“Not for another five months, thank you very much,” she says in a warning tone.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you’re old,” I say, then narrow my eyes. “When is your birthday, anyway?”
“March third.” Her expression screams, ‘we barely know each other.’
“We do so.” Lifting myself up, I flip us, so I’m now on top of her.
“What?”
“We do so know each other.Verywell.”
Chuckling, Arabella says, “Youdidknow what I was thinking just now, didn’t you?”
“Yes, so stop worrying. We’ll be fine.” I kiss her again, but the thought of us being apart for the next several weeks has me pausing. “You know, sex before marriage is widely regarded as acceptable these days.”
“Premarital sex is acceptable for everyoneotherthan the royal family, I’m afraid.”
Pulling back, I give her a confused look.
“The general consensus among the taxpayers is that if they’re paying for our lives—which they aren’t—we must conduct ourselves in a manner befitting the ultimate role models for society. I’m quoting the senior advisors there.”
“Doesn’t that seem rather silly?”
“Oh, yes, it’s absolutely ridiculous and leads to all sorts of pretending.” She lifts her head and kisses me hard on the mouth. “But with great privilege comes… a great deal of hypocrisy.”
I roll off of her and lay back, my mind racing to figure out where I’m going to stay when we land. Like an idiot, I assumed we would stay together, obviously at her family’s massive palace where there are probably a hundred empty bedrooms.
She turns on her side, her face filled with concern. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”
“I suppose I should have. I guess I didn’t think it through.”
“Now I’ve totally killed the mood when my intention was to drink in every last drop of our alone time together.”
“No, it’s totally fine.” I shake my head and smile. “Obviously, I can’t stay with you, but it’s all good. It’ll be fun, actually. We’ll have to sneak around. It’ll add a sense of danger to the whole thing that an all-access pass doesn’t have.”
Arabella grins at me and raises and lowers her eyebrows. “Oh, I like the sound of that.”
I go straight for her earlobe and do that thing that makes her make that noise.
Ah, there it is—victory.
And now she’s kissing me again in that way that tells me she’s had enough chitchat. And I couldn’t agree more.
2
Overbearing Older Brothers, Accomplished Older Women, and Princesses Acting Like Ostriches…
Arabella
“Well, that was rude,”I say as I slide across the backseat of the limo. My older brother Arthur, the heir apparent whoapparentlythinks he can run my life, sent his driver into the airport to get me and told him to refuse to give poor Will a ride under the pretence of me needing to be back at the palace immediately on urgent family business. “You couldn’t even be bothered to get out of the car and say hello to Will.”
Arthur leans forward and takes a bottle of water out of the fridge. He offers it to me, but I shake it off, even though I am quite parched. Shrugging, he opens it for himself and has a long swig before he answers. “Sorry about that, but I’m in a bit of a hurry, what with trying to help run an entire kingdom whilst being a hands-on dad to my children and a loving husband.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t have bothered coming to get me,” I say, opening the fridge and getting my own water.
“Knew you were thirsty.”
Rolling my eyes, I say, “What’s going on?”
