The Royal’s Pretend Wife (8 page)

“Good night, Apolo,” she whispered into the dark.

The bed shifted under his weight. The bed was huge. They could have slept sprawled without touching each other. Then she felt him gather her towards him, holding her close as if they had slept together for years.

“Good night, little gata,” he whispered in her ear.

His warm breath tickled against her skin, making her stir. Suddenly, she realized that this was going to be a lot harder than she initially thought it was going to be

This could be a very long three weeks
, she thought to herself.

Chapter Six

The next day, she felt as if she hadn't slept at all. She wandered out in a light but expensive silk dress to find that Apolo was already with the other couples in the main living area.

“Good morning,” he said, a slight smile on his face. “You were sleeping so soundly that I did not want to wake you up.”

“Hardly my fault,” she said without thinking, coming to sit next to him on the couch. She didn't realize how that sounded until Serafina snorted.

“You two have been married too long to be going it at it like newlyweds,” the blond said. “How long have you been married anyway.”

“A year or so,” Apolo answered for them both. “Give or take. It doesn't feel like that at all though.”

“No,” Trinity said, falling into her role. “Sometimes it feels as if it has been no time at all.”

Without thinking about what she was doing, she reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear. When he smiled at her, she felt herself warm to her toes.

“Ah, we have our assignments,” said Antonio, waving an envelope. “Shall we see what our challenge is today?”

It turned out that they were splitting the couples up. The men were going out into London to purchase presents for their wives. The women were staying at home to cook dinner for their husbands.

“Oh, unfair!” cried Carolina. “I haven't cooked anything but eggs, and that was in college!”

“It's a good thing I like eggs,” said Antonio, who seemed oblivious to his wife's strange edges. Trinity assumed that they were a good match because of it.

On the other end of the spectrum was Serafina, who looked as if she was contemplating adding poison to the recipe, and Josef, who looked befuddled about the idea of actually buying his wife something of his own accord.

“I suppose I can't opt for sending for our cook in Athens,” Trinity said with a sigh. “I should be able to come up with something.”

“Well, I could always bring us back take out…” Apolo started with a grin, but she gave him a light slap on the shoulder.

“Go bring me back something pretty,” she laughed. “I'm not so bad as all that.”

The truth was that while Trinity had grown up eating some of the finest cuisine in the world, her year in Los Angeles had forced her to learn her way around a stove. She wasn't a natural at it, the way she was at acting, but she found the act of preparing food singularly comforting. After all, if she could make halfway decent food in a kitchen that was a quarter of the size of her walk-in closet at her father's house, she figured that she would be able to make something decent in the commercial grade kitchen at the manor.

All of the ingredients in London were available to her, and she decided to keep things simple. If she had wanted to cheat, she would have stuck with a good olive and cheese platter, but Trinity thought that she should put in some kind of effort.

After a few searches on her phone and brief consultation with the interns who were handling the groceries, she decided on making fajitas. They were a simple enough food that were quite tasty, and the fresh ingredients would look wonderful on the plates.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Serafina carelessly slinging together flour and lard for some kind of savory pastry. Next to Serafina was Carolina, who seemed to be boiling tomatoes, though for what purpose, she didn't know.

The camera veered in her direction, and she looked up, smiling just a little shyly. Abruptly, it occurred to Trinity that she was on television not as a vision of ice and confidence, a character, but truly as herself.

“And what are you making for Prince Apolo?” the host asked, gazing at her food with interest.

“Well, I grew up within striking distance of Texas,” she said, “and though I love authentic Mexican food, there is a large space in my heart for Tex-Mex. I've always loved how brightly colored fajitas are, and they provide a filling meal with a lot of flavor.”

“I see, I see. Have you ever made this dish for Prince Apolo before?”

She hesitated before shaking her head.

“No. I'll be honest, I don't cook normally. We…we have plenty of people who will do it for us, and they do such a good job. I'm glad to have the opportunity—it feels more…intimate, doesn't it?”

