He breathes softly against my neck, and a pleasant feeling pools low in my belly. Then he backs off a step, and the distance is almost as painful as the sad expression on his beautiful face. “If I always got what I wanted, I wouldn’t be in this engagement game show farce in the first place.”
“Don’t you want to marry?”
“I mean, yeah. But not like this.” The prince waves a hand frantically in the air.
“How would you like then?”
He sags back into his padded chair. “I don’t even fucking know. I guess,” he trails off. “I want something real. Someone who sees me.”
“Sees you?” I return to my seat next to him, keeping every impulse in check as his empty hand simply begs for me to take it in mine.
He groans, running a hand over his beard. “I don’t know. But I’ll know when I meet her.”
Those blue eyes lock on mine again, and the air feels like right before a thunderstorm, when your skin gets prickly and the tiny hairs on your arms stand up. As if the very air carries a current of electricity.
I’m unable to keep still again, and I go to the minibar and study the alcohol along the shelves. “I think I need a drink for this conversation.”
“Should you be drinking on the job?” he asks, already at my side, still giving off Jules.
I shrug. “One glass won’t hurt, right?”
Prince Friedrich laughs. “How about a shot, then? Quick and effective.”
“Please.”
He takes down two glasses and pulls a square bottle with a black label from under the bar.
I raise an eyebrow. “Really? Jack Daniels?”
“What?”
“It’s just, that’s kind of a poor excuse for whiskey.”
He chuckles. “Oh, you need to meet my friend Miles.” We clink our glasses together and toss back the liquor. “One more?” he offers.
I hold a hand up. “No, I shouldn’t. Gotta be ready if the kids wake up.”
“Sure,” the prince agrees. We stay leaned against the bar as the train continues to rattle along. The faint hint of his subtly smoky cologne is almost as intoxicating as the whiskey. “So, it appears you’ve been giving this a bit of thought. What makes you think I’m safe?”
“We can enjoy each other’s, um, company without any sort of expectations, right?”
“How so?”
I start pacing again, my body full of pent-up nerves, the shot having done little to help. All my common sense is screaming at me to stop this ridiculous conversation, but the part of me that responds to his touch, his nearness, the deep rolling timbre of his voice, overrules any sense of self-preservation. I feel safe with him, and that has to mean something. “This whole thing with finding you a wife.” I wave my hand, gesturing in the air. “I have no expectation this will be any more than whatever we decide it will be.”
“And you think you can do, let’s just call it what it is, friends with benefits without letting feelings get in the way?”
I nod. “I have goals, Your Highness. And a man would only get in the way of that. Andyouhave duties to fulfill, and any woman outside of your little aristocratic circle would just be in the way ofthat.”
He steps toward me, and I stop pacing. “Very pragmatic.”
My skin burns as he strokes the back of a finger, oh so softly, down my cheek. I’m lost again in his fathomless blue eyes. “So then, I guess we should discuss what this thing looks like.” His arm around my waist pulls me in closer so my chest is almost to his. I can’t see his face anymore, but I note the pulse bounding in his neck, hear his shallow breaths, smell the scent that is so alluringly Prince Friedrich.
Just then, my phone chimes and I jump out of his hold. An alert from the baby monitor app pops up.
“Dern! Liam is stirring,” I say, looking at the video feed. “He’ll be up in a minute.”
The prince’s lips form into a hard line, and his shoulders drop a few inches. “Go tend to your charges, Nanny Sumner,” he says with a sigh.
My hand is already on the door. “I’m sorry to run in the middle of this.”
He waves me off. “Come find me tonight after the children have gone to bed. I’ll be in whatever suite they count as the penthouse in a town like Ardsbend.”
I’m already in the corridor, but poke my head back in to shoot him one last smile. “I will.”
He gives a wink that makes me want to melt. “Until then, Miss Aurelia.”
“Your Highness.”
