Chapter 3
She’d started to wonder if he had been unaware of who she was. That was kind of nice.
"Yes, I am." She gave what she hoped was a regal head tilt. "I am Queen Catherine Julianne Caroline of the Armstrong Dynasty in Eastern Novigardia."
The happy feelings inside dimmed when Jacob straightened, practically snapped his heels together, and bowed at the waist. "My apologies, ma'am."
Her shoulders drooped. "Please don't. I don't have very many people I can be just Kinsey with, not outside of my family. If I was that concerned about protocol and everything, you would have known from the moment we met or at least before dinner. There’s a reason I told you my name was Kinsey."
She watched him relax slightly. "Even if you are 'just Kinsey' to people outside of your family, there's still protocols to follow."
"I know, but that doesn't mean I like it all the time. It's exhausting." She folded her arms around herself. "I need to get back upstairs. Can you please put that away?"
Disappointment flitted across his face, but he nodded. Carefully, he closed the book and returned it to its protective storage area.
When he was done, she turned on her heel and started to walk toward the door to the rest of the palace. She was queen. No one was supposed to walk in front of her anyway.
If she could just keep the tears from falling until she was alone.
As she walked she sent a quick text to the security office so someone would escort him out of the building and to his vehicle.
So much for someone she could be herself around.
She should have known he didn't know who she was based on how he talked to her from the beginning and how he walked right next to her.
No one did that, not since she was a little girl. It had been nice. But fleeting.
Catherine could hear Jacob walking behind her as she approached the door.
His hand on her shoulder stopped her in her tracks, but she didn't turn.
"I'm sorry, Catherine. I would like to get to know you better. We'll both have to figure out how to navigate a friendship when there's so many other outside forces and situations to deal with." He sounded sincere.
It would take time to tell if he really was or not, but it would mean she had to take the chance.
Could she do that? She'd tried - and been burned - more than once before. There had been several friends who she later determined only wanted to get to know her because of her title and influence and the chance to be known as someone intimately connected to the queen.
It had been painful, each time worse than the last. You'd think she'd have learned after the third or fourth time, but each time the opportunity arose, they took advantage of her longing for connection outside of her family unit.
The last time had been the most painful, when she'd started to think a young man was interested in getting to know Kinsey, not Queen Catherine.
Then she'd found text messages he was sending to a school acquaintance, one who had tried to work her way into Kinsey's small circle before, but Kinsey had never particularly cared for her.
She never did figure out what favor they wanted, even after it became clear she wasn't a friend but a means to an end.
After that, she persuaded her father to let her finish her studies remotely rather than returning to the university, even though it was only ten or fifteen minutes away by auto. Instead, she spent her time almost as a recluse outside of her official duties and appearances.
Her senior assistant, stylist, and security team were the only ones outside of her family she could be herself around, but even they saw a partially obscured person. She was, after all, still the queen.
Would Jacob be any different now that he knew who she was?
She would have to take any friendship with him slowly. It wouldn't do to lose her heart to him only to have it broken one more time - even if it wasn't a romantic relationship.
If the way her breath caught in her throat was any indication, she certainly found him attractive. That wasn't enough to build a relationship on, but definitely something needed.
All of that flashed through her mind in a matter of seconds. Could she take the chance on him?
Something told her she needed to. "Very well. We can spend some time getting to know each other. Perhaps you could join my family for dinner a couple of times a week. Afterward, we can continue spending time with them or perhaps play a game or something of that nature."
"It would be an honor to get to know your family better." Once again, he sounded sincere.
Mumeleine liked his family. Maybe that meant she could trust Jacob.
"Very well. I will have someone reach out to you with what dates would be appropriate."
"No."
That made her turn. Except for her parents, people rarely told her no. "Excuse me?"
He took a step closer to her. Not close, not like he had been briefly while looking at the book, but close enough she could see the serious look in his eyes.
"If you want to spend time with me, even if it's just dinner with your family, you need to reach out to me yourself.
" His expression softened slightly. "I want to get to know Kinsey and whether she properly punctuates and capitalizes her grammatically and spellingly correct text messages or how she signs her personal emails.
I don't want to know how her assistant speaks during a phone call. "
Catherine searched his eyes, his face, to find any hint of insincerity.
But there was none.
"Very well. I will contact you in the next couple of days.
" She heard someone typing the code in for the outer door.
"However, I do have a few things I need to do.
.." Like shower, find pyjamas and a pint of ice cream, then retire to her room for the night.
"...so someone will escort you to your vehicle. "
"Thank you, Kinsey," he said softly, taking one more step toward her then leaning down to kiss her cheek. "I'm very glad I ran into you today."
The note of humor in his voice made her smile. She watched as he exited the door, but he didn't turn back before he was out of sight.
Once she couldn't see him any longer, Catherine made certain the Hall was locked behind her then went to the family quarters upstairs.
She hoped, prayed even, that she'd found someone who wouldn't take advantage of her and her status.
The shower lasted longer than she'd planned, but the ice cream still waited in the freezer in her dressing room for just such occasions. Curling up in her favorite chair, she looked out over the city below as she ate spoonful after spoonful of creamy goodness.
Forcing herself to stop, she put it away with just over half left.
A few minutes later, she was in bed and prayed that, when she woke, she would know it hadn't all been a dream.
This time.
Jake didn’t think he’d managed to screw everything up. Not completely.
It had taken a lot more bravado than he really felt to tell the queen he needed her to contact him herself rather than have an assistant do it.
He found himself wishing she wasn’t the queen. Not because he was overly intimidated, but because he knew it would make getting to know each other that much more difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.
Once back at his grandparents’ home, he looked her up online to find out more about her public persona.
He knew he wouldn't find anything about her private persona, or not much anyway. She’d be taking over as queen full-time in a few weeks, after her twenty-fifth birthday.
Her father had been her regent. Public opinion seemed to be that the Dowager Prince Consort, as he was called, had done an excellent job both as regent and in making certain Queen Catherine would be prepared to take over when the time came.
General consensus about her seemed to be that she was beautiful and elegant, just like her mother. She was kind and caring, just like her mother. She was certain to be an excellent queen, just like her mother.
Queen Catherine's longevity would certainly be significantly longer than her mother's reign, but she'd become queen at age ten so she already had been queen more than twice the length of time, even if she wasn't fully at the helm just yet.
He watched a few videos of her making speeches or visiting a charity, first with her father and Madeleine then on her own as she became an adult. He watched her go from a nervous, awkward, slightly gawky teen to a poised, self-confident, compassionate queen.
On his computer screen, he watched as she crouched in front of a girl of about six years old.
The little girl handed the queen a bouquet of flowers and a small teddy bear.
The commentary that went with it seemed to indicate the little girl told the queen it was for her new sibling.
He looked at the date the video was posted, but didn’t match up.
There had been no knew siblings, not in the last year. It must have been reposted by someone.
He let the ViewTube website choose the next video and continued down a rabbit hole studying the side of Catherine the outside world saw.
Eventually, he reached a video speculating on her relationship with a young man several years earlier. She looked more relaxed than he'd seen her in any of the other videos, but there was no sign of the woman who’d laugh-snorted in front of him that morning.
What happened with this relationship? Stopping the video, he pulled up a search box in another tab and typed in the name of the young man.
He found a few articles speculating on their relationship, and then a few months later commentary on the apparent end of any relationship since he'd been seen kissing another woman, believed to be a former friend of the queen.