“I gathered that when your uncle got in my face. How old are you anyway?”
“That’s a harder question to answer than you might think. By your timeline, I am twenty-five.”
“By my timeline? Do you mean because of the difference in the pace of time between our worlds?”
She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Uh, no, although that’s a factor as well. From the time I was born, I aged faster than a human child. When I was two Earth years old, I both appeared and had the intellectual maturity of a ten-year-old. I stopped aging when I reached this size and appearance, about ten years ago.”
“Full-grown at fifteen?”
She nodded. “I am an adult both by your standards and ours. Do you mind me asking…?” She gestured at him.
“Thirty-eight… in human years.” He didn’t exactly smile, but his eyes tightened at the corners as if he was tempted. “So your parents… You said they treat you like a child. They don’t include you in royal matters?”
“Oh, they include me, but it’s like I’m a marble statue they park in the room. I don’t lead anything, and my assignments are few and usually nonessential.”
“Hmm. Difficult. No wonder you wanted to throw this party. Probably bored out of your head.”
She was bored for a number of reasons, but she felt uncomfortable diving deeper into it with this stranger, so she smiled and turned the tables on the conversation. “What about you? Are you happy being a scientist?”
His brows lifted. “Not sure anyone’s asked me that before.”
“First time for everything.”
“I love it even when I’m obtaining a sample of ice by the light of the moon in Arctic temperatures.” He picked at the side of his thumbnail, silence coming between them again for a beat until he added, “You might say I gave up being a prince to do it.”
What? Leaning forward, she lowered her voice. “You were once a human prince?”
He groaned. “In a sense. My grandparents founded Morrismart. My family is the closest thing to American royalty there is.”
“What’s Morrismart?” she probed, even more curious about this stranger. If he’d once been the equivalent of a prince, why had he seemed put off by her role as princess?
“It’s this gigantic retail store that sells everything from kayaks to greeting cards. My father was a genius when it came to logistics, so he developed software that not only finds the cheapest price but also the cheapest way to get items to our warehouse. He invented a groundbreaking predictive model for what and how much to order as well.”
She tried to picture such a store and couldn’t. Stores like that did not exist in Paragon. The concept sounded overwhelming. “And this makes you a prince?”
“My family’s collective wealth makes us the third wealthiest in America and the fifteenth wealthiest in the world.”
“You must be so proud.” Although she tried to keep her expression neutral, Liam was beginning to sound like some of the men who’d come sniffing around the castle, only interested in marrying a princess for how she might elevate their position.
To her surprise though, he shook his head. “No… not at all. Morrismart is a plague on the planet. The company sells mass amounts of cheap, single-use plastics that end up in the landfills or our oceans. And don’t get me started about where the products come from. The labor practices are awful. It’s why I refused to be a part of it. Instead, I earned my PhD, eschewed my inheritance, and became an environmental scientist. Not only did I leave the company behind, my research has led to new regulations that are forcing them to make changes for the better. They hate that, by the way.”
Fascinating. Charlie wasn’t expecting that. Most men she’d met were at least partially interested in her fortune and always interested in preserving their own. “You left all the money behind?”
He shifted as if the question made him uncomfortable. “Yes. Believe me, when I think what that money could do for the planet, I sometimes wonder if I’ve done the right thing. But my inheritance came with a stipulation that I work for the company, so it was a no-go for me. Unfortunately, my income as a professor is barely enough for a one-bedroom efficiency in Chicago.” He frowned. “Does it bother you that you reached for a celestial being and nabbed a broke PhD instead?”
“Why would it bother me?” When he didn’t answer right away, she studied him a moment longer and then it dawned on her. Did he think his lower economic status made him unworthy for her task? Or—and she hated to presume this because there was far too much wishful thinking involved—was he considering himself as her possible match and wondering if wealth was important to her? Either way, there was only one answer to give. “No. It doesn’t bother me. I think the choices you’ve made are admirable. Was it a difficult transition for you?”
“Not really.” He turned his head to look out the window, getting a far-off look in his eye. “Occasionally I miss how it was before, being a family.”
She wanted to ask him more about that, but the carriage lurched to a stop and the driver opened the door for them. She’d barely stepped off the bottom step when she was swept into her uncle Sylas’s arms.
Chapter
Six
Liam was highly motivated to make a good impression on yet another uncle after Alex’s threat. This uncle was even bigger than the last, although he’d never thought it possible, and the man—er, dragon—had a chilling gleam in his gunmetal-gray eyes. No doubt this would be the dragon who would chew him up, bones and all, if he stepped out of line.
“Uncle Sylas, this is my friend Liam from Earth. He’s helping me.”
