Royal Date (7 page)

Now I had to face what I had done. I had kissed Nico. Kissed him. Really, really kissed him. A flush started on my cheeks, filled my whole face, and worked its way down my neck. I had done nothing the last ten years but avoid this very situation. And I had walked into it willingly. It was so unlike me that it almost felt like it had happened to someone else.

But I only had to close my eyes to be back in that garden with him, kissing him and liking it. The memory of his lips against mine was intense.

I should have freaked out at the time, but there was something about it that made me unafraid. Something about him. Curiosity? Attraction? I had no explanation for it, and that bothered me more than anything. I had been so careful to always keep to myself, so afraid that any step I might take would lead me right back to that same situation I’d barely escaped the first time.

Nothing had happened tonight that made me think of that other night.

It didn’t mean that I didn’t feel a full-blown panic right now, though. The feelings threatened to overwhelm and drown me. He would want it to happen again. I would probably want it to happen again. And then things would quickly go further and I couldn’t do that. I tried to slow down my breathing, to remain calm.

I reminded myself that this had a shelf life. I didn’t need to panic. I would go back to Colorado. He would . . . do whatever it was that princes did. There was no point to any of this.

I wasn’t sure I could protect my heart from him. I would have to put down my foot and draw a line. These were supposed to be fake dates, not real ones. I couldn’t risk my sanity, the peace and balance I had worked so hard to achieve.

I turned over and felt something soft against my temple. I reached up to pull the moonflower out of my hair. It was already wilting. I put it on my nightstand.

There would be no more kissing. I didn’t know how that conversation was going to happen, but I would not be kissing Nico . . . whatever his last name was . . . ever again.

I spent a good two hours arguing with myself that I wasn’t hungry. I tried every distraction I could think of. I spent twenty minutes just brushing my hair. I watched television in a language I didn’t understand. I wished I had a good book. But I eventually lost the fight.

Lemon still hadn’t returned, and I was in desperate need of a snack. So I grabbed some socks, threw a sweater on, and headed for the family kitchen Nico had shown me earlier.

The kitchen was all stainless steel and glossy countertops, with under-cabinet lighting that ran the length of the back wall. I didn’t switch on any of the overhead lights. I already felt guilty enough opening cabinets and peering at their contents without a bright glare to expose me.

At first I couldn’t find the refrigerator, until I realized it was built in to match the rest of the cabinetry. And true to Nico’s promise, everything was well stocked. They had nearly every imaginable variety of ice cream in the freezer. I grabbed a pint of chocolate and searched the drawers until I found a spoon.

I jumped up on the counter on the island in the middle of the room and opened up the container. The first bite was divine. I closed my eyes and let out a sigh of contentment. This was exactly what I needed.

I heard a sound to my right, and turned to face the darkness. It looked like there was a table there, but I couldn’t make anything out.

My heart froze. “Who’s there?”

I heard a chair scraping across the tile floor. “
Sono io
.”

Not helpful. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means ‘it’s me.’ Remember? Your favorite prince.” Nico stepped into the faint kitchen light wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else. If I thought I’d been mesmerized before, it was nothing compared to a shirtless Nico. His upper torso was total perfection. Like he wasn’t real and somebody had sculpted him out of clay. In an I-was-pretty-sure-he-could-cut-glass-with-those-abs kind of way.

I actually had to stop chocolate-flavored drool escaping from my mouth. “I don’t have a favorite real-life prince. The only one I know is cocky and kind of full of himself.” Which probably wasn’t fair, because he wasn’t anywhere near as arrogant as he could be. If I looked like him I’d probably spend all day staring in the mirror, telling myself how gorgeous I was.

He had a plate in his hands and walked over to put it in the sink. He turned and leaned against it, directly across from me. “You have a favorite fictional prince then?”

Nobody had ever asked me that. So many animated cuties to choose from. “Probably Prince Eric. From
The Little Mermaid
.”

“Hmm.” He crossed his arms across his chest, which caused his shoulder and chest muscles to flex. I felt my internal temperature rise. “Was he the one with dark hair and blue eyes?”

Darn him. “How would you even know that?”

He looked far too smug. “I have three younger sisters, remember?”

I tried to regulate my breathing. He was just a guy. Prince or not, handsome or not, bare-chested or not, still just a guy. I took another bite of my ice cream. “What are you doing up?”

“I was hungry. And sometimes I deal with bouts of insomnia. Usually when I’m worried. And unfortunately, I’m almost always worried.” He shrugged. My heart ached for him, and I resisted the urge to go over and hug him. His words made me sad. I also felt bad that he had so much to worry about. But I think I felt the worst about the no sleep. Of all the things that I loved, sleep was probably my favorite, right after food.

“And you?” He pointed at my ice cream.

“I have this horrible habit of getting up to eat around midnight. Growing up it was the only time in my house when I could be alone and not have to worry about . . .” I sucked in a deep breath. I had almost just told him . . . things I’d never told anyone. I cleared my throat. “I guess it stuck.”

He looked thoughtful, but thankfully, he didn’t push me the way that Lemon would have. But while we sat in silence, I became aware of a faint drumming sound. At first I wondered if it was my heartbeat, but then I realized it came from somewhere else. “What is that noise?”

He turned his head to the left and listened. “Probably Dante’s nightclub.”

“Dante’s nightclub?”

“He converted part of the old dungeon. He must have it up loud tonight. Usually you can’t hear it. The dungeon was well soundproofed because no one wants to listen to people screaming and begging for their lives, apparently.”

