Shy Queen In The Royal Spotlight (Once Upon a Temptation, Book 3)

by Natalie Anderson

  ‘We should make plans.’ He moved forward to her desk. ‘I need to contact the palace. You need to pack.’ He glanced over to where she stood worryingly still. ‘Or...?’

  ‘How are we going to end this?’ she asked pensively. ‘In a year. What will we say?’

  He was relieved she wasn’t pulling out on him already. ‘I’ll take the blame.’

  ‘No. Let me,’ she said quietly. ‘You’re the King.’

  ‘No.’ He refused to compromise on this. ‘You’ll be vilified.’

  Double standards abounded, wrong as it was, and he wasn’t having her suffer in any way because of this. He’d do no harm. And she was doing him a huge favour.

  ‘I don’t want to be walked over,’ she said a little unevenly. ‘I’ll do the stomping. Keep your reputation. Mine doesn’t matter.’

  He stared at her. She stood more still than ever—defensively prim, definitely prickly—and yet she wanted to be reckless in that?

  ‘You’d sacrifice everything,’ he tried to inform her gently.

  ‘Actually, I’ll sacrifice nothing,’ she contradicted. ‘I don’t care what they say about me.’

  No one didn’t care. Not anyone human, anyway. And he’d seen her expression change drastically when Fi had returned, so Hester was definitely human. She’d been terrified of his sister’s reaction—of her disapproval. Which meant she liked and cared about Fi. And she cared about doing the stomping.

  Now he studied her with interest, opting not to argue. He’d had all the wins so far, so he could let this slide until later because he was totally unhappy with the idea of her taking the responsibility for their marriage ‘breakdown’.

  ‘We’ll finalise it nearer the time.’

  She softened fractionally.

  ‘You know they’ll want all the pomp and ceremony for this wedding.’ He rolled his eyes irreverently, wanting to make her smile again. ‘All the full regalia.’

  ‘You really don’t think much of your own traditions, do you?’

  ‘Actually, I care greatly about my country and my people and most of our customs. But I do find the feathers on the uniform impede my style a little.’

  ‘Feathers?’ She looked diverted and suddenly, as he’d hoped, her soft smile peeked out. Followed by a too-brief giggle. ‘So, you really mean smoke and mirrors?’

  ‘It’s a little ridiculous, I’m afraid.’ He nodded with a grin. ‘But not necessarily wrong.’

  ‘Okay. Smoke. Mirrors. Feathers.’ But she seemed to steel herself and shot him a searching look. ‘You don’t think everyone will know the wedding is only for the coronation?’

  ‘Not if we convince them otherwise.’

  ‘And how do we do that?’

  ‘We just convinced Fi, didn’t we?’

  ‘She’s a romantic.’

  ‘So we give them romance.’ Fire flickered along his limbs and he tensed to stop himself stepping closer and seeing what kind of ‘romance’ he could spontaneously conjure with her. What he might discover beneath her serene but strong veneer. ‘Trust me, Hester. We’ll make this believable. We’ll make it brilliant.’ He cocked his head. ‘I think with some work we can look like a couple in love.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘But there’s no need for us to touch.’ She sounded almost breathless with horror. ‘Nothing like that. We’ll be very circumspect, won’t we?’

  Alek suppressed his laugh. His officials were going to love her, given how much they loathed his usual less than circumspect affairs. And if she presented this shy, blushing bride act to the public, she’d melt all hearts.

  ‘You mean no public displays of affection?’ he queried more calmly than he felt.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Was she serious? ‘None at all?’

  He keenly watched her attempt to maintain her unruffled expression, but tell-tale colour surged over her skin and ruined her proud attempt. But she didn’t reply and he realised she was utterly serious. So what about private displays of affection?

  The fierce desire to provoke her came from nowhere and astounded him. The ways he’d make her blush all over? To make her smile and sigh and scream?

