Jenn chuckled. “You remember you get to crush on whoever you want, right?”
I gave her a knowing look. “That’d be great advice if I was crushing on anyone.”
The withering look she gave me was only semi-sarcastic. “Fine. Lust. You get to lust after whoever you want.”
I nodded slowly. “I’ll remember that if I’m ever lusting after anyone.”
“That is a fine looking man, Anya…”
“Well, why don’t you lust after him, then?”
“Oh, I do. And I’m happy to admit it.”
“Good for you,” I replied.
“Fine,” she answered, trying to supress her grin. “Then the only thing I have left to say to you is that if I had two Golden Gaytimes sitting in a freezer I wouldn’t be letting them go all uneaten. I would have eaten them both and then some well before now.”
I snorted. “Now that is advice I might actually take.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Of course it is. Right. Loving you and leaving you.”
“Bye!”
We disconnected the call and I lay back on the bed.
There was zero chance I’d see Dmitri – not that I wanted to and not that it would have mattered if I did – but there were potentially two ice creams going uneaten and that was a damned shame. But I was already in my pyjamas and I was essentially in bed. The more I tried not thinking about it, the more Jenn’s words played in my head. So I snapped my laptop shut and headed for the kitchen again. Someone had to eat the ice cream and it may as well be someone who enjoyed them as much as I did.
The palace was quiet and almost dark again, only the moon shining through windows when I went past them and the odd, dim light here and there. It was eerie, but I didn’t feel like I was wandering through some gothic movie; there was far too much opulence and vivid colour in everything, and not a spider web or speck of dust in sight.
I eventually found my way back to the kitchens – after a couple of weeks following Nikolai around, I was starting to get used to the general layout of the place – and this time I noticed Dmitri as soon as I walked in.
Jenn’s words about more than ice cream were playing over in my head and I felt my breath catch and my stomach drop. Thankfully, he was facing away from me and he was still in his suit, although his jacket was on the big scrubbed wooden table in the middle of the room.
Not knowing what else to do, I cleared my throat and he turned.
“Lady Tatiana.” He inclined his head and leant back against the counter as he crossed his arms over that broad chest.
“Dmitri.” Then I just blurted, actually totally sober, “A girl might think you were waiting on her.”
He looked me over slowly and I wasn’t sure if I was imagining the slight smile on his face or not. “Or I am merely watching over the place in case a certain young woman finds herself here and accidentally sets the place on fire.”
By pure instinct, I started to get totally pissed off with him and his self-righteousness, but then I realised the tone in his voice was actually only teasing. “Well, I wouldn’t put it past her.”
We stood awkwardly for a moment. Even completely dressed, the only part of his skin showing the slight patch under his neck where his top button was undone, I could barely take my eyes off him. I watched avidly as he turned slightly and picked up a tumbler with what looked like whiskey in it and took a slow sip as though he thought I’d enjoy watching. I did.
“You and your dad have a late one again?”
He nodded. “Ja.”
Starting to feel kind of antsy, I went to the freezer to look for my ice creams. But they’d been pilfered! I groaned in annoyance as I shut the door again and found him looking at me with interest.
“No more Gaytimes,” I explained and he nodded.
“Ah. Shame.”
Not sure if leaving or staying would seem ruder, I sort of hovered in the middle of the kitchen. Dmitri did nothing but watch me carefully as he finished his drink, then twist the tumbler in his hand as though thinking. Finally he pushed himself off the counter and indicated his glass to me.
“Care to join me?”
“Is this you being a bad influence? Or just trying to increase my tolerance for the good of the nation?” I asked him and I saw the humour on his face as he turned to a cupboard and pulled a bottle out.
As he went to another cupboard and found a glass, he said, “It is my job, my duty and my honour to act for the good of the nation, Tatiana.”
He poured us both a drink and walked over to me. As he passed me one glass, our fingers lingered and I suddenly wondered whether it was sensible to be drinking whiskey in a semi-darkened kitchen with the crown prince when everyone was obviously in bed. But I’d always been one to listen to any other part of my body than my brain.
“Dakke,” I said.
“Di nanda,” he replied, seeming pleasantly surprised, and I smiled.
“You sound almost bitter about that,” I said slowly, caught between not knowing what to say next and saying the first thing that popped into my head.
He went back to lean on the counter and he took a sip while watching me thoughtfully. “I am privileged to serve my country.”
I walked towards the other counter, but got slightly side-tracked by the headline on the paper on the counter and internally groaned at the sight of my face gawking up at me. Again. I put down my tumbler I looked at it. “But not in the way you want,” I said as I read about how I was apparently lazing about the palace on the tax-payers’ dime and also rescuing ponies in my spare time.
“What I want is irrelevant,” he answered.
I was half-scanning the article, half-invested in the conversation, so I wasn’t in full control of what I was saying. “That’s just not true. We both know what you want and it’s not visiting the shelters or cutting ribbons or hashing out political strategy in the drawing room with your father late into the night.”
“And what do you know about what I want, Tati?” he asked me.
