”

  “My family is based in France, but I tend to bounce back and forth between Paris, Rome, and New York.”

  Ah. That’s right; he said he’d lived here in the States, hadn’t he? “How do you like New York? I’ve yet to visit, although I hope to someday.”

  “It’s a brilliant city, filled with a lot of life.” There’s a dulled twinkle in his eye. “Does it make me a traitor to the EU to say I prefer it to any of the grand cities I grew up in?”

  “Oh, it’s a distinct possibility.”

  “If I could,” he tells me, words brittle yet light, “I’d happily live the rest of my life there.”

  Is that grief reflecting in his eyes?

  When he faces the books, I bite back the impulse to press him about this, or to even remind him that Vattenguldia is a far cry from New York City. To do so, though, would to encourage intimacy when such closeness is definitely undesired. Awkward small talk is promptly abandoned for uncomfortable silence.

  Last night, it was easier to converse when there was mere suspicion. Now that I possess confirmation our parents desire a match between us, my words fail me.

  I have nothing to say to him.

  “Are you having a good time?”

  Bloody Charlotte and her optimism. I lean against the railing closest to me and gaze upon lush gardens. “What do you think?”

  She chuckles at the same time the baby lets loose a ripping shout of a cry. “How are your meetings so far?”

  At least, that’s what I think she says. “Boring as sod, that’s what.”

  “They’re about flooring?”

  Oh for— “Charlotte, I love you and Dickie dearly, but pass the baby off, okay?”

  “What?”

  “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PASS THE BABY OFF TO THE NANNY.”

  The Malaysian Supreme Head of State and the King of Cambodia both send sharp, startled glances my way. They are at a good enough distance that they cannot overhear my phone call—when I’m speaking normally, at least. I offer a sheepish smile before slipping down the path toward the stairs leading to the drive.

  Thankfully, in my escape from humiliation, Charlotte gives our eardrums a break and does as asked. “Now then,” she says once the baby’s cries fade, “you were telling me about your meetings?”

  “They are preposterous.” I nod at a passing groundskeeper as I turn on the drive, heading toward the rear castle grounds. “And honestly, an insult. We are being babysat. There is no real work for heirs to do here. I haven’t even had a chance to use any of His Serene Highness’ so-called talking points yet. The last meeting I was at? Nobody was allowed to speak. How is that for representing Vattenguldia on the global stage?”

  “Has your father indicated who he’s angling toward yet?”

  I peer into the overcast sky; it looks like the clouds will open up and cry shortly. But I don’t head back, yet. I’ll risk the rain as long as I have room to breathe. Over the course of the next five minutes, I fill Charlotte in on all the gory details that only a day and a half can bring. She listens quietly (I am certain she takes copious notes, though) while gently coaxing the full story out of me, as well as a request.

  When I’m done, she says, “I am on the Mathieu angle.” And then, less sharply, “Do you at least like him?”

  “I suppose he’s nice enough.”

  “That is hardly a glowing recommendation, Elsa.”

  “What do you want me to say? That I fell madly in love with him the moment we met?” A forced burst of laughter claws its way out of my chest. “Pleas
e. That never happens, especially at the RMM.”

  “I fell in love with Josef the moment I saw him—”

  I cut her off. For being so level-headed, Charlotte’s memories of how she and her husband first got together are distorted. “You tossed a drink in his face and called him an arse in front of the entire restaurant. Then you bitched non-stop about him for the next two days.”

  “I most certainly did not!”

  I’m undeterred. “It was so bad you had to pay me a euro for every time you said his name or called him that arse. I ended up with a tidy profit.”

  “The point being,” she grinds out, “that love at first sight is a true possibility.”

  “Love at first sight is an urban legend. Lust at first sight? I’ll concede it might exist. But neither happened with Mat,” I assure her. With Christian? Oh yes. “He is a decent bloke, but there are no sparks. None. He feels very brother-ish—or at least, what I imagine a brother feels like.”

  “Oh, Elsa,” she says quietly. “That makes me so sad.”

  “Did you believe there was the possibility of me coming to the Royal Marriage Market and finding true love?” I let out a scoff of derision. “Nobody here is so lucky.”

  “What about your Prince Charming?”

  I halt in the middle of the road. “I don’t have a Prince Charming.”

  “The handsome fellow you met yesterday—”

  I counter with, “The one His Serene Highness expects Isabelle to marry?”

  “Do you really think that will go through, what with Isabelle and Alfons’ engagement?”

  I turn back toward the main house and stare up at it. “I fear there is no engagement anymore. Isabelle refuses to discuss Alfons, let alone tell me what has her on edge—RMM notwithstanding.”

  It’s just as much as a surprise to Charlotte as it had been to me.

  chapter 19

  Christian

  Thank the bloody stars dinner is over.

  Isabelle ate with us tonight, as did Maria-Elena. The She-Wolf was in high spirits, regaling the two ladies with grand stories of Aiboland and her witty, charming sons growing up in such an idyllic place. Only, the ladies forced to endure these embellished stories morphed into wooden statues the entire time, and we dutiful sons were no better.