I still. That catches me off-guard. “What do you mean?”
She sighs and looks down at her glass as she swirls the liquid around. “I mean…let’s be reasonable here. This can’t possibly happen.”
“Why not? You said you’d give it two weeks.”
“I’m just buying time,” she says. “I mean, I meant it, but at the same time, now that I’m here…how is this even going to work? Do you really think in two weeks I’ll be able to look at you and agree to spend the rest of my life with you?”
It shouldn’t sting but it cuts pretty deep. Thankfully my face shows nothing.
“And you,” she goes on, “how can you think the same about me? If you do, it’s only because you have to. That’s the only reason we’re both here now. Because you have to be.”
I clear my throat, feeling the wind taken out of my sails.
She’s right.
Or at least she was. If suddenly my father decided to call the whole thing off, said, I didn’t need to do this, if it was no longer his wish, would I part ways and never think about Ella again? Or would I pursue her relentlessly because there’s something inside me that’s determined to uncover who she really is? I joked that she didn’t have a fun bone in her body but the truth is I think she does. I think she’s just waiting for it to be exposed.
“So I have to because it’s what my father wants,” I tell her. “And you have to because you don’t want to disappoint your own father. It doesn’t mean that we can’t have a little fun over the next two weeks.”
She chews on her lip for a moment. “I thought you said I wasn’t fun.”
“Prove me wrong then, Princess.”
She doesn’t say anything but takes a rather large gulp of her scotch, coughing as it goes down.
“Well, that’s step one,” I tell her. “Step two is playing the game. And no, don’t worry, it’s not a drinking game. It’s a getting to know you game. I call it…question tiiiiime!” I sing that last bit like it’s part of a game show.
She cocks a brow. “Question time?”
“Question tiiiiime! You have to sing it.”
“And how do you play?”
I’m actually making this game up on the spot and my mind wants to run with it in a million different directions with dares and stunts and pop quizzes and verbal shoot-outs, but I decide to keep it deceptively simple.
“I ask you a question. It can be any question I choose. You have to answer it honestly. There is no lying, no evading, no avoiding the question, no matter what it is. In return, you then get to ask me one question, only it can’t be a question I’ve previously asked you.”
She wiggles her mouth in thought and makes a “hmmmm” sound.
I go on. “We can play two times a day, morning, night, whenever the person wants to call it. And the most questions we can ask at a time are three. If you have more than three, you have to save it for later. But if I ask you three, you have to ask me three. If I ask you one, you have to ask me one.”
“Sounds simple enough,” she says carefully.
“Hey, you said you wanted to get to know me. I think by the time these two weeks are up, you’ll know me pretty well. And vice versa. Providing you’re not a liar.”
“I’m not a liar,” she says haughtily.
“Don’t get all high and mighty. According to your father, we’re currently engaged. What did you tell him anyway? You must have spoken to him after?”
“Does this count as a question?”
“No,” I tell her. “If it’s question time, you have to sing it. This is just me being curious.”
She sighs long and hard and has another sip of her scotch. When I’m done with this woman she’s going to be drinking like a fish. “I didn’t speak to him. I spoke to Schnell. His butler. And I told Schnell to tell my father to keep things on the downlow because we are hammering out the details.”
“Hammering out the details, huh? So that’s what this is.”
“More or less.”
“Definitely less hammering than I’m used to.”
She shakes her head at that and a piece of golden hair falls in front of her eyes. She blows it off her face.
She does a really good job of not looking at me most of the time. Which spurs my first question. “Okay. Question tiiime.”
She swallows uneasily but sits up straighter. “What?” she asks, staring at the fire.
I rub my lips together, trying to figure out the best way to get an answer. “Ella—oh, yes, that’s the other thing, we have to use each other’s names. Nicknames will suffice too. Okay, Ella…do I make you uncomfortable?”
She balks at that. “What?”
“You heard me. Do I make you uncomfortable?”
“No,” she says. Her answer is weak.
