A Cinderella Twist: A Contemporary Royal Romance Page 13

  “Are you talking to me?”

  My brother snorts. “He’s not asking me.”

  “Is that what you guys were in here discussing? Me and Greer?” It’s not news to me that Chase lacks boundaries and all respect for people’s privacy. I do find it more than a little disconcerting he’s found three other people who share this character flaw and that they all chose to team up and tackle life together. And thus, everyone’s they come in contact with. Which now apparently includes my life as well.

  “No, we were discussing Abbas and Mal. And then that led to Mal and Greer which led to Greer and you,” Chase explains.

  “There is no me and Greer.” I reconsider my statement and offer an alternate version, “There is no me and Greer in a romantic sense. There is a me and Greer in a business arrangement.”

  Abbas laughs.

  And Chase looks like he’s trying to stuff his entire head into his bag of Cheetos.

  “I don’t see why that’s funny.” I lean back, crossing both arms over my chest. I’ve never been good at being laughed at. My mom always tried to sway me to laugh along, but I couldn’t ever quite get there. Definitely not there now.

  “It’s just funny because we were just saying how that would be Greer’s response too,” Chase says, slowly resurfacing from the Cheetos. He has bright orange dust attached to his eyebrows from diving into the bag. It makes up for his laughing at me a little bit. More so since I don’t tell him about it.

  “I would think that would be less humorous and more just confirming things.” I reach over and steal a handful of cheese puffs from him. “Obviously, we’re on the same page. We’re communicating. Doing what we need to do to make sure we both get what we want, and nobody gets hurt or confused in the process.” All things I’ve worried about since agreeing to her crazy idea this afternoon. But, hearing their take on her perspective, does a lot to ease my concerns.

  “You would think that,” Abbas says, still smirking as he crunches away on his chips. “Because you don’t know her.”

  “But you will.” Chase wiggles his brows at me in a weird way I’m not even sure how to interpret. “Since you’re marrying her and all.”

  I sit up taller again. “Look, I get that you two know her inside and out. But I really think you’re reading more into this than you should,” I tell them. “Even her father, who arguably has known her longest, didn’t act this weird about our plan. In fact, he seemed more than okay with it.”

  Chase stops eating. “You met Papa Reads?”

  Instantly, I know I said the wrong thing. “Have you not met Morton?” It seems unlikely given the overlapping of lives around here. Surely, he’s come to family dinner on Sundays a time or two over the last seven years.

  “We know Papa Reads.” Even Abbas is looking uncannily serious.

  “But we had to wait three years to meet him,” Chase finishes.

  I frown. “What are you talking about?” There’s no way. It’s not like the man is kept locked away in a tower. He owns a bookstore. It’s open to the public. With story time welcoming imaginations of all ages. I saw the sign.

  “It’s true,” Abbas says, completely straight-faced, no hint of messing with me to be seen or heard. “She has this whole thing about not introducing people who aren’t going to be around for the long haul. Says he’s had to say too many goodbyes in his life to add anymore. So, unless she’s certain you’re anchored into her world, you don’t walk through the sacred gate to meet Papa Reads.”

  “He’s like the most precious thing in the whole world to her,” Chase confirms. “But he’s not fragile, and his heart is open to literally everyone. Doesn’t matter if he’s known you two seconds or twenty years.”

  “Then why make people wait?” Sometimes I feel like knowing this woman is a nonstop ride on a Ferris wheel. She’s fun and honest and everything about her is out in the open to see, and yet I still find myself going round and round in circles, getting dizzy anytime I make the mistake of looking down at the wrong time.

  “I would think that part would be obvious,” Chase mutters, returning his attention to the Cheetos in his lap. “Papa Reads isn’t the fragile one who’s said too many goodbyes, she is. And not just because her mom walked out when she was little. A couple of years after she split, Greer’s best friend died in a car crash. I think she decided then and there, she was done having her heart broken. So, now she has all these crazy policies around everything, including Papa Reads. Like keeping people away from him because it keeps her at a distance from them too. Distance equals protection. And so on and so forth.”

