“Eligible suitors?” She laughed. “You speak as if you came out of a Jane Austen novel.”
“Is my English wrong?”
“No, it’s just very proper. But I guess that’s how they taught it to you so...anyway.” She shook her head, causing her curls to spin out around her. “You’re not the first of your kind, Your Royalness, though you are the first to admit it straight to my face like this, so good for you...I guess.”
“So, what does my honesty get me?” I asked, looking her over. I didn’t know why I was enjoying this, but I was.
“It definitely doesn’t get you marriage.”
“Of course not. But there was something else I wanted for it.”
“What?” she asked skeptically.
I stretched out my hand. “An introduction.” I watched her realize neither of us had actually been introduced to each other. However, for some reason, she grinned.
“Hello, I’m Cinderella.”
Cracking my jaw to the side, I nodded. She didn’t want to get that close yet. She wanted us to be strangers still. Fine, I would play along.
“Hello, Cinderella. I am your Prince Charming for the night.”
Chapter 7
I couldn’t help but laugh. His reply was cheesy, even though I was being a bit immature by not properly introducing myself.
“You are laughing at me.” He pouted, and it was wrong how cute he looked. “Meanwhile, I was forced into this costume for your sake.”
“My sake?” I repeated and then remembered who was responsible for the outfit I was currently wearing. “My mom forced you to be my prince charming tonight.”
“Forced is an understatement.” He shook his head. “Your mother is...very queen-like.”
“What?”
“She gives no room for argument or disagreement and possesses the ability to leave you absolutely tongue-tied while maintaining a pleasant demeanor.” He described her so clearly I could automatically see it.
“Please don’t tell her that,” I said, leaning onto the side of the couch. “She’ll only say, ‘of course, because I am a queen.”
“She means her beauty titles?” he questioned.
I nodded. “It doesn’t matter how many years have gone by. She still acts as if she won them yesterday. I used to joke that she was prouder of those titles then she was of me.”
“And what was her reply to that?” he asked like he knew my mother wouldn’t let me win that argument. He was right, but he shouldn’t have picked that up so quickly.
“She said if not for those titles, I wouldn’t be alive, so I should be grateful.” I snickered to myself. Then I paused, sitting up quickly, frowning.
“What is it?”
I was so overwhelmed by him being here that I didn’t have time to process and think over what my mother was doing. “I shouldn’t be talking to you!”
“Why—”
Shifting, I faced him again. “Don’t you see what she is trying to do? She trapped us in here because she knew we would have to talk. And by talking, we would end up getting to know each other. In other words, she’s trying to force us to make a connection right now.”
He stared back at me, and I noticed his eyes weren’t pure blue. They had specs of green in them, and depending on how the light hit and how he held his gaze, they shifted from being too blue to green.
“I figured that,” he replied slowly then pointed to his clothes. “Why did that have to be done with these costumes. Are you a fan of this fairy tale?”
“Answering that would make us keep talking to each other.”
“And why would that frighten you?” he questioned, propping his arm on the couch. “Are you worried that in talking to me, you will fall for me?”
I rolled my eyes so hard they almost fell out of my head. “No chance.”
“Harsh. There is at least a one percent chance of anything,” he replied.
“My heart is made of ice. I’m more worried you would fall for me than I am worried about falling for you.”
“Falling in love would be nice, but it is irrelevant,” he replied seriously, but it was only a moment before the corner of his lips turned up. “This arrangement isn’t for love. It’s for money.”
“You seem very willing to admit that.”
He shrugged. “It’s just the truth. I cannot offer much besides that.”
“So, the truth and the chance to be a princess is what I would get in return?” It was more than most people offered, though.
“The correct term would be princess consort or just consort—the wife of a prince isn’t automatically made a princess. The sovereign must bestow a princess title. Usually, you are made a duchess instead, so you’d most likely be the Duchess of Wevellen,” he explained clearly, and I was starting to notice whenever it came to something royal, he said whatever he had to say with earnestness and significance. Each time he did, it was like a slap to the face that he was, in fact, a real-life prince.
“You do know I haven’t agreed to any of this, right?”
He nodded. “I am aware.”
“So...why don’t you go back home?”
“I just arrived. At least give me a moment to recover,” he teased, then pulled out his phone. He showed me words on the screen, but I had no idea what I was seeing.
“I can’t read that.”
“Oh, right. I apologize. I’m used to being around those who speak both English and Ersovian,” he replied, putting down the phone. “It is an order to stay here until I convince you to change your mind.”
“An order?”
He nodded. “The crown is dead set on you. My apologies and congratulations.”
“Why both?”
“Congratulations because for them to want you so badly means they think highly of you. Apologies because it is not what you want, and therefore, you will be troubled by it,” he explained, and again, his manner of speaking really threw me off.
“Why me, though? My sister would love to be a princess—sorry, the Duchess of Wevellen. She’d be the easier of the two of us to convince, and she’s just as rich as me, not that I’m trying to throw her to you, but still.” I hadn’t told her about this, but Augusta would really like all the attention.
He thought about it. “I am not sure. I can only assume that your sister failed to meet other criteria to be part of the royal family.”
“Like what?” The bigger sister in me came out, not liking how they might have judged her.
He thought about it. “There are many rules. Members of our royal family are not to have tattoos, nor significant public displays of affections from previous relationships visible on camera—meaning, there should never be evidence of you kissing or such with a man or woman who is not your husband or wife. Also, the monarchy frowns upon anyone who is overly political. We are not as strict as the British, but that’s a low bar. The only one allowed to have a political opinion is the sovereign. There is more, but you see the point. There are a lot of criteria.”
And Augusta was zero for three on all of them. She had Egyptian hieroglyphs going down her spine, a lot of photos with her exes on the beach, and she had just recently called the president a moron on Twitter...among other things.