by Dani Collins
He was teasing her so she answered with even more determined seriousness. ‘Depending on the circumstances, I might even smile back.’
‘Depending on the circumstances?’ he echoed idly. ‘There’s a challenge.’
But he sat down at her desk, grabbed a blank piece of paper, borrowed one of her favourite pens and began writing. She watched, fascinated as the paper filled with small squares and a task or reminder beside each. Efficiency, list-making and prioritising? Who’d have thought? After a few moments he studied the list and nodded to himself before pulling out his phone and tapping the screen.
‘Good news, Marc. I’m to be married after all. I know you’ve had the wedding plans in place for months so now you can press “go”,’ he said with a bitter-edged smile. ‘We’ll journey home this afternoon.’ He paused for a long moment. ‘You think that’s achievable? Is that long enough for—?’ He paused again. ‘You flatter me, Marc, but if you’re sure.’ A few moments later he rang off. ‘We’re getting married in ten days and the coronation will take place in the week after.’
‘Ten days?’ Hester echoed.
‘I know, sooner than I’d have thought too. But it seems to have been planned since before I was born. It’s going to be a state holiday apparently.’ He scribbled more items on his ever-increasing list. ‘They’ve got plans for everything—processions, funerals, baptisms.’ He glanced across at her with a laughing grin. ‘My obituary is already written. They just update it every so often.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No. They’re prepared for everything. I think they thought I’d get killed in a plane crash or something a few years ago.’ He suddenly chuckled. ‘Don’t look so shocked.’
‘It just seems…’ She trailed off, wary of expressing her thoughts. But it seemed sad somehow, to have your life so meticulously planned, documented, constrained. Was it so surprising he’d rebelled against it?
‘Don’t you have every eventuality covered in your management of Fi’s correspondence?’ He gestured at her immaculate desk. ‘I’m assuming you’re a lists and contingencies person.’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘They just have more lists than you.’ He gazed down at his list. ‘You’ll need a wedding dress. It would be diplomatic if you choose a Triscarian designer. Would that be tolerable?’
‘Of course,’ she mumbled, but a qualm of panic struck. What had she been thinking? How could she pull off a live-streamed wedding with millions of people watching? Every last one would pick apart, not just her outfit, but every aspect of her appearance. She wasn’t a leggy beautiful brunette like Princess Fiorella. She was on the shorter, wider sides of average—as her aunt had so often commented when comparing her to her gazelle-like, mean cousins.
She took a breath and squared her shoulders. She didn’t care. She’d resolved long ago never to care again. Because the simple fact was she could never live up to the expectation or never please all of them, so why worry about any?
‘My assistant will arrange for some samples to be brought to the palace.’ He wrote yet another item in his harsh scrawl.
‘There’s not much time to make a dress or adjustments in ten days.’ There wasn’t much time to get her head around anything, let alone everything.
‘They’ll have a team. We’ll do some preparation as well, how to pose for photos and the like.’
How to what? ‘You mean you’re going to put me through some kind of princess school?’
‘Yes.’ He met her appalled gaze with laughter. ‘There’ll be lots of cameras. It can be blinding at first.’
‘Perhaps Princess Fiorella can guide me,’ she suggested hopefully.
‘I will,’ he replied firmly. ‘Fi needs to meet her obligations here. She’ll join us only for the ceremony.’
‘But it’s okay for me to walk out on her right away?’
‘Your obligations to me and to Triscari now take precedence.’ He added something else to his endless list.
Hester glanced about the room, suddenly thinking about all the things she was going to need to achieve. ‘I’ll have to—’
‘Find someone to feed the cat.’ He nodded and wrote that down too.
‘Yes,’ she muttered, internally touched that he’d remembered.
‘At my expense, of course,’ he added. ‘Do you have other work obligations we need to address?’
‘I can sort it.’ She didn’t flatter herself that she was indispensable. No one was. She could disappear from the college and very few people would notice. She’d disappeared before no trouble at all. But she was going to need to sort out Lucia. ‘Um…’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’m going to need…’
‘The money?’ He lifted his head to scrutinise her and waggled his pen between forefinger and thumb. ‘You want your first bathtub full of dollar bills?’
The intensity in his eyes made it hard to keep her equilibrium.
‘A few bundles would be good,’ she mumbled.
He tore another piece of paper from the pad and put it on the opposite side of the desk in front of her. ‘Write down the details and I’ll have it done.’
He didn’t ask more about why she wanted it. She half hoped he understood it wasn’t for her.
‘What family would you like to invite?’ he asked. ‘You can have as many as you like. Write the list and I’ll have them arrange invitations, transport and accommodation.’
She froze, her pen hovering just above the paper. Family?
She eventually glanced at him. He’d stopped writing and was watching her as he waited for her reply with apparently infinite patience. She wanted to look away from his eyes, but couldn’t. And she’d said this so many times before, this shouldn’t be different. But it was. Her breathing quickened. She just needed to say it. Rip the plaster off. That way was best. ‘My parents died when I was a child.’
He didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Foster parents, then? Adoptive? Extended family?’
She swallowed to push back the rising anxiety. ‘Do I have to invite them?’
