Chapter 5 Royal
ROYAL
Margret knocks on my office door. “Royal, I’m so sorry to bother you.”
I’m only in office at Clark Enterprises because there was a shareholders’ meeting, which ended three hours ago. I’m trying to pack up and get out of here for the day, but it’s one metaphorical fire after another.
“You’re not bothering me. Unless . . . Did you eat the last donut out of the conference room?” I squint at her, and it gets the sour look on her face to soften.
“No.” She cants her head and shakes it with a light admonishment.
“I have a person on the phone, and I’m not sure how they were routed to me, but they swear they’re a vendor who has been personally working with you on a project that’s highly classified.
And they’re giving me all sorts of technical specs but refuse to be transferred to the technicians—”
“Margret. I’ve got it, you’re okay.” I demonstrate a big breath for her, and after she mimics me, I pick up my headset. “Go ahead and route the call to my phone. I’ll take over from here.”
The call comes through a few moments later.
I throw on my sweetest customer service voice. “Thank you for calling Clark Enterprises, this is Reuben Clark. May I know the person I’m speaking with?”
“Oh, thank god.” A woman’s breathy voice comes over the phone. It’s followed by an overdramatic sigh. “I knew if I kept trying, eventually I’d get a Cavanagh.”
It comes so naturally to use my pseudonym with that voice, I don’t even think twice about it. But it’s odd someone would know that the Clarks are really Cavanaghs in disguise.
I don’t confirm to the caller who I am. “Miss, you are?”
“Leticia D’Medici and you’re Royal Cavanagh,” Leticia says, and I can practically hear the smile in her voice.
It’s her. I sit back, a little shocked.
“I wouldn’t peg you for a Reuben.” She scoffs.
“Hey, what did a Reuben sandwich ever do to you? They’re delicious.” I’m quick to defend my cover identity.
“Mmm, no. No. No, they’re not.” She disagrees with ferocious adamance.
Strong-willed. My wolf is all the way forward, waiting with me for more from her.
Silence takes over the line, so I fill it. “So . . . you’re not a vendor, and we’re not working on a project together, let alone a highly classified one. What on earth were you reading to Margret for technical specs?”
“Oh!” Leticia giggles, and a smile pulls at my lips. “The manual to the toaster.”
“Who keeps a manual for a toaster?” I relax into the seat, at ease, smiling at her actions. That was a clever use of resources.
“Mmmm, my mother, but worse yet, we don’t even own this toaster anymore. The manual is from the eighties. And I’m not allowed to get rid of it.”
“That manual is older than both of us? I’m impressed.” I drum my fingers on the desk but can’t help myself.
I flip open my laptop, access the system to Casa D’Medici, and flick through the camera feeds. I find Leticia in the kitchen, sitting on a stool in the corner, with a pamphlet unfolded in her lap.
She’s wearing her blonde hair in a high ponytail, anchored with a bow, and a beautiful blue dress.
Radiant. My wolf focuses on her.
He’s not wrong.
“It’s more impressive if you see the stack of manuals from every appliance ever owned in this kitchen.”
Leticia can’t possibly know I’m watching her, but she pulls open a cupboard door down by her thighs. I can’t see into the cupboard, but I assume it’s full of every manual known to kitchenkind.
“Well, if you’re not calling for the aforementioned nonexistent highly classified project, may I ask, what gives me the honor of talking to our very own Mafia princess today?”
“Oh, ew, no. Don’t call me that.” Leticia wrinkles her nose. She’s shaking her head, and the movement sends her hair flicking back and forth.
“No, not princess?” I repeat it, and she shudders.
“Not a princess.” She sighs, and her voice goes quieter. She brings her hand up to muffle her words. “But I was calling to try and get a hold of Valor.”
I lean forward, looking at the screen more intently. Why would she need to hide that?
“Well, I can pass on a message for you, but he’s preoccupied today.” The honest truth is, I don’t know where Valor is, and I’m too enamored with her to take the time to look up his coordinates.
“Can I trust you to really do that, or are you trying to get me off the phone?” Leticia drops her hand away from her face and picks up the toaster manual. She looks defeated.
“You can trust me.” I assure her. “I’ll get him the message today. I won’t promise before the end of business, but I will promise before midnight.”
