11. A romantic dinner for one

11

A ROMANTIC DINNER FOR ONE

T he table is set for two. There is a nice tablecloth and candles burning, but only one plate has food on it.

A romantic dinner for one .

I can't hold back my grin, thankful that Julien got rid of Prince Lucas for me. I just dread seeing Kaine's reaction—I'm sure he's going to be very upset with me.

Still, not even my slight fear of Kaine can take away my delight. I take a bite of my chocolate mousse cheesecake and sigh. The chefs pulled out all the stops with tonight's dinner.

"Princess Madeline," a voice growls behind me.

I've never heard somebody use an honorific with such intense anger before.

I turn and offer Kaine a grin as I put another bite in my mouth. It's hard to feel anything but blissful while eating dessert.

Kaine lifts an eyebrow. "Did you just moan?"

"Have you tried this chocolate mousse cheesecake? It's the best thing that has ever passed my lips. You should try it." I hold my plate closer to me. "But not mine. Get your own."

He walks over and takes a seat across from me. In the soft candlelight, Kaine doesn't look as broody.

Is he… smiling ?

No, absolutely not. There is no way that the guy who accused me of murder the day we met is smiling at me. Scowling, possibly. But he's definitely not smiling.

Kaine reaches his hand across the table and I watch him, curious what he's about to do. But quicker than my eyes can follow, he snatches my fork from my hand and takes a large bite of my cheesecake.

I growl at him.

He hands back my fork. "It is good."

I snatch the fork from his hand, narrowing my eyes. "Try that again and you might find yourself with a fork stabbed through your neck."

He smirks. "I'm a vampire—you can't kill me with a fork to the neck."

"No, but it would hurt." I glare at him once more before turning my attention back to my cheesecake. "If you're going to yell, wait until I'm done eating."

"You're supposed to be eating with Prince Lucas," Kaine reminds me.

I stab my fork through my cheesecake with a little too much force. "Well, I decided that spending any amount of time with Prince Lucas would be unpleasant for me. So I had Julien send him home."

He shakes his head back and forth. "You know, you will eventually have to face this whole marriage alliance thing."

"Yes," I agree. "But I'm not marrying Prince Lucas. If you want me to marry a prince, find one that I can stand being around for more than ten minutes. It's an important quality when choosing a husband."

Kaine coughs to cover a laugh. He turns his head, but I can still see the way his lips curl up in the corners.

"You know, you don't have to call me by my title. You can just call me Madeline," I tell him, hoping to distract him from the subject of Prince Lucas.

He shakes his head. "It wouldn't be appropriate."

I lift an eyebrow. "What did you call Lucien?"

"Lucien and I have been friends since birth. In private, I called him Lucien. But when we were in public, I always referred to him as Prince Lucien," Kaine explains, then quickly adds, "But it's different with you."

"How is it different?"

He waves his hands toward me. "Well, you're a female. It wouldn't be appropriate. It might give others the wrong idea. I don't want anybody to believe we're amorous of one another."

I snort. "Please. As cold as you are, nobody would believe that. Have you ever even been out on a date?"

"I've been out on plenty of dates." He crosses his arms over his chest.

A grin tugs at my lips. "Defensive, are we?"

He huffs. "You're just trying to distract me from the fact that you blew off your date."

I sigh, putting my fork down. "Look, I will try to find a husband from the limited pool of princes that are available, but I'm not going out with Prince Lucas."

"Then who do you want to go out with?" Kaine asks.

I shrug. "I don't know. Can't you just pick for me?"

He raises an eyebrow. "You want me to pick out your husband?"

"Maybe." I chew on my bottom lip, wondering if that would be a terrible idea.

I'm not good at this whole dating thing. Maybe it's not Prince Lucas at all. Maybe it's me. Okay… it totally is Prince Lucas. But my lack of dating experience probably doesn't help matters. I can't just have Julien send all my dates home.

"All right." Kaine nods his head firmly. "I will go through the files and choose who I think is best, based on your unique personality."

"Unique personality?" I tilt my head to the side, trying to decide if he's complimenting or insulting me.

He stands up from the chair. "Talk to you tomorrow, Princess Madeline."

"Seriously," I call after him, as he leaves the room. "What do you mean by unique personality?"

But Kaine is gone before I even complete my sentence.

Resigned, I turn back to my cheesecake and take the final bite. I stand from my chair to head to my room just as Julien comes into the room. He's wearing an amused smirk.

I walk closer to him. "Thank you for sending Prince Lucas away. I owe you."

Julien shakes his head at me. "Are you insane?"

"Why would you ask that?" I tilt my head to the side as I study my younger brother. We look so much alike that we could be twins.

"You just asked Kaine to pick a husband for you," Julien says, reminding me of the conversation I just had with my advisor.

"I get the final say. I'm just trying to weed out the bad options. I can't sit through another date like Prince Lucas."

Julien raises both eyebrows. "You didn't sit through a date with him. You were with him for maybe five minutes when I sent him away. And, might I reiterate, you asked Kaine to choose a husband for you."

I open my mouth to offer a rebuttal when his words sink in.

Oh, my gosh. I asked Kaine to pick out a husband for me. What was I thinking?

