by C R Riley
Whatever.
I was just happy to be getting out of Aragon, where I didn’t have to visit the Palace every few days and wonder if he knew I was there. I hated that I even cared. It would get me out of this city and away from my newest obsession.
I guess my speech about him reconsidering what he was risking had been a really good one. Good enough to scare him off and then conclude that I just wasn’t worth risking all of this. (This being the Palace plans I am currently reviewing so I can answer any questions Chandler has for me.)
The knock on my glass wall has me glancing up. Once my eyes refocus, I spot Hope standing there, making some sort of gesture with her hands. She is mouthing something, although I can’t quite make it out. My eyes are tired from staring at blueprints and tiny little words for the last two hours. Then I catch her straighten up quickly when she notices someone coming her way. She glances back in my direction and mouths again, ‘Oh my gawd.’
“Ma’am, I am going to need you to clear the hallway.” I overhear the man dressed in a black suit with a mechanism in his ear order her as he passes my door.
“Sure thing. Just leaving.” Hope turns to face me full on and makes this crazy face that has me laughing.
Or had me laughing that is until the elevator dings. When it opens, a man I have decided I don’t really like very much, is standing inside of it. He is staring at me in a way no man ever has, with this expression that reveals what he is thinking. Well joke’s on him if he thinks I will be that easy.
He struts the short distance to my office door, “Please leave us. Miss Cross and I would like some privacy.”
“No, we wouldn’t.” I begin rolling the plans on my desk, gathering them in my arms. I secure them tightly against my chest. “Miss Cross has a meeting she is going to be late for if she doesn’t get moving. You are dismissed.”
Yeah, I did. I dismissed him like I have heard him do to those below him. Not all that long ago he told me he wasn’t my king; therefore, he didn’t want me to treat him like one. Fine I won’t. I will treat him like the stupidest man alive, one who obviously thinks he can ignore me and get away with it, because after all he is King.
“Excuse me.” I glare up at him. “I need to get going and you are blocking my path.”
“I came here Larkin so that we could talk.” He stubbornly holds his ground.
“Talk? Now you want to talk? The time to talk Antonio was at most fifteen days ago. Sixteen days would have probably been better, but fifteen would have been acceptable. Ten would have probably gotten you in my office had you shown up like this. Five may have had me chewing you out first, with a real good tongue-lashing to go with it. After I had notified how your silence has affected my overactive mind, how if you were any other man, I’d have dumped you out with the trash, I may have let you explain had you showed up then. However, it has been eighteen days, and yesterday was the day I decided I was over it. You made your decision obviously, so therefore I have to live with that decision. Put my big girl panties on and move forward.” I believe I said all that in one very long agitated breath. “So now move or I will not be held responsible for my actions.”
His stupid smirk does nothing to make me any less angry. It only lights the wick that will send me into a raging woman who had once allowed herself to think she may actually have a chance with this man.
“Step aside Sir.” I know he hates it when I use anything other than his name.
“Don’t call me Sir again Larkin.” He warns me as he slants forward.
“Then move that royal butt of yours before I move it for you.” I can detect it all building up deep inside of me. “I mean it Antonio. I am not playing around here. I’m completely serious.”
The arrogant prick laughs before he leans forward and kisses me. Kisses me like he has the right to put his lips on mine after all that has transpired between us.
Well he doesn’t.
Even though it feels nice and right and I can smell that cinnamon mingled with him, and it is all clouding my brain. It is not however clouding it enough to stop me from reacting.
The loud slapping sound that echoes off my walls has his men jumping into action. I watch them yank him backwards and soon realize that they are not removing him to get him out of my way, but coming for me.
I am sure my wide-eyed expression alerts him I wasn’t thinking about the fact I just slapped the King, because in my mind I had only slapped the man who pissed me off.
“Stand down!” Antonio shouts when he also realizes what they are about to do. “Do not touch her.”
“Your Majesty …” The closest man to me questions him with his eyes. “My job …”
“Is to protect me from danger, not a woman who has every right to do what she just did. Stand down now or you will find yourself jobless.” He shakes the other men off of him. “All of you back to your post.”
Antonio then directs his gaze on me and nods once. “Alright. I deserved that. You do seem to have an interesting response when I kiss you Larkin, although I think I like the other ones much better.”
I lift my chin and start advancing out my door now that it has been cleared. “You will not ever kiss me like that again without my permission. Next time I won’t think twice about giving those family jewels a good kneeing.”
His hands instantly cup himself, but his stupid grin expresses I don’t really scare him. “I’ll remember to look for my athletic support before our next meeting then. Because kissing you is sure to happen again when you start throwing orders around like you do.”
I spin around to scold him and notice the red mark of my handprint across his cheek. I’ve never slapped anyone before; no one has ever given me a reason to really. However, I sure did present him with a nice one that has to still be stinging.