  The immediate cascade of thoughts was so hot and heady, he tensed all over again. It was just the challenge, right? She’d initially told him no with unapologetic bluntness, while excoriating his social life. Now she reckoned she didn’t want him to touch her?

  Okay, no problem.

  Yet surely he wasn’t the only one feeling this shocking chemistry? The magnetic pull was too strong to be one-sided. Her colour deepened as the silence stretched and thickened. Of course she felt it, he realised, feeling a gauche fool. It was the whole reason for her complete blushathon.

  Hester stared as he hesitated for what felt like for ever. Her whole body felt on fire—with utter and absolute mortification—but this was something she needed not just to clarify, but to make certain—iron-clad in their agreement. It suddenly seemed essential.

  ‘Okay,’ he agreed, but amusement flitted around his mouth. ‘I wasn’t about to suggest we practise or anything.’

  ‘Good.’ She finally breathed out. ‘That would just be stupid.’

  ‘Indeed. I don’t need to practise. I know how to kiss.’

  Hester didn’t quite know how to respond. She wasn’t about to admit how totally lacking in kissing experience she was. That heat beat all over her body, but she counted breaths in and out, to restore outward calm at least. Inside she was still frying.

  ‘Because, just so you know, we will have to kiss. Twice, if you can bring yourself to agree.’ He gazed at her steadily. ‘During the wedding service, which will, of course, be live-streamed. We’ll need to kiss after the commitment during the ceremony and once again on the steps outside the church afterwards.’

  ‘Live-streamed?’ Her lungs constricted. ‘From a church?’

  ‘In the palace chapel, yes. It’s just the part we’re both playing, Hester.’

  The palace chapel? It really was the stuff of fairy-tale fiction. As long as she remembered that was all it was, then she could go through with it, right? As long as she remembered what she could do for Lucia and Zoe.

  ‘Two kisses,’ she conceded briefly.

  She was sure they’d be chaste pecks, given they were going to be live-streamed and all. Not even the outrageous Prince Alek would put on a raunchy show for the world with his convenient bride. There was no need for him to ever know she’d never been kissed before.

  ‘Do you think I can hold your hand at the banquet afterwards? Look at you? Smile?’

  He was teasing her so she answered with even more determined seriousness. ‘Depending on the circumstances, I might even smile back.’

  ‘Depending on the circumstances?’ he echoed idly. ‘There’s a challenge.’

  But he sat down at her desk, grabbed a blank piece of paper, borrowed one of her favourite pens and began writing. She watched, fascinated as the paper filled with small squares and a task or reminder beside each. Efficiency, list-making and prioritising? Who’d have thought? After a few moments he studied the list and nodded to himself before pulling out his phone and tapping the screen.

  ‘Good news, Marc. I’m to be married after all. I know you’ve had the wedding plans in place for months so now you can press “go”,’ he said with a bitter-edged smile. ‘We’ll journey home this afternoon.’ He paused for a long moment. ‘You think that’s achievable? Is that long enough for—?’ He paused again. ‘You flatter me, Marc, but if you’re sure.’ A few moments later he rang off. ‘We’re getting married in ten days and the coronation will take place in the week after.’

  ‘Ten days?’ Hester echoed.

  ‘I know, sooner than I’d have thought too. But it seems to have been planned since before I was born. It’s going to be a state holiday apparently.’ He scribbled more items on his ever-inc
reasing list. ‘They’ve got plans for everything—processions, funerals, baptisms.’ He glanced across at her with a laughing grin. ‘My obituary is already written. They just update it every so often.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘No. They’re prepared for everything. I think they thought I’d get killed in a plane crash or something a few years ago.’ He suddenly chuckled. ‘Don’t look so shocked.’

  ‘It just seems...’ She trailed off, wary of expressing her thoughts. But it seemed sad somehow, to have your life so meticulously planned, documented, constrained. Was it so surprising he’d rebelled against it?

