The Prince's Devious Proposal - Holly Rayner Page 0,30

would tell him all about her parents. That was an invigorating idea. She hadn’t been able to share them with anyone since her mother’s death, and talking about them made them feel as if they were still here. She knew that Petr would be eager to learn all about them. He had already proven himself to be interested in every facet of her life.

She would tell him about the way her father had taken her hiking in the woods when she was a child, about the way they had sat contentedly by streams without saying anything at all. For a man who loved parties and living the high life, he had been remarkably in touch with nature.

And she would tell him about the way her mother had taught her to do her makeup, carefully introducing new tools when Naomi mastered the old ones so that she had never had too much to cope with at once. By the time she had reached her twenties, she had felt highly competent when it came to applying makeup. She had even refused the Desert Flowers’ offer to use their cosmetician on the tour.

It occurred to her to wonder, suddenly, whether a cosmetician was something she would be offered again, now that she was the wife of a prince.

Almost definitely not. After all, she had seen enough of Petr’s day-to-day life to know that there would be no regular need for her to make up her face.

But then again, she didn’t exactly know what her life was going to look like. There was so much they hadn’t talked about. So much she hadn’t thought about. Suddenly, the questions stretched out before her.

She had to assume that he wasn’t going to want to live in her condo. It was so small, and she had gotten a fairly good impression of the standard of living that he was used to. But then, what would they do? Would she move into his home?

She had never even seen his home. What was it like? Where was it located? God, if it’s anything like this place, that’s going to be completely life-altering.

Would there be servants? She didn’t know how she felt about that. It would be uncomfortable to have people working for her that way, and she didn’t know how well she would adjust to it. But it did sound like the kind of thing that was an intrinsic part of the life of a member of the royal family.

Petr had almost certainly grown up with servants, and he had mentioned having a catering staff at the house in Barcelona. Even though he was living away from Sovra now, even though he—how had he put it?—didn’t have any royal duties, he would likely have wanted to keep up the same lifestyle he’d grown up with.

And what about the paparazzi? She and Petr had managed to avoid having their pictures taken on this trip, donning hats and sunglasses every time they left the estate to help obscure their identities. But they couldn’t live their lives behind those disguises. It was inevitable that they would be photographed together, and that Naomi would find herself in the public eye once more.

She couldn’t suppress a little shiver of excitement at the idea. Fame was a complicated thing, but it had always been kind of a fun thing for Naomi as well. She had enjoyed the idea that people had looked at her and known who she was, that there were people who aspired to be her.

Of course, this would be different. Being famous because of who she was married to wasn’t the same as being famous on her own merit.

But still, she wasn’t a nobody. Petr had reminded her of that over and over. People would remember her from her music days.

She sighed, stopping the sway of the hammock. It was a big and difficult thing she was facing, no matter how you looked at it. Her life was about to be fundamentally changed. Was she ready for it? Would she be able to cope with everything that was about to be thrown at her?

Yes, she told herself firmly. I can handle it.

After all, she had handled so much in her life already. So many twists and turns. So many unexpected events and changes she couldn’t have possibly seen coming.

Like the success of her album. Though she had been grateful to her parents for producing it, she had never expected it to do as well as it had. She had thought that she