Chapter Eight
Frederic
“If you don’t mind, sir, perhaps you could relax a little?” the photographer, Josef Benedetti, says, and not for the first time this morning,
“What do you mean relax? I’m perfectly relaxed,” I reply, feeling anything but. Then again, I imagine most people would feel a little uptight when they’re having engagement photos taken with a woman they have conflicted feelings about.
I feel her magnetism. Her radiance. Her beauty. Her free spirit is intoxicating, and when she looks at me with those big questioning eyes, something new happens in my chest. Something warm. Expanding.
But as charming as Astrid is, she represents the biggest risk of my life.
In a word, she’s dangerous.
How could I possibly be relaxed around that potent emotional cocktail?
“Move a little closer to your fiancée, if you could, sir,” Josef Benedetti instructs.
I move approximately three centimeters closer and risk looking at Astrid.
She’s stunningly beautiful today in a navy skirt suit and demure blouse.
Her pretty blonde hair falls in soft curls over her shoulders.
The navy suit brings out the blue of her eyes, and when she looks up at me, they sparkle like precious sapphires.
Lady Letizia’s words ring in my ears. You’ll be in love before the month is done. But then Lady Letizia went on to confess to falling in love with her husband in twenty-two seconds. Who does that?
I’m not falling in love with Astrid. I’m just… admiring her. Like a fine work of art.
Yes. That’s it. She’s a fine work of art, with whom I’m to be bonded for the rest of my life.
No, that sounds even worse.
Astrid is both dangerous and unpredictable. I am not falling in love. I’m simply struggling to maintain the barrier between the Prince and the man.
It’s a battle I’m determined to win.
“Why don’t you sit, sir?” the photographer suggests.
“That’s a good idea, Fred,” Astrid agrees. “We could sit down and hold hands or something.”
Hold hands?
I can manage that.
We sit on one of the deeply uncomfortable sofas in the conservatory, and Astrid immediately angles toward me, holding out her hand.
I take a breath to steal myself and take hers in mine.
Her soft, warm fingers slip between my own, and a shot of something electric zings up my arm, doing something unwelcome to my belly.
I snap my hand away.
“No. This will not do. We need to be standing. All royal engagement photographs are of the couple standing. It’s tradition.
” My voice is gruff as I spring to my feet like a jack-in-the-box.
I stride back to the French doors where we had originally begun this excruciating photographic experience and wait for Astrid.
“If that’s what you want, sir,” Josef says as he chases after me. “Is that all right with you, ma’am?”
“Of course it is,” she says lightly, because she says everything lightly. Nothing seems to bother her. Nothing seems to faze her.
Not even my erratic, questionable, and sometimes rude behavior.
Right now, I would love nothing more than for this torture to be over so I can retreat to my study and read something to stretch my mind.
Anything to take my thoughts off how beautiful Astrid is, how our proximity is making me feel things I have no intention of feeling.
How her mere presence makes me fear that I might lose control.
She joins me by the doors, that permanent smile brightening her features. “You’re doing great,” she tells me, even though we both know I most certainly am not.
We pose for some more photos, both of us standing close to one another, but not too close.
“I have an idea,” Astrid says.
“What is it?”
“Why don’t we just talk to each other? I could tell you a joke or something. Who knows, I might even make you smile again.”
“I don’t know—” I begin, but she’s already started one.
“What do you call a goat that lip-syncs?” Her eyes are bright with mischief.
I shake my head. “I have no idea.”
“Billy Vanilli!” she declares with enthusiasm, and several of the people in the room laugh.
I narrow my gaze at her. “A Billy Vanilli? Isn’t that just a vanilla billy goat?”
“No, silly,” she says, tapping her hand lightly against my lapel. “Like Milli Vanilli, the band that got busted for lip-syncing back in the 80s.”
“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.”
“That’s right. You only listen to classical music. I forgot.” She sighs in mock despair. “Milli Vanilli were two very handsome men who danced beautifully but didn’t sing their own songs. They were exposed a few years ago on MTV. But you don’t know what MTV is, do you?”
“Of course I know what Music Television is,” I reply, using the full title of the TV station which, frankly, I’m surprised I know. “And that doesn’t sound very ethical to me.”
She sucks in air, her shoulders lifting in obvious frustration. “Should I try another joke?”
“If you must.” I lift my chin and prepare myself.
“Let me think.” She taps her forefinger to her chin, her eyes lifting to the ceiling. She looks utterly adorable, and I have to resist the urge to slip a hand around her waist, pull her against me, and kiss those full lips of hers.
What?!
What am I thinking? I can’t complicate this arrangement with feelings. This is a straightforward transaction: an arranged marriage for the betterment of our two countries.
I can’t go kissing a woman who so obviously thinks I’m ridiculous, trying to make me smile with her childish jokes. As sweet as she is, she’d probably reject me in an instant, and then I’d be humiliated.
“How about this one? What’s a goat’s favorite type of math?” she asks.
