Page 31 of His Royal Matchmaker

My dreams are full of blond hair and laughter, and I wake with a smile that doesn’t belong to a prince who has three grueling meetings before lunch. Emily’s face floats in my mind like a stubborn bubble, refusing to pop even as I splash cold water on my face.

Something is wrong with me today. Something that feels dangerously like hope.

“Your Highness?” My assistant, Maurice, knocks on the door. “The minister of finance is waiting in the blue room.”

“I’ll be right there,” I call back, but the words feel hollow.

I go through the motions of dressing, my thoughts wandering back to the night of our dinner. To her bright eyes when she gazed back at me. To the way she looked in that dress that somehow made her look both professional and like someone I’d want to?—

“Your Highness?” Maurice speaks again, more insistent.

“Coming.”

I sit through ten minutes of the finance meeting before I realize I haven’t heard a single word. The minister is talking about tax rates or budget projections or something equally important that I should care about, but all I can think about is whether Emily thought any of those women last night were good enough for me. Because they weren’t. I already know that for a fact.

“Don’t you agree, Your Highness?”

I blink. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that last point? I want to make sure I understand completely.”

The minister frowns slightly but repeats himself. I still don’t absorb it.

After thirty more minutes of this torture, I make a decision that would have horrified me yesterday.

“Maurice,” I say when the minister finally leaves, “cancel my appointments for the rest of the day.”

He looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. In five years, I’ve never voluntarily canceled meetings.

“Are you feeling unwell, sir?”

“I just need… a mental health day.” The phrase feels foreign on my tongue, a stupid buzz phrase that I scoffed at when I saw it on social media.

But here I am, electing to take one for myself. Yes, princes don’t get mental health days. But princes who can’t focus might make bad decisions for their country.

“Of course, sir. I’ll reschedule everything.”

“Thank you. And have the garage bring around my personal car. The one without the flags.”

Twenty minutes later, I’m driving myself out of the palace gates, the weight on my chest already lighter. The countryside of Marzieu unfolds before me — rolling hills dotted with stone farmhouses, fields of wheat waving in the breeze. The sight has always calmed me, but today it reminds me of Emily’s hair, golden and moving with a life of its own.

Guy’s farm comes into view — a weathered stone house with a red roof, a large barn, and fenced pastures where horses graze peacefully. I park beside Guy’s truck and step out into the smell of hay and horses and hard work.

“My eyes must deceive me!” Guy calls from the barn doorway. “Shouldn’t you be solving the problems of the nation, Your Royal Pain in the Backside?”

I grin. “The nation will survive without me for one afternoon.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Must be the end of the world. Coffee?”

“Please.”

He leads me into the barn’s small office, a cluttered space with faded horse-show ribbons on the walls and a coffeemaker that’s probably older than I am. The coffee it produces tastes like motor oil, but I’ve grown to like it.

“How’s Midnight?” I ask, accepting a chipped mug.

“Your girl’s fine. Out in the east pasture showing the youngsters who’s boss. Want to say hello?”

Midnight is my horse — a black thoroughbred mare with one white sock and more attitude than a roomful of diplomats. My father gave her to me for my sixteenth birthday, and when I took the throne, I decided she’d be happier here at Guy’s farm thanin the royal stables with all their pomp and protocol. At fifteen, she’s happier doing things her way, anyway.

“I’d like to take her for a ride, actually.”

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