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She stopped, Leo’s hand still causing havoc on her back.
The dark leather interior looked warm and intimate. Way too intimate.
‘Shouldn’t I travel with Serena?’ she managed to ask, glancing back to see her PA standing several yards away with the other advisors. ‘I’ve still got a ton of work to do on the schedule briefing,’ she added. It wasn’t even a lie; she had no clue what she was doing over the next week.
Leo’s dark brow lifted. ‘You’ll have time for that this evening. The first item on the agenda was our sleigh procession through the old town to the palace—the crowds are already assembled.’
They were?
She hadn’t noticed that item on the agenda, but then she’d been too busy trying to ignore Leo and the effect he had on her to notice much of anything.
‘Then why are we getting in a limo?’ she asked, still delaying.
His hand shifted on her back, sending the shivers into overdrive. ‘To drive to the barracks where the procession is ready for us. Are you scared to be alone with me, Jade?’
Absolutely.
‘Of course not,’ she lied, trying to sound outraged despite the heat in her cheeks.
His lips quirked at her indignant reply. She wasn’t fooling him any more than she was fooling herself.
‘Then get in the car, Your Majesty,’ he demanded, calling her bluff.
Left with no choice, she scooted into the limo.
The leather interior only became more intimate as he joined her. They were several feet apart on either side of the large car, but even so she was too aware of him as the chauffeur sealed them in together.
Her pulse beat harder as the car drove off, winding down the Alpine gorge through the forest. She stared out of the window. She had to find a strategy for dealing with her reaction to Leo.
‘While I find it remarkably flattering,’ he began as she tried to concentrate on the incredible scenery outside the car, instead of inside it, ‘there is no need to be quite so jumpy when you are alone with me. I promise not to touch you again... Unless you ask me.’
‘It’s not that...’ It so is that. ‘I’m just not sure we should present ourselves as a couple. I don’t want everyone to be disappointed when the marriage doesn’t happen.’
Leo’s rough chuckle sent the shivers straight back up her spine. ‘They won’t be,’ he murmured... And she heard the words he hadn’t said.
Because the marriage will happen.
‘But you can also rest assured you won’t be required to do more than you would normally do on these occasions,’ he added.
She turned, to find him watching her.
The panic sprinted up her spine to join the inappropriate shivers.
Leo is an exceptionally observant man.
‘Right, great,’ she said as her sister’s warning echoed in her ears.
Relax, Ju, or you’ll blow your cover.
Stressing about what she didn’t know about being a queen—which was pretty much everything—was the least of her worries. The truth was making a bad impression on this trip might not be a bad thing. It might be the only way to put Leo off the prospect of their ‘political union with benefits’.
Being herself—without giving away her real identity—shouldn’t even be that hard, because she’d effectively been doing it for four years, while building her social-media profile as the Rebel Princess.
She’d created the illusion of being a princess in exile—pampered and privileged and yet streetwise enough to connect with the general public—without ever letting on how tough her life had been. Aspirational was good on social media, micro celebrity even better; a homeless eighteen-year-old with debts she couldn’t pay and a mother who had died of chronic alcohol abuse, not so much.
Her social-media activity had been a lifesaver after her mom’s death. She’d bartered her Rebel Princess brand, such as it was, into enough of a money-spinner to keep herself afloat with the help of several dead-end jobs, without ever having to ask her father for a handout. But she’d been only too happy to jettison it a month ago when she’d been recruited to head up Byrne IT’s Social Media Engagement Team. She’d come to hate the fakeness of everything she posted as the Rebel Princess. But her ability to project an image, play a role, would come in handy now. All she had to do was be convincing as the Queen of Monrova while also turning Leo off the idea of marriage.
The limousine pulled into the gates of an army barracks and stopped in front of a parade of uniformed horsemen—resplendent in the red and gold colours of Severene’s national flag—and an ornate sledge complete with a team of six white stallions.