“You should instruct your men to grab you some ice before your precious face gets any worse. Farewell Antonio.”
I sense him following me, not to mention the fact that his men are mumbling as they try to clear a path for us. I am pretty certain they hate me right now.
“It would save me a lecture later from Sir Edward on how being spontaneous makes it challenging for my team to do their jobs, if you would just tell them where we are heading.” He nods towards the men doing their best to check offices and corridors. “Or we could just go back to your office and …”
I concentrate on the man standing next to me in a black suit. “I’m heading to Cameron York’s office, it’s at the end of the hall to the left. Then I have a meeting in the opposite direction in one of the bigger conference rooms, Chandler Sloan should be there by now, ready to take these from me.”
“What are those?” Antonio reaches over and yanks the rolled up plans out of my arms.
Okay. Whatever. “My designs for Aragon Palace.”
Antonio passes them off to a man standing behind him. “Make sure those get to Mr. Sloan. Tell him we will join him shortly.”
I stop my forward movement and lean against one of the cubical walls. We are now in the open office area where our ten new employees sit. They do odd jobs, anywhere from accounting to making sure we have the proper permits. A few are even interns who are just getting their hands wet in this field. They are all doing their best to act like they don’t know exactly whom Antonio is, or that he is standing five feet from them.
“No. You are not coming to my meeting with Chandler. In fact, why are you still here?” Again, I realize we are quickly drawing a crowd; however, I don’t care. I’m not the one who just showed up at his work and started acting like an idiot. I have work to do and don’t have time to deal with this right now.
“I am here …” He glances around the open space. “Can we please find someplace more private?”
I roll my eyes and start walking again, shove open the first door I come to. I check inside quickly and then motion for him to enter.
“Larkin, that is the lady’s lavatory.” Antonio shakes his head when he realizes he has no other option. “Gino please do
what you need to do.”
Gino takes a step into the bathroom and has a thorough look around. Presses open the doors to both stalls, takes a glance at the ceiling and behind the door. It’s a small bathroom for Pete’s sake, did he expect someone to be hiding in the open space under the sink or maybe inside the trashcan. And yes, Gino checked those spaces as well.
“All clear Your Majesty.”
Antonio motions for me to step inside and then follows. I lean my backside against the small sink, leaving him the space in front of the stalls.
“We are really doing this here?” He seems completely unsure how he should feel about that.
“You have five minutes. Five minutes before I walk out that door and never think about you again.” I lie but it sounds good right.
He stands there and just stares at me for a full minute.
“Four minutes now.” I inform as I glance down at my Apple Watch.
“Shut it.” His tone is firm. “I’ve never done this before okay.”
“Done what? Stand in a woman’s restroom and tried to explain why you are a jerk.” Yeah, I am so done being nice. “What? You wanted to explain it all right? So, start talking, you’re down to three minutes and thirty seconds.”
A growl arises out of him, reminding me of how he attacked me in the garden after I called him a harmless paper tiger. His hands grab his hair and begin rubbing it, making a mess out his put together mane.
“Three minutes and counting.” I am agitating my head now.
“You are really going to make me say it aren’t you.” Antonio looks like he has swallowed a piece of glass that is stuck in his throat.
“Two and a half.” I am not kidding; I will walk out that door way madder than I was when I walked in here.
Sweat forms on his forehead and his eyes dart around rapidly, looking everywhere but at me. He is making this way harder than it needs to be, however only he can decide for himself if he is man enough to fess up.
“Two minutes Antonio. In less than two minutes I am walking out of here and if I do then …”
“I’m sorry!” He shouts and his voice vibrates off the walls of this small space. “I am freaking sorry that I had you worrying about what was going on. I should have called you so that you knew I was working on some specifics to clear the path. I messed up okay. I’m sorry and I messed up because I have no idea whatsoever how to do this.”
“Apologize?” I squint my eyes at him. “You’ve never apologized before?”
One arm drops to his side, while the other lands firmly on the back of his neck. “No. I mean of course I have apologized before. To my family mostly, a few friends probably when I was little. But never to a woman, never to someone that means the world to me like you do.”
“Don’t! Don’t you dare go on about all that, when I haven’t heard hide or hair from you in eighteen days, Antonio. Don’t start in on all that while we are standing in a woman’s bathroom.”
A stupid smirk crosses his face. “You are the one who made me do this in here remember. I wanted to have this conversation inside your office.”
“Oh no. No, you never wanted to have this conversation at all. You were hoping as soon as you stepped off that elevator, I’d see you and all would be forgiven. Well guess what? That is not how it works out here in the real world. Prince Charming can’t just show up with all his hotness and powerful façade and expect the little lady to just go all goo-goo eyed over him. It’s going to take more than that to get me to buy into the fantasy. You are going to have to do a whole lot more groveling and offer a detailed explanation about why you were such a jerk wad. However, all that will have to wait because I have a meeting to get to.” I push off the counter and head for the door. “I believe you know your way out.”
