by Lara Hunter
“I beg to differ.” His eyes found mine. “You’re a woman of many talents. I’m interested where they came from.”
I stuck a bite of food in my mouth so I could chew while I thought of what to tell him. We’d only made a simple meal of garlic and rosemary seasoned chicken breasts with steamed vegetables, but it was delicious and homey.
“Well,” I said finally. “I have two brothers, Jake and Avery. My mom raised us on her own after my dad left. She worked as a waitress at a diner for a few years, but did some night classes and was able to transition over to an office job.”
I smiled, thinking about how much we’d celebrated the day we got the news. We’d gone out to a little restaurant in our neighborhood for dinner, which was a big deal back then.
“She sounds like a very tenacious woman, your mom,” Kasper said.
I reached for my glass of wine. “She is. I’ve always been very grateful to her.”
“And what about your brothers?” Kasper asked, taking a sip of his own wine. “What are they like?”
“Both younger,” I replied. “Both still just as bratty as they were when we were kids.”
He chuckled. “I have one of those myself,” he said. “My sister.”
“I often fantasized about having a little sister,” I said, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of chicken. “I spent far too long trying to decide which brother I’d swap out if the opportunity every presented itself.”
Kasper’s lips curled in amusement. “When I was very small, I used to ask the fairies to come get my sister,” he said. “Of course, I didn’t realize, then, that there would be a huge problem if the princess suddenly went missing.”
I giggled. “I’ve totally done that!”
“The fairies let us both down, it would seem.”
“Cheers to that.”
We clinked glasses, gazing across the table at each other. My body felt light when he looked at me, like I could drift away from the table at any moment, my bones made of helium. This was doing nothing to lessen my crush.
We finished up our dinner, making small talk about our families, and brought our plates back to the kitchen. There was a part-time cleaner who worked on the weekends, but I felt bad leaving them for her, so I began to clean up. To my surprise, Kasper joined me.
“You don’t have to help,” I told him. “This is my job.”
But he insisted. “You shouldn’t be cleaning in the first place. You’re off the clock. You should relax.”
“Ha, I hardly ever relax.”
I was much faster than the Prince, and managed to have the whole kitchen cleaned just before he finished clearing the table. When we were done, I folded my arms and looked out at the gathering snow in the gardens.
“I should really get going,” I said. “The snow’s piling up. I don’t want to get stuck in a drift somewhere.”
“Why don’t you stay?” Kasper said. His voice was low and melodic.
I turned to him, my brow furrowed.
“There are plenty of spare rooms upstairs,” he elucidated. “As I’m sure you know. I’d rather you stayed here tonight where I know you’re safe. Plus, it’s my fault for keeping you.”
I found his concern for my safety touching, and was all too happy to oblige in providing him peace of mind—especially since I wasn’t even slightly ready to leave.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” I said. “That would be lovely.”
“Please, call me Kasper,” he said lightly. “I like that I don’t have to feel like I’m on airs with you, Laurie. Let’s keep it that way.”
A feeling of warmth and brightness blossomed in my chest. I grabbed my wine glass from the counter, needing something to distract me from his handsome face.
“You’re probably pretty tired from your trip,” I said. “If you want to go to bed, don’t feel like you can’t because of me.”
Kasper walked over to the liquor cabinet, gazing languidly at its contents. “I think I’ll manage a nightcap at least. Yourself?”
“Sure,” I replied, draining the rest of my glass. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
“Scotch?”
“Hmm. Maybe I’ll just have more wine.”
Kasper laughed and brought over both a bottle of scotch and the rest of the wine. “Not a fan?”
“I was too big of a fan of whiskey in high school,” I said sheepishly. “I had this whole party girl thing going for like two months in my senior year. Then I realized that I had to get my act together if I wanted any shot at following my dreams. Whiskey and whiskey-related beverages still put a bad taste in my mouth.”
Kasper poured me a glass of wine and passed it back to me. “Fair enough,” he said, picking up his tumbler of scotch. “So you’re not a party girl now?”
I snorted. “Oh God, no.” We strolled over to the living room, where the fire was burning bright in the hearth. “If I’m not working or studying, I’m usually recovering from one or the other.”
“That doesn’t sound like much fun,” he commented.
I slid down onto the sofa next to him, taking a contemplative sip of my wine. Of course the Prince wouldn’t think my life sounded like fun. He was a notorious partier and fabulously wealthy, and I didn’t want to waste what would likely be my one opportunity to spend some time with him by boring him with my misfortunes.
“Enough about me,” I said after a pause. “What should I know about Kasper?”
Kasper angled himself on the couch to look at me. The firelight cast a warm, orange glow across his features. It made his brow more severe, his nose sharper. I could see him as a ruler, now, perhaps back in the period I’d studied. He’d be one of the handsome kings I spent a little too long staring at the portraits of.
