‘Ten days?’ Hester echoed.
‘I know, sooner than I’d have thought too. But it seems to have been planned since before I was born. It’s going to be a state holiday apparently.’ He scribbled more items on his ever-increasing list. ‘They’ve got plans for everything—processions, funerals, baptisms.’ He glanced across at her with a laughing grin. ‘My obituary is already written. They just update it every so often.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No. They’re prepared for everything. I think they thought I’d get killed in a plane crash or something a few years ago.’ He suddenly chuckled. ‘Don’t look so shocked.’
‘It just seems…’ She trailed off, wary of expressing her thoughts. But it seemed sad somehow, to have your life so meticulously planned, documented, constrained. Was it so surprising he’d rebelled against it?
‘Don’t you have every eventuality covered in your management of Fi’s correspondence?’ He gestured at her immaculate desk. ‘I’m assuming you’re a lists and contingencies person.’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘They just have more lists than you.’ He gazed down at his list. ‘You’ll need a wedding dress. It would be diplomatic if you choose a Triscarian designer. Would that be tolerable?’
‘Of course,’ she mumbled, but a qualm of panic struck. What had she been thinking? How could she pull off a live-streamed wedding with millions of people watching? Every last one would pick apart, not just her outfit, but every aspect of her appearance. She wasn’t a leggy beautiful brunette like Princess Fiorella. She was on the shorter, wider sides of average—as her aunt had so often commented when comparing her to her gazelle-like, mean cousins.
She took a breath and squared her shoulders. She didn’t care. She’d resolved long ago never to care again. Because the simple fact was she could never live up to the expectation or never please all of them, so why worry about any?
‘My assistant will arrange for some samples to be brought to the palace.’ He wrote yet another item in his harsh scrawl.
‘There’s not much time to make a dress or adjustments in ten days.’ There wasn’t much time to get her head around anything, let alone everything.
‘They’ll have a team. We’ll do some preparation as well, how to pose for photos and the like.’
How to what? ‘You mean you’re going to put me through some kind of princess school?’
‘Yes.’ He met her appalled gaze with laughter. ‘There’ll be lots of cameras. It can be blinding at first.’
‘Perhaps Princess Fiorella can guide me,’ she suggested hopefully.
‘I will,’ he replied firmly. ‘Fi needs to meet her obligations here. She’ll join us only for the ceremony.’
‘But it’s okay for me to walk out on her right away?’
‘Your obligations to me and to Triscari now take precedence.’ He added something else to his endless list.
Hester glanced about the room, suddenly thinking about all the things she was going to need to achieve. ‘I’ll have to—’
‘Find someone to feed the cat.’ He nodded and wrote that down too.
‘Yes,’ she muttered, internally touched that he’d remembered.
‘At my expense, of course,’ he added. ‘Do you have other work obligations we need to address?’
‘I can sort it.’ She didn’t flatter herself that she was indispensable. No one was. She could disappear from the college and very few people would notice. She’d disappeared before no trouble at all. But she was going to need to sort out Lucia. ‘Um…’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’m going to need…’
‘The money?’ He lifted his head to scrutinise her and waggled his pen between forefinger and thumb. ‘You want your first bathtub full of dollar bills?’
The intensity in his eyes made it hard to keep her equilibrium.
‘A few bundles would be good,’ she mumbled.
He tore another piece of paper from the pad and put it on the opposite side of the desk in front of her. ‘Write down the details and I’ll have it done.’
He didn’t ask more about why she wanted it. She half hoped he understood it wasn’t for her.
‘What family would you like to invite?’ he asked. ‘You can have as many as you like. Write the list and I’ll have them arrange invitations, transport and accommodation.’
She froze, her pen hovering just above the paper. Family?
She eventually glanced at him. He’d stopped writing and was watching her as he waited for her reply with apparently infinite patience. She wanted to look away from his eyes, but couldn’t. And she’d said this so many times before, this shouldn’t be different. But it was. Her breathing quickened. She just needed to say it. Rip the plaster off. That way was best. ‘My parents died when I was a child.’
He didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Foster parents, then? Adoptive? Extended family?’
She swallowed to push back the rising anxiety. ‘Do I have to invite them?’
His gaze remained direct and calm. ‘If you don’t invite anyone, there will be comment. I’m used to comment, so that doesn’t bother me. But if it will bother you, then I’d suggest inviting but then keeping them at a distance. That would be the diplomatic route that the courtiers will prefer.’
‘What would you prefer?’ Her heart banged against her ribcage.
‘I want you to do whatever will help you get through the day.’
That understated compassion shook her serenity and almost tempted her to confide in him. But she barely thought about her ‘family’. She couldn’t bear to. And she hadn’t seen them in years. ‘If they do come, will I have to spend time much with them…?’
He looked thoughtful and then the corners of his eyes crinkled. ‘I can be very possessive and dictatorial.’
‘You mean you’ll abuse your power?’ She couldn’t supress another giggle.
‘Absolutely.’ His answering grin was shameless and charming and pleased. ‘That’s what you’d expect from me, right?’
Her heart skipped. ‘The perks of being a prince…’
But her own smile faded as she considered the ramifications. She’d never wanted to see those people again, but this was an extremely public wedding. If she didn’t
