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How on earth was he supposed to concentrate on work of national and international importance when the one girl he’d ever had a long-distance crush on sat down just a couple of chairs away?
Very nice, plush private jet chairs that meant she was much further than she would have been in most other situations, but still.
Right there.
Frederick, King of Southern Santiero, did his best to ignore her as the plane sliced through the sky from her homeland of Eastern Novigradia to his, but that was much easier said than done.
No one knew about his silly crush.
Elise Stephens’ television show,Students of the Planetary Academy for Cultural ExchangeorSPACE, had been his escape.
It started the day his father called him into the Office of the Monarch and told Frederick that he would be king far sooner than any of them could have suspected.
Once back in his room, he’d picked up the remote and mindlessly scrolled through the streaming services, searching for something that wouldn’t require too much attention. To findsomething that would also make him laugh seemed like too much to hope for.
He was man enough to admit that the reason he stopped on the show was the pretty girl about his age. It seemed to be about a boarding school in space, which he thought could be both interesting and easy enough to follow that he wouldn't need to pay close attention at all times.
That was when he realized the reason it was front and center of histhings he might likeprobably had to do with the new season dropping in a few days.
It caused him to hesitate briefly, but before he knew it, he'd started season one ofSPACE. It didn't take him long to finish all three seasons - and three musical movies - and be ready for season four when it dropped.
As the plane hit a bit of turbulence, Frederick shook himself. He didn't need to go down memory lane when he should be working on changes to the trade agreement with Northern Santiero.
Glancing up at Elise, he hoped it wasn't obvious that he was watching her more than he was paying attention to the document on his tablet. He’d known she was in Eastern Novigradia, but had left the gathering where she performed before she arrived.
He still wasn’t sure why Catherine, Queen of Eastern Novigradia, had requested Ms. Stephens join him.
Frederick closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath through his nose and blew it slowly out through his mouth.
"You okay?"
He looked up to see that Elise had swiveled her chair around so that she looked directly at him. "Just trying to focus on trade agreements." After holding up his tablet for a second, he set it on the table next to him. "It's impossible. I have a hard enough time focusing on them when I'm in my office, well-rested, and inthe right mood and environment. On a plane after a long week of political and relational events? It probably won't be my best work."
"I understand." She held up her phone. "I'm trying to read lines, but it's hard on my own and my phone isn't ideal anyway." Elise sat straight up. "Would you help me?"
Frederick blinked. "Help you what?"
"Run lines. It's for theBecoming Mrs. Scrooge.” She swiped a few times. "I can AirDrop it to you. You can read the other lines - mostly Scrooge's."
That made Frederick frown. "Scrooge?"
"It’sBecoming Mrs. Scrooge. I'm the female lead so most of my scenes are with him. " The look on her face turned to pleading. "I could really use the help. I'm freaking out a little bit about this part. It's my first real movie role as an adult. Everything else goes back toSPACEor something similar. Teenage shows or college shows. This is different."
Frederick tried to process the statement. He'd always thought she looked so self-assured and well put together. Could it be they were the same?
Capable of putting on a good front so no one knew how they really felt deep inside?
Finally, he shrugged. "As long as you don't expect me to actually act like Scrooge, I'm game."
A smile crossed her face and reminded him why he'd stopped on it that first day. "You are the actual best! Thank you!"
It took a couple of minutes to figure out how to get the script to him around the security protocols, but they managed it.
"How does this work?" he asked as he scrolled through the first bit of the script.
"You read anything that isn't Belle's line. Most of the ones before mine are Scrooge’s, I think. If there's a big chunk between them, we can skip it, and obviously we'll skip the scenes I'mnot in." She pulled her legs up into the cream leather chair and crossed them like most people did on the floor. "I'm not in the first couple of scenes. I think the fourth line in the third scene is mine."
