The Prince’s Bride (Part 1)

by J. J. McAvoy

  “Yeah, something Gale said. Did you see this—” I stopped midsentence at the sight in front of me.

  There, sitting on one of the kitchen stools, was the prince himself. However, it wasn’t just the fact that he was there. It was the fact that he was sitting as my mother adjusted a wig on his head. He glanced up at me and nodded.

  “Welcome back. I’m glad the advice helped,” Gale said as if he weren’t wearing a wavy, brown, lace-front wig.

  My mother, who still had scissors in her hand, clipping away and cutting layers into it, said, “Did I see what, honey?”

  “Wait. What is happening right now? Am I dreaming, or do you have him in a wig?”

  “Come closer,” he said to me.

  I was not sure why I did so, but when I did, he reached out and pinched me.

  “Ouch!” I yanked my hand away.

  “What? That’s how you prove to someone they are not dreaming in this part of the world.” He grinned, clearly remembering when I said the same thing to him.

  “Mom, why are you putting a wig on the Prince of Ersovia,” I asked, rubbing my arm, still giving him a side-eye.

  “I may have almost gotten caught,” he answered for her. “Apparently, the Clark Kent disguise does not work close up.”

  “What is considered almost?”

  “Ersovian tourists at the Space Needle saw him and said he looked almost exactly like their prince.” My mom snickered. “A few of them even wanted pictures.”

  “The one day I go out to sightsee, and I run into a whole tourist bus of my own people. The odds of that should be like zero to a million.” He frowned, and I wanted to laugh because he kind of looked like a kid getting a haircut he didn’t want from his mom.

  “And now his bodyguard refuses to let him go back out in public again. So, I’m helping him with a disguise. What do you think?” She took a step back, running her hand through his new fake hair, but even still, it sort of bothered me. “I’ve still got it, don’t I?” She handed him a mirror.

  “Oh, my God.” He snickered and reached up to touch it. “I can barely tell the difference. You are good at this.”

  “Before I married her father, and before I was a beauty queen, I helped in my mom’s beauty shop.” She leaned in closer and snipped another piece.

  “Iskandar. Wolfgang. What do you think?” he asked, and I turned back to see them both pause from cleaning the living room to look.

  Again, what in the world had happened over the last few days?

  “I like it, sir.” Wolfgang nodded, giving a thumbs-up to my mother. “You are gifted, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, but what did I tell you about calling me ma’am?” she snapped at him.

  “Sorry...Wilhelmina.” He really struggled with getting that first name out.

  “Shoulder-length hair is against palace protocol. It will work as a disguise,” Iskandar said. His face was still as stoic as I remembered.

  However, at least that meant I wasn’t in an alternate reality. We all just stared at him.

  Iskandar noticed our expressions before clearing his throat and adding, “The application was well done.”

  My mom and I snickered. Facing forward, I saw Gale focusing on me now.

  “And you? What do you think?” Gale questioned.

  Your face can pull off any hairstyle, apparently. But I said, “It looks good. But are you really comfortable with this?”

  “Yes, why?”

  Why? “Most guys would rather just be bald than getting caught wearing a hairpiece.”

  “Maybe American men or normal men. However, I grew up in a palace, remember? Most of the images that hang on our walls are men in wigs. Besides, it was either this or let Iskandar chain me to your apartment until you returned to free me.” He chuckled as my mother took off the apron and dusted off his shoulders. “I was close to going mad. So, I gave in and called your mother.”

  “And she told you to come over today? At this exact time?” I asked, crossing my arms and looking to the woman still playing matchmaker as she carefully examined her styling tools.

  “Yes, I was not aware you would be returning now. We’ll leave—”

  “No,” I said quickly—a little too quickly—and wanted to kick myself. “What I mean is...” What did I mean?

  “She means why don’t you stay for dinner,” my mother cut in.

  I shot her a glare, and she just shot one back.

  “Only if it is all right with Odette,” he said, waiting for me.

