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I don’t mention my body’s insane reaction to my fiance, obviously. Don’t tell Danika about my racing heartbeat or heated blood.
This woman practically raised me, and she’s a palace employee. It would be weird.
“She’s not like her file,” Danika observes, walking slowly at my side as we trail between raised planters of strawberries and tomatoes. It’s a sea of glossy red fruits and curling green leaves, with fat bumblebees drifting back and forth. “I thought she’d be more of a handful.”
I peer up at the large kitchen windows. Frenetic activity bustles inside the huge room as the staff prepare for tonight’s ball. “So did I.” Sucking in a deep breath, I steady myself. “That wouldn’t have been a problem, necessarily. We’re an arranged match, not sweethearts. But I’ll confess that I’m… pleased. By our connection.”
And by the thought of pressing that young woman into a feather down mattress. Of making her moan my name.
Danika snorts. “Very good, Your Highness.”
I cough, fighting a smile. “Quite.”
There’s no excuse to go and find her again. I’ve turned it over and over in my mind, but any possible need my bride has during her visit will be met without question by the palace staff. And since we already met in the library, and I’m supposed to be a grown man, not an obsessed fool…
“She’s out by the boathouse,” my aide says, clearly reading my mind. “Hiding, it seems.”
Hiding? I straighten, my smile falling away. Is my fiance unhappy?
“She’s been glued to her phone. Trying to call someone.”
My gut twists. Does she have a lover back home? Someone she’s struggling to let go? My heart aches for her at the thought, even as I know down to my bones that I won’t share her. Olympia ismine.
“Perhaps I’ll look in on her.” I’m already striding down the stone path, the scents changing as I pass different plants. Mint and basil and glossy chili peppers that sting my nose. “Do you have everything in hand?”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Danika plucks the clipboard from my hands, easily keeping pace. “As always.”
We split off in separate directions after passing through an arch in the kitchen garden’s stone walls. Danika strides across the lawns, ignoring the tended paths in favor of a direct route back to the palace, while I plunge deeper into the grounds.
My bride might want some time alone. She might not be glad to see me.
But damn it, I can’t seem to keep away.
Bea
The palace grounds are beautiful. Of course they are—the show gardens of one of the oldest royal families on the continent would hardly be dried out and choked with weeds. No, every inch is lush and manicured; every breath of air is laced with honeysuckle. Vines climb the legs of war heroes’ statues, and there’s a labyrinth; an ornate gazebo; a boutique vineyard.
I wandered for hours after meeting Prince Alden, my fingertips grazing the flowering hedgerows, but after a while the stares of the garden staff made the back of my neck itch. So here I am, tucked away behind the boathouse like a naughty teenager, one leg dangling off the end of the jetty, the other knee tucked under my chin.
The long, light skirt of my summer dress dances around my legs. Below my bare toes, the sapphire lake water sparkles in the sunshine.
“Olympia.” It feels like my hundredth voicemail. My voice is flat, any shred of hope long gone. I’m not getting out of this mess unscathed, no way. “Olympia, you need to get back to the palace right this second. I met Prince Alden. He—he thinks I’m you. He thinks I’m his fiance.”
More to the point, he thinks I’mhis.It was there, written all over his handsome face: the hunger. The possessiveness. The barely restrained urge to claim; a buttoned-up prince grappling with his primal nature.
I peel my tongue off the roof of my mouth, my throat so dry. “Come back for the ball tonight.Please.”
Lord knows what might happen if she doesn’t.
My thumb trembles as I end the call, my phone clacking against the wooden jetty as my hand falls to my side. All this beauty surrounds me: these grounds, this shimmering lake, and inside I’m cold. Brimming with ugliness.
Because I lied.
I let Prince Alden think I was Olympia. I chatted with him, and smiled at him, and felt such a powerful kinship that for a ridiculous moment there I wished…
Well. It doesn’t matter what I wished.
And what will my sister think, when she finally peels herself off her scuba instructor and checks her stupid phone? Alden is her betrothed. They’re engaged to be married.And here I am, stumbling around his grounds with hearts in my eyes, my chest aching so badly with thoughts of the prince that it hurts each time Ibreathe—
