Paula chuckled knowingly.“Oh, I’m not judging.I’m thrilled.And Clarence Atelier, no less!That’s going to make quite the statement.Nigel Thorne might still be an icy bastard, but he’ll be pleased with your choice of British fashion.Especially a fashion house owned by a member of the royal family.”
I barked out another laugh.“You really think a bunch of suits are going to save me from Nigel?”
“Every little bit helps,” she said dryly.“And frankly, we need all the help we can get keeping that man in a tolerable mood.”
Paula stood, smoothing her jacket, and then walked to the door.“Try not to let Thorne haunt your dreams tonight, Ambassador.I’ll see you on Monday morning.”
“Have a good weekend,” I said, managing a wry smile as she slipped out the door.
The office fell silent, only the faint hum of London traffic outside breaking the stillness.I pushed myself up from my chair and crossed into the adjoining private bathroom, flicking on the light.My reflection stared back at me—slightly flushed cheeks from laughter, tired eyes, and dark hair that had lost its battle with the London damp hours ago.
And then, without warning, my stomach gave a nervous twist.The thought of seeing Prince Arthur again—at a fitting, no less—suddenly made my pulse tick faster.
“Pull yourself together,” I muttered, gripping the edge of the sink.“For God’s sake, you’ve met him once.At a reception.He’s probably forgotten your name by now.”
Still, my traitorous brain conjured up his smile, that quiet, magnetic warmth about him.And just like that, I felt like some teenager mooning over a movie star’s poster.
I dropped my head forward, groaning.“Jesus, Bryce.You’re the United States Ambassador, not a lovesick schoolboy.”I lifted my chin again, staring myself down in the mirror.“He’s a prince.A real one.A man like that would never look twice at you.”
The words tasted bitter even as I said them.I sighed, straightened my shoulders, and forced a smile at my reflection.
“At least I’ll get some sharp clothes out of this circus,” I told myself.
But as I turned off the light and stepped back into my office, one question still echoed in my mind:
What if Prince Arthur Phillip actually did look twice at me?
ChapterSix
Arthur
The stack of invoices on my desk was tall enough to qualify as its own architectural feature.I’d been at them since early morning, eyes blurring over figures about fabric shipments and vendor contracts.At least most of it was routine.The only real snag was a minor crisis with our wool supplier in Scotland—apparently a whole shipment had been misrouted, sitting in some warehouse near Aberdeen instead of on its way to London.Inconvenient, yes.Catastrophic, no.With a few calls and a touch of firmness, it would be sorted before anyone so much as noticed a delay.
That wasn’t what weighed on me.
What gnawed at me—what had been gnawing at me for days—was the upcoming fitting for Bryce Lewis, the new American ambassador.
I’d met him only once, briefly, at the embassy reception, yet he had managed to take up residence in my mind like an uninvited guest who refused to leave.It was absurd.I’d barely exchanged more than a few pleasantries with the man, and yet here I was, unable to focus on anything without his face intruding.That jawline.Those steady grey-blue eyes.The hint of a drawl curling beneath his carefully measured words.The way he’d blushed when he confessed he’d rather be in riding clothes.
I’d tried to bury it.Threw myself into work—the suiting line, the spring collection, a dozen small fires that needed tending.But every time I sat still for longer than a minute, my thoughts drifted back to him.And once they drifted, they lingered.
At one point—and I’m not proud of this—I opened my laptop and typed his name into the search bar.Just to see.A few articles came up: the diplomatic career, the crisis management background, a brief mention of his equestrian past.One photo from a Virginia charity gala, years old, showed him in a dinner jacket with a woman on his arm—some socialite or other, captioned as a “friend of the family.”
There was nothing else.No spouse.No partner mentioned.No tabloid whispers.Just a man who had spent his career being careful.
Could he be—
I shut the laptop with a snap, as if the thought itself might leap off the screen and brand me a fool.“Stop wasting time,” I muttered under my breath.I had no business entertaining such fantasies.He was an ambassador.I was—what?A glorified tailor with a royal title, dabbling in fashion and clinging to my family’s relevance?Whatever I was, it wasn’t someone he would notice.And besides, Bryce was probably straight.
Probably.
I buried myself in the paperwork again, though the numbers swam and refused to align into anything sensible.I was still glaring at a stubbornly crooked column of figures when my office door burst open.
Laurence, my secretary, appeared, slightly out of breath.His cheeks flushed as if he’d sprinted down the hall.“Apologies, Your Royal Highness,” he panted.“But Mr.Tennant was called away on an emergency.”
I arched my brow.“Another one?”
“This one’s rather urgent.An actress—Grizelda Cruz—managed to rip the hem of her gown.She’s meant to walk the red carpet in Leicester Square in less than an hour.”
