The Princess Problem, page 20
He skidded to a stop and frowned at her. “You’re in a bathrobe.”
“Be grateful you didn’t barge in ten minutes ago when I was in far less than a bathrobe.” Or a few hours ago, when he would’ve gotten an eyeful of her both naked and wrapped around a naked Elias. She’d stopped wearing her pajamas entirely. Kelsey didn’t want to miss any chance to be skin-to-skin with his amazing muscles. But it wasn’t just the fabulous sex. Sleeping with Elias wrapped around her quieted all the worries and confusion that had kept her awake every night prior to him being in her bed.
She couldn’t get enough of him, which was a huge problem, what with their expiration date being in only a week. But Kelsey couldn’t think about it, couldn’t rack her brain for an end-around of all the reasons Elias told her “they” were an impossibility.
If she did, she’d just curl up under the covers in misery. So Kelsey ignored the impending doom—just like she did with global warming, and the risk of salmonella from eating raw cookie dough.
“My apologies, Your Highness, Miss Wishner.” Sir Evan executed the world’s shortest and fastest bow. “But there’s been a change in your schedule. The king would like to see you.”
“It’s about time,” Mallory muttered under her breath.
Kelsey kicked her with a bare foot. It wouldn’t hurt much, but it would get across the point of save your snark for when we’re alone. “Just me? Or both of us?” King Julian wasn’t quite as intimidating as her grandmother, but he was still…well…king of an entire country. Every time she’d seen him so far, it’d been with many other people. Mallory was her security blanket.
Pulling himself together, Sir Evan gave the slightest nod of apology to her sister. “His Majesty specifically requested only you, Princess. You must get dressed immediately. Jeans, boots, a light sweater.”
“I don’t have boots.” Because it was June. Who needed boots until autumn?
“Of course you do. Miss Wishner, would you mind retrieving her outfit? We mustn’t keep the king waiting.”
Perversely, Kelsey wanted to do exactly that. “If he didn’t want to be kept waiting, then he could’ve given me advance notice.” She took a big slug of her coffee. Long nights with Elias were equally exhausting and invigorating. Invigorating to the heart, but exhausting to the rest of her body.
Sir Evan watched as Mallory freaking scampered off to the big closet. Then he folded his hands at his waist and gave Kelsey the look. The same one he gave her when she asked why she couldn’t wear pants to be presented to Parliament, and why Anya wouldn’t stop curtseying every time she came into the room, even though Kelsey had ordered her not to do so.
“Forgive me, Your Highness, but when Mr. Wishner asked you to accompany him on an outing back in Michigan, would you require advance notice?”
Dad would double over in laughter if she asked him to schedule one of their spontaneous trips to Dairy Queen. But King Julian wasn’t “Dad.” Not yet.
Kelsey crossed her legs and took another long sip of coffee before answering. “That’s not fair. Right now, with this running around at the snap of his fingers, you aren’t treating him like my father. You’re treating him like my king.” Positive that she’d checkmated him, she braced her palms on the table and leaned forward in smug triumph. “Which is it?”
“It is now, and will always be, both.” He had the grace to look a little regretful. “No doubt that will take some getting used to.”
“Add it to the list,” she murmured.
“I am sorry for this disruption to your schedule. The king will be waiting for you on the west wing loggia in ten minutes, precisely.” With a nod, he backed toward the door.
“Wait. You’re not going with me?” Going without Mallory was bad enough. Going without any friendly backup made this even more daunting. “How will I find the loggia?”
“Marko’s right outside. He’ll escort you.” As if taking pity on her, Sir Evan paused with one hand on the knob. “This is a good thing. King Julian wants to be alone with you. Literally every person in this country would kill for that kind of access.”
The door shut behind him just as Mallory reemerged, knee-high boots dangling from her fingers. She thrust the pile of clothes at Kelsey. “Hurry up. Put these on.”
