by Amelia Wilde
“Rooms?” I say.
“Yes. There are several suites on the third level of the palace where my rooms and Marcus—.” He breaks off, swallowing as though it hurts, and then continues. “—where my rooms are located. The king’s rooms are also on that level. You’ll be staying in the queen’s rooms.”
It occurs to me that those would have been his mother’s private rooms if she had had the chance to live here.
The significance of being assigned to the queen’s quarters makes my head spin.
“Claire will be with you there, as well,” he says, taking another bite of the scone. “If you’re happy with her, she can continue on as your head personal assistant.”
“Head personal assistant? Isn’t this a bit much for your…your girlfriend?”
I realize after the words are out of my mouth that this is the first time either of us has brought up titles, and I wish I could grab them out of the air and shove them back into my mouth. What the hell am I thinking? He doesn’t need that kind of pressure right now.
But Alec only leans across the table at me, a glint sparkling in his tired eyes. “Do you really think, my lady Jessica, that at the end of this you will be only my girlfriend?”
A furious blush rushes to my cheeks. “We really don’t have to talk about it now,” I say hurriedly.
The quiver in my voice makes him smile. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’ll be much, much more than my girlfriend when all is said and done.”
A laugh bubbles up in my chest at his innuendo-laced tone. “Alec, there are people around,” I whisper.
He waves a hand. “There are always people around. I can send them all away right now if you want to spend some time alone reminding each other why we’re in this for the long haul.” He plants a kiss on the top of my head.
“No,” I giggle, feeling giddy and foolish. “There’s a lot to do today, isn’t there?”
“Oh, yes,” he says. “You have a full schedule, and so do I. It seems we both have a lot to get caught up on. But that could wait twenty minutes.” He pulls me into a tight embrace and kisses my hair again.
The half grin on his face is the first real smile I’ve seen from him since he got the news about his brother.
“Twenty minutes,” I say sternly, although we both know that if he wants three hours, three days, or six months, I’ll give in without a second thought.
The team is out the door inside of ten seconds.
The sex is hard, rough and fast, both of us unrestrained in our show of passion for one another, leaving marks from our lips and fingers.. When we’re spent, lying back on my bed in the Northern Crown, I trace the line of his jaw with my fingertip.
It’s the last time for several days—perhaps even weeks—that I see him so relaxed.
By noon, I’ve been set up in the queen’s rooms in Sainthall Palace, by 12:30 I’m eating my first lunch prepared by the palace staff, and by 1:00 I’m sitting through my first briefing meeting.
There is a lot I don’t know about being with the crown prince, but I’m about to learn it all at breakneck speed.
The moment the first staff member starts speaking, I have to fight the urge to leave. I honestly thought it would be similar to spending time with Christian’s crowd back home, but the first five minutes of this presentation—a lesson on the myriad etiquette rules I’ll need to follow—seem like it’s a graduate level course in an unknown foreign language.
I straighten my back in my chair and take in a deep breath in an effort to push my apprehension away.
I can do this.
I will do this.
There will be no regrets.
Chapter Thirty
Alec
The twenty minutes of lovemaking I insisted on having with Jessica is the last ones we spend without clothes on for a solid week.
It’s the busiest week of my life. It’s so busy that I can’t even catch my fucking breath, much less grieve for my brother. There is simply no unscheduled time. Even my father swallows down his sadness so that he can go about the business of running the kingdom.
On the first day, I learn there is more to being crown prince than I ever suspected. Marcus never once let on just how much…at least not out loud. Now I see why he was wound up tighter than tinsel on a tree. Now I see why the smallest things set him off into a tangent.
Before the first morning is over, I catch myself promising never to let things get that far with me, only to realize, with shame, that I did allow situations to escalate far beyond a reasonable point…and I didn’t even have anything close to a legitimate excuse like Marcus and my father did.
It won’t do me any good to set the bar higher than I can possibly fucking manage, so instead I remind myself to try—try—to remain reasonable, even in the face of this incredible stress.
The one bright spot is Jessica. Thinking of her face somehow excites me and calms me at the same time. As far as I knew, Marcus didn’t have that type of relationship with anyone. He was too busy making strategic “partnerships” for the sake of Saintland.
That’s one mistake I swear I will not repeat.
Jessica is the one woman for me.
It’s just that my days are so consumed with meeting after endless meeting that I can hardly break away.
On the first morning, Phillip tells me my first meeting is scheduled for 7:30, at least an hour earlier than I generally check in with my father.
“That early? What’s the meeting about?”
Phillip pulls out a tablet and swipes through what appears to be a very long list. I have to hand it to Phillip—he’s making the transition with more goddamn grace than I am. It’s also impossible to discount the network of people he must have working behind the scenes. There are strict rules about information-sharing between the household staff and assistants, but there’s no person alive who thinks they don’t help one another out in times of upheaval.
Like right now.
“It’s a weekly security briefing.”
