Falling for the Bachelor King (Dynasties of the Sargasso Sea #2)

Chapter 1

How on earth was he supposed to concentrate on work of national and international importance when the one girl he’d ever had a long-distance crush on sat down just a couple of chairs away?

Very nice, plush private jet chairs that meant she was much further than she would have been in most other situations, but still.

Right there.

Frederick, King of Southern Santiero, did his best to ignore her as the plane sliced through the sky from her homeland of Eastern Novigradia to his, but that was much easier said than done.

No one knew about his silly crush.

Elise Stephens’ television show, Students of the Planetary Academy for Cultural Exchange or SPACE, had been his escape.

It started the day his father called him into the Office of the Monarch and told Frederick that he would be king far sooner than any of them could have suspected.

Once back in his room, he’d picked up the remote and mindlessly scrolled through the streaming services, searching for something that wouldn’t require too much attention. To find something that would also make him laugh seemed like too much to hope for.

He was man enough to admit that the reason he stopped on the show was the pretty girl about his age. It seemed to be about a boarding school in space, which he thought could be both interesting and easy enough to follow that he wouldn't need to pay close attention at all times.

That was when he realized the reason it was front and center of his things he might like probably had to do with the new season dropping in a few days.

It caused him to hesitate briefly, but before he knew it, he'd started season one of SPACE. It didn't take him long to finish all three seasons - and three musical movies - and be ready for season four when it dropped.

As the plane hit a bit of turbulence, Frederick shook himself. He didn't need to go down memory lane when he should be working on changes to the trade agreement with Northern Santiero.

Glancing up at Elise, he hoped it wasn't obvious that he was watching her more than he was paying attention to the document on his tablet. He’d known she was in Eastern Novigradia, but had left the gathering where she performed before she arrived.

He still wasn’t sure why Catherine, Queen of Eastern Novigradia, had requested Ms. Stephens join him.

Frederick closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath through his nose and blew it slowly out through his mouth.

"You okay?"

He looked up to see that Elise had swiveled her chair around so that she looked directly at him.

"Just trying to focus on trade agreements.

" After holding up his tablet for a second, he set it on the table next to him.

"It's impossible. I have a hard enough time focusing on them when I'm in my office, well-rested, and in the right mood and environment.

On a plane after a long week of political and relational events? It probably won't be my best work."

"I understand." She held up her phone. "I'm trying to read lines, but it's hard on my own and my phone isn't ideal anyway." Elise sat straight up. "Would you help me?"

Frederick blinked. "Help you what?"

"Run lines. It's for the Becoming Mrs. Scrooge.” She swiped a few times. "I can AirDrop it to you. You can read the other lines - mostly Scrooge's."

That made Frederick frown. "Scrooge?"

"It’s Becoming Mrs. Scrooge. I'm the female lead so most of my scenes are with him.

" The look on her face turned to pleading.

"I could really use the help. I'm freaking out a little bit about this part.

It's my first real movie role as an adult.

Everything else goes back to SPACE or something similar.

Teenage shows or college shows. This is different. "

Frederick tried to process the statement. He'd always thought she looked so self-assured and well put together. Could it be they were the same?

Capable of putting on a good front so no one knew how they really felt deep inside?

Finally, he shrugged. "As long as you don't expect me to actually act like Scrooge, I'm game."

A smile crossed her face and reminded him why he'd stopped on it that first day. "You are the actual best! Thank you!"

It took a couple of minutes to figure out how to get the script to him around the security protocols, but they managed it.

"How does this work?" he asked as he scrolled through the first bit of the script.

"You read anything that isn't Belle's line. Most of the ones before mine are Scrooge’s, I think.

If there's a big chunk between them, we can skip it, and obviously we'll skip the scenes I'm not in.

" She pulled her legs up into the cream leather chair and crossed them like most people did on the floor.

"I'm not in the first couple of scenes. I think the fourth line in the third scene is mine. "

Frederick scanned the screen, reading through the stage directions and other notes at the beginning. "Okay. I think I found it." He read two lines - one from Scrooge and one from Cratchit, who seemed to be leaving the scene.

