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‘It isn’t about romance. It’s about a partnership.’
He turned his head at the sound of a voice outside her door.
‘Knock-knock?’
‘It would seem you have a visitor,’ he said to Beatrice, and called for Jordan to come in.
And this morning, when she wanted only to hide, Jordan came in carrying a cake lit with candles and the rest of the team all shuffled in behind her.
‘Cake?’ Beatrice was startled.
‘Palace cake,’ Jordan corrected.
So that was why he’d hung around making small talk. And that was why he hadn’t wanted her to go and get more coffee. He was being polite.
She smiled as Jordan placed on her desk the prettiest cake she’d ever seen. It had a meadow of flowers delicately piped on it, as well as...
‘My name!’
‘Of course.’
There was no ‘of course’ about it.
A birthday cake with candles and her name on it was a first for Beatrice, and very overwhelming.
Growing up in the convent, there had been a simple square honey cake for supper on the children’s birthdays, and that had felt like such a treat.
She watched as Tobias, Julius’s private aide, placed two cards on her desk and listened as Jordan explained.
‘It was made especially by the head pastry chef. Technically, we only do it for permanent staff, but...’
‘Well, that will never happen.’ Beatrice offered her usual smart response just as she saw Jordan notice her red eyes.
‘Gosh, you really celebrated at the weekend, didn’t you?’
Was she so removed from everyone that Jordan assumed she must have a crashing hangover from partying because it had never occurred to her that she might have been crying?
‘Come on, Beatrice,’ Julius snapped. ‘Are you going to cut it?’
‘Of course.’
She took up the knife and aimed it at the cake.
‘Candles first,’ Julius warned.
‘Oh, yes...’ She puffed them out.
God, she was useless—so useless that after a couple of dreadful attempts at slicing Tobias rescued the knife from her unskilled hand and took over.
‘How was your weekend?’ asked Despina, who was head of social media for the Prince. ‘You went home, didn’t you?’
‘It was fine,’ Beatrice answered.
‘Did you catch up with your family?’
‘I guess...’
‘So,’ Tobias asked, ‘how was Sicily?’
