6. Amy

CHAPTER 6

AMY

Idrum my fingers on the desk, my tablet propped up on a stack of books in front of me. My stomach is tying itself in knots as I wait for Gabby to answer the call.

This is the last thing I want to do right now. I was supposed to be there for her bachelorette. I should’ve been able to make it to Mykonos without a problem.

“Hey,” Gabby says, her tone bright and cheery, words slurring together a little.

“Sounds like you’ve been enjoying the wine.” I smile and twist the tablet a little, making sure that she can’t see Xander lounging on the bed behind me. “I’m sorry that I missed the trip. I’m going to make it up to you as soon as I can.”

Gabby gives me a hazy smile, waving her hand. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll be getting on the plane in a few hours. It’s fine that you’re still home. We can video chat when I get back.”

I bite my bottom lip. “Well, actually, I’m not home.”

That seems to sober her up quickly.

“What do you mean, you’re not home? Where are you?” Gabby’s tone is stern, reminding me of when she scraped me off the ground after my parents died.

Does she think that she has to do that again? Have I really let my life fall that far apart?

I rub the back of my neck. “I didn’t make it to Mykonos, but I made it as far as Katastinia and got stuck here. I might have met a guy, and since I have some vacation time still booked, I was thinking of staying in Katastinia and doing a little sightseeing.”

“With him?” Gabby asks, wiggling her eyebrows before bursting into a fit of giggles. “I bet the only sight you’re going to be seeing is his bedroom.”

“We’re not in his bedroom right now. We’re in a hotel.” I can’t help the smile that crosses my face. “I know there’s a lot I missed out on this weekend, and I’m sorry. It’s not going to happen again.”

“I know it’s not, but you need to stop worrying about that and have some fun. I haven’t seen you look this happy since before your grandmother passed, and even then, it was like you were just moving through a fog.”

“It’s been a long few years.” I force another smile and lean forward on the desk. “I’ve got to get going, but I’ll call you later and let you know what’s been going on.”

“Keep a diary of all the dirty details. You’re going to have to tell me everything.”

I grin and shake my head. “I’m not going to keep some journal for you to flip through when you get tired of the absolute filth you read. You’re just going to have to use your imagination.”

Gabby boos. “You’re no fun.”

“Bye, Gabby.” I laugh and wave to her as she blows me a kiss. “Have a good flight.”

“Call me!”

We end the chat, and I set the tablet to the side, spinning around in my seat to look at Xander.

He arches an eyebrow, an amused smirk curling the corner of his mouth. “She seems like she knows how to have a good time.”

I grin. “Yeah, she’s always been the life of the party. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through college without her. She pulled me off the ground when my parents died. She was one of the few people in the world who kept me going.”

“Your parents died?”

“When I was seventeen.” I get up and grab the last of my clothing from the closet, packing it into the open suitcase on the bed beside him. “It was an accident. I didn’t know how to go on then. My grandmother came and picked me up, and with her and my friends, they forced me to get back on the right track.”

“I’m so sorry about your parents. How bad were you?” he asks, hesitation in his voice as he gets up from the bed.

“You should be amazed I still have a liver, to be honest. Those first few months after they died were rough. I spent most of the summer between high school and college going to parties and trying to forget they were gone.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Xander’s eyes appear to be pooled in unshed tears as he takes some jeans from the pile on the bed, folds them and puts them into the suitcase. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

I swallow hard, my throat thick. “Thank you. It’s hard to talk about them sometimes.”

“Well, maybe we should talk about what’s going to happen when we get to the castle.”

My jaw drops as I stare up at the towering white stucco walls and the blue shingle roof, looking like the picture of Aegean bliss.

Xander stands beside me, one of my bags slung over his shoulder and the other pulling alongside him. “Come on. Atticus is going to be waiting for us at the side door.”

“There’s a side door?” I glance at the massive iron gates set in the wall that surrounds the castle grounds.

“Yeah. If we go through the front gates, then there’s going to be a horde of advisors waiting to lodge themselves up my ass. I don’t want to deal with it, and I know without a doubt that they’ll be too much for you to handle.”

