Page 29 of Royal Charmer
“Ooh, I know this one! Age order: Gabriel, Phillip, then you, Oscar, Emma, Adrian, and Silvia. Adrian and Silvia are twins. The younger sons are more laid-back than the heir and the spare because you were raised with different expectations—”
“And because we’re naturally wonderful.”
“Yes, of course,” she says breezily, and it occurs to me that maybe she does think I’m wonderful. She hasn’t met Oscar and Adrian yet. Something in me shifts, a warmth radiating through my chest as she rattles off random facts about my family. “Emma married Jackson Walker.” She pauses. “You have a lot of glamorous people in your family.”
“Just Jackson. He’s a rock legend. Too bad you missed him. He and Emma left the day before you arrived for their honeymoon.”
“Bummer. But it’s not just him that’s glam. It’s all of you. You know, the royal thing.”
“I suppose it could be seen that way, though when you’re living it…maybe less so.”
She shakes her head. “Whatever you say.”
I don’t share further about the downside—the lack of privacy, the constant shadow of the guards, the overzealous paparazzi. It’s not a bad life. It’s just not glamorous all the time.
“Let’s see, what else?” she asks, continuing before I can reply, “Phillip is the spare and the UN Ambassador for Clean Water.” She looks thoughtful, her brows knit together, her lips pursed. “The twins must miss each other. Adrian wasn’t at Yale with Silvia, and now he lives here and she’s in the US. Twins have a special bond, don’t they?”
Her mind twists and turns all over the place. It’s never a dull moment talking to her. “They were close as kids. They’re grown now. Back to us, how did we meet?”
She lifts a finger in the air. “Mutual friends. I was invited to dinner at my agent’s country house in Connecticut, and you were there because you went to university with her husband.”
“Frank Wexler,” I return, supplying the name of my supposed friend. “Which university did we attend?”
“Oxford because you’re a smartie, and you didn’t get any special treatment just because you’re a royal.”
I grin. “You can leave that last part out. I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging.” I only told her that because I didn’t want her to think I skated through Oxford. She’s incredibly bright and values education.
She bumps her shoulder into my arm. “I can brag about you. I’m your fiancée. You studied PPE, which is philosophy, politics, and economics all in one major.”
“And you studied history at Yale and wrote your first book while you were still a student there as a way to relax.”
She beams. “Correct. Where am I from?”
“Portland, Oregon.”
“That’s where I live now. I grew up in—”
“Gresham, Oregon.”
“Very good!”
“We’ve been together for three months. That’s all it took.”
Her blue eyes sparkle behind her glasses. “You fellhard. Like a total face-plant at my feet. On our first date you told me you were going to marry me.”
I rock my head side to side, biting my tongue. We had a bit of back-and-forth on that point, but I ultimately let her have it because she found the idea so romantic. “Okay, but we don’t need to harp on that, yeah? Let’s just say we fell for each other.”
“And then you spent the next month convincing me to marry you with numerous romantic gestures because you were so hopelessly besotted.” She loves that word,besotted. It sounds to me like a sappy idiot, but to her it’s dreamy with love. “Once you flew all the way to Portland for my birthday just to make me my favorite double fudge cake, even though you had to fly back the very next day for an important meeting with the contractors that you have personally supervised on a daily basis at the Island Bliss Spa.”
I smile. She’s good, weaving in my dedication to her and the project. “Your birthday is May first. And you were also besotted; otherwise you wouldn’t have accepted my proposal.”
“Yes,” she says dreamily. “Your birthday is June first. Twenty-nine and holding up nicely. Isn’t it cute how we were both born on the first? There must be some astrological significance there. Astrology was very popular during the Regency—”
I cut her off because Regency history can take a very long time. “Sounds like fate. And the wedding is…?”
“The wedding isn’t until next June because a royal wedding requires a lot of planning.”
I smile. “Yes. I think we’ve got this couple thing down.”
