Definitely not!
“That sounds … fun,” she said, smiling.
He lifted his brows questioningly and Emma felt a faint blush of discomfort climb her cheeks. “A surprise.”
He chuckled and left.
Kadin, she discovered, was smiling with his lips and teeth, but he didn’t look especially amused by the exchange.
Feeling uncomfortable, and guilty since she’d been chatting with Gaelen while Kadin had been getting a plate for her, she smiled at him a little nervously. “This all looks so good! I hardly know where to start.” Because it didn’t look even a little familiar.
Fortunately, she wasn’t nearly as picky as she’d once been and she was starving.
“Do not get too excited. I have little faith in the cooks.”
Emma chuckled. “Well, I’m completely unfamiliar with all of it so I won’t know if it’s cooked like it’s suppose to be or not.”
“Uhmm,” Kadin responded non-committally, then added dryly. “I believe you will still be able to determine good from bad.”
She shrugged. “I have to eat my own cooking and it isn’t the greatest. In fact, since I live alone … lived alone before Nye, I usually just made a salad or sandwich or ate some fruit.”
Kadin studied her for a long moment. “You have lived there … long?”
Emma stared at her plate trying to figure out where to start and finally cut a small bite size piece of the meat-like substance. “Not really. I moved out of the city after my grandfather died a few years ago and left the cottage to me. Before that I lived in the city. And I mostly ate out at fast food places.”
She glanced at him and realized it wasn’t likely he knew anything about Earth cultures in general or American in particular. “Sorry. I forget.”
He shook his head, smiling faintly. “My mother is American. I have heard many stories about your world.” He shrugged. “I will admit that it is hard to imagine without experiencing.”
Excitement jumped in Emma’s veins. She hadn’t thought until that very moment how much she was going to miss being around people and things familiar. “Will I get to meet your mother?”
His lips thinned. “I have not seen her in many years. I was taken before I reached manhood.”
Emma gasped. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry! I wouldn’t have brought it up if I’d had any idea.”
“Mayhap Emma should tink before her spake?” Princess Valee cut in.
Emma felt her face turn red with embarrassment and anger.
And guilt.
She knew the bitch was right. She’d always had a problem with speaking and acting impulsively—and usually regretted it afterward.
She struggled with her temper, trying to convince herself that she’d just instantly decided to dislike Valee because she saw her as a rival for Nye’s affections and feared he would defect, would decide to love her more.
“Gaelen is a prince, too?” she asked Kadin as he escorted her and baby Nye back to the ‘King’s suite’.
He nodded. “Son of Chief Amarl.”
Emma frowned, trying to figure out where she’d heard the name before. A jolt went through her when it came to her. She gasped and whipped a wide eyed look at Kadin. “Gaelen is … uh ….”
“Princess Bitch’s brother,” he finished, a gleam of amusement in his eyes.
“Oh my god!” Emma gasped. “I didn’t say that out loud, did I? She really is a princess?”
“No, you didn’t say it out loud and yes, she really is a princess … and a total bitch, unfortunately. And Gaelen really is a prince. And I am also. We serve the king, on the council of lords—because no one else is considered worthy of serving him in such a close capacity. The customs on Earth are not similar?”
Emma gaped at him, struggling with everything she’d learned on her short excursion that had turned her world upside down. “I … don’t know. I’m not royal. Maybe.”
It wasn’t until she was back in the suite with Nye that something he’d said hit her that totally broke her heart.
Chapter Fifteen
Emma settled on the edge of her bed with the baby once she’d gotten back to the cabin, rocking him and singing to him as she often did—not that she was a great singer or anything, but the baby seemed to like it.
Well, it either soothed him to sleep or bored him to sleep and that was what mattered most.
Her mind wasn’t really on the task, though. She was sorting everything she’d learned in her excursion to the dining hall.
She’d been more inclined to think the titles of prince and princess were just some sort of translation fluke.
Maybe she’d wanted to believe that?
But it seemed Kadin had confirmed that, yes, they were all royals because their parents were royals and she was a nobody.
Really a nobody.
It had been hard enough to accept that her precious baby was King and all the potential ramifications of that news. Now she’d discovered that the men she’d come to think of as friends, at least, were too far above her in rank to actually be friends—maybe not lovers—but an outsider still that would always be an outsider.
It was as she was turning that over in her head that she remembered what he’d said about Nye being genetically engineered—basically.
And his mother was an Earth woman.
Like her.
And then it hit her like a ton of bricks.
Nye thought she was his mama.
She’d been so charmed by the fact that he’d come to her, that he’d trusted her to take care of him, and all that time it was because the poor little confused baby thought his mama had come for him.
She didn’t know who she most wanted to cry for—Nye or for herself.
She tried to tell herself it was just her insecurity coming out, that he really did love her even though he was confused about her identity, but she couldn’t banish the doubts. They ate at her confidence and she was afraid it was just going to eat her up.
She’d followed him halfway across the universe and left everyone and everything