  I look to Abbas just to be sure he doesn’t want to contradict anything my brother has said.

  He doesn’t. “Your brother dated the high school guidance counselor two years ago. We’ve had her professionally analyzed.” He opens his mouth wide to slide a tortilla chip inside before he crunches down on it and adds, “He started on Mallory too.”

  “Started?” I ask, not entirely sure I really want to know the answer.

  “He spent one afternoon alone with her and broke up with me. Said I was toxic by association and he couldn’t open his life up to something that unhealthy,” Chase says dryly.

  I grin back at Abbas. “Can we go back to talking about you now? This feels like a good segue.”

  He just shrugs. “Hey, at least I can say I know the crazy I’m getting myself into. You’re just waltzing in blindly and doing it to the tune of the Wedding March.”

  I rub both palms over my knees, getting increasingly uncomfortable with each reference to my upcoming nuptials. Fake or otherwise, it’s not something I’m taking lightly, and all the jokes are making me think I’m still not taking it seriously enough. “Look, I’m not doubting that you know Greer better than I do, but I’m telling you, you’re reading way too much into my meeting her dad. I was just there to pick up Monroe. Greer had all the kids there for story time at the shop.” I pause, taking in the double doses of skepticism being doled out to me. “But if you still don’t believe me, I’ll talk to her. I’ll make sure it was as insignificant as I’ve been saying all along.”

  Chase puts down the bag he was seconds away from tilting to his lips to funnel any remaining crumbs toward his mouth. “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not? She calls me out for shit all the time. I really think she’d appreciate a straightforward approach here.” This much at least, I’m sure I know about her.

  “Absolutely,” Abbas agrees. “She’s a fan of direct and to the point.”

  “Yes.” Chase nods emphatically. “She is. Except this time, she has no idea what the point is and if you come in all direct and straightforward and calling her out for it, it’s going to freak her the fuck out and you’re not going to have a fake fiancée to take home on Friday.”

  Abbas shakes his bag, head dipped down like he’s searching for remaining chips among the crumbles. “That, and you’ll lose her before you get a chance to figure out you have a thing for her.”

  I don’t even answer. I just stare at my brother who does a half shrug, half nod. “We learned a lot when I was sleeping with the guidance counselor.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  GREER

  “Can I bring Cheese?” I ask, before I’m even in the apartment with both feet. “Mallory is saying I can’t, but I’m thinking as his royal highness you should have some pull here. He’s perfectly healthy, you know. I really don’t think he’ll pose any risk to the rats in Linden.” I pause trying to think of all the elements to my argument. Then I remember the most important one, “Also, he’s my emotional support animal.”

  “Do you even know where he is at the moment?” Lachlan asks. It takes me a second to follow his voice across the open space and to the desk along the window to the balcony aka fire escape. He’s standing, but leaning slightly, one hand holding a pen like he was writing something but didn’t want to take the time to sit and do it properly. I get it. When you have a toddler in your midst, sitting just to get up every ten seco
nds often seems like more effort than it’s worth.

  “Of course, I know where he is.” I never know where he is. I could guess and, within three or four tries, probably wind up in the ballpark of where he is though.

  Lachlan puts the pen down, either because I caught him just as he was finished with whatever he was doing, or because he’s determined I’m more time consuming than he initially thought when he held onto it thinking he could get back to whatever he was still doing. “Okay,” he smiles and it’s the first I notice he has a dimple near his left cheekbone. “Where?”

  “Where?” I repeat the question, stalling.

  “Yeah.” He nods, stepping away from the desk and moving in my direction. He looks especially casual today in raggedy old jeans and a simple white T. “Where is Cheese?”

  I have to think back to the last time I saw him darting off somewhere to at least get a sense of the general direction he was headed. But images are overlapping, and I can’t be sure which was most recent. Or when most recent even was. He’s a free-spirited rat, he can’t be contained. “Why is this even relevant?”

