“Okay.” His accent was faint. Mostly British, but with rolled Rs that made her think of the rolling hills and sun-kissed grapevines of the Italian countryside. She could listen to it all day.
Drawing himself up into a precise line, Elias slowly said, “You, Kelsey Margaret Wishner, are a princess of the House of Villani.”
Mallory gasped. Kelsey shushed her. “We’re hearing him out.” But she did grab her big sister’s hand and squeeze it tightly.
“You were kidnapped when you were three months old. The royal family, the country, the world has been looking for you ever since.”
Kelsey gaped at him.
No way. She’d been willing to listen about the princess thing. Maybe the Wishners were connected through a great-great-great-great grandparent to some distant cousin in a royal family. Sure. She’d buy that.
But a kidnapping?
That was beyond ridiculous. Insulting, actually. Hurtful to her parents, who were wonderful and loving and, oh, had been there her whole life. Right along with Mallory.
Instead of getting angry, Kelsey flipped back to her original hypothesis. It was a reality show. It had to be. She squinted at the lapel of his pale-charcoal suit. No obvious pin-type camera. Not on his shirt buttons, either. She really hoped they’d win money for playing along. Broadway tickets to Hamilton just might be in the budget this year, after all.
Crossing her arms reminded her of the faded—no, downright ratty—concert tee she wore. With yoga pants. Not a good look at all if they were being filmed. Kelsey rolled her lips together tight to try and make up for not having on even a leftover stain of lipstick. “And you happened to find me after twenty-five years? Now? Here?”
“You applied for a New York state driver’s license two days ago. As soon as your fingerprints hit the database, it set off an alarm back at the palace. I verified the match, ran a background check, and got on a plane to retrieve you.”
It was too much to take in. Too much to focus on the absurdity of his claim. Kelsey honed in on the less than respectful wording he’d used. “Retrieve me? I’m not a piece of missing luggage.”
One side of his mouth tugged up into the start of a smile. It transformed his face, made him look warm. Approachable. Yummy. “Christian warned me I should use the flight to work up a speech. I hate it when he’s right.”
“Christian? Who’s that?”
“Your older brother. His Royal Highness Prince Christian is heir to the throne of Moncriano.”
Every new specific the man tossed at her chipped away at what used to be solid ground beneath her bare feet. “You’re telling me I have a brother?”
“And a sister. Princess Genevieve.”
“I already have a sister,” Kelsey said fiercely, the words coming out low and hard and fast. Once more, she clasped Mallory’s hand. “She’s standing right next to me. And at this moment, that’s the only thing I know and believe with total certainty, so watch yourself.”
“I’m sorry.” He gave another micro-bow. “I’ve a one-track mind on carrying out the most important duty of my life. If you would indulge me a little longer?” Opening the door, he murmured to his fellow suits, then turned back to her with a tablet.
Elias held out his hand, palm up. It took her a second to catch up and do the same, but then he encircled her wrist and traced the ink stain on her fingertip. Something shot through her. Awareness? Interest?
Oh, who was she kidding—it was full-blown lust. From a featherlight brush on a finger. A touch that kicked every single erogenous zone on her body into overdrive.
What. Was. That?
He placed her finger over the top border of the tablet. A blue light flashed.
Two seconds later, what she assumed was her fingerprint flashed on half the screen. The other half filled with another box containing a fingerprint. It moved left. As soon as the two images merged, the word CONFIRMED flashed in bright green caps.
Whoa. That was more…official…than she’d expected from a reality show prank.
Her stomach clenched. This suddenly felt all too real, and Kelsey had no idea what to do about that. But Elias apparently did.
He swiftly dropped to one knee. Brought her hand to his mouth, and brushed his lips across the back of it. “Your Royal Highness, I pledge my life and my loyalty to you.”
Well, that was certainly a heady thing to hear.
For a moment, the part of Kelsey that had loved the Camelot myth as a child wallowed in the fairy-tale romance of those words.
Then two, no, five sirens interminably crawled past their building. Their four-story walk-up on the edge of Midtown, the one that she and Mallory had planned and scraped and saved to afford. The one that was a culmination of their lifelong dreams. It might be gritty and not at all glamorous, but it was every bit as rewarding to Kelsey as getting the gold in a medal ceremony.
Her new life, here with Mallory—that was all that mattered. Not some fantastical story, with no logical explanation concerning the small fact of how her real parents had birthed her and raised her, about people far away that she’d never heard of before.
She yanked her hand out of his grasp and gave a sharp tug on the hem of her ancient tee. Back in high school when she’d bought the thing, her breasts had been a cup-size smaller, so Mr. Bodyguard was probably getting an eyeful. “Thanks for the heads-up. If you have additional information, you can email it to me.”
“Additional information?” His lips, super full and downright bitable if she hadn’t been trying so hard to give him the bum’s rush, twitched. “What I’m giving you is your life back.”
That slick, snarky tone put her hackles up. It was so patronizing. As if whatever Kelsey had going on in New York simply didn’t measure up to what he offered. “I have a life already. One I’m pretty darned ecstatic about. One’s all I need.”
“Your Highness, I don’t think you understand. I flew here to bring you home. To bring you back to your family and restore you to royalty.” Elias stalked to the door and threw it open. “These men outside? They’re here to supervise packing your things. We’re headed to the airport immediately.”
Well, he’d just made this far easier. “I don’t believe you, and I’m not going anywhere.” Then Kelsey planted a hand on his chest—a brick wall of a chest—and shoved him back one more step so that she could slam the door in his face.
Mallory let out a hollow laugh. “This counts as enough excitement to get me out of three a.m. pizza, right?”
Spinning around, Kelsey was about to let her off the hook. But then the door rammed back open. Hard. Hard enough to jolt it sideways from its top set of hinges.