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I swallowed. Hard. Finally mumbled out, “Or maybe not.” Shrug. “It was just an idea.”
“A brilliant one.”
His praise turned my blood into champagne bubbles. I counteracted the effect by turning the shrug into a sassy shoulder shake. “Well, cool. You—ummm—can steal it. Well, Ambyr can. You can tell her about it. Hey, you can even make it your idea. It’ll score you extra points—not that you need anymore, Mr. Prince-of-Her-Dreams.”
I played up the teasing tone but it didn’t dent in his new solemnity. “Am I?” he finally countered, delving a stare into his nectar. “The ‘prince of her dreams’?”
“Pssshh.” There was no stopping it. “Tell me you don’t have those blinders on.” When that earned me an incredulous glance, I cut loose a new laugh. “Yikes. You do have those blinders on.”
His quizzical look persisted. It didn’t change even as a night breeze ruffled dark waves against his face, even snagging them into his long eyelashes. Finally, he confessed softly, “I am aware that Ambyr carries an affection for me. But—”
“Affection?”
“Is that not the American word for it?”
“I’m familiar with the word,” I insisted. “It’s just not applicable here.”
“Not applicable?”
“‘Affection’ is daisies, lemonade, and walks on the beach.” I teeter-tottered my head. “Or if you were courting her in LA: parking tokens, Starbucks—and walks on the beach.” I laughed lightly again, spreading my hands. “But even if you two were in the middle of the Sahara, ‘affection’ isn’t the place you’re in with Ambyr Stratiss.”
After I finished, his gaze eagerly roamed my face. His scrutiny only lasted a couple of moments—the ones I needed to verify so much.
“Then what ‘place’ am I ‘in’ with her?”
I weighed what to say next, at last deciding on my instinct’s first choice. “This was why you came here to talk, wasn’t it? Because you need some advice about Ambyr?”
Once more, he moved very little.
Until he lifted his glass of nectar again—and downed the whole thing.
So much for wondering if he’d give a definitive reply.
So much for wondering if all of Ezra’s claims were true, also. The man looked like sex on a stick, but had no idea how the “stick” really worked. Maybe so much of his life had been defined by the boundaries of royal life, even dating and women were supposed to be in tidy boxes. But he couldn’t figure out the box for this and was lost. And pissed.
“And what the bloody hell if I do?”
Yep. Pissed said it right.
A situation I so could have had some fun with—except that I saw beneath the anger, to the uncertainty and uneasiness. The totally blind leap he’d taken in coming to me about this. The lost beggar beneath the assured prince.
He confirmed the impression by slamming his empty glass down. He returned inside with stomps tremoring the floorboards. I followed at a more measured pace, before joining him on the couch. This time, we both sat toward the middle of the big leather expanse.
Another long moment passed. I let it go on, sensing it was necessary. The man could protest all he wanted about this shit being just a business decision for the country, but if he really was a virgin, this was a bigger step than he wanted to admit. I didn’t have the heart to make it any more difficult.
“Your Highness.” I almost reached for him again. Not a great idea, missie, and you know damn well why. Didn’t stop me from revising it to, “Shiraz…”
His head tugged up. “What?”
And now that I had his attention, I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Stick to the plan. That’s what you do.
Wise. Really wise. No matter how strongly my body screamed to betray the mission…
“You know that Ambyr’s all-in for this, right? A proposal,” I clarified, answering the new knit in his forehead. “She’ll agree as soon as you ask. She’d be a fool not to.”
It was my foolproof encouragement voice, the one I usually had to save for skittish brides—which made his fresh frown an unexpected twist.
