Page 44 of Royal Icing
“Of course,” he said with a smile. He glanced at his watch. Shit. “I’m going to have to take you back. I have a couple more appointments this afternoon before the storm hits.”
She shook her head. “I’ll walk back. I love to walk in the snow.”
“You can’t do that,” he said. “It’s like five kilometers, and the storm will be starting in earnest soon.”
She scoffed. “I’m from New York. We walk that far in blizzards just to get to our preferred breakfast spot. Trust me, I’ll be fine.”
Something about the idea made him uneasy. But she was dressed warmly enough, and she was a grown woman. She wasn’t even a citizen, so he couldn’t order her to obey him even if he wanted to.
“If you’re sure,” he said. “Here—let me give you my phone number in case you run into any trouble.”
Their fingers brushed as she handed over her phone, and a shockwave ran through him. Had she felt it too?
He entered his number and gave it back to her.
“Be safe,” he said firmly.
“You too.”
She turned on her heel and disappeared back toward town.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EMMA
Emma strolledthe streets of Hollybrook at a leisurely pace. A blanket of clouds had crept in, and snowflakes drifted lazily from the sky.
She spent an hour perusing the local stores. She ducked into a grocery shop and dodged around the people piling bread and milk into carts. There were flavors and spices she didn’t recognize—mahleb, woodruff, cloudberry, blackcurrants and lingonberries. She pored over a counter of colorful desserts and bought several flavors of halvah and some carob cookies, neither of which she’d ever tried before.
Everything here was amazing. The spices were fragrant, the people were pleasant—well, except for the queen.
She glanced down at her phone. There was a freakin’ prince’s personal number in her phone right now. What alternate universe was she living in? Last week she had been experimenting with just how long she could stretch a packet of ramen, and now she was preparing a career-making dessert for a royal family.
Her thoughts turned to the night before as she sampled a fudge-like piece of halvah. Unless she was drastically misreading the signals—which was always possible—she could have swornLeo was moving in for a kiss the night before. She’d lain awake in bed last night, wondering what might’ve happened had the house manager not walked in.
After a lot of googling and perusing gossip sites, she’d gleaned that Leo hadn’t had a girlfriend for a number of years. The last one had left the country and moved back to Sweden. He also didn’t have any social media to speak of, so there was no official register of his likes and dislikes. He was an anomaly. A mystery.
She had no intention of getting involved, but her attraction to him was becoming more unignorable by the minute. It wasn’t because he was a prince. He had given her heart flutters from the second she saw him across the park, and now he was single-handedly helping her dream come to fruition. He was more help than Maya had ever been. Maybe that was just how he was with everyone, but he made her feel seen. It had been a long time since she’d felt seen.
Perhaps she should just go for it. No matter what she was telling herself, she was drawn to him. He was smart, kind, a great listener, sexy with his little Clark Kent glasses and surprisingly rugged physique. He cared about his community in a refreshingly authentic way. If he lived in New York, she would have thrown caution to the wind and started trying to bake her way into his heart.
She would have to keep it a secret if anything did happen, because her mom would never shut up about this. Her bingo friends would beg her to write a tell-all autobiography about the experience.
No matter what happened, Leo’s privacy was always going to be her priority. It must be hard living in the spotlight, especially in such a small country where there wasn’t a lot going on. Luckily the paparazzi hadn’t been stalking around today, or if they had, they at least hadn’t recognized her.
Her stomach growled, and she glanced at her watch. It was five o’clock and almost dark out. She should probably get some dinner and head back to the castle before the worst of the storm hit. Cooper was obsessed with snow and would never want to come back inside.
She checked the nanny cam as she walked to Sal’s pub. Her mom was chatting with the nurse, who was preparing lunch. She breathed a sigh of relief. In a week, she would be home, and their circumstances would be vastly changed. As long as they made it through the one-year lean period of her noncompete, very real change was on the horizon.
Her own business meant being her own boss. Only taking the orders she wanted to. Hours that were doable. Money for better physical and occupational therapy for her mom. Everything was in her grasp. All she had to do was knock it the hell out of the park.
She pushed the door of the pub open. Sal didn’t seem to be working. She slid into a booth and accepted a menu from a server.
While she ate a succulent dinner of fish and chips, she watched people come and go. Many were picking up take-out orders, hurrying home to their families before the worst of the storm hit.
The bell over the door rang again, and a burst of cold air rushed in along with a group of young people.
Hang on…she knew that laugh.