She hid her sudden real attachment to the task with a soft laugh, shaking her head.

It was enough for the camera, at least, which roved on to Carolina, who was now doing something with lamb shanks.

The fajitas went together quickly, as she knew they would. She set everything to marinate in the refrigerator until Apolo and the other royal men came home. At some point, Serafina came to sit next to her in the living room, trailed by the camera. It was astonishing how easy it was to dismiss the camera. Trinity warned herself not to make the mistake of doing so.

“You're finished quickly,” Serafina said, and there was a distinct derisive note in her voice.

“Not really,” Trinity said with a shrug. “I'm marinating. In a few hours, I'll go back and start the real cooking before our husbands come back.”

“Bah, they get to go shop while we slave over a stove, where is the justice in that?”

Trinity wanted nothing more than to leave the spoiled princess to her tantrum, but she forced herself to be still, only raising an eyebrow.

“I thought it was fun,” she said. “I might not want to do it every day.” She didn't, she really, really didn't. “But for today? I think it was just fine. After all, it is not like they are shopping for themselves.”

Serafina's irritated look was just short of sneering.

“And you think that he's going to get you something you actually want? How long have you been married again?”

Trinity hesitated. Whatever Apolo brought home, she knew that she was going to act as if she loved it. That was the deal. She was smart enough to know that there was really no such thing as reality in reality television, but at the very least, she had to be convincing.

“I hope that I'm going to love it,” she said honestly. “Sometimes, I'm not sure what he's thinking, but I think that after the time we’ve spent together, I always know that his heart's in the right place, even if his head is in the clouds.”

Serafina stopped just short of rolling her eyes at Trinity, and then Carolina came in, fretful about the food that she had made. Trinity checked the time and realized she needed to throw the fajitas in the skillet, if she was going to have the meal ready for Apolo. As she cooked, she contemplated her counterparts.

Both of these women were actresses in their own way, Trinity realized. They had been raised in the limelight, if not nobility themselves, then wealthy enough that it made no difference. She wondered with a slight sadness whether the performance stretched to cover what happened after the cameras were off. She had to assume that they were playing only slightly exaggerated versions of themselves, but sometimes, they seemed to be such caricatures of real people that she couldn't be sure.

Inwardly, she shrugged. They might simply think the same of her. Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the men, joined by the host.

“Well, now, it only seems fair that we eat and then see to the presents,” the host said with a wink. “Let's see what these divinely beautiful brides have cooked up.”

Trinity noted with satisfaction that Apolo was getting less wary of the camera. He still stared at it from time to time, but now he was beginning to ignore it. Honestly, if he weren't a prince, he was quite handsome enough to make it as an actor, and she knew that she would always welcome him as her leading man.

In the palatial dining room, the women served their husbands. Trinity could see how sour Serafina and Carolina were about this. They were used to being served, not the other way around. Trinity found herself more amused than anything else. After all her time in the restaurants, getting to sit down to enjoy the meal would be a welcome treat.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Jozef and Serafina ended up quarreling over the mess of pastry she had produced.

“Did you even try following a recipe?” he asked, poking at the gray mass.

“Why should I?” she sneered. “I know that you would never bother sitting down to the meal…”

It ended with her throwing the cashmere scarf he had bought her into his face and storming off, Jozef on her heels ready to finish the argument.

Then it was Trinity's turn and she brought out the fajitas she had made. Apolo raised his eyebrows.

“I didn't know that you could cook,” he said.

She laughed. “Well, when we eat as well as you like to, why should I?”

“A point. Maybe I need to put you in the kitchen more often…”

She smiled as he took a bite, but then she froze as his eyes went wide. She wouldn't have called Apolo the most expressive man, but suddenly his face was very expressive indeed. She watched as he forced himself to chew the bite before swallowing hard and giving her a weak smile.

“What is it? What's the matter?” she asked, suddenly tense.

“It's…simply not what I am used to, that is all. Is this something from California?”

