Royal Package - Lili Valente Page 0,50
whom do I want to talk to the most?
Not Nick, not my mother, not Greta, who no doubt has a fistful of things that need attending to since I’ve been out all day. No, I want to head down to Lizzy’s room and ask if she wants to have a drink with me in the library and play some chess after.
I bet she’d be brilliant at chess.
She already has me in check.
Instead, I take my scotch to my rooms alone, pass out in my reading chair, and dream of kissing my fiancée again.
And then of doing more than kissing her.
I wake with a troubling hard-on and a bad attitude that follows me through another day of pretending to be too busy to make time for Lizzy, aside from a quick lunch, during which I regret my decision to eat like a savage like few things I’ve ever regretted in my life.
I’m tired of all the pretending—mine and hers.
As a handful of days pass and the morning of the engagement ceremony arrives with no good news from Nick and no news at all from Jeffery—he’s running into more roadblocks to gaining access to the Rochat estate than expected—I realize I have to take things into my own hands.
I have to find out the truth before the ceremony.
It isn’t a marriage, obviously. I can still call off the wedding at any time, but in the five hundred years that my family has been taking part in the traditional Gallantian engagement, the ritual has led to a marriage every single time—aside from once in the fourteen century, when the bride came down with the Black Death and died.
In this day and age, Lizzy isn’t likely to come down with the plague, and I don’t want her to die. I just want to find out if she really is who she says she is.
And this time, I have a foolproof plan.
Bright and early on the day of the ceremony, I wake her with a phone call. She answers with a sleep-husky, “Hello,” that makes my pulse beat faster.
I ignore the way my body responds to her voice and resist the urge to ask if I’ve woken her. Lust and manners will both have to take a back seat. I’m on a mission and won’t be deterred. “I was wondering if you’d like to go to the national museum? Get away from all the hustle and bustle for a while.”
“That sounds wonderful,” she says. “When do we leave?”
“Is fifteen minutes too soon? I’ve arranged for them to open early so we can view the more popular exhibits undisturbed. The crowds can be overwhelming in the summer months.”
“Fifteen minutes is fine,” she says.
“Wonderful. I’ll meet you in the kitchen. We can grab coffee before we leave. Oh, and wear something you don’t mind being photographed in, just in case. Tourists in the city are usually good about letting me go about my business undisturbed, but seeing me out and about with my fiancée might be too much temptation to resist.”
“O-okay.” She sounds anxious at the thought, making me add a checkmark in the “Probably Lizzy” column. But then she adds, “I’ll do my best, but I confess I’m not great at knowing what will photograph well,” and I add another check in “Probably Sabrina.”
Surely, a woman who designs clothing for a living, even if it’s lingerie, would know what looks good in front of a camera.
Christ, she’s driving me crazy.
Or I’m driving myself crazy over nothing.
I honestly don’t know. All I know for sure is that when I meet her in the kitchen, my eyes go instantly to the stunning girl laughing with our chef in a sunny corner. My chest warms, and my spirits lift.
I’m truly happy to see her.
I’ve missed her. Her smile, her laughter, the way she always seems to know when I’ve walked into a room and turns to look, an intimacy in her gaze that’s reserved just for me.
She does it now, lifting her chin as she glances over her shoulder. Our eyes connect across the still peaceful kitchen, and a sweet smile curves her lips. “Good morning, Andrew.”
“Good morning, beautiful,” I say as I cross the room. “That dress is perfect. You look like springtime.”
“I said she looked like a baby chick,” Vera, our American head chef, pipes up from the espresso machine, where she’s gone to fix my coffee. She hails from somewhere in Texas, which is absolutely unheard of for our royal court, but she’s the best thing