I scoff and put my hands on my hips. “I think you’d be surprised. Come on. We can go through the front door like normal people and give them a piece of our minds.”

He laughs as he shifts the bags around and grabs my hand as I stop to walk forward, pulling me back. “I don’t think so. That’s a battle for another day. Come meet my cousins, Atticus and Daphne, and then you need to get ready for dinner later.”

“Fine, you win this one.” I follow him down the cobblestone road that leads to the side of the building.

A much smaller door is open in the side, and two people stand there. The man and the woman both have the same dark hair as Xander. While the woman has sea blue eyes that match his, the man’s remind me more of dark chocolate.

Xander nods to them both. “Amy, these are the only two of my advisors that you should bother paying any mind to. Daphne, Atticus, this is Amy.”

“Hi.” I shift my weight from one side to the other, already feeling out of place.

Both are wearing jeans that look like they cost more than an entire month of rent for my apartment. They’re perfectly put together, and while neither of them looks down at me, I’m sure that they’re judging me.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Daphne says, smiling as she reaches out to loop her arm through mine, guiding me through the wall entrance and onto the castle grounds.

It’s like I’ve been transported to another world filled with pristine walls and beige stones, intricate pops of color contrasting with the lush gardens.

There isn’t a single world in which I should be here, but I am.

Xander hands my bags off to Atticus. “Take these to her room, please. I have to go speak with Jorge, and then we’ll all get ready for dinner.”

I want to ask him to stay, but Daphne is already pulling me toward the castle. She pulls open one of the wooden doors to showcase a wooden staircase.

“There are hidden passageways throughout the castle,” Daphne says, dropping my arm and climbing the stairs. “If you want to avoid most of the politics and getting bothered in the middle of the day, you’ll figure out where they are fast.”

I laugh, but the back of my hands feels itchy, and when I look down, nervous hives are forming on the backs of them. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“Everything is going to be fine. This staircase leads directly from outside to the hall just outside your room. If you ever get overwhelmed and need to feel like a normal person, just pop into the stairwell and take off.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel better.”

We reach the top of the stairs and head down a short hall before Daphne presses against a small switch hidden between two stones. A door clicks open, and she eases it to the side before pushing curtains out of the way. We step into another hallway, but this one is lined with doors.

“Your room is right here.”

As soon as she swings open the door, I’m met with three men in suits and a stack of paper nearly as thick as my forearm.

Daphne plants her hands on her hips. “Surely this can wait until later.”

The shorter of the three men holds a stack of papers out to me. “You need to sign these.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “It’s going to take some time to read through them all.”

Stepping forward, Daphne snags the papers from them and sets the stack down on the intricately carved table in the sitting area of the bedroom. “Really, Amy, you don’t have to look at these right now.”

“It’s fine — even if it’s a little rude.” I give a pointed glare to the men before sitting down in one of the armchairs and starting to flip through the papers. I take a deep breath, trying to make sense of them all, but the words start to blur before me.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I take a moment before diving back in, flipping through every page until I know without a doubt that I can’t tell anyone this is fake.

And that I’m going to get the money to open my bakery in two years and six months.

That’s only nine hundred and twelve days.

I only have to keep up the act for that long, and then everything is going to be fine. Finally, I’m going to get to open the bakery.

If only Grandma could have been here to see it.

She was always my biggest champion. If there was a single person who believed I could do anything I set my mind to, it was her.

What would she think of me marrying a man I don’t know for a bunch of money?

Shaking the thought away, I finish signing the papers and hand them back to the lawyers, who file out of the room without another word.

Daphne shuts the door behind them, twisting the lock into place before turning to me. “We have to get you ready for dinner tonight. Xander messaged me your sizes earlier, so I may have gone creeping through your social media to find out what you like wearing.”

“Should I be scared about that?” I watch her walk across the room, throwing open a set of double doors to reveal a massive closet.

With her arms stretched out to both sides, she beams at me over her shoulder. “There’s a perk to pretending to be the future queen, and one of those perks is a hefty clothing budget.”