His gaze remained direct and calm. ‘If you don’t invite anyone, there will be comment. I’m used to comment, so that doesn’t bother me. But if it will bother you, then I’d suggest inviting but then keeping them at a distance. That would be the diplomatic route that the courtiers will prefer.’
‘What would you prefer?’ Her heart banged against her ribcage.
‘I want you to do whatever will help you get through the day.’
That understated compassion shook her serenity and almost tempted her to confide in him. But she barely thought about her ‘family’. She couldn’t bear to. And she hadn’t seen them in years. ‘If they do come, will I have to spend time much with them…?’
He looked thoughtful and then the corners of his eyes crinkled. ‘I can be very possessive and dictatorial.’
‘You mean you’ll abuse your power?’ She couldn’t supress another giggle.
‘Absolutely.’ His answering grin was shameless and charming and pleased. ‘That’s what you’d expect from me, right?’
Her heart skipped. ‘The perks of being a prince…’
But her own smile faded as she considered the ramifications. She’d never wanted to see those people again, but this was an extremely public wedding. If she didn’t invite them there’d be more than mere speculation: journalists would sniff about for stories. If they dug deep old wounds might be opened, causing more drama. Anyway, her extended family liked nothing more than status, so if she invited them to the royal wedding of the decade, they’d be less likely to say anything. They’d never admit they’d disowned her father, spurned her pregnant mother, and caused her teenage parents to run away like some modern-day Romeo and Juliet. They’d never admit that they’d only taken her in after the accident for ‘the look of it’. Or that they’d never let her forget how she was the unplanned and unw
anted ‘trash’ who’d ruined the perfect plan they’d had for her father’s life.
‘Do you have someone you’d like to escort you down the aisle?’ he asked.
She noted with a wry smile that he didn’t suggest she be given away. ‘It’s fine, I’ll do that alone.’ She looked at the paper in front of her. ‘But perhaps Princess Fiorella might act as bridesmaid?’ She wasn’t sure if it was appropriate, but there really wasn’t anyone else she could think of.
‘That would work very well.’
‘Perfect for your pining heart narrative,’ she joked to cover the intensity of the discussion.
‘The media will seize on this as soon as they hear anything,’ Alek said solemnly. ‘They will pry into your private life, Hester. Are you prepared for that?’
‘It’s fine.’ She went back to writing her own list to avoid looking at him. ‘They can say what they like, print what they like.’
‘No skeletons in the closet?’ he queried gently. ‘It wouldn’t bother me if there were. Heaven knows I have them.’ She heard his smile in his voice before it dropped lower. ‘But I wouldn’t want you to suffer.’
She shook her head and refused to look up at him again. ‘It’s fine.’
‘There are no ex-boyfriends who are going to sell their stories about you to the press?’
Her blush built but she doggedly kept looking down. Why did he have to press this? He didn’t need to know.
‘They’re harder on women,’ he said huskily. ‘Wrong as that is.’
‘There are no skeletons. I was lonely as a teenager. I wasn’t really close to anyone.’ Uncomfortable, she glanced up to assure him and instantly regretted it because she was caught in the coal-black depths of his eyes. ‘My life to date has been very boring,’ she said flatly. ‘There’s literally nothing to write about.’
Nothing in her love life anyway. She couldn’t break free of his unwavering gaze and slowly that heat curled within her—embarrassment, right? But she also felt an alarming temptation to lean closer to him. Instead she froze. ‘Is it a problem?’
‘Not at all.’
She forced herself to focus on listing the details he’d asked for, rather than the strange sensations burgeoning within her.
This marriage was a few months of adventure. She had to treat it like that. If she’d been crazy enough to say yes to such an outlandish, impulsive proposal, she might as well go all the way with it. ‘Will your assistant be able to find me a hairdresser?’ She pushed past her customary independence and made herself ask for the help she needed. ‘And maybe some other clothes…’
‘You’d like that?’
She glanced up again and saw he was still studying her intently.
‘All the smoke and mirrors?’ she joked lamely again. ‘I’d like all the help I can get to pull this off.’
‘Then I’ll have it arranged. Write down your size and I’ll have some things brought to the plane.’
Heat suffused her skin again but she added it to her list before pushing the paper towards him. ‘I think that’s everything.’
‘Good,’ he said briskly. ‘Start packing. I have several calls to make.’
Relieved, she escaped into her small bedroom. With an oblique reference to ‘a family matter’, her volunteer co-ordinator at the drop-in centre expressed regret but understanding. It took only a moment to open an anonymous email account from which she could make the arrangements for her support for Lucia. Packing her belongings took only a moment too. She picked up the antique wooden box Alek had touched and carefully put it into the small backpack she’d used when she’d run away all those years ago. Her clothes fitted easily into the one small suitcase she’d acquired since.
‘That’s everything?’ He stared in frank amazement at her suitcase when she returned to the lounge.
‘I don’t need much.’
‘You’re going to need a little more than that.’ He reached out to take the case from her. ‘It’s probably good that we leave before Fi gets back. Saves on all the questions she’ll have been stockpiling over the last hour.’
