a museum piece. Like everything else in the palace, its white curved legs looked old and dainty and unspeakably fragile. The gold trim along every edge and cutout did sort of scream irreplaceable antique.
But, as Mallory argued with Kelsey every time they came in here, what good was a desk that couldn’t also act as a table, buffet and, in a pinch, a bed?
Okay, not a bed. A place to have sex.
Yes. Desks now—apparently—made her think of sex.
Which was awkward. Because the last thing Mallory wanted to do was look at her sister-of-the-heart sitting in the high-backed, white upholstered chair behind the desk and remember having the best sex of her life with Kelsey’s actual brother.
At her old job, Mallory had never thought about sex. Ergo, it was irrefutably doable to push away the memories of the sweat beading in the light tangle of blond chest hair as Christian—
No.
Best to remind herself that she’d clocked in for the day. Even if she was half draped across a sage green chaise lounge, it was work. Even though her coffee was in a Sevres china cup patterned with holly and oak leaves delivered by an actual maid, it was work.
Across from her, Sir Evan, Kelsey’s private secretary, shuffled through the binder he’d spread across a footstool. “Lady Mallory, perhaps we should—”
To cut him off, Mallory cleared her throat and did an index finger/eyebrow lift combo. No. Hell, no. OMFG, no. Nonononono.
Whew.
She hadn’t said any of that out loud.
“Sir Evan, I’d prefer it if you did not use my title when we’re alone.”
Patting the lavender tie that bisected his starched white shirtfront, he said solemnly, “It is a great honor that must be recognized.”
“The gift of it was an honor. One I’m humbled by. One that I do not feel particularly worthy of, so please respect my wishes.” There. She’d channeled a bit of Princess Genevieve’s formality and imperiousness. That ought to drive the point home.
Mallory strutted across the pink-and-lilac swirls of the Oriental rug to yes, annoy Kelsey by propping her butt on the corner of the desk. She leveled a cool stare that—hopefully—said check and mate to Sir Evan.
Except that he met her coolness with a far more practiced version. It was like those energy beams meeting in the final battle between Harry and Voldemort.
“When Princess Kelsey begged us not to call her ‘Your Highness,’ you told her to, and I quote, ‘take the good with the bad and stop resisting all of the awesome.’”
Damn it. Mallory crossed her arms over her pale-green blouse. “Did I say that?”
“Does it sound like something I’d make up on the fly, as it were?”
Sir Evan was younger than the other stuffed suits that orbited around the royal family. He didn’t take himself too seriously. He also had the patience of a saint to put up with Kelsey’s nonstop pushback against tradition, protocol, and the need to dress, ah, suitably for events.
But although his English was very, very good, Mallory couldn’t deny that it was unlikely he’d string together such a sassy Americanism of a sentence.
“Geez. You two. Polite arguing is the worst kind. As bad as brain freeze in the middle of sucking down a milkshake.” Kelsey squeezed her eyes shut, wincing.
“My apologies, Your Highness.”
“Sorry,” Mallory muttered. And she was, mostly. Again, this was a job. One in which her main responsibility was smoothing over every little detail of Kelsey’s life, not ruffling any feathers.
At her old job, she wouldn’t have bickered so petulantly in front of her supervisor.
How was her baby pseudo-sister now her supervisor?
“Since Sir Evan’s not allowed to be anything but polite to us, I’ll be the bad guy.” Kelsey picked up a Venetian glass paperweight, a dozen different shades of purple bubbles trapped inside a pale-green orb. Then she tapped it—hard—against Mallory’s hip. “Mal, you talked the talk when I didn’t want to be a princess. Told me to suck it up. Well, now it’s time for you to walk the walk. Be a freaking lady.” And her tone was…well…stern.
Huh.
She’d expected a tad more empathy from Kelsey. Talk about being the one person in the world who knew exactly how weird it was to go from being a run-of-the-mill American to European nobility in the blink of an eye. And yet now she was throwing off a quite royal attitude.
Fine.
Mallory could be professional. Detached.
Fully immersed in the task at hand and not at all running her fingers along the edge of the desk, remembering how the thick, rolled edge of