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“That wasn’t what I was trying to do,” I replied as he lay down, shifting onto his side to look at me. Yes, I had fired…well, retired a few people. I wasn’t planning on firing anyone, but after asking Wolfgang for that list, he ended up finding a few people who were…let’s just say not my biggest fans. They had either posted on some private social media or spoken to someone who had spoken to someone else. I didn’t want to do it, but I wanted to feel safe here, so I did. I didn’t want to take a risk again.
“Well, either way, I’m glad you did it. How was your day?” he asked.
“Right! You!” My head whipped to him, and I glared at his pretty face and perfect hair.
“Me what?” he questioned defensively.
“You approved fifty-thousand people for Easter?” I snapped at him.
His mouth made an O shape. “Right.”
“Wrong! Why? That’s basically double what the palace normally does!”
“So I was thinking of making more money for the palace,” he said, and I sat up quickly.
“What happened to all the inheritance money?”
“Oh, now you care!” He laughed at me. “Too late. I’ve burned through it all—”
“Gale!” I smacked his stomach, which only made him laugh harder.
“Relax, my pretty heiress,” he said with a lazy grin as he looked up at me. “The inheritance is perfectly fine.”
“So why do you need more money for the palace?”
“Because we can’t just keep burning through money without having more coming in. With your inheritance in the royal accounts, we are set for a few generations. But I don’t want us to end up in a cycle where we burn through money, look for an heiress or rich heir, then burn through that. We need to have as much money coming in as possible.”
“And fifty-thousand tickets is how you start? I don’t want to burst your bubble, but as a musician, I can tell you even if it is hundreds per ticket, fifty thousand isn’t a lot.”
He nodded. “No, it isn’t, but giving live streaming access to a few companies, on all major palace events, might get us more ground.”
Two words I never thought I’d hear together. The palace and streaming?
“Major events at the palace are public, though. Who is going to pay for content they can get on the news?”
“That’s why it’s not just that content. I’m working to allow a few people to show behind the scenes footage at the palace. Nothing is confirmed yet. But people want to know what the royal kitchen is like. We’ll show them. If they want explication on palace portraits, they will get it. All the things that go into planning, we will show them. Of course, we won’t ever be featured in it. But still, I’m sure there are people who would watch that content because the press has been reporting it for years. What do you think?”
I lay back down beside him. “People might say you are monetizing the monarchy.”
“Look at you, speaking like one of the team.” He chuckled, then shrugged. “Some will say I’m monetizing the monarchy; others will say I’m being more open to the public. I say, let’s get paid.”
“How American of you.” I laughed, and then it hit. “Are we switching roles? I’m becoming the traditionalist and you the…”
“Capitalist?” he finished for me. “Let’s not go that far. Can’t go causing too much trouble. Just a few things here and there. Like I said, I haven’t finalized anything. Just ideas.”
“Now you see why I’ve left that all to you?”
“Why? Because I have ideas?”
“Yes! And it’s okay when you have them. Today I tried to add carry-out containers, and all the palace staff stared at me in horror.”
“Oh, they stare at me in horror all the time. If they had it their way, they’d put me in a glass box and bring me out only to sign laws, smile at cameras, and open hospitals,” he replied, getting off the bed and reaching to take off his shirt. “I just ignore them at this point.”
His words made me think of what Arabella had said. She might have been a horrible person, but some things she had said found their way in my head and have never left.
“Don’t ignore too much, okay? We don’t have to change everything this year. It’s harder for them to criticize us when we are following tradition and toeing the line.”
“Look what they’ve done to you.” He gasped in fake horror.