They went back and forth, one line to the next.

Frederick found himself grateful this wasn't a romantic scene.

Was there a romance brewing in this show?

He tried to remember the full story line but he'd only seen the show once, during a rare trip to New York City several years earlier.

There was a kiss at the end, right? Was it between Belle and Scrooge?

It didn't matter. They wouldn't be acting it out if they made it that far into the script.

The reading back and forth didn't take as long as Frederick would have thought. They did skip a number of scenes and without the non-speaking portions of the movie, it went fairly quickly. She stood and wandered back and forth throughout the cabin of the plane as they went through.

They also didn't sing any of the musical numbers.

After giving her last line, Elise gave a dramatic sigh and wilted back into her seat. "I'm in better shape than I expected. I haven't been able to really run the whole thing with anyone."

"You need to know the whole thing before you start?" That surprised Frederick. "I would have thought you'd learn it a scene at a time, for whatever you're working on next."

She gave a shrug. "Sometimes. We'll shoot out of order, though, so I need to have a good idea where I'm coming from in each of them, even if we haven't already filmed an earlier scene."

"Makes sense." Frederick set the tablet on the table again. "It's fascinating to watch."

Elise leaned forward and lowered her voice. "I've seen the musical about a thousand times," she confided. "More than anyone realizes, though everyone knows it's my favorite. That helps with the memorization. It's not the same, but close enough it’s not entirely new."

"I've only seen it once." He felt kind of lame telling her that. "I don't get to shows very often. We get one or two Broadway type shows a year, and I try to go every time one is in the country, but I don't always get to. Just depends on my schedule."

"I go every time I have the chance. If I'm in New York or London for more than a couple of days, I try to see at least one show.

If I'm there a week or more, I see at least two or three. If I’m in a city with a touring cast performing, I try to go to most of those.

" She yawned, a big, unapologetic signal of exhaustion.

He chuckled.

"Sorry." She said the word, but to Frederick, it didn't seem like she meant it.

Flipping the buckle of his seat belt, Frederick stood and went to one of the cabinets hidden in the outer walls of the fuselage.

It took four tries to find the right one, but when he did, he pulled a pillow and blanket out.

"The chairs lay flat. You can turn them so they make one longer surface.

" He didn't know if she'd need more than one. She wasn't tall.

He'd probably looked it up or seen it somewhere, but he thought she was just a bit over five foot. Compared to his six-foot-one, she probably looked downright tiny.

Elise laughed, as though she'd had the same thoughts. "I think one chair will be long enough for me. My family nickname has been Short Stuff for most of my life. It’s not used often, but often enough."

"One chair it is, then." He found the mechanism to flatten it out.

She put the pillow on one end and twisted the chair a bit so the head would be closer to the wall. "You probably need two, right?"

Frederick rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.

"Uh, I actually have a bedroom in the back of the plane.

I'll be headed there for a nap in a few minutes.

" A look at the screen near the door to the bedroom told him they had several hours left.

He could sleep for some of them and still have time to freshen up before deplaning.

With a good-natured eye roll, Elise flipped the blanket out over the chair. "Of course, you do."

Frederick gave her a nod. "Sleep well."

It didn't take long for him to change into a pair of pyjama pants.

The dim lighting in main private area of the plane led him to toss his t-shirt on the foot of the bed as he walked down the aisle toward the galley to get something to drink.

Purposely, he didn't look toward Elise, preferring to give her privacy.

And that's why it shocked him when the door to the galley opened, and she ran into his chest - then bounced off, knocking her head against the edge of the door.

Elise cried out in pain.

Without taking time to think about it, Frederick picked her up in his arms and carried her back toward the chair where she'd planned to sleep. Laying her down would be awkward around the arms of the chair so he kept going to his room and set her gently on the bed.

Brushing her hair off her forehead, Frederick spoke quietly. "Are you all right?"

How on earth had her life come to this?