“There’s not much about me that you can’t find in a magazine,” he said offhandedly.
I chuckled and shook my head. “I don’t think that’s true at all.” I drew my knees up to my chest, momentarily forgetting where I was. Quickly, I planted my feet back on the floor.
Kasper’s lips quirked at the edges. “You can put your feet on the couch,” he said softly.
My face filled with heat, and I slowly brought my knees back up. “Thanks,” I said. “Sorry. I’m so awkward.”
“On the contrary,” he replied. “I think it’s delightful. Everyone around me abides by lists of rules on royal etiquette. Watching you try to figure out what those are is amusing.”
“I think that makes you a bit of a sadist,” I teased.
“Well there’s something they haven’t yet written about me in the magazines. Good job.”
“What else can I uncover about you?” I was starting to feel more comfortable with Kasper, maybe because we were both now forgetting that he was a foreign prince. With the drifting snow blocking out the rest of the world, we were just two people enjoying each other’s company.
“Well… I’m left-handed, which all the best leaders are—most of the presidents, you know.” His eyes crinkled with his smile. “And I’m not nearly as good at the piano as my mother thinks I should be.”
“Well that’s something.” I took another sip of my wine, feeling the heat of it all the way down to my stomach. “Where would you rather be right now?” I asked. “Here or in Holland?”
Kasper settled back into the couch, deliberating. I watched the firelight flicker over his features, highlighting each one in its perfection. “That’s tough,” he replied. “I miss my family when I’m here, but sometimes at home, I feel like I can’t breathe.” He shrugged. “I think it depends what kind of mood I’m in. Sometimes I’m not so inclined to participate in royal life. Other times I am.”
“What’s it like?” I asked, aware of how starry-eyed that made me sound.
Kasper ran a hand through his hair. “What’s it like being royalty, you mean?”
I nodded, and he looked down into his glass, swishing the amber liquid along the sides. In that moment, I worried that I’d overstepped. Something about him had changed. He su
ddenly seemed much more serious.
“It’s lonely,” he said finally. “Sometimes, anyway. And lots of pressure” He looked back up, a gentle smile sliding across his lips. “Sorry. You must think I’m crazy for complaining about it.”
“I don’t think that at all,” I replied. Our eyes met. His seemed so much darker in the amber light of the fire. “I think we have different lives, and that neither is necessarily easier or harder than the other—everything is relative to our own experiences.”
“You’re an interesting character, Laurie. It’s good though—I like interesting.”
He said my name almost reverently. A shudder ran through me, and I inhaled sharply from the force of it. My gaze slid to his lips, the sensual curve of them.
I looked back down at my glass. “Thank you. I have my moments.” I drained the rest of my wine.
“Another?” he asked.
“Just a tipple, I think.”
I could see how this situation would end if I drank much more. I’d end up blabbing to him about how I thought he was the dreamiest dreamboat that had ever sailed the seas, and he’d end up regretting his decision to have me stay in the first place.
Kasper poured a little more wine into my glass, finishing off the bottle. We settled back onto the couch, gazing at each other. I couldn’t figure out what to say. He was probably just wondering when it would be polite for him to go off to bed.
“Tell me something, Laurie,” he said after a moment. “I need your honesty.”
I leaned in closer. “Go on.”
His eyes searched mine. I’d never seen him look so serious. “Do the other staff hate me?”
The sincerity of his expression sent me bursting into laughter. All the tension I’d felt building collapsed around me.
“Oh no!” I said, wiping a small tear from my eye. “Why would you think that?”
The corner of his lip twitched up. “The other housekeeper, Barb,” he said. “She never speaks to me. I’ve tried to have a chat with her a few times, but she always finds an excuse to leave the room.”
Without thinking, I reached out and placed a hand on his forearm. “She doesn’t hate you,” I said. Then, with a mischievous grin, I added, “She just gets flustered because she thinks you’re super handsome.”
I probably shouldn’t have ratted out my supervisor with such enthusiasm, but hey—how often would I get this kind of chance to talk to Kasper?
He laughed at my explanation. “I’ll endeavor to rough myself up a bit in order to maintain better relations with my staff.”
“You’ll have to do better than just ‘a bit’,” I said with a giggle.
I pulled my hand back from his arm, then, suddenly realizing how flirtatious I was acting. He was just trying to be nice, and I was practically throwing myself at him!
But Kasper merely grinned, and the rational voice in my head took two steps back.
***
Waking up to silence, instead of an endless cacophony of New York traffic noises and sirens, at first felt like waking up dead. Surely only death could be so peaceful?
