The Boss and His Cowgirl (18 page)

“I couldn't. Besides, what if my brother found out?”

Sally didn't know that Mila's brother was also the reigning king of Erminia, but she was aware that Rocco had been her guardian since they lost their parents many years ago.

“What could he do? Ground you?” Sally snorted. “C'mon, you're almost twenty-five years old and you've spent the last seven years in another country gaining valuable qualifications you'll probably never be allowed to use. You have a lifetime of incredibly boring state dinners and stuff like that to look forward to. I think you're entitled to a bit of fun, don't you?”

“You make a good point,” Mila answered with a wry grin. As much as Sally's words pricked at her, her friend was right. “What do you suggest?”

“It's easy. Professor Winslow said that if we wanted he could get us tickets to the sustainability lecture stream during the summit. Why don't we take him up on it? The summit starts tomorrow and there's a lecture we could
attend
,” she said the latter word with her fingers in the air, mimicking quotation marks, “the next day.”

“Accommodation will be impossible to find at this short notice.”

“My family keeps a suite close to where they said the prince is staying. We could fly to New York by late afternoon tomorrow—Daddy will let me use his jet, I'm sure, especially if I tell him it's for my studies. Then we check into the hotel and you could suddenly
feel ill
.” Sally hooked her fingers into mimed quotation marks again. “Bernie and the boys wouldn't need to be with you if you were tucked up in bed with a migraine, would they? We'll take a blond wig so you can look more like me. After a couple of hours, I'll pretend I'm going out but instead I'll go to your room and go to bed and pull the covers right up so if she checks on you she'll think you're out for the count. We'll swap clothes and you, looking like me, can just slip out for the evening. What do you say?”

“They'll never fall for it.”

“It wouldn't hurt to try, though, would it? Otherwise when are you going to get a chance to see the prince again? At your wedding? C'mon, what's the worst that could happen?”

What was the worst that could happen? They'd get caught. And then what? More reminders of her station and her duty to her country. Growing up in Erminia constant lectures about her duty and reputation had been all she'd known, after all. But after living and attending college in the States for the past few years, Mila had enjoyed a taste—albeit a severely curtailed one—of the kind of freedom she hadn't even known she craved.

She weighed the idea in her mind. Sally's plan was so simple and uncomplicated it might just work. Bernadette was always crazy busy—even more so since she'd begun making plans for Mila's return to Erminia. A side jaunt to New York would throw her schedule completely out—if she even agreed to allowing it. But Mila still had the email from the professor saying how valuable attending the lecture would be. Mila knew she could put some emotional pressure on the chaperone who'd become more like a mother-figure to her and convince her to let her go.

“What's it going to be, Mila?” Sally prompted.

Mila reached her decision. “I'll do it.”

She couldn't believe she'd said the words even as they came from her mouth, but every cell in her body flooded with a sense of anticipation. She was going to meet Prince Thierry. Or, at least, try to meet him.

“Great,” Sally said, rubbing her hands together like the nefarious co-conspirator she was at heart. “Let's make some plans. This is going to be fun!”

Copyright © 2016 by Dolce Vita Trust

ISBN-13: 9781488001772

The Boss and His Cowgirl

Copyright © 2016 by Silver James

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