Julien laughs so hard he puts a hand on my shoulder to keep from falling over. "The look of horror on your face."

I narrow my eyes. "Shut up or I'll ask him to pick you out a wife."

That causes him to stop laughing. "You wouldn't really do that, would you?"

I shrug and turn to walk out of the room.

"Madeline!" Julien yells after me.

I cackle once I'm out of his hearing range.

Having a brother is so much more fun than I ever thought it would be. And to think, I used to like being an only child.

My phone vibrates with a call from an unknown number. Without considering, I swipe to answer the call. "Hello."

"Princess Madeline, hello."

I don't recognize the voice. "Who is this?"

"I apologize. I should've introduced myself. This is Prince Lucas."

I freeze in terror.

How did I not recognize his droll voice?

I force my voice to remain pleasant. "Hey, Prince Lucas. How… lovely to hear from you."

Lovely my foot.

I must save his number on my phone. Not because I'm going to call him back, oh no. I will save it so I know not to answer it next time. No more answering calls from numbers I don't recognize. If anybody wants to talk to me, they can contact me through my father.

Or Kaine.

I grin at the thought of forcing grumpy Kaine to screen all of my calls from potential suitors. He's going to love that.

"I was calling to make sure you're feeling better. Prince Julien said you have a stomach bug," Prince Lucas says, in a prim and proper voice.

If I say yes, what are the odds that he will ask me out?

I groan a little. "No, I'm still pretty sick."

"Maybe I can bring you some medicine over or some soup."

"Soup?" I ask.

"It's what humans do in movies when somebody is sick," Prince Lucas explains.

Movies ?

For some reason, I have a hard time picturing Prince Lucas sitting down to watch a human movie. Then again, maybe that's what he spends his free time doing because he hasn't learned about supernaturals. If he had, he'd know that succubi don't get sick.

"I'm sorry, now isn't a good time," I wrack my brain for an excuse. It's not like I can tell him that I don't want to get him sick—vampires can't catch anything as common as a stomach bug anymore than a succubus can. "I, uh, have been throwing up. A lot. I think I'm going to be sick." I do my best to make a retching noise. "Bye, Prince Lucas."

I end the call with a hard tap on the screen.

When I hear laughter behind me, I turn around to see Julien standing in the doorway. I narrow my eyes at him.

"I should've warned you." He motions to the phone in my hand. "You shouldn't answer any unknown numbers. You're going to be getting lots of phone calls from eligible princes."

"What about Damek?" I ask. "Do you think he'll call?"

Julien walks further into the room. "You want him to call?"

I shrug.

He smirks. "I'm not surprised you've got a crush on Prince Damek. All the girls love him. Even though he's twenty five, he's still not married. I'd wish you luck on dating him, but you are a succubus. If anybody has a shot with him, it's probably you."

"All the girls?" I sit down on the edge of my bed, trying to make it look like I'm not too interested.

Julien rubs a hand on the back of his head. "Yeah, you know. Pretty much every eligible female vampire from age eighteen to thirty."

"Oh." My cheeks grow warm.

Does Prince Damek think I was putting the moves on him? Does he think I'm just another girl trying to chase him? No wonder he seemed so surprised that I showed up at his house.

I worry my bottom lip between my teeth. "Do you think you can get me his phone number?" I hold up my hands. "I'm not calling him. But if he calls, I might want to answer."

He pulls his phone from his back pocket. "Sure. I've got his number. But if you do happen to call him, don't tell him you got his number from me. He made me promise not to give it to any girls."

I wonder if Damek has the same problem that I'm going to have—potential ‘alliances' wanting to set up dates.

The vampire community may be vast, but the dating pool for royals feels exceptionally small.

I copy Damek's number and put it into my contacts. I also input Prince Lucas's number, just so I don't accidentally answer his call. I silence his notifications too, just in case.

"So…" Julien crosses his arms over his chest. "Are you still keen on letting Kaine pick out your husband?"

"He's not going to pick out my husband. He's just going to help make the dating pool smaller." At least, that's what I hope he's going to do. "He's going to try to match guys with me and tell the guys who he thinks I would clash with that it's not going to work out."

He raises an eyebrow at me. "You don't have a lot of dating experience, right? Because, let me tell you, that isn't going to work. Guys are going to want to hear it from you , not Kaine."

I groan. "Why can't I just pick one and announce my engagement? Then they'd get the hint, right?"

"But then you'd have to get engaged."

"Right." I frown. "Are you sure you don't want me to abdicate the throne? You'd make a much better heir than me."

He snorts. "I have enough female attention—I don't need anymore, thanks."

This sucks.

I groan, covering my face with my hands. "We really have to find Lucien."

"Yes," Julien agrees. "Because then, there will be a whole extra person between me and the chance of ever being heir."

"I can see where that would be an appealing idea," I say, suddenly longing I had ten cousins between me and the throne like I do for my grandfather's throne.

Julien pats me on top of my head.

I shoot a glare at him. "I'm not a dog for you to pet."

"Hey, I got rid of your date for you last night." He points a finger at me. "You should be nice to me."

"You're annoying, but I love you anyway."

He whips his head to look at me, a huge smile playing on his lips. "I love you too, Maddie."