Stealing Kisses With a King (Kings of Carolina #3)- Sylvie Stewart Page 0,6

I sat here drinking a flipping coffee and having a chat. The thought had me springing to my feet just as a woman in a white lab coat approached our trio.

“I’m so sorry,” I apologized, taking a step back out of her personal space, but she didn’t appear bothered. In fact, her lips curved in a bright smile, sending my shoulders slumping in relief.

“The surgery went beautifully, and your father is in recovery,” the surgeon addressed us all, and no one bothered correcting her as collective sighs filled the air. Sadie was Carl’s only daughter while Ruby was his niece. I filled the role of new family friend, I supposed.

The surgeon crossed her arms, clipboard hugged to her chest. “I apologize it took so long. We were a little more backed up than I’d realized.”

“Thank you so much. Can we go see him?” Sadie’s tone was one of combined relief and eagerness.

The surgeon’s eyes skipped among us. “Only two at a time, I’m afraid.”

I immediately resumed sitting, as there was no question of who would see Carl first.

“Are you sure?” Ruby glanced my way, biting her lip, her keenness to check on her uncle impossible to miss. After all, he’d been her father most of her life, for all intents and purposes, and it had been a stressful day.

“Of course!” I shooed them away. “I can see him later. Go!” My smile was genuine and I hoped reassuring enough to not have them troubled by any sort of guilt. It was just a brief hello to check in on him, not a one-time chance to say goodbye or anything so dramatic as that.

My eyes followed the Green women until they turned the corner, holding hands as they followed the surgeon. And then it was just me and the sofas and the three cardboard cups of coffee. I sighed and lifted their coffees to reposition the coasters, and then filed the coffee receipt in my wallet before ensuring my bills were properly sorted. American money was pitifully unattractive. Where was the color? The artistry? With nothing left to do besides bemoan the state of American currency, I pulled my phone from my purse to check work emails.

But I froze at the notification staring back at me from its screen.

“One missed call from No Never Don’t.”

The pumping of blood in my veins roared through my ears and throbbed at the pulse point in my wrist as I held the phone on my lap and tried in vain to keep my mind from racing along with it.

Why, oh why, couldn’t my life be simple?

Breathe in. You’re lying on a feather bed with fresh silk sheets, looking up through a skylight at the night sky. Breathe out.

Why couldn’t he leave me alone?

In. Out.

Why did I let myself give the slightest consideration to impossible, impractical, foolish notions?

In. Out. In. Out.

And why was it so bloody hard to resist ringing back the man I loved?

In. Out. In—Oh, sod it.

To be fair, I didn’t always love Malcolm Baxter—otherwise known as Malcolm Nicholas Christoff Baxter or simply, Your Highness. In fact, my first impression of him was that of a spoiled, lazy simpleton with an over-inflated ego and not an inkling of what it meant to be a functioning adult. But over the course of my four years working for him, I began to view him differently.

It was one of life’s random strokes of luck that had landed me the position in the first place. Had I not been the daughter of one of King Gregory’s former housekeepers, I’d never even have been considered. While I’d managed to complete my bachelor’s degree at night school, these positions as direct aides to royal family members were normally reserved for children of monied families or experienced secretaries and assistants who’d worked their way up from less prestigious members of high society or royalty. But the king’s apparent regard for my mother persisted after her untimely death, a fact I knew nothing of until I was approached several years later by a member of the royal family’s security team—a man called Trevor Northam who would come to be a close and respected colleague. The king had kept our family in his thoughts and wished to offer me an employment opportunity with the royal family. Thus had begun my employment as Prince Malcolm’s primary assistant.

As I spent close to fourteen hours a day in his presence, doing everything from running his schedule to bringing him tea to juggling his dates—not to mention