Royal Marriage Market (6 page)

Holy shite.

chapter 7

Elsa

We’re in a stalemate, this man and I, where I’m eyeing him warily and he me in return, both deer caught in crossing headlights after nearly colliding in this narrow hallway.

For Christ’s sake, he’s too handsome. Too everything, really. His eyes are too hypnotizing—vivid, bright amber ringed in mahogany and speckled with freckles that are too appealing. His hair is too wavy, too beautifully brown, like the espresso beans that gift me morning ecstasy. Despite a mild five o’clock shadow, his skin is too flawless. His clothes are too nice, and his stylish leather shoes too tasteful.

Physically, he’s just too much
too
.

I wrack my mind to match the face in front of me to the name. Ah. There it is. This is a fellow heir to yet another tiny country in the European Union. This is the Hereditary Grand Duke of Aioboland, Prince Christian.

It is tacky to be so judgmental, especially without hearing his voice or knowing anything other than what the gossip rags say about him, but I want nothing to do with this man. Which is funny, because when I was younger, I secretly yearned to meet him. Close to my age and a fellow Scandinavian, his country isn’t too far away from mine. There was a childish hope he might even be some kind of kindred spirit, that he knew what the weight of a crown and kingdom (or a principality or a Grand Duchy) could do to a young heir. Before we ever stepped foot in a room together, let alone the same country, though, his mother shipped him off to boarding school in some foreign country (maybe the UK?) and I’d been sent to Switzerland, leaving anything and everything I was to learn about Prince Christian from the press. All of the assumptions about us being kindred souls were nothing more than rubbish. This prince isn’t a kindred spirit. He and I . . . we are nothing but fellow minor royals in a big world filled with more powerful, influential countries.

It is best not to even speak to him—or any of the princes present, at least voluntarily. The RMM is legendary for the amount of one-night stands which occur between heirs.

For a split moment, hot eyes bore into me, blatantly taking me in like he’d never seen another woman before. The hairs on the back of my neck bristle in indignation, but then he blinks, and the look is gone.

Before I turn on my heel, though, he offers what technically can be called a smile that in actuality is too breathtaking to fully describe, with blindingly too white teeth that leave me wondering if they’re capped.

“My apologies,” he says to me in English, with a too crisp British lilt bearing no hint of our Scandinavian heritage. It makes me simultaneously want to grind my teeth together and sigh in happiness because his voice and accent are way too sexy and fit perfectly with his appearance. And then, just when I think I can’t stand properly any longer, he bows to me too perfectly—sharp, from the waist, with an arm crossing his chest, like he’s had a lifetime practicing just such a move so the ladies around him would swoon. “I’m—”

No. He cannot be allowed to sweet talk me. Or look at me in such a way. Does he think I’m one of the spares trolling these tiny hallways for a stud? Or that the moment I arrived, I was on the hunt for someone to take my mind off of the RMM?

I hold up a hand and slash it through the air; unbelievably, he silences immediately. Jesus almighty. He’s got too perfect manners. Will he stop it already?

I can’t believe I’ve been here for all of an hour or so, and I’m already having to set men straight. Defense mechanisms I didn’t even know I had kick into gear. “Look. I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but no matter what you may think, I’m not some easy get. Save your propositions or proposal for someone else.” My back straightens, tight as a rod, as manners beat into me by my mother fight to regain control. “I’m not here for
that
.”

No matter what my parents believe or insist upon.

It’s a relief to say it, to get it out even though I know I’m swimming against the current. Maybe, just maybe, if behind closed doors I manage to make myself undesirable, these princes will dig their heels in and refuse to even entertain the notion of aligning themselves with The Hereditary Princess of Vattenguldia.

In the heat of my words, Christian’s mouth drops open, his eyes widening significantly. His cheeks blaze scarlet, like I slapped him smartly for impertinence. Which maybe I should have. Except, this embarrassment is way too disarming on him.

I must get out of this tiny hallway already.

His words are slow-motion confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“I am here for . . .” He knows why I’m here. It is why he’s here, too. But I snap, “
Work
and nothing else. Understand?”

He continues to stare at me as if he cannot believe I cut him down so tidily in public. And perhaps he cannot, since even I admit it’s nearly unfathomable that anyone would ever reject such a fine specimen of princehood. Except, I am not just anyone. And I’m sure as hell not up for the highest bidder, even if he’s as shiny as this one.

Without another word, I drop into a polite curtsey. Just because I am rebuffing his princely charms, I do have some manners. And then I force myself to push past him in the narrow hallway in order to retreat to my bedroom.

As my shoulder brushes up against his arm, his smell curls around me. It’s faint, but damn him. He even smells too delicious.

Once out of his eyesight, I break into a vigorous pace. And then I find myself a nice little corner where I attempt to calm my racing heartbeat.

The horrors of this week have already sunk their claws into me.

chapter 8

Christian

What just happened?

All I wanted five minutes ago was to go somewhere, anywhere that didn’t include spreadsheets or mothers or fathers desperate to fob their precious heirs off to neighboring kingdoms. Preferably somewhere with alcoholic beverages. As I’m trapped on this hilltop for the next week, I figured the next best thing to Sven’s Pig & Roast Pub was my room and the small wet bar my mother insisted upon.

And then the Hereditary Princess Elsa of Vattenguldia appeared.

