After a few moments, Nicholas motions to a footman, and the broadcaster filming the event must have hired a frigging lip-reader, because there are subtitles.
“Have the car brought forward.”
The man seems unsure and starts to turn toward the Queen—but the crack of Nicholas’s words stops him in his tracks.
“Don’t look at her. I am your prince—you will do what I say and you will do it now.”
And in that second, Nicholas doesn’t look like a fourteen-year-old boy; he doesn’t look like a boy at all. He looks like a king.
The man swallows and bows, and a few minutes later a black Rolls-Royce creeps slowly up through the sea of people. Nicholas guides his brother into the backseat. Then with the door still open, he crouches down and wipes Henry’s face with a handkerchief from his pocket.
“Mum will be so disappointed in me,” Henry says, with a heartbreaking hiccup.
Nicholas shakes his head. “No, Henry, never.” He brushes Henry’s wavy blond hair back. “I’ll walk for both of us. I’ll meet you at the cathedral and we’ll go in together.” He cups his small jaw in his hand and tries to smile. “We’re going to be all right, you and I. Yeah?”
Henry sniffles and works hard to give his brother a nod. When Nicholas takes his place beside the Queen, the procession continues.
As I close my laptop, my heart feels so heavy inside my chest, so sad for them. Henry was just a little boy and Nicholas—in spite of the money and the power and the gold-plated everything—Nicholas Pembrook hadn’t been so different that day. Not so different from me. Just a kid, trying his hardest to keep the family he had left from falling apart.
The next day, the sun is shining but the air is still frigid, ensuring the snow piles outside won’t be melting anytime soon. After the morning rush, I’m behind the register, cracking open a new roll of quarters, when a low, lyrical voice places an order.
“Large coffee, please. Milk, no sugar.”
My eyes lift, meeting a gray-green gaze. And a spiky thrill zings over my skin, immediate and irrepressible. “You came back.”
“Unlike some strange—but very pretty—people, I happen to like coffee.”
He’s wearing jeans, relaxed and worn, with a casual black button-down. And a baseball hat pulled low over his forehead. For some reason, the hat—seeing him in it—is funny. So normal, I guess, and a laugh weaves through my words.
“Nice hat.”
He raises a fist. “Go Yanks.”
“Do you really think it’ll work as a disguise?”
He’s surprised by the question. He glances around the room—only two other customers sit at the tables, and neither seems to notice him. He shrugs.
“Glasses always worked for Clark Kent.”
Today the two men who shadowed Nicholas the other night are joined by a third. They sit at a table by the door, inconspicuous and casually dressed, but alert and watchful.
“Who told you? Did you figure it out yourself or—” his finger flicks to the spot where Ellie did her celebratory jig yesterday morning “—was it the cherry bomb with an affinity for SpongeBob footwear?”
“My sister—Ellie—yeah, she spilled the beans.” I thought it would feel different, seeing him again, now that I know who he is. But it doesn’t—not really. Other than the sting of embarrassment for not recognizing him right off the bat, looking at him still stirs up the same feelings it did yesterday—heated attraction, magnetic fascination—not because he’s a prince, but because he’s him. Gorgeous, sexy, captivating.
Nicholas pays cash from a leather wallet and I pass him his coffee. “You must think I’m completely clueless.”
“Not a’tall.”
“Am I supposed to curtsy or something?”
“Please don’t.” And then the dimples make an appearance. “Unless you have the urge to do it naked, then, by all means, curtsy away.”
He’s flirting with me. It’s a sweet, sliding, teasing dance, and more fun than I can remember having in a long time.
“You don’t seem like a…” my voice lowers to a whisper, “prince.”
Then he’s whispering too. “That may be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” He rests his arm on the counter, leaning in. “Now that you know, have you reconsidered my invitation to dinner?”
I bet a guy like him—fucking royalty—is used to women falling at his feet. Literally. And I’m not used to seduction or head games, but working here all these years, growing up in the city, there is one thing I know how to do when it comes to men.
Play it cool.
“Why?” I scoff. “Because you happen to own a country? Like that’s supposed to impress me?”
“It impresses most people.”
And the dance goes on.
“Guess I’m not most people.”
His eyes sparkle and his lips grin. “Apparently not.” He angles his head toward a table in the corner. “Well, then—I’ll be over there in case you’d like to join me.”
“That’s what you’re going to do all morning? Stay here?”
“That’s the plan, yes.”
“Don’t you have…stuff to do? Important stuff?”
“Probably.”
“Then why aren’t you doing it?”
He searches my face, those eyes falling to my mouth like he can’t tear his eyes away.