Page 9 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

Although, when we were together, he used to smile at me all the time.

Meredith wiggled with delight at having captured his attention. “Gwandma says you’re a pwince.”

Whitney and her mother tried to shush Meredith at the same time. They had correctly guessed that I was dying inside and wanted him to go away. This close proximity was affecting my ability to properly inhale and exhale.

“Your grandma is right,” Rafe told her.

This seemed to embolden Meredith, and she ignored the adults trying to quiet her. “Do you have a castle?”

“I do.”

“And a pwincess?”

“Someday.” His gaze was intense, burning, and directed at me. Stupid smoldering eyes.

My baby-making parts swung back into full force, letting me know they thought I was an idiot.

“I could mawwy you. Or Jen-sis! She doesn’t have a husband. She could mawwy you.”

All the blood drained from my face. Whitney’s mom picked Meredith up and carried her to the back of the room, effectively ending the conversation. Meredith protested the whole way, apparently wanting to stay and finalize suitable marriages for both of us.

“What do you think, Genesis?” he asked. He was teasing me. I could hear it in his voice, see it in the way his eyes gleamed and how he tilted his head to one side.

But I couldn’t think. Couldn’t move, couldn’t respond. I wanted to shrug off his flirting the way I’d seen Lemon do a thousand times with Dante, but I couldn’t.

When I caught my breath, I finally managed, “I could never marry you. I can’t be Princess Genesis. Think of how stupid that would sound.”

“I’ll abdicate. You don’t have to be a princess if you don’t want to be.”

“You would do that?” I forgot that I was mad. Forgot that he had hurt me. Forgot his lie. Forgot that we were sitting in a roomful of people who would gossip about this interaction for at least the next year. “Are you being serious right now?”

He must have been encouraged by my lack of animosity, because he reached out to put his hand on top of mine. Warmth flooded my hand, sending sparkling tingles up my arm and tiny shivers down my back. “Have I done anything to indicate that I’m not? I’d do anything you ask.”

Fortunately, before I could shove Gracie off of my lap like a sack of potatoes and launch myself at him, Brooke Cooper called the room to order, banging a gavel on a wooden podium. He stood up and walked toward the back of the room, leaving me.

“I’d marry him tomorrow,” I heard Nicole murmur behind me, squashing any hopes I had that our interaction hadn’t been the most entertaining thing to happen in this town since Myrtle Williams got drunk and ran over her cheating husband’s collection of stuffed moose heads with their riding lawn mower.

“You and me both,” Whitney whispered back.

“Calm down,” I told them. “He didn’t ask me to marry him. He was joking.” They exchanged amused glances, but they did stop talking.

I’m mad,I had to remind myself.I’m hurt. He lied to me. He humiliated me on national television. He doesn’t have the right to make me feel the things he makes me feel.

But it wasn’t doing me a lick of good.

No, instead I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He leaned against a large wooden pillar with his arms crossed over his chest. He was the only person I’d ever met who managed to look both devastatingly elegant and completely relaxed at the same time. He had always been clean-shaven on the show, but now he had a five-o’clock shadow, which served to make him even hotter and more masculine than before, if such a thing were possible. Something about him tugged at my heart.

I might be in trouble.

Brooke’s imperious tone managed to drown out my thoughts as she directed the town council’s secretary to run through the minutes from the last town meeting. I focused on the kids and helping to keep them quiet. Brooke didn’t like being interrupted.

They discussed the upcoming holiday talent showcase for the town’s children. Nicole, who headed up the high school’s drama club, had taken it over from me this year, and I had offered to help her. She stood up to announce that rehearsals would start tomorrow night.

“Report on the church bazaar?” Brooke called out. She knew I was in charge, but she scanned the room as if she couldn’t remember which one of us peons was running it. I handed Gracie back to Whitney. I took my notebook out of my purse and flipped to the right page. I waited for her to call on me, but she didn’t.

So I stood up and cleared my throat, feeling every eye in the room on me. Correction: feeling every eye looking at me and then looking at Rafe and then looking at me again. Like they were watching a tennis match. I didn’t know what they thought was going to happen other than me telling them about the current plans and how things were coming along.

Although I couldn’t see him, I could feel him staring at me. Like he had gained heat vision as a super power and was pointing it directly at me. Suddenly sweaty and more than a little nervous, I tucked the end of my ponytail into the rubber band, getting it off of my neck.

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