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“Are you a real prince?” LaToya asked.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Where’s your crown?”
“LaToya!” With an apologetic smile, Kim gathered her daughter, then murmured, “Sorry.”
Holding LaToya’s hand, Kim hurried after her husband as Damaris laughed softly.
“Leave it to those two little heathens…” She shook her head and laid her gloved hand in the crook of my elbow. “We should go in.”
“I owe them a great debt.”
“For what?”
“Making you smile.” After a quick glance at the empty corridor, I kissed her cheek. “Giving you a chance to relax. Take your pick.”
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and shrugged. “I guess so. Imagine that.”
“Shall we?”
“We shall.”
After making a note to send something special to the little girls and their charming mother, I escorted Damaris into the ballroom. My footsteps slowed, then stopped at the sound of a familiar, very unwelcome voice.
“Savva, darling! I’ve missed you so.”
The last person in the world I wanted to see pushed Damaris aside and threw her arms around me. Thankfully, I managed to extricate myself from her embrace before she kissed me.
“Alivia. I don’t believe you were invited.”
“Silly.” She moved toward me, then frowned when I stepped out of reach. “Where else would I be? The future princess of Agafonza should always support her husband.”
CHAPTER 9
DAMARIS
When in doubt, channel former Miss Louisiana, Chantelle Beauregard Lawton, whose answer to the ubiquitous “greatest wish” pageant question was never world peace.
With a smile and a sweetly spoken bless your heart, Mama could cut a blowhard Texas governor off at the knees and leave him wondering why he was bleeding. I’d seen it happen more than once—even after she started wearing scarves to hide the hair loss from her chemo treatments.
I sure looked like I was ready to do a formalwear competition too. Maybe I wasn’t a lady, but I figured Princess Valeriya wouldn’t mind if I counted her as my fairy godmother.
My first thought was not to run off in tears like some idiot romance novel heroine who didn’t have the presence of mind to get the whole story first. That wasn’t me. Instead, I focused on Savva’s face.
More precisely, I studied the anger drawing his jaw tight enough to crack teeth and how he jerked out of Alivia’s reach when she tried to touch him.
She wasn’t Savva’s fiancée, and judging by the hateful look he directed her way; she was about the last person he wanted to see. I was guessing she was an ex-lover—which I couldn’t blame him for having, as I had more than a few of those knocking around myself.
With silken dark hair and porcelain skin that looked like she’d never had a single blackhead, much less a pimple, Alivia was stunning. She was also tall and thin enough to grace the cover of any magazine. If I discounted the cold speculation in her eyes, like she was sizing Savva up for butchering, she was physically perfect.
And why wouldn’t she try to rekindle a relationship? Wasn’t as if I could blame her for that either—no matter how much my inner green-eyed monster wanted to snatch her bald. Even without knowing of his intelligence or his plans for Agafonza, Savva was rich, gorgeous, and rocked a woman’s world in the bedroom.
I was more interested in what was on the inside of his beautiful shell, and unfortunately for Alivia, she was messing with the wrong woman’s man.
Forgetting all about the dozens of people watching, I pasted on a bright, pageant-worthy smile, threw my shoulders back, and glided between them to face her.
“Oh, my gosh. You’re Alivia?” Grabbing her hand, I pumped it several times, but didn’t let go. “Prince Savva has told me all about you.”