  They all were. Iskandar and Wolfgang, too—desperately.

  “Fine. Why do you look like you haven’t eaten for days?” I asked, laughing.

  Wolfgang smiled sheepishly. “We haven’t had a good homecooked meal in days. The restaurant food here is so greasy—”

  “Thank you for the invitation, miss,” Iskandar cut in.

  “Wait, you all have been eating out every day? For breakfast, lunch, and dinner?” I asked, and they all just nodded.

  “Yes, all restaurants by your place, so it was not a problem,” Gale replied, but he gave Wolfgang a stern look. “And the food was perfectly adequate.”

  “Do none of you know how to cook?”

  “Iskandar can make some breakfast foods,” Gale answered but then shrugged. “Wolfgang is almost as unless as I am. You remember my last attempt at cooking.”

  Yes, the burn marks would most likely like still be on my stove to prove it. “Was that your first time in a kitchen?”

  “Of course not.”

  I gave him a look, not believing him and causing him to frown.

  “Iskandar, tell her I have been in a kitchen. I can see her judging me right now.”

  “He has been in the kitchen before, miss,” Wolfgang came to his aid quickly. “In fact, he knows all the ways through it. We sneak back into the palace through—”

  “Stop talking!” Gale snapped at him.

  “Oh,” I grinned, moving closer to him, my arms crossed. “You were lying to me?”

  “No.” He tilted his head. “You asked me if it was my first time in a kitchen, not if it was my first time cooking.”

  “You’re using lawyer tricks on me?”

  “It is not my fault you do not ask clarifying questions.”

  “Fine, let me be clear,” I said, holding up my chin, and he stood proudly, too. “Have you ever cooked a meal before?”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but I held up my hand, stopping him.

  “Let me be even clearer. Did you ever cook a meal before you tried at my place?” I asked him.

  He cracked his jaw to the side. “No.”

  “Have you ever even gone grocery shopping?”

  “No,” he muttered.

  I snorted, trying not to laugh. “You are such a prince.”

  “Oh, leave him alone. The only reason you know how to cook even a little bit is that you had such a huge crush on Chef Tremaine.”

  “Mom!” I hollered at her.

  “A crush?” he said with a goofy grin on his face and stepped forward. “You? Miss nothing-in-this-world-can-move-me and I-will-reject-love had a crush on your chef. You, Odette the Cold-hearted?”

  “I was a little kid,” I grumbled, backing up.

  “You were sixteen going on seventeen,” my mom once again voiced from behind him.

  “Whose side are you on, Mom?” What kind of mother exposes their daughter like this? And to make it worse, Gale looked like he was eating up my embarrassment.

  “Sixteen going on seventeen?” he repeated, shaking his head. “Crushes are very serious at that age.”

  “She cried for a week when he told us he was moving back to Italy because he was getting married.”

  Someone needed to create a black hole and suck us all away. Really, she was just doing this to drive me insane at this point.

  “A week? You?” He smiled like the lazy cat in Alice and Wonderland. “You are such an heiress.”

  “Mom, why don’t you cook? Or better yet, teach
your gossip buddy here,” I grumbled, walking away from him and toward the fridge. However, when I opened it, almost everything was gone. There was just fruit, yogurt, and water.

  “Oh, I’ve been eating out recently, too,” she said, coming up beside me. “Why don’t you and Gale go to the grocery store so we can make a nice dinner.”

  I was trying my best not to lose it with her blatant efforts, but she was trying my patience.

  “You don’t mind, do you, Gale?”

  “Not at all. Besides, it will give us a chance to test out my new look.”

  I flipped back to him, but he just nodded to my mother. I wasn’t sure what secret deal they had going, but I didn’t like it at all.

  “Miss, I think you dropped this.” Wolfgang bent down to pick up the envelope I had brought over and must have dropped at the sight of Gale.

  “Right, thank you.” I took it and showed it to my mom. “Did you know Etheus was having a global Get Active campaign today? Apparently, Augusta and I were asked to come.”