“I’m big on promises.” She warns me as she stands up from the stool and squats to put the manual away in the bottom cupboard. “I want to see Antonella. An invite to dinner would be a really good place to start.”
“All you had to do was ask nicely. I’d be glad to take you to dinner.” Please don’t take that as creepy. Did I say that creepy-ish?
She lets out a gasp and snaps up into a standing position. Her fist clenches at her side. “Well, I would never.”
“Never go to dinner with me?” I wince.
My wolf takes a cowering position, and the secondhand shame is a lot to bear.
“Would never invite myself out to a meal with someone.” She lets her fist go, and I relax a bit.
“But you would invite yourself to dinner with Valor and Antonella?” I clarify.
“Yes.” Leticia sounds annoyed. She goes to another cupboard and begins to pull out something from inside. “Because it’s different when Antonella would be the one cooking the meal.”
“So, not at a public restaurant.” I note the specificity of this demand.
“That would be too weird.” Leticia sets a large mixing bowl on the counter before spinning to another counter space, this time opening up a drawer.
“Too weird, got it.” I watch as she moves about the kitchen.
We could be eating with her too, my wolf demands. We’re both enthralled with her dance as she gathers things and sets them on the counter. You could pretend to cook more than one meal. Make her come visit.
My cheeks heat at the thought. Mom made sure Valor and I could cook at least one meal enough to impress a girl. It’s not that she hasn’t tried to make me learn how to cook more, but I’m much more inclined to snacking and easily made foods than a whole meal.
“So . . .” Leticia grabs something from a cupboard, and I instantly recognize it as earbuds. She slips one in and then the other before speaking. “What should I bring to dinner at Valor and Antonella’s?”
The quality of the earbuds is fantastic. Her voice floods into my brain at a new wavelength and sends shivers down my spine.
“Nothing,” I answer out of reflex.
You’re never supposed to show up at an alpha’s house with a gift unless you’re a visiting alpha, and Leticia definitely doesn’t qualify. Valor isn’t exactly the pack alpha. That’s my dad, but everyone treats my older brother as alpha too.
She scoffs and makes a tutting noise. “You can’t show up to someone’s house after inviting yourself and come empty-handed. It’s rude.”
“One could say it’s rude for them not to have invited you over already.” I try a redirect because Valor would graciously accept something but then spend the next six months trying to figure out how to reciprocate with something she’d appreciate. It’s quid pro quo on steroids with him.
That might be funny to witness though. My wolf supplies.
I’m undecided in that department.
“You know what, you’re right!” Leticia huffs, straightening her spine and raising her head, her fluffy ponytail flopping. She’s standing so tall and strong. I expect a hand to go to her hip with sass. “I won’t bring anything on the principle I should have been invited over already.”
“Yeah! You tell ’em!” I agree, feeling her self-empowerment through the phone.
She sighs and slumps back down, measuring things out to put them in her big bowl. “You’re sure he won’t think it’s rude?”
“Positive.”
I can feel the seconds running out on this phone call.
Get her number! My wolf whines, picking up on my anxiety.
“Let me get your number; that way I can be sure Valor follows through.” I slide open my desk drawer and make sure to hold the pen up toward the microphone when I click it so she knows I’m serious.
“Leticia!” a woman shouts shrilly. “You better not be messing around, there is so much work to do!”
“Ope, gotta go. I’m counting on you!” she says before rattling off a phone number and disconnecting the call.
It was too fast to catch, but I didn’t need the digits. I only needed permission.
Leticia pulls the earbuds out of her ear in a hurry, stashing them back in the cupboard, barely getting back to the bowl before a woman with dark raven hair comes into the kitchen camera view.
I don’t need to turn the sound on to watch her get scolded.
There’s finger pointing and wide gesturing. The strength Leticia bolstered herself with when thinking about telling off Valor falls out of her body, leaving her making herself smaller. She’s all but cowering behind the big bowl.
Guilt sinks a rock in my stomach that rolls around with anger. She doesn’t deserve that.
We could make it so she doesn’t have to deal with that. My wolf starts putting together the idea of playing house with Leticia.
It soothes the anger to agree with his fantasy, but that’s all it can be. Leticia D’Medici is, as much as she doesn’t want to be called such, the real D’Medici princess, and there is no way they’d ever let her be with a Cavanagh, let alone be seen with one.