I took another bite and tried not to smile. That was probably where Lemon had been. “I wonder if Salvatore’s down there.”

“Why would you care if Salvatore was there?” The tenor of his voice had changed slightly, his facial expression hardened.

Oh my frak, he was
jealous
. Why did that make me giddy? “Because Lemon likes him. Easy there, Mr. Green.”

“Are we speaking of board games again?”

“No, the color your face just turned.” He was jealous. I saw it. And I had liked it.

I was so in over my head. I took another big bite. He looked uncomfortable. He shifted his feet like he was going to leave. Which gave me a major compulsion to keep talking so that he would stay. “If we were speaking of board games, there would be no conversation. I would destroy you at any game you chose.”

“Oh, really?” He raised one eyebrow at me.

“Definitely. I would kill you at Monopoly. I had plans to go professional until I tore my rotator cuffs.”

That put a smile on his face. “Both of them?”

“Yes. It was terrible. My sponsors were sorely disappointed.”

“Didn’t that interfere with your studies? Social work, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. “What about you? Where did you go to school? What did you major in?”

“Oxford. International relations.”

That sounded sort of useless. “How’s that working out for you? Spending a lot of time relating to internationals?”

He grinned. “I’ve been enjoying it recently, yes.” It took me a second before I figured out that he was talking about me, but before I could respond, he continued. “My studies focused mainly on means of building up my country’s infrastructure. For too long we’ve been reliant on mining done in the mountains. We need other ways to help our economy. One of my plans now is to offer lower taxes to technology companies. We have a low cost of living comparatively to other European nations, and the lower taxes will help to bring in companies and jobs and encourage the growth of small businesses, which is vital to our success. Increasing tourism is also essential to bettering the lives of my citizens and keeping our young people here in Monterra.” He stopped. “I’m sorry, am I boring you?”

I don’t know what he thought he saw on my face, but it wasn’t boredom. I should have been bored. I should have been Chairman of the Bored. But when he talked, I found myself fascinated by him. The way his mouth moved, how his eyes lit up, the deep, smooth quality of his voice. “Not at all. I can tell you’re really excited about this stuff. That’s so . . .”

Cute. Sexy. Adorable. Hot. Endearing. Rar. “Never mind.”

My ice cream was nearly halfway gone and had gotten to that slight melty stage where it tasted even better. “It sounds like some good planning. I am all about a good plan,” I told him.

“Oh?”

I licked some chocolate off of my spoon, but I stopped when I noticed him watching me intently. My heart rate kicked up a notch. What were we talking about again? Plans. My plans. Right. “My life is one carefully orchestrated plan. I am a firm believer in creating a plan and sticking to it.” I liked the way it made me feel in control of my life, especially when everything else felt out of control.

“And you never deviate from your plans,
bella
?”

Tonight had been one giant exercise in deviating from my master plan. My life up to now had been moving from set point to set point. I would graduate in five months with a master’s degree in social work. I had already been offered a full-time position at our county’s Department of Family Services once I graduated. I had an apartment picked out; I had put the first and last months’ rent down. I knew exactly what my life would look like in six months. In five years. In ten.

And not one of those projections had a prince in it.

“What is this, Twenty Questions?”

He looked puzzled and then said, “Is that one of those games you play at American high school parties?”

I hadn’t gone to many parties. “All the kids at parties in my high school just got drunk and then pregnant.”

He pushed off from the cabinet and came over. I might have gasped when he jumped up onto the counter next to me, sitting closer than necessary, making our shoulders touch. It made my pulse pound. “Maybe you could show me how some of those games were played.”

We were not (NOT) going to play any game that involved kissing. “Twenty Questions is easy.”

“So I ask you twenty questions, and you have to answer them truthfully?”

He was wrecking my concentration. “No, you think of something and then I ask you twenty questions that have either a yes or no answer until I guess what it is or I run out of questions and lose.”

“I like my version better.”

“You can’t just change the rules.”

“I’m the crown prince of Monterra. I can make whatever rules I want.” On someone else that might have sounded conceited, but with his mischievous tone and sparkling eyes, I agreed with him. He could make whatever rules he wanted.

“If I don’t agree—what? Off with my head?”

He gave me a sly look. “We have much better ways of getting you to comply,
bella
.”

That I could not risk. So we’d be playing the game his way. “You start. Ask away.”

“Who is your favorite author? Wait, don’t answer. I already know. Jane Austen.”

I wanted to be outraged, but just couldn’t because he was right. Jane Austen was my favorite author. “How did you . . . ?”

“I’ve found that most of the women that I have most enjoyed being with list Austen as their favorite author.”

What was he saying? That he enjoyed being with me more than he did other people? Was this some kind of admission that was just going over my head? A whole herd of butterflies took to wing in my stomach.

“What about you?” I asked in between bites, watching him out of the corner of my eye.

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at me. “F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

“I’m so glad you didn’t say Hemingway or Faust. I hate those guys.”

That made him laugh. “I also like J. R. R. Tolkien.”

“You like fantasy?” He nodded. I had to admit it—he surprised me. Then again, he already lived in a fantasy world with castles and kings and huge mountains. Maybe he could relate to it.

“Have you read any of his works?”

“I tried to read the
Lord of the Rings
series but could not get past that Tom Bombadil character. The movies were much better. That Legolas guy was seriously hot.” Not Nico hot, but still.

He nudged me with his shoulder. “I thought you preferred dark-haired men.”

I gulped and begged my heart to stay inside my chest. “Please don’t tell Prince Eric that I’ve been fictionally unfaithful to him.”

He laughed again. “Your turn to ask a question.”