But I wasn’t dead. The empty wine glass on the table in front of me was proof of that. It was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. Then the rest of the room came into focus—the fire, now down to smoldering embers. The distant gasps of wind against the windows. The warmth of the blanket around my shoulders.
I sat up abruptly, looking around in alarm. I hadn’t fallen asleep on the couch, had I? I didn’t remember grabbing a blanket. I sure didn’t remember deciding to sleep on the couch. What did I remember? I cast my mind back.
Kasper and I had been talking, and the last thing I remembered was him telling me the story of how his parents met. His mother, a beautiful American heiress, had fallen in love with his father on first sight. But I couldn’t remember the rest of the story. Somewhere along the line, his dulcet tones had lulled me to sleep.
Where was Kasper?
I rose from my makeshift bed and stretched. My joints cracked and popped, resentful of having been on the couch all night. I realized that Kasper must have covered me with a blanket after I’d fallen asleep, and my heart tingled.
I was still smiling as I walked into the kitchen, thinking he might be there, making coffee.
Nothing.
The rest of the house was just as empty. The driveway had been cleared of snow, and Kasper’s car was gone. My heart plummeted. He hadn’t even said goodbye.
But what did I expect? In the words of the tabloids, he was the playboy prince. Just because we’d stayed up talking into the night, didn’t mean he was required to act the same come morning. Not when he could make his escape.
I gathered my things, a dark cloud hanging over my head. It was stupid. I was stupid. I should never have allowed myself to get into a frame of mind where I thought Kasper enjoyed my company as anything more than an employee. I’d only set myself up for disappointment.
At least I’d always have the pleasant memory of our chat, and the image of Kasper’s eyes dancing in the firelight. Nothing could take that away. I could already feel that that mental image would haunt my dreams for nights to come.
FOUR
As much as I tried not to be hurt about it, Kasper being absent all the next week just reminded me of him leaving without saying goodbye. I came in on Monday morning with the hope that he’d be there and have some explanation as to why he had to jet off on Saturday morning, but there was still no sign of him.
He didn’t come home at all that week. I kept expecting him to walk through the door. I kept expecting to find him in the foyer, meticulously and considerately removing all his outerwear before stepping into the house. But he wasn’t there.
Barb complained that I was in a sulky mood all week, and maybe I was. Was I a fool to think that we’d shared something that night? Maybe it wasn’t romance, but I’d thought at least that it was some sort of warm comradery.
“Here’s something that should brighten you up a little,” Barb said to me when I came in on Thursday morning.
“It’s nearly the weekend?”
She smiled, her cheeks ruddy from the cold. “My mother always used to say that a change in routine is exactly what you need to get out of a funk.”
“I’m not in a funk!” I replied. That was probably the tenth time I’d told her that.
But Barb knew better. “I’ve got three girls of my own, Laurie,” she reminded me, with a perfectly knowing, motherly look. “I can recognize a funk when I see one.”
I scowled, tossing my purse on the table. There was no arguing with her. What was the point, anyway? She was right.
Barb was halfway through loading up the washing machine, and she huffed with exertion as she lectured me. “You won’t get out of your funk until you’re good and ready to, I know that.” She slammed the door closed. “But you’ve got to be open to it. And you’ll be more open to it if you’re thinking about something else.”
I paled, stopping midway through stripping off my jacket. What did she think my mind was currently occupied with? Did she know?
Barb noticed my reaction. “Come now, darlin’. We’ve all been there.” She smiled knowingly. “What’s his name?”
I frowned. “I thought I was supposed to start thinking of something else?”
“Good point,” Barb said with a laugh. “But I will tell you that he’s not worth your time, whoever he is.”
I snorted and turned to hang up my coat. If only she knew.
“You can snort all you want,” Barb scolded. “But he’s not. If he were, you wouldn’t have to be all cut up like this. He wouldn’t have done whatever’s put you in the funk.”
She had a point. Kasper had a reputation for going through women like a Halloween trick-or-treater goes through candy. Why wouldn’t he just toss me aside after pretending to care about my life? He probably feigned interest in women all the time; it must be second nature to him by now. Maybe he hadn’t even realized he’d been doing it.
&nbs
p; “So how do you propose I get my mind off him?” I asked.
Barb smiled. “By throwing yourself into your work when you clean Kasper’s study.”
I tried to suppress my scowl. Luckily, Barb turned to set the machine on to wash so she didn’t see. I knew she meant well, but sending me into Kasper’s private sphere would only make me think about him more. And I was so tired of thinking about him.
“Don’t you normally do the study?” I asked, desperate to avoid it.
“I do,” she replied. “But this week it’s your job. You’ve been here long enough now that I trust you. The Prince trusts you too, I reckon.”