I think for a moment before I reply, “Goat-ometry?”
Her jaw drops, her eyes growing to the size of saucers. “How did you know, Fred?”
“Because it seemed silly enough to be the answer.”
Despite my crotchety response, her face morphs into a beautiful smile, and I can’t help smiling back at her, this woman who tells silly jokes purely to make me smile.
I’m vaguely aware of the clicking of a camera in the background, and it takes me a moment to realize that the photographer is snapping shots of us as we grin at one another like a couple of… well, like a couple. A real couple.
Immediately, my back stiffens.
“Oh, that was a lovely moment, but we seem to have lost it,” Josef says. “Let’s try something else. Put your arm around your fiancée, sir, and smile at her, just as you did a moment ago.”
Put my arm around my fiancée? Is he mad?
“I don’t think that’s necessary—” I begin.
“Oh, it’s very necessary, sir. You’re engaged, and engaged people like to touch each other. Let’s show the nation how you feel about this beautiful northern princess of yours.”
I glance at Astrid. She’s pressed her lips together, clearly biting back a smile.
She’s enjoying my awkwardness. My humiliation.
Everyone in the room watches me. I have no choice but to do as the photographer instructs. This is meant to look like a love match to the media. I can’t risk it looking anything but.
Slowly, with my heart thudding against my ribs, I reach for her. I rest my hand on her shoulder. She’s warm beneath my touch, and I can feel her breathing, which means she can probably feel my heart beating right out of my chest.
It’s fine. Everything’s fine.
“Good. Now, Princess Astrid, please lean a little closer to your prince.”
Astrid doesn’t hesitate. She moves so that her body angles toward mine, her shoulder fitting perfectly beneath my arm.
It’s like we slot together, two pieces of a puzzle snapping into place.
Her scent fills the air around me, and my entire left side becomes acutely aware of her in a way that is entirely inappropriate for a man trying to maintain his distance.
“Well done! Now, Prince Frederic, why don’t you look at the Princess?”
I tighten my jaw.
I’ve got this.
I turn my gaze to Astrid to see her smiling up at me as though we’re engaged because we’re in love, not because it’s the sensible political move for two struggling nations.
“Now, how about you lean in for a kiss?” the photographer suggests.
“A… a kiss?” I stutter, my belly doing an almighty flip that has me gasping for air.
Has he completely lost his mind now?
“Exactly,” he replies.
“I don’t think that’s appropriate for an official engagement photo for royalty, Mr. Benedetti,” I sniff.
Astrid’s lips twitch as she suppresses a laugh. I’m profoundly uncomfortable, holding her in my arms, and she looks like she’s having the time of her life. “Come on, Fred. I won’t bite,” she murmurs, low enough so that only I can hear.
Her voice is light and breathy, and it does things to me. Things I don’t care to acknowledge.
“Are you… are sure you want to kiss me?” I ask, sounding far more like an uncertain fourteen-year-old than the Crown Prince of Ledonia.
But around her, I am uncertain. I’m attracted to her, at the same time as unsettled by how easily she slips past my defenses, as though they were never there to begin with.
She ignites a panic in me that she has the power to upend everything about me that I’ve created in my life.
The stoic, emotionless prince, always serene and in control.
With Astrid, I could lose that control, and that’s the last thing I want.
“I want to kiss you, Fred,” she replies, her voice soft as she lifts her chin and closes her eyes.
Well, this is happening.
I swallow as I glance at the photographer, who throws me an encouraging smile. I know I need to kiss her now. The room expects it. She expects it. And I want to kiss her, really kiss her, know what it feels like to touch her in such an intimate way.
I can do this.
I lean in cautiously, as though approaching a skittish horse or a ticking bomb. Our lips meet in the softest brush, and for a single second, I feel absolutely nothing.
Then she kisses me back. It’s not dramatic or awkward. It’s perfect, and something warm detonates in my chest. My hand tightens on her shoulder and she makes a tiny, surprised sound against my lips. It is, without even a hint of exaggeration, the most dangerously adorable sound I’ve ever heard.
My brain screams, Back up! Back up! But my lips, my body, my heart? They feel like they’re home.
Somewhere behind us, the photographer breathes, “Wonderful! Hold that!”
Only then do I realize what’s happening. We’re still kissing. In public. Being immortalised for generations of royal biographers.
My brain finally wins. I pull back and Astrid’s eyes ping open. They’re wide and a little dazed.
“Oh,” she whispers, as though surprised by her own reaction to the kiss.
Oh, I echo silently. My pulse is still attempting Olympic-level gymnastics and I really don’t trust myself to speak right now.
Our first kiss, and it was incredible. Soft, chaste enough, but filled with so much more than I could ever have anticipated. Yes, I’m physically attracted to Astrid, but I’m also drawn to her spirit, to her lightness.
Perhaps Lady Letizia wasn’t entirely wrong. In fact, if that kiss is anything to go by, she might well have been 100 percent right.
And the thought absolutely terrifies me.