  “You know I don’t check the mail anymore. It’s depressing.” She waved me off and walked away.

  “Mom, I can’t just miss company events. Now Augusta is going to call—”

  “What do you all feel like eating this afternoon?” she cut me off to ask them.

  “Anything is fine,” Gale said back.

  “Your Highness, you forget,” Iskandar stated. “You are not to eat shrimp, crab, lobster, clams, mussels, oysters, scallops, or any raw meats or spicy foods.”

  “Are you allergic to all of that?”

  Gale frowned, annoyance on his face. “No, more palace rules. Shellfish have a high risk of causing foodborne illness, so while abroad, we are told never to eat any of it. We are not even supposed to take tap water.”

  Wow.

  “Well, that takes a lot off the table,” my mother said, tapping her finger on her chin. “Odette makes a fantastic pot roast with red wine sauce, though.”

  “That takes four hours...and wait, why am I cooking? I just got back.”

  She snapped her fingers and pointed to me. “Your creamy, lemon-butter chicken with thyme. And you can make a lot of it.”

  “Are you not hearing the words out of my mouth?” I asked, tired.

  Gale chuckled softly. “That sounds lovely, and I do not mind going on my first adventure to the grocery store, so I am not laughed at by the brown-eyed heiress.”

  Of course, he would use this against me.

  “Fine, but if you are going to join us commoners at the grocery store, you have to come alone.”

  “Gladly.”

  “No,” Iskandar stated.

  “Iskandar, you just said no one would assume it was me with the hairpiece on,” Gale argued.

  “That may be true. However, you are still you, and you cannot go without a guard,” he stated back.

  “The grocery store is simply a five-minute drive—”

  “Ms. Wyntor,” he called my name like the principal. “Should anything happen to him in that five-minute drive or the subsequent time you are in that store, not only will I have failed in my duty but may also be charged and held for upwards of thirty years in prison, which I would accept gladly. I would never be able to return to my hometown without people wanting to stone me. My parents would be heartbroken as well as our people. It may be simple to you, but to our people—”

  “Iskandar, that is enough!” Gale snapped, his voice cold and harsh.

  “Forgive me, Your Highness, but where you go, so do I. That cannot change,” he stated in reply, his voice just as cold.

  I noticed Gale’s hand clench, and I rushed around him toward Iskandar. I wasn’t trying to cause a fight. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t understand. It’s fine if you come. Just promise you won’t stand too close, and you won’t help him do anything.”

  “Of course.” He nodded.

  Gale, however, still looked ready to rip him a new one. Taking his hand, he blinked slowly before glancing at me.

  “Let’s go. We’ll take my car,” I said to him. “I won’t drive fast. Can you follow behind?”

  Iskandar nodded again.

  Gale luckily said nothing more and followed me to the garage. The lights came on. Trying to make him laugh, I went around to the passenger side and opened the door for him, but he looked confused.

  “You wish me to drive?”

  So much for trying to be funny. “No, I was opening the door for you. Never mind, get in.”

  Instead of doing that, he opened the driver’s side door for me. “After you then.”

  I shook my head but got in and waited for him to come around to the other door. It was only then that his shoulders relaxed. Opening the garage and starting to pull out of the driveway, I also waited for Iskandar.

  “You should just drive off,” Gale grumbled to himself.

  “He nearly took off my head for suggesting he stay behind. Do you want him to actually kill me?” I was only half-joking, but I had a feeling that if I did anything to harm his precious royals, Iskandar would definitely kill me.

  “You asked me once about the cons of royalty...well, being treated like glass is definitely one of them.”

  “That isn’t just a royalty problem, though,” I said as I noticed the headlights turn on behind me. “As you can probably guess, my mom wasn’t strict with me in most things. However, when it came to public appearances and what I could eat, she was harsh. I can’t sit like this. I can’t eat that. Make sure you walk like this. It was even worse when I was in pageants. I finally broke down, and she let me stop.”

  “You broke down?”

