Page 17 of His Royal Matchmaker

She smirks knowingly, and I’m struck yet again by how well she reads me. In fact, it is a little terrifying.

“Just so you know,” she adds casually as we approach the meeting room, “I’ll probably start asking more questions now that I know you secretly want me to.”

I groan, already regretting my complaint. “Wonderful.”

Her laugh follows me into the room, light and warm, and despite myself, I find the corners of my mouth turning up in response.

CHAPTER 8

EMILY

The phone rings four times before Nova picks up. I eagerly sit down on the edge of the enormous four-poster bed, my feet barely touching the floor. This guest room I’m staying in is bigger than my entire apartment back home, with ceilings that stretch so high I feel like a doll in a giant’s dollhouse. I can’t wait to tell Nova everything about my first day shadowing Prince Workaholic of Marzieu.

“Emily!” Her voice explodes through the speaker. “Spill. Is he as handsome in person? Did you find him a wife yet? Are you having a royal romance of your own?”

I laugh and flop backward onto the silk duvet, phone pressed to my ear. “Slow down! One question at a time, please.”

“Fine. Is he as good as the pictures?”

I stare at the intricate patterns on the ceiling, considering. “Objectively speaking, yes. If you like tall, broad-shouldered men with perfect hair and jawlines that could cut glass.”

“So… yes.”

“He’s easy on the eyes,” I admit. “But his personality? That’s a whole other story.”

“Uh-oh. That bad?”

I sit up and tuck my legs under me. “In our first meeting, he gave me next to nothing. He basically dug his feet in.”

“Ouch.”

“It’s fine. I can deal with it. I’m shadowing him to get a sense of who he is.”

“Bet he loves that,” she laughs.

I smirk, but then think of the moment Hugo and I shared during his lunch break. It was… unexpected, and left me wondering more about who he truly is.

“He’s hiding his real self,” I murmur, more to myself than her. “He’s so distanced, until he’s… not. I don’t know how to make sense of it. Not yet, anyway.”

Nova laughs. “So, which one is the real Prince Hugo? The ice king or the almost-human?”

“That’s what I need to figure out,” I admit, stopping at the window to look out at the moonlit palace grounds. “It’s like he has two different people inside him, and I don’t know which one to believe.”

“If anyone can crack him open, it’s you,” she says with confidence that warms me. “You’ve matched the unmatchable before. Remember that tech CEO who said he didn’t have time for love?”

“Now married with twins,” I say, smiling at the memory.

“Exactly. So this prince is just another challenge. And you love a challenge.”

We chat for another twenty minutes, Nova filling me in on gossip and her latest date disaster. By the time we hang up, my stomach is growling loudly enough to echo in the cavernous room.

“Time for a snack,” I mutter to myself, slipping on the hotel-style slippers provided by the palace staff.

The hallway outside my room stretches in both directions, lit by elegant sconces that cast a warm glow on the richly colored walls. I try to remember the palace tour. Kitchen… kitchen… was it left or right at the main staircase?

I opt for right and pad quietly down the corridor. The palace feels different at night — more mysterious, less intimidating without staff bustling everywhere. My shadow stretches and shrinks as I pass each light, making me feel like I’m not quite alone.

After a wrong turn and a brief, startled encounter with a stern-looking portrait of some ancient monarch, I find myself in what appears to be the administrative wing. Most offices are dark, but at the end of the hall, light spills from under a door.

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