“At 7:30 in the morning?” The only reason I was up at 6:30 is because I couldn’t sleep. I’d been lying awake in my bed, thinking of Marcus and all the shitty things I’ve said to him, since 4:00.
He swipes at the tablet again, then narrows his eyes as he reads what’s on the screen. “It says here that this is a kingdom-wide security briefing. Obviously, there would be no classified content in the schedule management system, but the only briefings you were required to attend before were the briefings for Sainthall and Sainthall Palace.”
So Marcus was overwhelmed and sleep-deprived, and had no one to take the edge off at night with a quick fuck, even if it wasn’t with a girlfriend or wife.
The security briefing is where my line of unending meetings began, and for the week leading up to the ceremony naming me crown price, it is sheer scheduling madness.
I have back-to-back meetings and briefings all morning. After three days, I successfully booked myself an hour alone to work out in the palace gym in the afternoon. The only problem is that it means the final meeting of the day gets pushed past dinner.
And nothing ever runs on schedule.
Meetings go over the scheduled time, and over, and over, and by the time I’m done for the day, the only thing I have energy for is going back to my rooms and collapsing into bed. Alone. To sleep.
On the fifth day, I miss Jessica so much that I go to her rooms instead of mine. I’m tired of seeing her only in my daydreams or at mealtimes, and then only when I’m not being spoon-fed classified information from the revolving door of agents and cabinet members. When I arrive, she’s reading curled up on the window seat, a book open in her lap, and when I see her, I’m nearly pulled apart by envy and lust. The envy quickly dies away in a burst of empathy. Phillip doesn’t brief me on her daily schedule, but if mine is any indication, she’s busy all day, too.
When the door opens, she looks up and smiles at me, her radiant expression filled with love and adoration.
Fuck me if a
nything in the world means more to me than Jessica.
She stands up and tosses the book onto her seat, rushing across the room to get to me and flinging herself into my arms.
“I thought you’d never come,” she says into my ear, then takes my earlobe between her teeth and bites down just enough.
My cock is instantly hard, pressing up against the fabric of my pants, and I set her feet on the floor so she can steady herself while I kiss her deeply, then softly, then passionately enough to make up for the last five days away from one another.
When I break the kiss, she gasps for breath, her eyes glittering in the low light of her rooms. “There’s more where that came from,” she says with a wicked grin and takes hold of my hand, guiding me behind her as she makes her way to the bedroom.
I haven’t told her this, but the bedroom in the queen’s rooms is the largest in the palace. The first King of Saintland, King Harold, loved his wife, Queen Sarah, so much that he designed her rooms to be the most opulent in the entire palace.
Someday, I’ll let Jessica in on this piece of history. For now, she has enough on her plate without worrying about one day becoming queen.
Jessica strips off her shirt in front of the bed, leaving her bra and panties on, and I let my eyes linger on the lush lines of her curves. My cock throbs painfully against my zipper.
Goddamn it, she is perfection in human form.
I have to have her.
She reaches out a hand and beckons me toward her by crooking one finger seductively, then falls onto her back on the bed.
Jessica stretches out, her head on the plush pillow, her body exposed to me, and her thighs parted, inviting me to strip off the remaining fabric separating her from me.
It takes seconds to get undressed down to my boxers, and only another second to climb up next to her on the bed, lean down close to her, start kissing her collarbone, and then for one second—one second only—to clear my mind. I rest my head down on the pillow beside her, breathing in her skin, feeling her warm body next to me, so whole, so alive, under my touch…
And I fall asleep.
Chapter Thirty-One
Jessica
At first, I’m nearly undone by the sweetness of Alec falling so deeply asleep, his head on the pillow next to mine, his body relaxed. I consider waking him up, but only for a second. A man like Alec won’t be thrilled about passing out when he meant to fuck me at least once. He’s just been so exhausted lately, and so much has happened, that it seems cruel to shake him out of the dreamland that he’s tumbled into headfirst. For a long time, I lie still, enjoying the sensation of his body against mine, his hard muscles and soft skin against my side.
Because they’ve thought of everything for the queen’s rooms at Sainthall Palace, there’s a switch hidden in the antique cherry wood of the bedside table that controls all the lights. You can turn them off when you’re done reading at night, and you never have to get out of bed and fumble along the wall to turn them on in the middle of the night. After Alec’s breathing has been steady for about fifteen minutes, I reach over and slide the switches down, plunging the room into darkness.
It’s late enough for me to fall asleep, but even though I close my eyes and run through several deep breaths, my mind is too alert to let go. My body hums with the closeness of my boyfriend—even thinking the word makes my heart pound—and thoughts race through my head.
It’s not long before one crosses my mind that makes my stomach twist with anxiety.
Is this what my entire life is going to be like?
Alec is the crown prince now, and although no one has said it in so many words, it does mean that he won’t be able to have as much of a private life, not least because he has so much to do. One day, he’ll assume the crown.
What’s the scheduling like for that?
Will he always be so exhausted?
