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“How about we have a series of public disagreements?” I offer.
“I won’t fight you in the streets, Etienne.”
“We can start small. You can be your perfectly charming and delightful self. And I can be the surly, impatient prince, subtly demanding you hurry along and end my misery at one public appearance or another.”
She thinks about this for a moment. “You think I’m delightful and charming?”
And why would that be a surprise to her?
“Everyone thinks so. Just ask the king and queen.”
She waves me off with a dismissive noise. “The king and queen are overly complimentary because they like to keep a close eye on me. They ask my family for favors because we owe them.”
I lose my train of thought. “What do you mean you owe them?”
“Why do you think I didn’t resist marrying you, Etienne? It wasn’t only your good looks and barbed wit. Frost Bay Beverages is in the red. Unbeknownst to me, my father took out huge loans from the palace to keep paying his employees. The king implied that debt would be erased with this union between you and me.”
I ignore much of what my parents talk about, but I’m sure I would have heard about this.
“Did the king explicitly say that your father’s debts would be paid if you married me?”
“Explicitly? No. He implied it.”
“Darling, I’m afraid you don’t know my father half as well as you think you do. You should get that sort of arrangement in writing.”
Kala stares at me, then swallows down the rest of her wine. “Husband, do you think it’s a good idea to get something sketchy as that in writing? So the paps can get their hands on it? No, this is the kind of stuff you agree on verbally. It’s a bad, bad look.”
She’s right. I give a vague noise of agreement, but my head is stuck on the fact that she wasn’t clamoring to be with me. I knew she wasn’t marrying for love, but hearing the hard truth spoken aloud makes me feel like just another pawn in my father’s games.
I rise to my feet on the dock. “I’m going to bed. You coming?”
“I’m thinking about what time I’m getting up tomorrow,” she says.
“Oh no. You’re sleeping in, darling. Remember?”
Kala rolls her eyes but can’t hide the pink color in her cheeks. “Sleeping in entails staying in bed until I’m fully awake, not when my alarm goes off. I still have to go for my run, you know.”
“Princess, you lost a bet. That doesn’t mean you get to dictate the terms after you lost.”
She crosses her arms and gives me her meanest face yet, and I can’t control the laugh bubbling up in my chest.
“Sulk all you want. You’re mine until noon tomorrow.”
“Noon!” As I walk away across the dock toward our suite, I hear her mutter under her breath something about never having met anyone so slothful in all her life.
My laughter echoes all the way back to the honeymoon suite.
20
Kala
For a man who thinks he knows me, he sure has a lot of questions.
“Why are you putting earbuds in?” Etienne asks as he slides into bed.
I turn toward him on the pillows, one earbud between my fingers on the way to blissfully blotting out the world.
“I do every night. You didn’t notice last night after passing out cold after a long day of traveling.”
