She cut Mallory off with a one-armed hug. “—so I don’t have to. For which I’m grateful.” Kelsey just didn’t get the whole bowing and scraping thing. Especially when it was just due to her DNA, and not anything special or worthwhile that she’d actually done to garner that kind of respect. Mallory had explained that it was like geometry—understanding wasn’t necessary. Merely acceptance.
“The king is not accessible. Not even to his children.” Mallory waggled an index finger for emphasis. “Nothing is more valuable than his time. Moncriano’s neutrality means so many other countries come here and use it as a mediation and negotiation spot. He doesn’t just rule this country. He helps balance the rulers of the entire world. King Julian has his fingers in everything.”
“The way you describe it, it’s amazing he took the time to create three children in the first place.”
“Well, he ramped things up after the queen died. Threw himself into work and bringing Moncriano back to the forefront, both for tourism and politics. So if he’s carved out time to be with you? You don’t want to waste a single second.” She knelt to wedge a boot onto Kelsey’s foot.
Okay, then. Looked like a quick attitude recalibration was in store. With a gentle tug on Mallory’s auburn pony, she teased, “Here I was hoping you had a hot date and you wanted me out of the way.”
“Trust me, I’m sad to report you’re the only one getting awesome foreign nooky.”
“Nooky? We’re all grown up, Mal. You can’t call it nooky anymore.” Her sister had a prudish streak. Kelsey’s secret belief was that she hadn’t had the right kind of mind-blowing sex yet to shake out the Midwestern repression.
Mallory would never, for example, have sex on a couch in a summerhouse.
She zipped both boots and stood up with a grimace. “Hookup feels disrespectful to your new station in life.”
Kelsey hated that reason. No, the term “hookup” felt disrespectful to Elias himself. “It’s not a hookup. It’s so much more than that.”
Mallory’s face dropped. “You’re serious about him, aren’t you?”
“If you’re asking if I’m head over heels crazy about him, the answer’s yes.”
“And it isn’t just the mysterious allure of a foreign hottie?”
“Definitely not.” Kelsey opened the jewelry box that had appeared, day two, on top of her dresser. Every day more earrings and necklaces appeared in it. Fancy, tasteful real gems that were probably more costly than her entire college tuition. She grabbed a pair of black—jet? Onyx?—dangly earrings.
“What happens if you decide to go back home? For good?”
That was the sixgajillion dollar question, wasn’t it? “I’m living in the moment. Not making any decisions for the two weeks I promised to give them.”
“Riiiiiight.”
Mallory always could see right through her. “I’m living in the moment,” she repeated, heading to the door. “And completely freaking out about one more possible life-changing decision that I’ll have to make. I had no idea Elias would be a factor, that he’d feel so important, so integral to me, in so little time. It’s wonderful…and horrible.”
Rushing the length of the room, Mallory threw her arms around her. “It’ll be okay. These are all good problems. Now go be your awesome self with King Julian.”
“Mallory?”
“Yeah?”
After gnawing on her top lip, Kelsey took a deep breath. “Why has it taken the king—my father—nine whole days to want to be alone with me?”
“Maybe you should ask him.”
…
The king cleared his throat. “I have a present for you.”
“Really? It’s not my—” Kelsey stopped in the nick of time before saying “birthday.” Did the king still think of that more as the death day of his beloved wife? It was a potential conversational black hole she wasn’t brave enough to get near. “There’s no need for presents. I’m staying in the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen, and clothes and jewelry keep showing up for me to wear. I’ve a feeling that’s all your largesse.”
Largesse? When had she ever used that word before? She sounded like a freaking Dickens character. Or—holy crap—were they actually managing to turn her into a person who sounded like a princess?
The king batted away her words like dandelion fuzz in the air. Which there might also be, as they were striding along a path of crushed shells bordered by tall wildflowers and a vast expanse of lush lawn that sloped downward to an orchard. “You need to be properly outfitted. No thanks are necessary for giving you what you deserve.”
“I don’t feel like I deserve any of it,” Kelsey said. There was no point faking anything. This man, like it or not, was her father. She’d tell him the truth…and see where that got her. “Honestly. You may all have these expectations and dreams about what a grown-up Princess Valentina should be, but I’m nothing special.”
Beneath the leather brim of his cap, his forehead creased. “Who told you that?”
“Nobody.”
“Kelsey.” He stilled her with a touch on her shoulder. Then he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her head up. “Who told you such a bald-faced lie? I’ll send a team of soldiers to cross America hunting them down to give them a royal ass-kicking the likes of which they’ve never endured.”
Okay. That was sweet and hilarious. A giggle burst from her throat, and the king got some friendly crinkles around his blue eyes that made him look…normal. Approachable. Non-regal. “That’s a generous offer, Your Majesty. But there’s no high school bully that left me emotionally scarred. I’m just ordinary. Which I’m perfectly okay with, I promise.”
He spun on the heel of his boot, looking over both shoulders. Then he looked up, and pointed at a man with a basket balanced on a stepstool against a shortish, bushy tree with fruit that looked like a yellow-ish cross between an apple and a pear. Geez. She even had to learn different fruit in this country? “Do you see that man?”
“Yes. Picking…?”
“Quinces. He’s a gardener. No family. He plays soccer on a bar team, but by his own admission, isn’t good at all. Remy shovels compost in the spring, harvests when needed. Does nothing a newspaper might call remarkable, and probably never will. Remy, however, is not ordinary. And neither are you.”
That was quite the lowdown, especially from a man who was busy remembering international market conditions and heads of state and…well, whatnot. Kelsey cocked her head. “How do you know all that?”