The shiver his voice sent across my skin made me look up at him. He caught my eye completely unapologetically, staring me down as though he dared me to look away or backtrack my words.
“I might not have known you for long Dmitri, but I’ve heard enough about you. I knew what you wanted before I even met you. And since then, it’s become so much clearer.”
“I highly doubt you knew what I wanted before we met.”
“And why is that? You’re not as unreadable as you’d like.”
“Because I didn’t even know what I wanted until recently.”
My heart stuttered and I convinced myself that he in no way meant me. Just because I had a serious thing for the way he looked, and that smouldering darkness in his eyes, in no way meant that he felt even a shred of the same thing.
Nervously, I tipped back the contents of my glass and he followed suit.
“Another?” he asked.
I nodded stiltedly. “I’ll do it.”
I walked over, took his glass as I passed and went to where he’d left the bottle.
I cleared my throat before saying, “Everyone knows you’ve wanted back on active duty since your father called you home.”
“Ah, yes. My military service,” he said from right behind me, his voice the kind of low that made me tingle.
I jumped and he put a hand on my waist as if to steady me.
“Sorry, I did not mean to scare you.”
I shook my head, my heart hammering at his nearness but not wanting to do anything to change it. “You and Kostin served together for a while, I heard?”
“I joined as soon as I hit eighteen, merely months out of school. I was still serving when Konstantin joined on his eighteenth birthday. I was back at base while he was training and we spent some time together. He left only a few months before I was brought home.”
“But you yearn to go back to it.”
“I’ve yet to find something else
I want more.”
There was something about his tone of voice that had a part of me desperate to believe that was a lie and that the something he wanted more was me. The larger part of me knew that was total bollocks. And I wasn’t going to let the smaller part of me show.
“I never asked what branch?”
“Special forces.”
That sounded pretty cool. “Oh, like the SEALs?”
He chuckled. “Somewhat like that, yes. I have heard women go nuts for them in romance novels?”
I turned my head to him and he actually wriggled his eyebrows. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I told him.
“Oh, really?”
He wrapped his arms around my waist and I giggled.
“That blush tells me otherwise,” he whispered in my ear.
“What I do and don’t read is surely none of your business?” I smiled, unable to help myself laying my hands over his.
“I thought only bored, middle-aged housewives read those sorts of books?”
I snickered. “You are entitled to think whatever you like, your royal highness.”
“So you do read them?” He sounded weirdly excited about that. “Is it like porn for women, then?”
“Oh my God!” I laughed again and turned in his arms. I instantly regretted it as the easier, jovial mood got slightly more intense, but I smiled widely, especially when he didn’t let me go. “Porn for women? Really? You know, I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking you were some tortured, brooding prince with that chip on his shoulder loud and proud for the world to see. But you’re just a normal twenty-three year old guy, aren’t you?”
He bent his lips to my ear. “Even royals have desires, my lady.”
He drew back slowly, but only far enough to look into my eyes. His were dark and deep and he emanated that something from the very first day I met him. I couldn’t work out what it was, but it called to me.
I suddenly realised our faces were moving closer to each other, my heart was beating harder, and there was a definite sizzle between us. And I thought I saw the moment when he realised it too. We both snapped backwards. Dmitri took a couple of hurried steps backwards and I stopped trying once I realised the kitchen counter was behind me and I wasn’t going anywhere. So I made do with looking down at the floor while I tucked some hair behind my ear.
We both cleared out throats and started speaking at the same time, then stopped at the same time as well.
“I should get to bed. Early start tomorrow. Lots of dance practise for Saturday. We both know I need it,” I chuckled awkwardly, unable to look at him.
He cleared his throat again. “No. Of course. I should…not have kept you.”
“Good night, Dmitri,” I said quickly, did some poncy weird curtsey/bow thing, and scurried out as he said rather weakly, “Good night, Lady Tatiana.”
I berated myself the whole way up to my room and told myself that it didn’t matter who needed to eat the Golden Gaytimes – if there ever were any again – because the risk of running into Dmitri alone in the kitchen again was too high even for caramel, biscuity goodness.
Chapter Twelve
I was stoically not thinking about the almost-kiss as I hurried to the south conservatory after lunch to meet Nico for more dance practise.
I’d had abysmal condensed politics, Gallyrian and etiquette lessons in the morning and it felt like a day of complete and utter failures. Mr Phipps was threatening to throw in the towel, Mrs Lukin just watched my feeble attempts with no hope, and Miss Karonov wasn’t feeling much better about me. Add to the fact that Mr Phipps was supposed to be helping me to remember everyone who was going to be at my presentation ball on the weekend, Mrs Lukin was supposed to help me not put my foot in anything, and Miss Karonov was supposed to be helping me be able to talk to them a little, I was ready to get on any flight, boat, or cardboard box back home. Hell, I’d swim the whole way if it meant I could avoid the ball.
“Anya, you look terrible,” Nico teased as I skidded in to the room, Nikolai stopping to hover by the door as usual.
I did my best to huff a laugh. “Thanks, Nico. You really do know your way to a girl’s heart, don’t you?”