“Ella…be truthful. Don’t make me call you Princess Lying Pants.” I lean forward with my elbows on my thighs, watching her try not to twitch.
She exhales sharply through her nose, taking a moment, her dark eyes seeming to wrestle with the truth. Finally she says, “Okay, a little.” She glances at me and for once seems apologetic. “I’m just…you’re very different from me. You’re older. You’re, well, a bloody prince. You’re…look, I don’t have a lot of experience with men like you.”
“Or men in general?”
“Is that an official question?”
“No.” I have to save my questions. I have a lot.
“Anyway, yeah. I guess. I guess I’m just socially awkward or something.” At that she finishes the rest of her drink and doesn’t even wince.
I’m impressed.
“You didn’t seem awkward at dinner with my family,” I tell her honestly. “And that wasn’t your average dinner with your average family either.”
She shrugs and glances at me. There’s a softness in her eyes that wasn’t there before. It’s fucking beautiful. “I don’t know. I guess I just felt comfortable with them. Like they wanted me there, and no matter what I said or how weird I got about some things, they didn’t seem to judge me.” She pauses, looking away. “At least I hope they didn’t. They might be excellent actors. I guess you would have to be to be a royal.”
“That’s not true,” I tell her. “I’m a horrible actor.”
She tilts her head and glances at me thoughtfully. “I don’t know about that. I saw your public apology and I almost believed it.”
“See?” I point my glass at her. “Almost.”
“Well anyway, you were believable.”
“I’ll have you know that I was being honest in that apology.”
“Right.”
“It’s true,” I tell her, my blood getting hot over that remark. “I am sorry it happened. I’m sorry for the people it embarrassed, especially my family. How the fuck was I to know something I did in private would be shared with the world?”
“Is that a question?” she asks wryly.
“No.” I take in a deep breath. “No. It’s just…I didn’t mean for that to happen. And I care what you think about me.”
She laughs. “Are you serious?” Her eyes are wide and shining. “You don’t seem to care about anything.”
I consider that. “Maybe I should care more about certain things. But you don’t know what goes on in my head. It’s a fucked up place to be. I care deeply about a lot of things.”
“Like what?” she asks, tucking her leg under and facing me head on, suddenly interested.
“Is that an official question?”
She shakes her head. “No. Like you were before, I’m just curious.”
“I don’t know.” I mean, how do you explain what you care about? Where do you start? Where do you stop? “I care a lot about my family. My father. My mother. My sisters. They mean the world to me.”
“That I gathered,” she says. “Considering you’re getting married because of them.” She seems to think about that. “Can I ask you a question? Officially?”
“You have to sing it.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s the rules. For the first question of the bunch, you have to sing it. It’s like the official announcement. Or battle cry, depending on how things go.”
She’s not impressed but she takes in a deep breath and goes, “Question time.”
“No, no, no.” I raise my finger high in the air. “You have to sing it…question tiiime. Like in this high voice at the end, really drag it out. And you have to raise your finger in the air.”
“This is ridiculous. You sound like Nic Cage.”
“That’s exactly who you need to emulate.”
“Fine.” She raises her finger in the air, brows raised expectantly. “Question tiiime.”
“Perfect.” But inside I am laughing my ass off because she just did a pretty damn good impression of Nic Cage.
“My question, Magnus,” she says, her face going serious, “do you want to be king?”
Obviously I’ve been asked that question a lot, always by my family. This is the first time an outsider has asked me and I’m not sure how truthful I should be. What if I do end up marrying Ella and I am the king?
As if she reads this on my face, she says, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to say anything or judge you. I just want to know. Personally, I wouldn’t be cut out for it and I don’t think many people are.”
I nod, running a hand over my jaw, the stubble feeling scratchy against my fingers. It’s my own stupid game and I need to be as honest as I can be.
“Yes and no,” I tell her, taking a breath before I explain. “It’s complicated.”
“Most jobs are. Most families are.”