Clearly, she had no choice, but it felt a tiny bit traitorous that Mallory had been so eager to side with Sir Evan. Everyone in the palace had an agenda for her—one that didn’t take into account Kelsey’s own wishes—except for Elias and Mallory. Or so she’d thought.
Pissyness at this turn of events was a lot easier to vent on her sister than on the messenger—or the king himself. Stripping off her robe, she snarked, “What’s with you? Why’d you jump to obey his command?”
“Because this is a big deal. Huge deal. Mount Rushmore on top of Mount Whitney big.” Mallory waited until she’d tugged the heather-gray tee on, then put a hand on her arm. Her sister’s wide green eyes were so serious, as was the way the top of her lip rolled in where she bit it. “You know I’ve been studying royal protocol—”
She cut Mallory off with a one-armed hug. “—so I don’t have to. For which I’m grateful.” Kelsey just didn’t get the whole bowing and scraping thing. Especially when it was just due to her DNA, and not anything special or worthwhile that she’d actually done to garner that kind of respect. Mallory had explained that it was like geometry—understanding wasn’t necessary. Merely acceptance.
“The king is not accessible. Not even to his children.” Mallory waggled an index finger for emphasis. “Nothing is more valuable than his time. Moncriano’s neutrality means so many other countries come here and use it as a mediation and negotiation spot. He doesn’t just rule this country. He helps balance the rulers of the entire world. King Julian has his fingers in everything.”
“The way you describe it, it’s amazing he took the time to create three children in the first place.”
“Well, he ramped things up after the queen died. Threw himself into work and bringing Moncriano back to the forefront, both for tourism and politics. So if he’s carved out time to be with you? You don’t want to waste a single second.” She knelt to wedge a boot onto Kelsey’s foot.
Okay, then. Looked like a quick attitude recalibration was in store. With a gentle tug on Mallory’s auburn pony, she teased, “Here I was hoping you had a hot date and you wanted me out of the way.”
“Trust me, I’m sad to report you’re the only one getting awesome foreign nooky.”
“Nooky? We’re all grown up, Mal. You can’t call it nooky anymore.” Her sister had a prudish streak. Kelsey’s secret belief was that she hadn’t had the right kind of mind-blowing sex yet to shake out the Midwestern repression.
Mallory would never, for example, have sex on a couch in a summerhouse.
She zipped both boots and stood up with a grimace. “Hookup feels disrespectful to your new station in life.”
Kelsey hated that reason. No, the term “hookup” felt disrespectful to Elias himself. “It’s not a hookup. It’s so much more than that.”
Mallory’s face dropped. “You’re serious about him, aren’t you?”
“If you’re asking if I’m head over heels crazy about him, the answer’s yes.”
“And it isn’t just the mysterious allure of a foreign hottie?”
“Definitely not.” Kelsey opened the jewelry box that had appeared, day two, on top of her dresser. Every day more earrings and necklaces appeared in it. Fancy, tasteful real gems that were probably more costly than her entire college tuition. She grabbed a pair of black—jet? Onyx?—dangly earrings.
“What happens if you decide to go back home? For good?”
That was the sixgajillion dollar question, wasn’t it? “I’m living in the moment. Not making any decisions for the two weeks I promised to give them.”
“Riiiiiight.”
Mallory always could see right through her. “I’m living in the moment,” she repeated, heading to the door. “And completely freaking out about one more possible life-changing decision that I’ll have to make. I had no idea Elias would be a factor, that he’d feel so important, so integral to me, in so little time. It’s wonderful…and horrible.”
Rushing the length of the room, Mallory threw her arms around her. “It’ll be okay. These are all good problems. Now go be your awesome self with King Julian.”
“Mallory?”
“Yeah?”
After gnawing on her top lip, Kelsey took a deep breath. “Why has it taken the king—my father—nine whole days to want to be alone with me?”
“Maybe you should ask him.”
…
The king cleared his throat. “I have a present for you.”