I put my hand on his shoulder and held my other out for his, then realised he was looking at me intently.
“What?” I asked him, a weird lightness in my stomach.
A slight frown marred his features. “Are you all right?”
I picked up his hand, not liking serious Nico much and not sure why. “Just stressed about Saturday. Which means I need to practise.”
“I live to serve, my lady.”
“You know I hear that a lot out of you and I’m still not convinced by it,” I told him wryly.
He grinned and those baby blues sparkled infectiously. “Then I’ll have to keep telling you until you are convinced.”
I snorted in an effort not to laugh out loud. “Come on. Be this amazing tutor you’re supposed to be,” I said.
He started spinning us. “I excel in more than dance tutoring,” he said with a wink.
I was already feeling less stressed and my feet moved slightly better than usual as he distracted me. “I do not think such implications are becoming for a prince of the realm, your highness.”
He laughed, carefree and easily. “I am but a third son of the king, my lady. I’m the spare spare. I have much more freedom, more liberty, less…inhibition than my brothers.”
“Yes you do. Although I’m not sure you’re actually supposed to.”
His eyes got this sharp look in them that made my cheeks heat and almost made my step falter. “If we always did what we were supposed to do, Anya,” he said my name like an intimate caress, “we would never fulfil our destinies.”
He slowed us to a stop, pulling me close and I totally nearly fell for it.
Heat crackled between us and – I mean damn – the guy was gorgeous. He was looking at me with this slight tilt to the corner of his lips, his eyes were soft, as were his fingers as they gently gripped my waist. I breathed out deeply and we shared a smile.
“I see now why Lia and I need guards,” I laughed and Nico’s eyes shone.
“Yes? Why is that?” he asked.
“Dad’s not worried about us. He’s worried about you.”
Nico’s chuckle was rough and pleasant. “Uncle Max…is protective.”
I nodded. “With you around, I’m not surprised.”
He gasped sarcastically. “And what exactly are you implying, Tatiana?”
I tried to suppress the smile and failed. “Nothing you don’t already know, Dominic.”
He smirked and I knew it was the kind that was supposed to make my heart flutter and my stomach flip-flop. And I guessed in some ways it did. But there was nothing more than a harmless flirtation there. Or at least that was what I was going to tell myself and keep believing.
We looked at each other for a few more wonderfully tense heart beats, then we went back to it.
“If I’m not supposed to flirt with you, shall I quiz you on the peerage instead?” he asked me.
The idea alone made me stumble a little. “Um,” I laughed humorously. “Well, I can’t possibly do any worse, can I?”
That cocky half smile was back. “I’ll ease you in. Duchy of Estain?” he asked.
“Your father’s uncle on his mother’s side, Gregor Guerin. His wife Amelie died three years ago of cancer and they had no children.”
“Good. Also important to note that the man is heavily into family and is far more laid back about protocols than many of the others. Something harder. Who is next in line after me?” he asked as he spun me and my elbow collided with his chest with an audible, “Oof,” out of him.
“Seriously?” I asked him with a glare.
He grinned. “You’ll need to know this, Anya. Dad’s brother has pre-emptively abdicated and he only has daughters.”
“It’s archaic that girls can’t inherit the crown.”
Lia could inherit Genovich, but Rex’s daughters could not inherit the crown if something happened to their brothers.
“Yes. But, it is still law.”
Nico nudged me back into the steps and I tried to concentrate and think about the answer at the same time. “The Earl of Denmorran?” I asked, totally unsure.
Nico nodded. “Well done. Lord Alexander is still chomping at the bit to get the crown, despite the fact he’s the fourth in line…until my brothers and I have sons.”
“He’d be like tenth if your father got parliament to allow women to inherit.”
“Ja, he would. But then he’d just make sure Mitya married his niece even faster.”
Now, I really did stumble. “His niece?”
Nico nodded. “His sister was married off to a man in Germany and the product was,” here, he actually shuddered, “Amanda Schuller.”
“And this is bad?”
He shrugged and the smirk on his face told me everything I needed to know. “It’s fine. If you like your women overly-ambitious, narcissistic, obsessive, and generally less jovial in temperament than that shrew Katherina.”
I frowned. “The who? I don’t remember Mr Phipps covering any Katherinas…”
Nico laughed. “No. Shakespeare’s Katherina?”
I blinked. “You’ve lost me. We did Romeo and Juliet in Year Ten, but I don’t remember a Katherina.”
“That would be because she’s from The Taming of the Shrew.”
“Well, that sounds just as lovely.”
Nico’s smile was thoroughly infectious. “It is certainly no Much Ado About Nothing.”
“Here I was assuming you’d spent your entire school career sneaking out of boarding school to seduce young women,” I laughed.
He pulled me close as we twirled. “What makes you think I had to leave?” he whispered, his voice full of meaning.
“Old school ma’ams do it for you, do they?”
He dropped my hand, wrapped his arms around my waist and spun me around as he replied, “You’d be surprised just how young our ma’ams were.”
I dropped my face to his shoulder as I held on and giggled.
Now Presenting (I'm No Princess Book 1) Page 12