Page 19 of His Royal Request

She hesitated a few seconds and then nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be your date.”

I jumped up and gathered her in my arms. I never wanted to let her go. I wanted this day, our time together to last forever. “I’m so excited for you to see my country.”

I released her and stepped back.

She smoothed her hair and smiled. “When do we leave?”

I glanced at my watch. “In an hour.”

Her mouth dropped. “A little presumptuous, aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “Hopeful.”

I pulled out my phone and texted George to come get us. Once we were on the plane, I’d give my sister a heads up. I had to pray she would help me out this weekend and make Charlie as comfortable as possible.

5

Charlie

I was a fool. Or insane. Or just plain stupid.

I asked Aiden for a moment to collect myself and ran to the bathroom. It was tiny and dimly lit but gave me a moment to process what I’d just agreed to.

Who agrees to leave the country with a stranger? I was breaking every rule I had. I couldn’t imagine what my dad and Liza would say if they knew. They’d probably demand I come home.

I sighed and sent them a message that I was leaving to see Lochland, but left it at that. I promised I would give them more information once I was there. Hopefully, that would help them find my body when I went missing.

I shook my head. Nothing bad was going to happen. Aiden and George had been nothing but honest and kind. If either of them wanted to hurt me, they already would have.

I splashed my face, not caring if I ruined my makeup and blinked up at my reflection. Maybe I was being too paranoid. I was going to a fancy wedding in a beautiful country I would have otherwise never visited with a charming, handsome man. That seemed pretty lucky, actually.

I checked the time and jumped up. It was now or never. I went back to where Aiden was sitting and smiled. “Let’s go.”

He beamed up at me and took my hand, leading us downstairs and out to the street where George was waiting.

I was beginning to realize how little I knew about Aiden. He said he worked in business and that might be true but it obviously wasn’t the whole truth. I turned to him as we pulled up to the airport passing the departure terminal.

“What’s going on?” I caught George glance over his shoulder to me.

“We’re going to the airplane.”

I narrowed my eyes. “But we just passed the terminal.”

George chuckled.

I looked from one to the other. “What’s going on?”

“You’ll see in a second.” George smiled while Aiden avoided looking at me.

We pulled up to a gate with a security guard standing out front. He came up to the window and George rolled it down to lean forward and smiled. The security guard didn’t even ask a single question. He just nodded once and let us through.

“You guys,” I said, “what is going on? Are you Secret Service? Double oh seven? Whatever it’s called here?”

They both started laughing as George drove directly on the tarmac and pulled up to a sleek white airplane. A small jet. I started shaking my head. “You’ve got to be kidding me. We’re flying on that?”

Aiden nodded. “How else would we get to Lochland?”

I pointed out the commercial jets behind us. “Taking one of those like everyone else in the world.”