breathing at that upcoming interview. I could turn him into a eunuch and no one but him and me would know.
He was already escorting us to a quieter part of the house. Down a plain hallway in what I could only described as a “service” wing. Likely an area into which the blue bloods of the household would never deign to venture.
There were no staff here. Just the evidence that they worked out of this area—a washroom with schedules posted. A calendar on the wall with notes or messages attached. And a ginormous laundry room, which we entered.
I’d seen public laundromats smaller than this one, for Van Den BlingBling’s sake. Lucas swung the door almost shut and turned to me with a sober expression.
In response, I stiffened and folded my arms across my chest. “What the fucking fuck, Lucas?”
He shrugged. “I’m sorry. My family always goes over the top. They said ‘family dinner’ and I stupidly assumed it would be just a family dinner—not the social event of the year.”
I blinked. Wow. Talk about clueless.
“I couldn’t care less about the party, Jedi Boy. But I would have appreciated, ya know, a decent warning about all the Downton Abbey bullshit.”
He frowned, but did not answer.
“I mean… this is your family? Crazy Rich Caucasians? Who the hell are you and why am I only finding out about all this now?”
Infuriatingly he shrugged again and looked away from me as if I bored him with my feminine hysterics. “I didn’t think it would make that much of an impact for the one or two times you’re likely to see them before this is all over. I mean, had things gone according to plan, you would never have met them in the first place.”
I gaped at him and gestured wildly. “Way to turn the blame back on me. Again.”
His gaze was straight and sharp, like an unforgiving arrow shot across front lines. “I’m only stating a fact.”
“An alternative fact.”
He ran a hand through his hair, rolling his eyes.
“What on earth were you trying to accomplish by keeping me in the dark and failing to prepare me for all of this? To teach me a lesson for letting the cat out of the bag?”
He sighed. “I’m just trying to minimize the impact of this night on any future repercussions for you or me.”
What the hell did that even mean?
“I’m just saying that you had almost an entire week to clue me in that I’d married into the Royal Family of the Netherlands.”
“Okay so… my family has money. Does that make any difference? They’ll all be strangers to you next year.”
“What about this baroness thing? What the hell even is that? Why did they call us Baron and Baroness Van Den LucasSucks?” His jaw tightened, displaying his clear irritation with my newest iteration of his family name.
He reached up to pinch the flesh at the bridge of his nose, the dim light gleaming off his wedding ring and expensive-looking cufflinks. “You should probably learn the name since you are, essentially, part of the family now.”
“You don’t even use it. Why is that? So you can be royalty walking amongst us commoners and unwashed masses?”
He clenched his jaw. “We aren’t royalty.” Then he reached up as if to loosen his tie slightly while clearing his throat. I blinked, nonplussed. Then he spoke again. “My father is a baron.”
“What?”
He heaved a sigh, again as if I were boring him. “Immediate family members and their spouses have the title as a courtesy. That’s how it works when you’re part of a noble family. My grandfather emigrated to the US from the Netherlands and yes, he had a noble title but it doesn’t mean anything anymore. There, nobility is just like everybody else—here even more so. They don’t even use their titles in conversation which makes my cousin even more of an ass for announcing us that way.”
My eyes fluttered, trying to take in that flood of new information. “But he wasn’t wrong, was he? That is actually our title?”
He hesitated, hands working at his sides. It was interesting to see normally calm, collected, take-charge Lucas in this situation. But yeah, I was still annoyed as hell at him. “Yes.”
My face flushed hot with anger and… shock, I guess it was. “Motherfucker.”
“Yeah, you’re probably gonna wanna start watching your mouth. Nobility frown on excessive swearing.”
Oh he was trying to be funny, was he? I balled a fist and held it up, taking a step toward him about to ask him