“Larkin.” He says my name as a plea. “When will you allow me to grovel? I’m free this evening if you are.”
I yank the door open and spin to face him again. “Leave your number with my secretary. I’ll have her check my schedule and get back with you when I have the time to do so. Right now, I am a little busy getting organized so I can work on this irritating King’s chateau. I’m thinking I may charge him double the cost just because he has been a real pain in my butt.”
A loud, very sincere, laugh echoes from behind me as I leave him standing in the woman’s bathroom. “I’m sure he’d pay triple if you’d promise to always be honest with him.”
Jerk.
Three seconds.
That’s how long it took for me to realize that I was going to give him the chance to explain. But this time there will be no messy mind-boggling kisses to distract me from what needs to be done or said.
Chapter 14
Antonio
She made me wait three days before clearing a spot for me. Apparently, she wasn’t lying about being busy.
I stopped by her secretary’s desk on my way out of the office. Of course, I had to ask one of the ten speechless employees, who I knew heard part of our conversation. The young woman got giggly when I approached and then nearly fell out her chair when I spoke.
That act reminded me of the first time Larkin actually did tumble to the floor the first time we ever met. Had I known then how much my life would have changed after that incident I might have been nicer to her. Although I do believe our little battering experience showed me, she wasn’t afraid of anyone, or at least as long as she didn’t know whom that person was exactly.
Her secretary wasn’t quite as giggly, although she did seem to smile a lot. Apologized when she knocked over her container that held all her pens and pencils, scattering them all over the floor. I of course helped her pick them up, which only had her apologizing more for making me do something so simple.
Finally, she pulled up Larkin’s calendar like I asked so she could look at it. When I requested her to put me down for seven, that evening she frowned up at me. Apologized again as she informed me that Larkin had a meeting for the rest of the day. One that was in red and extended into the evening, red I learned meant under no circumstance could it be missed or rescheduled. Therefore, I tried for the next night, but was once again informed it was blocked off in red. She explained that they were currently under a deadline and staff change, so without permission from Larkin she couldn’t just pencil me in.
Which meant I had to wait for her to get back to me. I started to wonder if maybe this was payback. Perhaps she was making me wait like I had made her wait. I guess I can’t say that I blame her really.
This morning when I walked into my office, my personal cellphone finally rings and her name appears on my screen. I was just about to sit down with Alejandra to go over my agenda for the day and discuss all the issues that need my urgent attention. Suddenly all of that will have to wait, and I can see he gets the message when I signal towards the door. He immediately jumps up and vacates my office.
“Hello mi lunaita.” I answer it as I lock the door behind him. “Are you paying me back?”
“Did you just call me a loony?”
I chuckle. “No Larkin. I called you my moon.”
“Oh. Whatever. Look, I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to finally call. However, I’ve been extremely busy. Your people are not making it easy for us right now and it is causing all sorts of headaches and long arduous hours. Think you could head down to the Historical Preservation Offices and have a word with them. I’m sure that would help speed things up and allow us to get started on restoration to the lovely Palace you live in.” I hear her ruffling some papers around as she pauses from her little rant.
“I’ll have it added to my diary. Anyone in particular I should speak with, someone who is giving you a hard time.” I grab my pen ready to write down a name and make it known that I want this matter resolved ASAP.
“What?” I can hear the surprise in her voice. “No. I was kidding. Okay so I’m calling because I told you I would and I haven’t as of yet. See how that works? Shocking isn’t it.”
She is still obviously angry with
me but at least she is taking the time to call. “Did you get the flowers I sent you yesterday?”
A creaking noise sounds across the silent line. I assume it is her chair as she leans back in it. “They were very nice thank you.”
I’ve never sent a woman flowers before. After everything went down with us at her office, I wanted to make sure not to totally screw things up again. So yesterday during breakfast I asked Helena about how I could go about doing that. The woman’s surprised expression to my question did not go unnoticed. She recovered quickly though and then wrote down the name of the florist the palace staff used. Recommended roses because she said that is what men typically send. Then suggested I personally compose a note to go with it, then have one of the footmen take it over to be attached to the arrangement.
I’d taken most of her advice. Wrote a personal note, which by the way took me an hour to do. I wanted it to be perfect and express that I planned on doing better from here on out. I finally went with this.
Larkin,
I know I am a jerk and a fool. Please know however that I am your jerk and fool and hope that you understand I am new at this. I’m a quick learner though and promise to not repeat the same mistake twice. Please accept these flowers as my first attempt at groveling, and know that there will be so much more of that once we get together. I have cleared my evenings for the rest of the week and am also available this weekend. Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there to commence groveling like a desperate man.
