The mention of his name made me choke on my drink. I felt the heat creep up my neck and was certain I was blushing. I wouldn’t call myself a beauty, but she was right about Sutton being a beast.
Her eyes grew wide. “You fucked him. Oh my God. You fucked the prince.”
I dove across the table, holding a finger over her lips to shush her. “Don’t say that so loud.” I leaned back in my chair and grabbed my wine. She was right. I needed it. “And no. I didn’t sleep with him.”
“Yeah? Since when did Katie Bellizzi start blushing over guys?” She blinked twice then folded her arms across her chest, waiting for an explanation she already knew was a load of crap.
“There’s nothing. He’s no one. And I wasn’t blushing.” Sutton Thorne wasn’t no one, and he was making darn sure I knew that.
Chelsea uncrossed her arms. “Right. You act like I haven’t been your best friend since we were twelve.”
The waiter chose that moment to show up with our food, thank God.
“I will get you drunk and pull the truth out of you,” she said once he left.
I laughed and shook my head. I refused to speak another word about it, and she didn’t make me, even though I knew there was no way she would let this go. We spent the rest of the meal catching up on all the things I had missed in the last few months and making promises to do this again next week. Chelsea was right. Thornebridge Castle hadn’t made me a prisoner. I did that to myself.
Today I’d been set free.
After a day full of shopping, both hands were full of bags. I even grabbed some groceries from the farmer’s market to bring some life back to my sad, sad pantry. Then I bought a painting of sunflowers on a canvas because screw Monet and his impression of sunrises. It was my villa, and I liked sunflowers and local art. By the time I reached the guard shack, I was exhausted.
“Do you have an invitation?” one of the guards questioned me when I walked up to the heavy iron gate.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll need to see your invitation in order to let you through.”
I had his invitation. Right between my index finger and ring finger. “Oh, right. My name is on the lis—” I stopped. My name wasn’t on the approved list. Because Keaton hadn’t put it there like he usually did. How could he when he hadn’t answered my calls or texts since last night? “I mean, I live here. My mother is the Queen’s Secretary.”
His lips drew into a thin, stern line. Like he heard stories like this all day every day. Maybe he did. But I was telling the truth.
“You won’t mind if I verify that information?” he asked. His tone was cold and distant. He was definitely the right man for this job.
I shrugged. “Do what you gotta do, bossman.”
He smirked then punched a code into a keypad on some sort of tablet on the wall. A moment later, my heart dropped when Sutton’s face appeared.
Nine
For my father, there would be no more trips to Valetta. There would be no meeting with the people while Parliament was on break. Just a swarm of emails from the constituents he’d been too sick to speak with. For Mom, there would be no planning garden parties or galas. Just her attempt to comfort him from a pain that knew no comfort. He hadn’t eaten in days, and his strength disappeared with his appetite. Cancer was a greedy bitch.
As I sifted through the documents that now sat on my desk instead of his, I realized that soon everything I read would rest on my shoulders, that an entire nation would call me King. The health care issues, the concerns about tourism and pollution, financial advisors telling me if I would open the castle to visitors we could generate more revenue. The buzz of the swarm grew louder with every breath I took. I knew I had to move, that there would be consequences to standing still, but I was frozen, caught somewhere between needing to run toward it and wanting to run away from it all.
A notification rang through the video monitor, breaking the black fog of silence that hovered around me. Thanks to Keaton conveniently taking the day off, verifying front gate visitors was added to my list of current duties.
“Yes?” I answered, not looking up from dozens of possible dinner menu plans (another task that had been handed down to me for now). At this rate, I wouldn’t have time to eat… or sleep.
“Excuse the interruption, Your Royal Highness, but this woman claims she lives on the castle grounds.”
I knew it was Katie before I ever glanced at the screen. Everyone else who wasn’t a guest used the east entrance like they were supposed to, and guests either had invitations or their name was on the list. Antonio knew that too. He was the type of guy who drank raw eggs for breakfast and locked puppies out in the cold. Katie wasn’t making it anywhere near the castle without an approval.
She cast her gaze on something straight ahead, on anything other than me, and that was perfectly fucking fine because I had no desire for her to catch me gawking. The strapless sundress she wore put the crests of her breasts on display. She’d actually gone out in public like that, cleavage for days and legs for miles. Jesus, was she even wearing a bra? If she were mine, I would—I stopped the thought before I could even finish it. She wasn’t mine.
She had shopping bags in both hands, and when Antonio instructed her to face me, her eyes had this glow. There was a determined boldness locked behind depths of blue. She looked different, nothing like the woman I left in the Great Hall last night.
Katie shifted her weight on her feet as though she were bored by the whole process, even though I was sure it had more to do with the weight of all those damn bags than actual boredom. I was tempted to make her sweat it out, but after last night that seemed cruel. Fuck it. The sadistic bastard in me did it anyway. “Not sure I recognize her, Antonio.”
Coldness swept across her eyes, turning the bright blue seas into icy glaciers. She dropped the bags and folded her arms across her chest. I guess she didn’t like my joke. In her mind, this was probably her battle stance, but all I saw was two full breasts and a shit ton of cleavage shoved right in my face.
Before we engaged in another round of verbal warfare that I didn’t have the energy for right now, I pulled the mask of indifference back over my face and tried to focus on a menu. “She may pass.” Then I killed the call before I ended up inviting her in here to sit on my face because all work and no play made Sutton a very dull boy.
The sound of Katie’s voice floated into the hall from the kitchen, breathy and seductive and stopping me in my tracks. “You said is there anything which is dead or alive more beautiful than my body, to have in your fingers, trembling ever so little?”
What the fuck? Blow jobs in the library, cleavage in public, now begging for fingers on her body in the kitchen. I broke. I couldn’t take any more. My kitchen. My fucking body.
The dinner menu I held crinkled in my balled fist. Someone giggled, a female, but not Katie. I’d heard her laugh once. Trying to forget it was like trying to forget the sound of rain or Chopin. It was peaceful and melodic. This giggle was nothing like that.
She spoke again. “Don’t tell me you expected anything less from a guy named Cummings.”
Poetry. I should’ve known. I breathed a sigh of relief then conjured up all my memories of e.e. cummings.