  I nodded, turning onto the main street. “Yep, full-on tears and screaming and throwing things. I think I broke her heart, too, when I said I thought it was stupid and a waste of time, and that she was making me do it because she was too old and ugly to do them herself.”

  He gasped. “You did not.”

  I nodded, feeling ashamed of myself. “I did, too, and man, did she beat me for it.”

  “She hit you?”

  “Oh, no, not like abusive in anyway...I mean, she spanked me. She’s a firm believer in spanking kids.” I laughed.

  He nodded slowly, and I wanted to ask if he was ever smacked as a child, but I already knew from his reaction. No, he was not. Who was going to spank his royal behind?

  “Was your father strict?” he questioned as I stopped at the red light.

  “Oh, yes. He was way worse than my mother. Where I could go, who I could be friends with, what schools I was going to attend, what majors I was allowed to take.”

  “That’s why you studied international relations and business at Dartmouth?”

  There went his profile knowledge of me again.

  “One of these days, you are going to have to show me this file you have on me,” I said as I parked at the grocery store.

  “If you are ever in Ersovia, I will, and I’ll show you the man who made it,” he replied as he took off his seat belt.

  I noticed the emphasis he put on the ever part of his reply, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I opened the door, and the first thing I noticed when a blast of cold air shot through me was that we had forgotten our coats.

  “Sir.” Iskandar appeared right beside us with Gale’s wool coat in his hand. “You forgot this.”

  “Let’s move for my sake then!” I yelled, hugging myself as I ran into the store. Hopping around, I tried to get the warmth in me quickly. Why was it so damn cold?

  “What kind of run was that?” Gale laughed at me when he got inside.

  “The kind people do when they don’t have a coat.”

  “Here,” he said, putting his over my shoulders.

  “No, what about you—”

  “I will steal Iskandar’s if I need it. You, however, are still...um, cold.” His blue-green eyes shifted quickly to my chest and then back up.

  I looked down and saw my nipples poking out of my sweater, telling all the world hello. Immediately, I close
d the material over my chest and crossed my arms. Well, that was...embarrassing. “Let’s start shopping. Grab the cart.”

  “The cart?” he repeated in confusion.

  Oh, boy. This was going to interesting.

  “So, you weigh these to find out the price?” I asked, watching as the red hand on the scale went up.

  “Yes. Now put it in the bag,” Odette directed, pointing to the green plastic bags above the fruit.

  I watched as a woman on another row of vegetables over pulled and then tore the bag before going to do the same. It was simple enough. However, for some reason, it was much longer than the other women. Which made Odette snicker.

  “I am starting to think you brought me here to laugh at me,” I grumbled.

  “A small part of me did,” she admitted, coming closer and showing me the perforated edge where I was supposed to tear it. “But part of me is also laughing because you are just like I was at sixteen going on seventeen. Chef Tremaine was chortling and chuckling the whole time as I went around the store.”

  “You really liked this chef, didn’t you?” For some reason, the image of her as a young adult in a one-sided love story with a cook was very...sweet and cute.

  “We all do something ridiculous when we really like someone.” She shrugged me off. “I bet you did, too.”

  “Me? No, never,” I lied.

  She gave me a look of total unbelief. “Yeah, sure, and I’m the Queen of England.”

  “Hello, Elizabeth.” I nodded at her.

  She rolled her eyes and shoved the bags into my hand. “Put parsley in it so we can get the chicken and go.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Oh, my God, you are so frustrating.” She groaned, but I could see the amusement in her eyes.

  Over the last three days, since she had been gone, I had come to the conclusion that I needed to stop trying to get her to fall for me as a lover and accept me as a friend first. I wanted to say I came to that conclusion all by myself, but my brother, Arty, actually had the insight I needed.

  “So, there are five of us,” she muttered to herself as we walked toward the butcher’s section of the store. She was looking over the small list she had made on her phone.

  I, however, was looking over her face—the curve of her nose, the smoothness of her lips, and how nice she looked without makeup.