Page 2 of The Duke's Virgin

“Screw it,” I said in a final tone. I’d come out here to get away from her phone calls—andmy father’s—and that was exactly what I was going to do.

Not giving myself a second to think about it, I turned off my phone, then looked around, centering myself.

I’d head toward Broadway, I decided. It was early yet, but I’d grab dinner and see a play. Tomorrow, I’d figure out just what my parents wanted, although it might not be anything specific.

And if it was?

“I’ll deal with it,” I told myself.

After all, what else could I do?

Avoiding them forever might sound appealing on rare occasion—okay, maybe it was more thanrare—but it wasn’t practical. My parents were cool and distant, but I loved them. Besides, it wasn’t like they could force me to settle down, and that was what Mom was after these days.

She could nag, nudge, and try to negotiate all she wanted, but in the end, it was my choice.

* * *

The Italian bistroI selected for dinner had a shaded area out front, with fans overhead that kept the area cool in the unseasonable heat, and I thanked the hostess as she put a menu in front of me.

I had time to kill before the seven o’clock showing I’d selected. It was only five, and the theater was less than a ten-minute walk from the bistro, so I was going to indulge in a lengthy meal. While working on my master’s, time to indulge hadn’t always been available, even during the breaks. In order to avoid my mother’s meddling, I’d spent summers volunteering, doing everything from volunteering down in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, to spending a month with Habitat for Humanity after a hurricane hit Florida, to traveling to South Dakota to spend a few weeks at a Lakota reservation for more volunteer work.

Mom loved to talk up the volunteer work, although she always got digs in about how little time it left me to spend with her and my father. She never seemed to get that was a small part of why I did it. A small part. Not all. Nowhere near all.

There was too much outside the pampered and polished world that existed for my parents, and I didn’t want to be so isolated that I was ignorant of it.

But that was something neither of them would ever understand.

Sitting at the table, I flipped open the menu. As I started to skim the appetizers, a server approached, carrying a carafe of water.

My phone started ringing as she poured, and I ignored it, figuring it was my mom. Again. “Can I get you something other than water?”

“Oh, yes…”

She laughed at the fervent reply. “Do you have something in mind or would you like a suggestion?”

“I’m always open to suggestions.”

She grinned and listed the current house specialties as the phone went silent. I went with the house version of a Manhattan, and after she left, I picked up my water and grudgingly looked at my phone.

To my surprise, it wasn’t my mother or my father.

Actually, the missed call was from theonerelative I didn’t hate hearing from.

My cousin Aeric. With a grin, I hit the phone icon as I pulled my Bluetooth device from my purse. I hadn’t even had time to connect it before he answered, his richly accented voice booming out of my phone’s speaker.

“Cousin!”

“Hello, Your Royal Highness.” I grinned, tapping the icon to switch over to video as the Bluetooth finally connected. His lean, handsome face filled my phone’s screen.

“Don’t start,” he said in a warning tone, although he smiled back.

“If I can’t razz my royal cousin, then who can?” I shrugged and took a sip of my water.

He peered at the screen with a frown. “You’re out. Are you busy? Am I interrupting?”

“No. Just having dinner.”

“Alone or with a friend?”

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