  ‘Don’t you have every eventuality covered in your management of Fi’s correspondence?’ He gestured at her immaculate desk. ‘I’m assuming you’re a lists and contingencies person.’

  ‘Well, yes, but—’

  ‘They just have more lists than you.’ He gazed down at his list. ‘You’ll need a wedding dress. It would be diplomatic if you choose a Triscarian designer. Would that be tolerable?’

  ‘Of course,’ she mumbled, but a qualm of panic struck. What had she been thinking? How could she pull off a live-streamed wedding with millions of people watching? Every last one would pick apart, not just her outfit, but every aspect of her appearance. She wasn’t a leggy beautiful brunette like Princess Fiorella. She was on the shorter, wider sides of average—as her aunt had so often commented when comparing her to her gazelle-like, mean cousins.

  She took a breath and squared her shoulders. She didn’t care. She’d resolved long ago never to care again. Because the simple fact was she could never live up to the expectation or never please all of them, so why worry about any?

  ‘My assistant will arrange for some samples to be brought to the palace.’ He wrote yet another item in his harsh scrawl.

  ‘There’s not much time to make a dress or adjustments in ten days.’ There wasn’t much time to get her head around anything, let alone everything.

  ‘They’ll have a team. We’ll do some preparation as well, how to pose for photos and the like.’

  How to what? ‘You mean you’re going to put me through some kind of princess school?’

  ‘Yes.’ He met her appalled gaze with laughter. ‘There’ll be lots of cameras. It can be blinding at first.’

  ‘Perhaps Princess Fiorella can guide me,’ she suggested hopefully.

  ‘I will,’ he replied firmly. ‘Fi needs to meet her obligations here. She’ll join us only for the ceremony.’

  ‘But it’s okay for me to walk out on her right away?’

  ‘Your obligations to me and to Triscari now take precedence.’ He added something else to his endless list.

  Hester glanced about the room, suddenly thinking about all the things she was going to need to achieve. ‘I’ll have to—’

  ‘Find someone to feed the cat.’ He nodded and wrote that down too.

  ‘Yes,’ she muttered, internally touched that he’d remembered.

  ‘At my expense, of course,’ he added. ‘Do you have other work obligations we need to address?’

  ‘I can sort it.’ She didn’t flatter herself that she was indispensable. No one was. She could disappear from the college and very few people would notice. She’d disappeared before no trouble at all. But she was going to need to sort out Lucia. ‘Um...’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’m going to need...’

  ‘The money?’ He lifted his head to scrutinise her and waggled his pen between forefinger and thumb. ‘You want your first bathtub full of dollar bills?’

  The intensity in his eyes made it hard to keep her equilibrium.

  ‘A few bundles would be good,’ she mumbled.

  He tore another piece of paper from the pad and put it on the opposite side of the desk in front of her. ‘Write down the details and I’ll have it done.’

  He didn’t ask more about why she wanted it. She half hoped he understood it wasn’t for her.

  ‘What family would you like to invite?’ he asked. ‘You can have as many as you like. Write the list and I’ll have them arrange invitations, transport and accommodation.’

  She froze, her pen hovering just above the paper. Family?

  She eventually glanced at him. He’d stopped writing and was watching her as he waited for her reply with apparently infinite patience. She wanted to look away from his eyes, but couldn’t. And she’d said this so many times before, this shouldn’t be different. But it was. Her breathing quickened. She just needed to say it. Rip the plaster off. That way was best. ‘My parents died when I was a child.’

  He didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Foster parents, then? Adoptive? Extended family?’

  She swallowed to push back the rising anxiety. ‘Do I have to invite them?’

  His gaze remained direct and calm. ‘If you don’t invite anyone, there will be comment. I’m used to comment, so that doesn’t bother me. But if it will bother you, then I’d suggest inviting but then keeping them at a distance. That would be the diplomatic route that the courtiers will prefer.’

  ‘What would you prefer?’ Her heart banged against her ribcage.

  ‘I want you to do whatever will help you get through the day.’