For a moment, I felt . . . not stunned, because that would make me sound like a fucking idiot, but something like it. There was a Norse Valkyrie in front of me here at Hearst Castle, and she was all fire and righteousness and inhumanly lovely, which made sense since she had to be a figment of my imagination. Except, then she spat out her…refusal of a proposal never uttered—

Holy. SHITE.
She thought I was proposing to her!?

“Your Highness?”

Parker stands before me, stacks of folders in his hands, regarding me as if he fears I had a stroke in the midst of the hallway. Which, I might have, considering what just happened. Women do not randomly go about yelling refusals of proposals never uttered to strangers. Not even at the RMM.

Do they?

“Chris?”

My feet are forced to uproot. “Yeah. Yes.” I shake my head; so many crisscrossing cobwebs block rational thought. And then I run directly into a tassel hanging down from one of the lights. Bloody hell, I’m a right mess.

“Are you all right?”

Some Valkyrie just came along, sheared off my balls, and slung them over her shoulder as she rode away, victorious in her mysterious efforts to confuse the living hell out of me. So, no. I am not all right.

But men do not tell each other this. “I’m fine.” Why am I so shaken? This is asinine. She’s not a Valkyrie. She’s clearly a fucking harpy.

And maybe, just maybe she left my balls somewhere here in the hallway. I have a discreet glance around.

“Are you su—”

“Fine.”

He holds out a hand and ushers me toward the hellhole I share with my mother and brother. “Might I inquire why you’re out in the wide open rather than in your room?” More quietly, as no one else is around, he murmurs wickedly, “Unless you’d prefer to go back downstairs?”

Is he insane? “God,
no
.” Because there is no way I’m going back to hobnob with my mother. No. Bloody. Way. Before the horror of the gardens, I was stuck for two hours of meetings with the She-Wolf sitting right next to me, reeking of dead roses dipped in the world’s worst perfume, all the while shoving notes about girls present. It was worse than hell, leaving me positive that in some former life, I was a truly shitty person to deserve such a fate.

“Then, by all means, let’s go get you a cocktail.”

“Who says cocktail?”

He motions around us. “Frank Sinatra.”

“Sinatra was more 50s and 60s than 30s and 40s, which was”—I mimic him by motioning around us—“this place’s heyday.”

Parker’s chuckles rumble from beneath his breath. “You read what I sent you after all.”

“I always read what you send me.” His eyebrows shoot up in disbelief, so I add, “Also, I feel like Sinatra would have called it booze.”

At this, his humor grows louder. “Fine. Let’s go get you some booze, Chris. Are you happy now?”

The corners of my lips tick upward. “I’ll be quite happy with some booze, thank you.” I’m also pleased he’s loosening up a bit, too. After years of friendship, far too much formality has crept between us since he took on the position of my personal secretary. When I offered the job, I thought it was a brilliant idea—I could trust one of my best mates, and it would be fantastic to have him around. But then he went and insisted upon a formal distance between us, as if we were no longer mates but simply prince and employee.

But here he is, sounding much like the Parker I’ve known the majority of my life.

Back in the dual-level room I share with my family, Parker pours us two glasses of cognac. Personally, I find the liqueur disgusting, but as Her Royal Highness often reminds Lukas and me, “Cognac is what my sire drank before me, and his sire before him. Our family imbibes in cognac.”

If only my mother saw the merit of whiskey. Or, hell, stout. What I wouldn’t do for a good, strong stout right now. But I sip the warm piss anyway as I settle upon the portable bed I’ve been provided. I’ll be damned if I’m the weak link in a line of cognac drinkers. “What do you know of Elsa Vasa?”

Parker had just leaned back into one of the chairs in the room, his eyes closing against the syrupy sweet sting of the liqueur, but my question straightens his spine. “The Vattenguldian princess?”

At least this is Parker and not Lukas I’m asking, because then I’d never hear the end of it. “Yes, obviously the Vattenguldian princess, unless there is another Elsa running around the RMM. What do you know about her?”

He tugs his overflowing leather satchel to where he’s sitting and digs through it for a few seconds before extracting a slim file. From our debriefing prior to arriving at the Summit, I happen to know that there were numerous similar folders within, all containing dossiers of present fellow royals and their families.

He’d urged both Lukas and I to read the files on the flight over. My brother flat out rejected the suggestion. I’d gotten through half of the alphabetized dossiers before napping; it was the easiest way to escape the She Wolf’s incessant and frankly revolting scheming over how best to trap the girls she favors into marriage. (Let’s just say seduction was involved, a topic one ought to never have with a parent.) Due to the nap, though, I hadn’t gotten to the Vs, so the Valkyrie and her ilk are still a huge question mark in my mind.

So he’s right. I don’t read everything he gives me.

I’m passed a file labeled VATTENGULDIA. “Elsa Victoria Evelyn Sofia Marie of the ruling House of Vattenguldia, the Vasas—”

“Even my name is not so long,” I interject, startled.

Parker pays me no heed, continuing, “—is the eldest daughter of His Royal Highness Gustav and Her Serene Highness Sofia. Her childhood was spent at the elite boarding school Le Rosey in Switzerland, where she earned impeccable grades. A graduate of Oxford University, she is twenty-eight years of age and is fluent in five languages. At Oxford, her studies focused on European history—”

I set my glass down on the floor and lean forward. “Yes, yes, I already know that.” Actually, I don’t. Nonetheless, it doesn’t matter if the Valkyrie likes history. All royals like history; studying illustrious family pasts are vain yet indulged ego boosts. “I mean, what do you
know
about her?”