Trinity bit her lip. Fajitas made in the Tex-Mex style were hardly challenging food. She had kept it on the mild side so that they could spice them as they liked at the table. She started to feel a tickle of dread in her belly as she looked down at the food.

“No, it's Tex-Mex,” she said.

Trinity picked up a fork and tried a bite herself. Immediately she saw why Apolo had made the face he had. It was all she could do not to spit the bite of meat out. Somehow, she had managed to make the fajitas overwhelmingly, ridiculously salty. It was so salty that it made her mouth pucker.

“Oh my god, we can't eat this,” she said, pushing it away. “I'm…I'm so sorry, I don’t know what happened.”

This was absolutely nothing like what she had anticipated. As an actress. Trinity was used to always being prepared, and something this disastrous had never happened to her. Unexpectedly, she felt her eyes fill up with tears, and a well of horror rose up in her.

I can't cry here and now,
she thought.
Oh god, I cannot cry…

Apolo seemed to pick up in her despair. Making a concerned expression, he came around the table to sit next to her.

“It's all right,” he said. “Don't worry, it's all right. We can give the recipe another try some other time.”

She tried her best to smile at him, slowly wrestling her emotions under control.

“I just can't believe I messed up the recipe so badly,” she said. “I…I can try making us something else, or I guess if you don't trust me, I can order us something. I've never failed at ordering us anything yet…”

He laughed a little, shaking his head. “Actually, not that I doubted you, but I think my present is going to fix things.”

She watched in increasing surprise as he pulled out a spread of small jars and food items. There was an elegant loaf of dark bread, several cheeses, and a few sausages, all of the highest quality, some from very far away indeed.

“Oh my god, you knew I was going to trip up so badly?”

“No, but the rule was to find you a good gift. I figured that we could eat what you had cooked tonight, and then perhaps tomorrow, we could have this. Are you hungry?”

“Famished,” Trinity said with a sigh, and together, they began spreading her present out on the table.

There was one dark jar that made her pause.

“Is…is this caviar?”

“Yes. A certain young lady told me that she always had a soft spot for the good caviar, so I went looking until I found some.”

When she turned to Apolo, her smile was radiant and real. She knew that the camera had moved on to Caroline and her veal shanks, but she couldn't resist leaning in to give Apolo a gentle kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you,” she breathed, and he shrugged.

“It is a pleasure to please you,” he whispered, and she didn't think about the fact that there was nothing prompting him to do that except his own will.

That night, she lay in bed in her nightgown, trying read but her mind full. In the bathroom, she could hear Apolo brushing his teeth. It made her smile at how domestic this was. It was a strange thing being so familiar with a man who she hadn't even known a week ago.

Maybe professional arrangements suit me,
she thought with amusement, and then she frowned at the idea of doing it with anyone besides Apolo. No, after this, she would hopefully be able to pursue more standard positions.

Apolo came out of the bathroom in his sleep pants, toweling his hair dry. “You look thoughtful, little cat.”

“I was thinking about those fajitas,” she said, and he raised an eyebrow.

“You know that at most, you lost some thirty dollars’ worth of ingredients and a bit of dignity? It could have been much worse. I didn't end up wearing the fajitas like I thought that Jozef was going to end up wearing that monstrosity that Serafina cooked…”

“I'm not worried that I made a mistake. I think I'm worried that I didn't.”

At Apolo's quizzical look, she went on to explain.

“I spent a year in Los Angeles trying to make it on my wits. I did better some weeks than I did others, but one thing that I definitely discovered was that I needed to be careful with my cooking. If I made a mistake like I made tonight, I might find that I couldn't eat anything except instant noodles and coffee for four or five days, or maybe even a week. So believe me when I say that I'm careful in the kitchen.

“On top of that, it'd be one thing if I burned the fajitas or if I had overcooked it and made the meat stringy. That's a thing that can happen. However, it felt like there must have been a cup of salt poured into the marinade. I can see accidentally doubling the salt if I forgot that I had added it already, but the amount that was poured into the food? I'm not seeing it.”