Page 51 of Fit for a King

“I think that might be a good idea.”

We stood there longer than we probably should’ve, each taking the other in, before he finally turned away and I dropped the robe to pull on my pants.

“What time should I be here this evening?” he said.

“I return at six.”

“I’ll be here at⁠—”

“Five fifty?” Noah glanced over his shoulder to where I was now buttoning my shirt, and I shrugged. “I want yours to be the first face I see.”

He gave me a small smile. “I’ll be waiting here at five forty-five, then. Have a good day, Nicholas.”

“You too, Noah.”

As he walked to the door this time, I didn’t feel the twisted knot in my stomach like I had the night before. Instead, I felt a sense of hope, much like I’d told him. That was what Noah Bennett did to me. He made me smile, feel, and hope, and I wasn’t sure yet if that was a good thing or a dangerous thing.

All I knew was that it was a feeling I didn’t want to let go of.

Not yet.

17

NOAH

“WHAT ARE YOU smiling so big about?” Violet called out after me as I rushed by her later that day, eager to get upstairs by five forty-five on the dot. I hadn’t even noticed she’d been standing there, so lost was I in my own thoughts, and I definitely hadn’t realized I’d been smiling.

I schooled my face and glanced at her over my shoulder, slowing my steps only slightly. “Nothing.”

“I saw you smiling earlier today too when you dropped off the king’s dry cleaning. Not exactly a fun task.”

“I didn’t realize I was,” I said, mentally kicking myself, but how could I help it? Nicholas had been on my mind all day. I’d been counting the minutes until I got to see him again and reliving every interaction we’d ever had…especially this morning. And last night.

“Maybe I’m just glad I haven’t given Mrs. Stuart a reason to throw a loaf of bread at me,” I said, winking at Violet.

That made her chuckle, and she shook her head as she continued on toward the kitchen. “There’s still time,” she said over her shoulder.

I waited until she turned the corner to check my watch. Five forty. I was still on time.

This time as I started up the back stairs, I managed to keep the huge smile off my face, even though my insides were vibrating with anticipation. After last night I thought for sure it was over, and I’d wake up this morning with a position somewhere else in the palace.

Even as I readied everything for him this morning, I’d fully expected to be dismissed, if only because it would be too intimate, too hard, to be in such close confines and not act on what was happening between us.

I still couldn’t fully wrap my head around it. The ice-cold man I’d met was nothing like the real Nicholas. And when he’d told me I was the only one he wanted to talk to, to be with…

How could I resist that? I didn’t want to. Even if it meant living in a fairy tale a little bit longer.

I was almost to the top of the stairs when someone grabbed my arm suddenly and yanked me into—the wall?

No, there was some sort of opening, and I was being pulled into the dark, up against a body, and then a door quietly clicked shut behind me.

“What the—” My words cut off as a dim light turned on and Nicholas’s sly grin came into view.

“I couldn’t wait,” he said, as I struggled to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Surely I was imagining this, still lost in my thoughts as I headed up to his room, because there was no way Nicholas was here, in some secret room off the servant’s stairs that I’d never noticed.

“You…you can’t be downstairs,” I said.