  “Just seems he should be near at all times if your emotional health and wellbeing depend on his support,” he says, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth.

  “He’s always with me.” I place my hand over my heart. “In here.”

  “Uh-huh.” He tilts his head to the side, eyes dropping to Mo who wanders in from the hall happily jabbering away. To my rat. Who’s perched in her hair on top of her head. “Maybe he could be with you in a more physical way moving forward.”

  I watch as Mo loops around the coffee table, grabs a handful of apple slices from a plate there, and carries on back down the hall, still chatting it up with Cheese. “I could definitely work on that, yeah.”

  He chuckles quietly. It’s deep and smooth and makes me smile involuntarily just hearing it. “Then, yes, Cheese can come.” He comes to a stop a few feet in front of me. “Is the vote thing still happening?”

  “Possibly,” I mumble, spinning ninety degrees to my left on the ball of my foot and marching toward the oven. I smell sweet things. Or I did. Before I got distracted by Lachlan and how sweet he looked standing in front of me, taking our ridiculous rituals of friendship seriously despite their lacking in maturity and common sense. “Though I’m not sure Mal gets a vote right now.” Not now that I’m feeling the effects of all the mind meddling she did last night, trying to screw up my view of Lachlan. And that’s definitely what this is. Mal, getting in my head. It’s not real.

  “Calling her out for sleeping with Abbas didn’t level the playing field like you were counting on, huh?” he asks, following me into the kitchen.

  “Oh, it definitely leveled the playing field.” I peek inside the oven. Chase made cinnamon rolls. From scratch. Yum. “Just not in the way I was planning.” I straighten up again and turn in his direction. He’s leaning against the counter now, arms at his sides, both hands resting on the edge of the counter, framing his hips. I can feel my face getting tight in frustration just looking at him. Yesterday, I would have simply appreciated how pretty he looks in Chase’s kitchen. Now, thanks to Mal poking around and planting dirty seeds in my previously untainted brain, I can’t help but wonder if it’s more than that. Do I want to do to Lachlan what I do to most things I find in here, and have a taste?

  “Do you not like cinnamon buns?” he asks, breaking my train of thought and confusing the hell out of me with this unexpected direction the tracks are now going in.

  “I love cinnamon buns.” Are there really people out there who don’t?

  He laughs. “Then why do you look pissed off ever since you stuck your head in the oven?”

  “It’s not important.” I flick my wrist in a dismissive gesture and quickly change the subject. “What is important, is that I am going to spend the day prepping for my new role. And that includes learning my character’s backstory.” I open the oven door again, just to get a whiff. The cinnamon rolls aren’t nearly close enough to being done for me to have one and be at Nora’s in time to discuss her needing to snag a substitute nanny from the service for the next two months. “Have anything in mind?”

  “I kind of thought we would just stick with the real story there. Keep things simple. You know, less lies, less chances of getting caught in one.”

  I close the oven and stand again, leaning against it to soak up the warmth and revel in the lingering sweet scent as long as possible. “I’m good with that,” I agree. “But we’ll still need to come up with a tale of your romancing me and proposing and such. And even if we go with our real stories, we’ll still need to catch each other up on some basics about each other if we want people to believe we’re a couple.”

  Lachlan looks like he wants to say something but isn’t sure if he should. Which in my world, means I absolutely want him to.

  “What?”

  “It’s just...there are like seven or eight books written about me. Five are available in audio. Want me to just get you the most accurate one?”

  I really want to not laugh at that. He can’t help he’s famous and people write books about him, but still. It sounds too crazy not to laugh.

  Clearly, he’s aware. “I know. It sounds...well, how it sounds.”

  “Efficient.” I do a half roll of my eyes, thinking it over. “It sounds efficient. And very convenient. So yes, I’ll take an audiobook of your life, Prince Lachlan.” I start for the door again, giving up my dreams of cinnamon rolls for good. “Unfortunately, I can’t offer you anything even remotely similar. The only books written about my life are my journals and it’s probably not safe to give you those.”

