She was only going to have one proposal in her life, assuming that was what was happening.
She might be wrong.
Sometimes people were wrong about really important things because—
—because she’d been so stupid when she’d pushed Francis to propose and hadn’t known what he was that she didn’t trust herself with Maxence.
Oh.
She almost stopped walking in the middle of the palace hallway, following Maxence and surrounded by mercenaries.
Yeah, she didn’t trust herself to know what was really going on with Maxence.
And she didn’t know how to deal with that.
Besides, from the worried scowl on Maxence’s face, he didn’t look like he had the headspace to deal with yet another thing, so she left the jewelry box between her boobs, poking her rib, and hoped she wasn’t an idiot.
At least she wasn’t going to lose the box with it snuggled up under her girls like that.
Dree was kind of aware that she was a little shocky from getting kidnapped and escaping and then boinking and thenthis,but she needed to soldier on.
Farm girls were tough.
She could do it.
She would befine.
Surely, she would.
The Crown Council meeting was being held in the throne room of the Prince’s Palace, which was one floor down and over in a different wing of the palace.
It was a bit of a hike.
Dree had walked through the palace many times in the last few weeks, but the opulent chandeliers and layers upon layers of hand-carved chair rails and crown moulding and ceiling medallions still astonished her. Centuries of artisans had poured their lifetimes into this palace.
The mercenaries surrounding Dree and Maxence wore black fatigues with no patches or nametags, which she found unnerving.
Military soldiers were supposed to wear nametags and insignia according to some sort of war rules, right? She had enough cousins in the military that she should know that.
All six of these guys were very tall, very-verytall, as tall as Maxence, which truly made her feel like a shrub among the sequoias.
Maxence seemed to be marching, too, or at least walking more stiffly than usual. His dark eyes flicked left and right when they came to every hallway intersection.
He didn’t quite look nervous, not exactly.
The set of his strong jaw looked grim.
The military guys weren’t marching in formation, so their footsteps were a chaotic patter on the carpeted and tiled floors as they passed. Maxence was striding with them because his legs were long like theirs.
Dree struggled to keep up, skipping steps as she hurried. Busts carved from dark wood stood on pedestals in wall niches. She’d never really noticed them before because she’d always been rushing to Max’s office or hurrying and trying to find his apartment when he called for her.
Framed portraits and oil paintings hung on the walls. She wished she could stop and look at them and made a mental note to do that later. There were a lot of them, practically one every few feet, and she’d never really noticed them before.
She was noticing all the furnishings and art a lot.
Because she could actually see them.
Becausethere were no peoplein the way.