  That understated compassion shook her serenity and almost tempted her to confide in him. But she barely thought about her ‘family’. She couldn’t bear to. And she hadn’t seen them in years. ‘If they do come, will I have to spend time much with them...?’

  He looked thoughtful and then the corners of his eyes crinkled. ‘I can be very possessive and dictatorial.’

  ‘You mean you’ll abuse your power?’ She couldn’t supress another giggle.

  ‘Absolutely.’ His answering grin was shameless and charming and pleased. ‘That’s what you’d expect from me, right?’

  Her heart skipped. ‘The perks of being a prince...’

  But her own smile faded as she considered the ramifications. She’d never wanted to see those people again, but this was an extremely public wedding. If she didn’t invite them there’d be more than mere speculation: journalists would sniff about for stories. If they dug deep old wounds might be opened, causing more drama. Anyway, her extended family liked nothing more than status, so if she invited them to the royal wedding of the decade, they’d be less likely to say anything. They’d never admit they’d disowned her father, spurned her pregnant mother, and caused her teenage parents to run away like some modern-day Romeo and Juliet. They’d never admit that they’d only taken her in after the accident for ‘the look of it’. Or that they’d never let her forget how she was the unplanned and unwanted ‘trash’ who’d ruined the perfect plan they’d had for her father’s life.

  ‘Do you have someone you’d like to escort you down the aisle?’ he asked.

  She noted with a wry smile that he didn’t suggest she be given away. ‘It’s fine, I’ll do that alone.’ She looked at the paper in front of her. ‘But perhaps Princess Fiorella might act as bridesmaid?’ She wasn’t sure if it was appropriate, but there really wasn’t anyone else she could think of.

  ‘That would work very well.’

  ‘Perfect for your pining heart narrative,’ she joked to cover the intensity of the discussion.

  ‘The media will seize on this as soon as they hear anything,’ Alek said solemnly. ‘They will pry into your private life, Hester. Are you prepared for that?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ She went back to writing her own list to avoid looking at him. ‘They can say what they like, print what they like.’

  ‘No skeletons in the closet?’ he queried gently. ‘It wouldn’t bother me if there were. Heaven knows I have them.’ She heard his smile in his voice before it dropped lower. ‘But I wouldn’t want you to suffer.’

  She shook her head and refused to look up at him again. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘There are no ex-boyfriends who are going to sell their stories abo
ut you to the press?’

  Her blush built but she doggedly kept looking down. Why did he have to press this? He didn’t need to know.

  ‘They’re harder on women,’ he said huskily. ‘Wrong as that is.’

  ‘There are no skeletons. I was lonely as a teenager. I wasn’t really close to anyone.’ Uncomfortable, she glanced up to assure him and instantly regretted it because she was caught in the coal-black depths of his eyes. ‘My life to date has been very boring,’ she said flatly. ‘There’s literally nothing to write about.’

  Nothing in her love life anyway. She couldn’t break free of his unwavering gaze and slowly that heat curled within her—embarrassment, right? But she also felt an alarming temptation to lean closer to him. Instead she froze. ‘Is it a problem?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  She forced herself to focus on listing the details he’d asked for, rather than the strange sensations burgeoning within her.

  This marriage was a few months of adventure. She had to treat it like that. If she’d been crazy enough to say yes to such an outlandish, impulsive proposal, she might as well go all the way with it. ‘Will your assistant be able to find me a hairdresser?’ She pushed past her customary independence and made herself ask for the help she needed. ‘And maybe some other clothes...’

  ‘You’d like that?’

  She glanced up again and saw he was still studying her intently.

  ‘All the smoke and mirrors?’ she joked lamely again. ‘I’d like all the help I can get to pull this off.’

  ‘Then I’ll have it arranged. Write down your size and I’ll have some things brought to the plane.’

  Heat suffused her skin again but she added it to her list before pushing the paper towards him. ‘I think that’s everything.’