and retrieve my phone from my tote. Then my breath catches when I see I have a text message from Xander, sent about half an hour ago:
Your laundry is ready. Care to stop by and pick it up after work?
Okay, I need to sort this out. I can catch the tube over to Kensington Palace, and that will take me about a half an hour, or I can get a ride share or black cab and be there in six minutes. I decide on the black cab. I can drop off the cookies, get my clothing, and get out of his hair.
I text him back:
I’m waiting for the office manager to finish the till receipts now. As soon as she’s done, I’ll fetch a black cab and be over as soon as I can.
Xander replies:
I can send my car for you if you prefer.
First, doing my laundry, and now sending his car? Oh, my Lord, this can’t happen!
My hands fly across the keyboard:
No, no, I can’t let you do that. I promise I won’t be long!
Horrified, I can see he’s typing a new message:
It’s not a problem, I assure you.
Ugh, he’s stubborn. And nice.
Too nice.
I respond:
Nope, I’ll be there soon. The manager is calling me. Will see you in a few. Just message me and tell me where to go once I get to the guard at KP.
Next, I send a text to Isla telling her I’m running some errands and will be home later, so she shouldn’t hold dinner on my account. Then I drop my phone in my tote and try not to think about the fact that Xander was offering to send a palace driver over to get me. I sigh. Could I be any more of a pain in the arse to him? Could I?
I can’t believe I thought the man could have had a sexual interest in me.
That involved chocolate body paint.
I feel my scalp burn hot in embarrassment.
“All right, I’m done,” Charlotte calls out. I scurry into the work area and grab my pastry box off the worktop. We all head out the door, saying goodnight, and go our separate ways.
I should be heading back home to eat dinner and watch Netflix. That’s about as exciting as it gets in my flat.
Instead, I’m heading over to Prince Alexander’s place at Kensington Palace. To give him a box of cookies in exchange for my clothes. I’ll thank him, tell him to enjoy the cookies, give him a curtsy for the hell of it, and then turn around and come home, chalking this up to one wacky adventure when I’m finally able to tell the story.
And that will be that.
Chapter Five
I Have a Proposition for You
I want to slap myself to make sure I haven’t dreamed this entire day up.
I’ve just been escorted through Kensington Palace by a personal protection officer to Xander’s home, and now I stand on the path outside of Nottingham Cottage. It’s a tiny, red-bricked home, nothing like what I expected Xander to live in. I thought he’d have a posh apartment within Kensington Palace, one with twenty rooms and fit for the future king. With a full staff to wait on his every want and need.
I never envisioned a cosy cottage with rose bushes climbing the brick, the first ones of spring blooming around the windows. There’s a white picket fence around the cottage, lined with daffodils, and a garden around the back. I gaze wistfully at it. It’s perfect.
The kind of place I would love to live.
I allow myself to daydream for a second. How I’d paint the inside and fill the rooms with cosiness. I’d use blues and cream and pinks and pops of yellow like a field of wildflowers. I’d have my baking cookbooks crammed into bookshelves and prints of flowers adorning the walls. Oh, how I would love to look up from rolling out dough in my kitchen to see roses framing the windows. Or hear the rain fall on the roof as I stayed warm with a cup of tea and a plush blanket in a beautiful oversized chair near a roaring fire.
I sigh. I wonder what Xander has done with the inside. I picture it all modern and contemporary. Black. Steel. Sleek. Smooth. Polished. Simplistic. Shades of grey. Edges.
I mean, he is Xander the Philanderer. Retired army captain. Polo player. His home would have to scream bachelor pad, wouldn’t it?
I shake my head. Well, it doesn’t matter how he decorated this beautiful little cottage, because