  He smirks. “They’re probably a hell of a lot more interesting than the biography you’re about to suffer through.” He follows me to the door, surprising me when he reaches the handle and opens it before I get to it. “But I think maybe I’ll just let you tell me all about yourself tomorrow on the plane.”

  “Perfect. We can also brainstorm our romance then.” I start to leave. It feels weird having the door held open for me though. Not bad weird, but weird. Like having someone hold your door open to your own house when they don’t even live there. Maybe that happens to other people, but it’s certainly never happened to me. “Thanks.” I smile, acknowledging his gentlemanly act. Then, I bolt across the hall and disappear inside my own place. Away from Lachlan’s yummy chuckle and sweet gestures. And the yummy and sweet cinnamon rolls. Basically, all yummy and sweet things.

  Ten minutes later, I’m running out the door again, this time headed to Nora’s. I’m still making my way down the stairs when I get a text from Lachlan along with the promised link to listen to his life story. By the time my feet hit the sidewalk, I’ve got my earbuds in and the narrator filling my head with all sorts of facts I definitely ought to know about the man I’m about to fake marry. Well, marry for real, but have a fake marriage with.

  For starters, he has a peanut allergy that could kill him, broke his collarbone in a skateboarding accident when he was nine and saved a woman’s life when he was seventeen and witnessed a hit and run by a drunk driver. Apparently, if Lachlan hadn’t been there to pull the woman from her car, she would have gone up in flames with it before the fire truck and ambulance even had time to arrive.

  When I get to Nora’s, I’ve learned enough to know my real story isn’t going to hold up well to his. No one is going to believe that the royal prince who once spent a year living in every homeless shelter in Linden to better assess how to improve the situation from the inside out, wants to marry a woman who spent that same year of her own life on a mission to read every worst rated book on Amazon just because it seemed like an entertaining way to broaden her horizons a bit.

  Thankfully, once at the apartment, I have to escape Lachlan’s life for a bit to sort out my own. Nora isn’t happy on her own behalf, but she’s oddly excited for me, causing me to put her in the temporarily on hold friendship file with Mallory for the duration of our visit. And actu
ally, the rest of the day. Though, it becomes less pressing to intentionally ignore her once she leaves for work and is no longer present to be ignored. Even her words fade quickly into the background when Liz and Aiden’s voices take over the forefront of everything.

  The day flies by in a blur of kids and random moments with Stevi. That’s the name of the narrator filling me in on Lachlan. By lunchtime it feels like we’re old girlfriends and I’ve been calling her by her name ever since.

  “I need to look royal,” I announce as I plop myself into Sydney’s chair.

  “Don’t you always look like a queen when I get done with you?” she asks, sounding slightly offended.

  “No,” I start, then realize how it sounds, “I mean, yes, you always make me look amazing. But I mean, I need to look like a literal queen. And not in a flashy, fabulous way. In a stuffy, small, still very old-timey in a lot of ways, European way.”

  Her brow crinkles and the hand that was just assessing my braids, falls away from my head. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “It’s for a part I got,” I explain the simplest way I know how to. “I’m playing the new wife of a young prince about to be king. But it’s not so easy, because there are people who want to steal the throne out from under him,” I pause, trying to determine how much detail is enough and how much is too much. “Anyway, the wife plays a big role in helping him save his kingdom, and as such, she needs to look the part. Or I do, rather.”

  “This some sort of Shakespearian thing? It sounds all dark and likely full of family betrayals,” Syd muses, officially starting on my hair.

  “Nope,” I sigh, saying a mental goodbye to my own reflection. “Just your standard fairy tale with evil stepmothers and jealous stepsiblings.”

  “What’s the princesses’ backstory then? Cursed by a witch? Locked in a tower? Forced into hiding out with seven super short men?” she asks, skilled hands moving over my scalp to deconstruct the style I’ve loved for three years now. Not that I haven’t had to wear my hair differently for other parts, but this will be the most drastic change I’ve seen myself go through in a long time.