But Hester didn’t follow him as he headed towards the door. ‘Are you absolutely certain about this, Your Highness?’
He turned back to face her. ‘Of course I’m certain,’ he said with absolute princely arrogance. ‘And you need to call me Alek.’
‘Okay.’ She hoisted her backpack and walked towards the door.
But he blocked her path. ‘Do it now. Practise so it slips off your tongue naturally. Call me Alek.’
‘I will.’
He still didn’t move to let her past. A frisson of awareness, danger, defiance, shivered within her as she defiantly met his gaze.
‘Say, Alek is wonderful. Now,’ he commanded.
She glared harder at him. ‘Alek is bossy.’
‘Good enough.’ He stepped back, the distance between them enabling her to breathe again. But his slow smile glinted with full wickedness. ‘For now.’
CHAPTER THREE
SWIFT WASN’T THE word for Alek’s modus operandi. When he’d decided something, he moved. Fast.
‘You’re very used to getting your own way,’ Hester said as she followed him downstairs out of the campus residence she’d called home for the last three years.
‘You think?’ He shot her a look. ‘I have the feeling I might not get everything quite on my terms for a while.’
‘Is that such a threat?’ Without thinking, another small smile sparkled free.
‘Not at all,’ he denied with relish. ‘I enjoy a challenge.’
Oh, she wasn’t a challenge. She was never going to be some kind of toy for this notorious playboy. But she forgot any flattening reply she was mulling when she saw the entourage waiting outside. Large, almost armoured vehicles were staffed by a phalanx of ferociously physical suited and booted men armed with earpieces and dark eyewear and who knew what else beneath the black fabric of their jackets. Alek guided her directly to the middle car. She was absurdly glad of its size and comfort, air conditioning and sleek silence. Her pulse hammered as they drove through the streets and she tried to stop herself snatching looks at him.
Lucia and Zoe will be secure and together.
That was what she needed to focus on. Not his dimples.
But her nerves mounted. The fluttering in her tummy was because she’d never flown in a plane before, that was all.
That’s not all.
This whole thing was insane. She needed to tell him she’d made a mistake. Back out and beg him to help that family—surely he would once he heard about Lucia’s struggle?
‘Okay?’ Alek was watching her with astute amusement.
She thought about Lucia and Zoe again. She thought about living on a warm island for a while. She thought about full financial freedom and independence for the rest of her life.
‘Okay.’ She nodded.
They went through a side door of the airport terminal. A uniformed woman escorted them directly to the plane.
‘Everyone is aboard?’ Alek asked.
‘Yes, sir. We’re cleared for departure as soon as you’re seated.’
Hester paused in the doorway and frowned. This wasn’t a small private jet like ones she’d seen in the movies. This was a commercial airliner. Except it wasn’t. There weren’t rows of cramped seats and masses of people. This was a lounge with sofas and small armchairs around wooden tables. Accented with back-lit marble and mirrors, it was so beautiful, it was like a hotel.
She gaped. ‘Is this really a plane?’
He smiled as he gestured for her to sit in one of the wide white leather armchairs and showed her where the seat belt hid. ‘I’ll give you the tour once we’re in the air. Can I take your bag?’
‘Can I keep it with me?’ Her box was in there and it contained her most precious things.
‘In this
compartment, here.’ He stowed it and took the seat opposite hers. ‘I’ve arranged for a stylist to fly with us, so you can make a start, and I’ve had an assistant pull together a report on some key staffers so you can get ahead of the game on who’s who at the palace.’ He pulled a tablet from another hidden compartment. ‘I don’t find the palace intimidating, but I was born there so it’s normal for me.’ He shrugged his shoulders.
She nodded, unable to speak or smile. It was enough effort to stay calm. Was she really about to leave the country? About to marry a man who was destined to become a king? About to launch into the air in a giant tin can?
‘Nervous?’
‘Of course,’ she muttered honestly. ‘But once I’ve done some preparation I’ll feel better.’
His pilots would have years of expertise behind them. She breathed carefully, managing her emotions. After a while she could glance out of the window. They’d climbed steeply and now the plane levelled out.
‘Follow me,’ Alek said, unfastening his seat belt.
She fumbled and he reached across and undid her belt for her.
‘Are you—?’
‘I’m fine,’ she interrupted and quickly stood, taking a pace away from him. He was too close and she was unable to process the spaciousness. ‘Are all private planes this big?’
‘No,’ he smirked. ‘Mine’s the biggest.’
‘Of course it is,’ she muttered. ‘Your ego could handle nothing less.’
‘Miaow.’ He laughed. ‘I see why you’re friends with that grumpy cat.’
Beyond the private lounge he pointed out a bedroom suite—with more marble and mirrors—then led her through another lounge to another cabin that was more like the business-class seating she’d seen in the movies. Half the seats were full—several of those suited bodyguard types, then others who looked like assistants. As she and Alek neared, they all scrambled to stand.
‘Please.’ Alek smiled and gestured for them to remain seated. ‘Is your team ready, Billie?’
‘Of course, Your Highness.’ A slim jeans-clad woman stood, as did another couple of people.