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If she’d been a nail-biter, Natalie would have gnawed hers right off. Instead, she tried to make herself breathe.
Someone should, I suppose,Valentina had texted back, after another pause that seemed to last forever and then some.I’ve certainly never touched him.
Natalie had blinked at that. And had then hated herself, because the thing that wound around inside of her was not shame. It was far warmer and far more dangerous.
I never will again,she’d vowed. And she’d wanted to mean it with every fiber of her being.I swear.
You can do as you like with Rodolfo,Valentina had replied, and Natalie could almost hear the other woman’s airy tone through the typed words.You have my blessing. Really. A hundred Eastern European models can’t be wrong!
But it wasn’t Valentina’s blessing that she’d wanted, Natalie realized. Because that was a little too close to outright permission and she’d hardly been able to control herself as it was. What she wanted was outrage. Fury and consequences. Something—anything—to keep her from acting like a right tart.
And instead it was a little more than a week later and Rodolfo was outplaying her at the game she was very much afraid she’d put into motion that first day in her new role as the princess. By accident—or at least, without thinking about the consequences—but that hardly mattered now.
Worse, he was doing it masterfully, by not involving her at all. Why risk what might come out of her mouth when he could do an end run around her and go straight to King Geoffrey instead? On some level, Natalie admired the brilliance of the move. It made Rodolfo look like less of a libertine in the king’s eyes and far more of the sort of political ally for Murin he would one day become as the King of Tissely.
She needed to stop underestimating her prince. Before she got into the kind of trouble a text couldn’t solve.
“Prince Rodolfo thinks the two of you ought to build more of an accessible public profile ahead of the wedding,” the king said as they’d sat at their third dinner of the week, as was apparently protocol.
It had taken Natalie a moment to realize Geoffrey was actually waiting for her response. She’d swallowed the bite of tender Murinese lamb she’d put in her mouth and smiled automatically, playing back what he’d said—because she’d gotten in the terrible habit of nodding along without really listening. She preferred to study the King’s features and ask herself why, if he was her father, she didn’tfeelit. And he didn’t either, clearly. Surely she shouldknow himon a deep, cellular level. Or something. Wasn’t blood supposed to reveal itself like that? And if it didn’t, surely that meant that she and Valentina only happened to resemble each other by chance.
In every detail. Down to resembling Geoffrey, too. So much so that the King himself couldn’t tell the difference when they switched.
Natalie knew on a level she didn’t care to explore that it was unlikely to be chance. That it couldn’t be chance.
“A public profile?” she echoed, because she had to say something, and she had an inkling that flatly refusing to do anything Rodolfo suggested simply because it had come from him wouldn’t exactly fly as far as the king was concerned.
“I rather like the idea.” King Geoffrey’s attention had returned to his own plate. “It is a sad fact that in these modern times, a public figure is judged as much on the image he presents to the world as his contributions to it. More, perhaps.”
He didn’t order her to do as Rodolfo asked. But then, he didn’t have to issue direct orders. And that was how Natalie found herself flying off to Rome to attend a star-studded charity gala the very next day, because Rodolfo had decided it was an excellent opportunity to “boost their profile” in the eyes of the international press corps.
If she ignored the reason she was taking the trip and the man who’d engineered it, Natalie had to admit that it was lovely to have her every need attended to, for a change. All she had to do was wake up the following morning. Everything else was sorted out by a fleet of others. Her wardrobe attendant asked if she had any particular requests and, when Natalie said she didn’t, nodded decisively and returned with tidily packed luggage in less than an hour. Which footmen then whisked away. Natalie was swept off to the same private jet as before, where she was fed a lovely lunch of a complicated, savory salad and served sparkling water infused with cucumber. Things she didn’t know she craved, deeply, until they were presented to her.
“Your chocolate, Your Highness,” the air steward said with a smile after clearing away the salad dishes, presenting her with two rich, dark squares on a gold-embossed plate. “From the finest chocolatiers in all of the kingdom.”
“I do like my chocolate,” Natalie murmured.
More than that, she liked the princess’s style, she thought as she let each rich, almost sweet square dissolve on her tongue, as if it had been crafted precisely to appeal to her.
Which, if she and Valentina were identical twins after all, she supposed it had.
And the pampering continued. The hotel she was delivered to in Rome, located at the top of the Spanish Steps to command the finest view possible over the ancient, vibrant city, had been arranged for and carefully screened by someone else. All she had to do was walk inside and smile as the staff all but kowtowed before her. Once in her sprawling penthouse suite, Natalie was required to do nothing but relax as her attendants bustled around, unpacking her things in one of the lavishly appointed rooms while they got to work on getting the princess ready for the gala in another. A job that required the undivided attention of a team of five stylists, apparently, when Natalie was used to tossing something on in the five minutes between crises and making the best of it.
Her fingernails were painted, her hair washed and cut and styled just so, and even her makeup was deftly applied. When they were done, Natalie was dressed like a fairy-tale princess all ready for her ball.
And her prince,something inside her murmured.
She shoved that away. Hard. There’d been no room for fairy tales in her life, only hard work and dedication. Her mother had told her stories that always ended badly, and Natalie had given up wishing for happier conclusions to such tales a long, long time ago. Even if she and Valentina really were sisters, it hardly mattered now. She was a grown woman. There was no being swept off in a pumpkin and spending the rest of her life surrounded by dancing mice. That ship had sailed.
She had no time for fairy tales. Not even if she happened to be living one.
Natalie concentrated on the fact that she looked like someone else tonight. Someone she recognized, yet didn’t. Someone far more sophisticated than she’d ever been, and she’d thought her constant exposure to billionaires like Mr. Casilieris had given her a bit of polish.
You look like someone beautiful,she thought in a kind of wonder as she studied herself in the big, round mirror that graced the wall in her room.Objectively beautiful.
Her hair was swept up into a chignon and secured with pins that gleamed with quietly elegant jewels. Her dress was a dove-gray color that seemed to make her skin glow, cascading from a strapless bodice to a wide, gorgeous skirt that moved of its own accord when she walked and made her look very nearly celestial. Her shoes were high sandals festooned with straps, there was a clasp of impossible sapphires and diamonds at her throat that matched the ring she wore on her hand and her eyes looked fathomless.
Natalie looked like a princess. Not just Princess Valentina, but the sort of magical, fantasy princess she’d have told anyone who asked she’d never, ever imagined when she was a child, because she’d been taught better than that.