“Really? It’s not my—” Kelsey stopped in the nick of time before saying “birthday.” Did the king still think of that more as the death day of his beloved wife? It was a potential conversational black hole she wasn’t brave enough to get near. “There’s no need for presents. I’m staying in the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen, and clothes and jewelry keep showing up for me to wear. I’ve a feeling that’s all your largesse.”
Largesse? When had she ever used that word before? She sounded like a freaking Dickens character. Or—holy crap—were they actually managing to turn her into a person who sounded like a princess?
The king batted away her words like dandelion fuzz in the air. Which there might also be, as they were striding along a path of crushed shells bordered by tall wildflowers and a vast expanse of lush lawn that sloped downward to an orchard. “You need to be properly outfitted. No thanks are necessary for giving you what you deserve.”
“I don’t feel like I deserve any of it,” Kelsey said. There was no point faking anything. This man, like it or not, was her father. She’d tell him the truth…and see where that got her. “Honestly. You may all have these expectations and dreams about what a grown-up Princess Valentina should be, but I’m nothing special.”
Beneath the leather brim of his cap, his forehead creased. “Who told you that?”
“Nobody.”
“Kelsey.” He stilled her with a touch on her shoulder. Then he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her head up. “Who told you such a bald-faced lie? I’ll send a team of soldiers to cross America hunting them down to give them a royal ass-kicking the likes of which they’ve never endured.”
Okay. That was sweet and hilarious. A giggle burst from her throat, and the king got some friendly crinkles around his blue eyes that made him look…normal. Approachable. Non-regal. “That’s a generous offer, Your Majesty. But there’s no high school bully that left me emotionally scarred. I’m just ordinary. Which I’m perfectly okay with, I promise.”
He spun on the heel of his boot, looking over both shoulders. Then he looked up, and pointed at a man with a basket balanced on a stepstool against a shortish, bushy tree with fruit that looked like a yellow-ish cross between an apple and a pear. Geez. She even had to learn different fruit in this country? “Do you see that man?”
“Yes. Picking…?”
“Quinces. He’s a gardener. No family. He plays soccer on a bar team, but by his own admission, isn’t good at all. Remy shovels compost in the spring, harvests when needed. Does nothing a newspaper might call remarkable, and probably never will. Remy, however, is not ordinary. And neither are you.”
That was quite the lowdown, especially from a man who was busy remembering international market conditions and heads of state and…well, whatnot. Kelsey cocked her head. “How do you know all that?”
“I talk to him. When I walk along here to the stables every day, when I walk through the orchards to clear my head.”
“You talk to the gardeners?” Because her grandmother had turned all snitty when Kelsey mentioned chatting with Anya. Told her not to ever confuse “functionaries with friends.”
“Of course. Not because they are my subjects, my responsibility, but because they are people, just like you and me. And everyone matters. Everyone is unique and has their own contribution to society, to friends, to life. Nobody is ordinary. Least of all you, Kelsey.”
It was a very fatherly thing for him to say. A perfect segue, too. Because she’d never have the nerve to ask this question of Julian IV, by the Grace of God Father of the People and King of Moncriano.
But she’d damn well ask it of the man trying to be her father. “If you find time to chat to your staff, why has it taken you so long to talk to me?”
They kept walking. Kelsey heard the buzz of the bees in the waist-high pink and purple stalks of flowers, the trill of morning songbirds in the orchard on the left. A string of what she guessed to be curses from Remy who shook his hand and licked at it, clearly scratched in the battle with picking the quinces.
Rounding a curve, a gigantic L-shaped building she hadn’t yet seen came into view. It matched the style of the palace with its white walls and rounded turrets at each corner, but it was only two stories. Abutting one side was a circle of hard-packed dirt, enclosed with a low, split-rail fence that brought to mind western ranches.
Finally, the king stopped at the end of the path where it met an asphalt drive for the building. He stared straight ahead at a tall, red-flowered bush that covered a corner of the wall. “When they told me you were alive, I was shocked. It embarrasses me to admit, but I’d given up hope. I left a standing order that the search for you never be discontinued, but in my heart, I assumed you were dead.”
