Page 10 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

I wasn’t going to think about Rafe. I was focused solely on my report. Our church had been built in the mid-nineteenth century and currently was in dire need of a new roof. Somehow we had to raise thirty thousand dollars.

We had planned to have a ticketed dinner, a bake sale, and a silent auction, and Nicole had recently added a bachelor auction. I had put her in charge of it, hoping she wouldn’t wreak too much havoc.

“Do you have any other ideas about how to make the event more profitable?” one of the council members asked.

I opened my mouth, but Whitney suddenly popped up alongside me. “What about a kissing booth?”

It was quite possibly the stupidest thing Whitney had ever said. Because I knew why she’d said it and what her plan was. She was going to get Rafe to volunteer for it and get us to work together.

I had to put a stop to that.

“What is this, eighth grade? And who is going to staff it? Genesis the Giraffe?” Brooke asked, lapsing out of her mayoral role and back into the high school mean girl she’d been. There were a couple of laughs, and I could feel my face turning bright red. In addition to teasing me about my height all through school, my inexperience with men was another insecure spot of mine that she poked at relentlessly.

“Why not?” Rafe’s voice stopped the tittering and Brooke’s preening at her own cleverness. Her face fell as he said, “I happen to know that Genesis is an excellent kisser.”

“That is so, so romantic,” Nicole immediately whispered. The room was so quiet I was sure everyone else had heard her.

Unwanted images and feelings flooded into me as I remembered exactly what it had felt like to have his lips against mine, how he had pressed me against him and wrapped his arms around me. How wanted he’d made me feel. How much I’d loved it every time we touched.

Then I remembered that everyone in here had seen us kiss. Repeatedly. My cheeks actually hurt from the flaming humiliation. I wanted to die. I prayed for a personal sinkhole to form under the floorboards and suck me into it.

Instead I just sank into my chair and felt thankful to Brooke for the very first time in my life as she banged her gavel and moved on to another issue.

When I could talk again, I leaned over and asked Whitney, “What is wrong with you? Where did you even come up with that?”

“I was rewatching that episode last night when Dante went to Lemon’s house and her mom talked about making him run a kissing booth and how much money her charity would make. And I thought that was totally true and we should do it given that we have his identical twin.”

“Why were you rewatching the show?”

“Um ... er ... uh ...” She made little soft sounds without actually responding to my question. And I knew she wouldn’t.

“Fine. Don’t answer. But there’s no way we’re doing a kissing booth.”

She shifted Gracie from one side of her lap to the other. “Why not?”

“Because what if Brooke ...” I trailed off, realizing what I’d nearly said. I might be mad and hurt, but I didn’t want to share him with anyone else. Especially not her.

This was the curse of an overactive imagination. I could see him, all suave and sexy, bestowing kisses on the enthusiastic women of Frog Hollow. Could just imagine Brooke waiting for her turn. And as she puckered up, I imagined that I would run over and grab her by the hair to jerk her out of line.

I put my hands on the sides of my still-warm face. I was upset about fictional Brooke and pretend Rafe.

What was wrong with me?

“You’re jealous,” Whit crowed.

Sometimes I wished she couldn’t read me so easily. I shrugged one shoulder, trying to act like I didn’t care. “It’s not jealousy. I just have all these old, bad feelings about Brooke.” Bad feelings and a rabid desire to keep her away from Rafe.

“Jealousyisa bad feeling.”

I could hear Nicole shifting forward in her seat behind us, trying to catch our conversation.

“It also shows that you still care,” Whitney continued. “Which you should, because you belong together. You were so ‘love at first awkward.’”

Whitney was right. It really had been love at first awkward. For me, anyway.

Well, not at very first.

My aunt Sylvia had been obsessed withMarry Me. I’d watched every season with her because it was her favorite show, and during a recent symptom relapse she’d gotten it into her head that I should audition. I think because she was sick and convinced of her own mortality, she thought the best way to make sure that I was taken care of after she was gone was for me to get married. I couldn’t figure out why that was her plan considering how disastrously her own marriage had ended. He had bankrupted us.

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