Page 37 of The Midnight Princess
“All the money in the world and you didn’t spring for a red sports car?” I ask, getting the door for her. She maneuvers into her seat, and I catch a scent of flowers before I close the door with a firm click. I take a deep, bracing breath before I walk around the car and slide in next to her.
“Being famous is a fulltime job,” she says as the car adjusts itself to her seat and mirror settings. I swear I hear her mutter ‘Ella’ before firing up the engine and backing out. “In a few months, you’ll see the point of being incognito when you can.”
We pause at the security gate while she answers a series of questions determining whether she needs a security detail. They land on ‘not’ and in a quarter of an hour, we enter the forecourt of a hospital, slotting between a battered BMW and a bank of electric bikes.
“Welcome to St Leofdag’s, where we’re going to play a game called Mystery Surgeon.” She grips the steering wheel and leans forward, light touching the soft lines of her face. “We’re going to pretend you have an inflamed gallbladder and you have to choose someone to operate based strictly on appearances.”
Her. I choose her. Alma looks like she’s been turning in the extra credit since kindergarten.
Without warning, heat tips through my veins and I shift with the restless need to exit the car, slap my coat to the ground, and get some air. I thought this energy I’ve been bottling up since I met her was an ordinary, if unusually strong, male reaction to an attractive woman. It’s not personal. Nearly every male is gifted with these kinds of reactions about the time he gets his first skull hoodie and a graphing calculator. It’s juvenile. It’s nothing.
I scratch my neck. This isn’t nothing. I always liked the smartest girls in class with the straightest braids and the neatest pencil cases. Alma is my type.
Chol nia.
I have a thing for a princess from the wrong country. She has a fiancé, and it’s her mission to change everything about me. Awesome. Brilliant life choices, Jacob.
“Jacob,” she prompts.
What am I supposed to do now? I do the only thing a man can do when he’s being thrown around an emotional mosh pit. I adapt the strategy of those Greeks who could stand uncomplainingly in the face of a hailstorm of arrows and certain death. I stare through the windscreen.
“That guy,” I say, pointing to a pair of people mounting the front steps. “The shorter one.”
“Why not the other? Tell me quickly. Don’t think too hard.”
To run away from my thoughts, I start making observations. “He looks like azeklen—” I cough. “Sorry, like he’s full of himself.”
“Why? Give me details.”
“That hair, for one. He doesn’t have one person in his life telling him how stupid he looks. He’s doing a lot of finger stabbing.”
“Good. Anything else?”
“The suit is shiny, and the stripes are…” I don’t know. I only know I hate it. “I don’t trust that guy.”
“What about the other one?”
“He’s got fun socks and there’s a strap around his leg, so we know he rode his bike in,” I say, warming to my subject. “He thinks about the planet, and he’s got a family.”
Alma leans over, resting her hand on my door. Her ponytail brushes my neck as she tries to get a better view, and I stare hard at the ring on her finger until she shifts back.
“How do you know?”
I swallow. “No one wears that tie unless it’s a gift from a child. If there are people who put their lives in his hands, I guess I can. He’s the one that’ll get a crack at the gallbladder.”
What the hell? I like this game.
“What did we learn, Jacob?”
“Nothing about how they would actually handle gallbladders.”
My reward is a smile, half-hidden, but it’s enough to keep me hard at work for the better part of an hour. When the light begins to change, she drives us to the wharf, scoring a prime spot next to the promenade. A bitterly cold wind blows off the ocean, bringing low clouds, and scattering all but the most hardy tourists. A statue of Horst the Invader dominates the harbor.
“Your ancestor looks…” How to put this in the most diplomatic way? “Like he’s on the cover of one of those sexy books from the 80s,” I say, pointing at the choppy seas slapping up his muscled calves. “The ones they leave at the laundromat in a basket.”
Alma chokes on a giggle. “Thanks to a few surviving accounts, we know that’s what he actually wore—fitted trousers and a leather tunic. Horst was a loveranda fighter.” She winks. “Either way, he came to slay.”
I shake my head to keep the grin from completely taking over. “I’m embarrassed for you right now. Your ancestors are cringing. Is there a sponsor I can call? Maybe the royal family of Motovia could stage an intervention.”