It didn’t sting to hear him say it. Kelsey understood. Holding out hope for all those years would’ve been so painful. Giving up allowed him to move forward. “That was a safe, smart assumption.”
“I couldn’t…I didn’t…I heard the words that you were alive. I saw you, talked to you in the throne room that first day. But I couldn’t do anything more. I knew, loved, Valentina, a three-month-old baby who smiled at everyone and anyone who picked her up. That’s where my mind was stuck.”
Wait. He’d put off talking to her because…he hadn’t known what to say? The exact thing Kelsey had been so worried about? Well, she certainly couldn’t be mad at him for that.
“But last night, I figured out how to start. With this present.” He waved an arm to encompass what she assumed to be stables, now that two horses had been led out into the fenced arena.
“I don’t understand. What is it?”
“I’m giving you a horse.” He pointed at the smaller of the two horses with a coat the same burnished red as Mallory’s hair. Next to it was a giant black beast, snorting and stomping. “That one. Branko. He’s light, fast, a strong jumper.”
“What am I going to do with a horse?” Holy crap balls. That was rude, unforgivably so.
How, why had that been out loud? But, in Kelsey’s mind, she still lived in a five-hundred-square-foot Manhattan walk-up. This two weeks in Moncriano was the super-bizarre vacation she’d never dreamed of. “I’m sorry. I mean, thank you, Your Majesty. It’s just that I don’t know how to ride.”
“I presumed as much, which works to my advantage. You see, I’d always dreamed of going riding with my little girl. Teaching her. My parents did it with me, and some of my fondest memories are of continuing the tradition with Christian and Genevieve. You may be all grown up, but I can still have this experience, as a father, of teaching you.”
Oh boy. That was a lot to drop on her. Like he’d make up for the missing twenty-five years between them by giving her a pony?
The hopeful, upraised eyebrows above those high, aristocratic cheekbones gave her the impression the king thought this would fix the empty gap of those missing years. That she’d fall in line and be the perfect princess daughter.
Except…
Maybe that was a leap to the wrong conclusion. An unfair one.
Maybe she was clinging too tightly to her loyalty for Ed Wishner. Maybe this was a knee-jerk reaction to an honest attempt at reconnecting. Maybe she ought to give the king the benefit of the doubt.
Just in case, though? She’d lay another nakedly honest truth on him. Because right now, Kelsey had a lot more to worry about the unfairness of what was happening to the parents who’d raised her, rather than the one who’d missed her.
“Your Majesty—”
He cut her off with a rather imperious swipe of his hand. “That’s not right. Christian and Genevieve call me Papa. Would you? Or whatever American version you prefer?”
“Well, that’s the thing. This all feels like…like an Indian-arranged marriage. Where the bride and groom have barely met before they speak their vows, and are expected to jump into the whole husband/wife/love forever thing in an instant. I don’t think of you as ‘Papa’ yet. I don’t know you.”
Had that been too harsh?
Was there any way to sugarcoat that statement, though?
Frowning, the king said slowly, “I am your father, Kelsey.”
“I realize that, but I don’t feel it yet. You had a baby you loved, and held, and thought of for years. All I have is a stranger, in a literal strange land, asking me to call him Papa.”
“There has to be a first step,” he said. And this time, his voice sound much less dad-like and more regal; commanding. Insistent. “I made one, with this gift. It is your turn to make an effort.”
Crap. Kelsey didn’t want to piss him off. Or seem ungrateful. The king was making more of an effort, for example, than Genevieve. She needed to at least thank him, and not be such a stubborn jerk.
She put a hand on his arm. Squeezed once. “I appreciate the gesture. Truly. There’s no such thing, though, as an insta-daughter.”
The real problem suddenly geysered to the front of her brain. The worry that had poked at her subconscious nonstop, no matter how much she tried to ignore it for the simple fact of not being able to fix it. The sticking point that kept her from politely agreeing to his simple, rational request.