We’ve hardly been seeing each other, and it’s killing me. I want to be with him every moment of the day, and my chest aches with the longing. Alec has also brought an intense need to be sexual roaring to the forefront, and being in Sainthall Palace is a far cry from the marathon lovemaking sessions we used to have in New York.
Not that I expected that to last forever, but things have tapered off awfully soon.
And I understand it. I understand that heavy demands are being placed on him. I don’t blame him for being so tired he falls asleep on my pillow after a hot kiss.
I just can’t help but wonder: am I looking ahead at the rest of my life with Alec right now?
All my life, I’ve been spontaneous. All my life, I’ve given myself permission to change everything if something didn’t feel right. It’s that same attitude that brought me to Alec in the first place. It seems so long ago now, that night with the dating app.
Our life together, now that he’s about to be the crown prince, won’t have much room for spontaneity. Somehow, I don’t see it getting much easier. This first week was bound to be difficult, bound to be busy as he gets caught up to speed, but it’s not as if his new responsibilities are going to be lessened after this week. In fact, they’re probably going to be increased.
It hasn’t exactly been an easy adjustment for me, either. It’s still a thrill to be pampered, to be catered to, to be assisted in a way that I never imagined I would be, but with every day that passes, more rules come into play, more boundaries are set for what I wear and the way I need to act and how I spend my time.
The dread in my stomach blooms and grows. What if I made a mistake by giving up so much of my freedom to be with Alec? What if I was basing my decision on faulty information? What if it’s not going to work now that he’s the crown prince?
What if this isn’t the life I want?
The next morning when I wake up, Alec is gone, but Claire is knocking at the door. Today is the day that he’s officially named crown prince, and the ceremony is at ten.
“Hey, Claire,” I say as she breezes in. Here in the palace, Claire has a key card that allows her to get into my rooms at any time unless I punch in a code on a panel next to the door.
“Jessica,” she says, her face still pale, but at least she’s smiling. “Are you finished with breakfast? The team is waiting outside.”
I smile back at her. “Just give me a minute to eat,” I say, sitting down at the tray that was apparently delivered while I still slept. “Is there anything I should know about the schedule this morning? Mostly getting ready for the ceremony, right?”
“Right,” she answers, opening the cover of her tablet. “The ceremony begins at ten, but you’ll need to be seated in the gallery ten minutes early.”
“What’s the gallery?”
“It’s the upper level of seating in the throne room. You haven’t spent much time there, so it would be easy to overlook.”
“Oh,” I say, putting another bite of breakfast in my mouth. Does everyone sit in the gallery?”
A blush colors Claire’s cheeks. “No. The seating on the main floor is done based on strict precedence, with the royal family first. It’s…complicated.”
My reaction takes me by surprise. Of course I’m not a member of the royal family. Of course I’m not a key person in Saintland politics. Of course I wouldn’t be seated in a place of preference during the ceremony.
I shouldn’t have been expecting it.
“It’s an old tradition,” Claire tries, obviously noticing my discomfort.
I look down at the plate of eggs in front of me and muster the biggest smile I can before I look back up at her. “It’s not a problem, Claire. It’s just the way things are!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Alec
The induction ceremony flies by in a blur, and there’s part of me that feels like the entire thing borders on the absurd. As Phillip had hastily informed me when I arrived back at my rooms that morning after leaving Jessica in the queen’s quarters, it would resemble a shortened version of a coronation ceremony.
“A coronation ceremony?” I stu
mble out, the words tripping over my tongue as I examine the outfit he’s laid out for the occasion. I hate the purple tie he’s selected, but it’s part of the customary royal attire.
“Yes,” he says, swiping at his tablet. “Apparently it’s written into Saintland law that the ceremony has to take place according to those parameters for it to be official.”
“Do you ever get the impression, Phillip, that King Edward was a control freak?”
Phillip is loath to speak of even long-dead kings with disrespect, but I’m the future king, so he compromises by delivering one sharp nod.
I shake my head and sigh, opting not to argue as I head off to take a shower.
The hot water is refreshing as it beats down rhythmically on my shoulders, releasing the stress from my muscles, but it does nothing to wash away the embarrassment I feel over what happened last night. Of all the fucking things, I had to go and fall asleep like an old man.
I bet Jessica is wondering what type of man she’s gotten herself hooked up with and regretting her decision.
Knowing her kind heart and generous nature, she’ll forgive me. I don’t know if I would be as forgiving if the roles were reversed.
I also don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for how I treated Marcus, but I can’t dwell on that now. All I can do now is work my ass off to make him proud.
And a son who my father will be proud of.
The ceremony itself goes off without a hitch, aside from the fact that something – or rather someone – is missing from the front row, where my father sits beside one of my uncles and several high-ranking Saintland officials. Where the hell is Jessica?
I pull Phillip aside after the thirty-minute event is over.
“Why wasn’t Jessica seated with my father?” I hiss.
He looks at me as if I’m speaking a goddamn foreign language. “She’s not a member of the royal family.”