I cross to the other side of the room, ignoring the massive bed in the middle for now. It looks like it’s calling my name with the puffy white duvet and the canopy that hangs around it, but dinner is in less than two hours.

“This is more clothing than I think I’ve ever owned. In my entire lifetime.”

We step inside the closet, and Daphne goes to a rack of what looks like midi dresses. “Xander mentioned you were wearing something like this on the beach when you met.”

“So you went out and bought a dozen of them?”

She pulls out an emerald-green dress made of a soft ribbed material. “This one is going to pop with your hair and your eyes. He’s not going to know what hit him when he gets a look at you.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about him knowing what hit him. I just need to be presentable. Or whatever a future queen has to be.”

My stomach ties itself into a knot as I sink down onto the tufted beige ottoman in the middle of the room.

Daphne hangs the dress on a hook and crouches down in front of me. “You just have to breathe. Everything is going to be okay. Now, we’re going to get you dressed. Then you’re going to put one foot in front of the other and figure this out as you go.”

Xander stands as I enter the formal dining room, glancing at the worn oak table that looks long enough to seat at least two dozen people. “You look beautiful tonight.”

My cheeks warm as he pulls out a chair for me. “Thank you. You look good too.”

The black shirt hugs his body, his slacks close to his muscled thighs.

I allow my gaze to linger on him a little too long before the nerves take over. “I didn’t know what I should wear. Wasn’t sure if the lawyers were going to be waiting to ambush me again or not.”

He has the decency to wince. “I didn’t know they were going to be waiting there for you until I found Jorge. I’m sorry.”

“I survived, so it turned out okay.”

Smartly dressed staff members enter the room, setting trays of food in the middle of the table before heading back through the doors and into where I’m assuming the kitchen is.

The scent of steaks basted in garlic butter fills the air, making my mouth water as I reach for the serving spoon in the middle of the dish of mashed potatoes.

Before I can scoop any, someone appears and does it for me, putting the food on my plate before adding a steak and some of the braised broccolini.

This isn’t real life.

Xander cuts into his steak, allowing the juices to run into the potatoes. “I thought we should talk about what this engagement is going to look like. It’s best that we’re on the same page from the beginning.”

His tone is devoid of emotion, all business and none of the warmth that was there when I met him on the beach.

“All right.” I spear a piece of broccolini and pop it in my mouth.

“We’re going to have to make public appearances now that my advisors have approved of you⁠—”

“Wait, what do you mean, approved of me? I only met two of them. I don’t know much, but I’m sure a king has more than two advisors.”

“I do. They ran some background and criminal checks on you.”

“Invaded my life, you mean.” I put my fork down and lean back in my seat. “What else do I need to know about how this is going to go?”

“Like I said, there will be public appearances. The news that we’re engaged will be announced in two days, and then everything starts happening. We’re going to have to show the country how in love we are. They should eat it up. My father married a commoner, and the public adored my mother.”

“Commoner?” My eyebrows climb high up my forehead. “Well, that’s a fun way to say it while trying not to be a pompous, pretentious dick.”

Xander sighs and scrubs a hand over his jaw. “I didn’t mean it like that. These are just the facts of the relationship, and speaking about that, I think it’s best that we’re just friends from this point forward. Anything else could impair our judgment when it comes to acting for my people.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. Though I felt something with the night we shared together, it’s clear that it meant nothing to him. Not if he’s willing to remove anything more than friendship from the equation.

It’s probably for the best.

This relationship has a deadline. One that I’ve noted in my phone as BAKERY DAY. It’s in all caps to make sure I keep my eyes on the prize.

Xander gets up and moves closer to me, pulling a little velvet box from his pocket. “I figured I should do this properly, so we can at least remain consistent on our story. We’re going to tell the public that I asked you to marry me at dinner while celebrating our one-year anniversary, so here it is. Will you marry me?”

“Sure.” I take the box and set it to the side as he bends down and kisses the corner of my mouth.

“Thank you for doing this, Amy. You won’t regret it.”

Somehow, I don’t believe that.