Royal Date (16 page)

“It’s going really well. I can hardly wait to read what you write about your time with Nico.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively at me, and I laughed.

“I hope you’re not disappointed. It is cool though that they’re including you in the planning with all these important people.”

She ran a hand over her perfect platinum blonde bob. She paid a very nice man a lot of money to keep it that shade. “Well of course they included me, darlin’. You know everything’s better with a twist of Lemon.” She smiled at me over her phone. “Looks like I’ll have some free time tomorrow if you want to finish up our Christmas shopping.”

“Fine by me.”

We returned to the palace, and when I stepped inside, I stopped in surprise. Everything had changed. The entire interior had been transformed for the holiday—long, thick strands of green garland that were broken up by velvet red ribbons had been wrapped around columns and doorways. There were fake Christmas trees with twinkling white lights every few feet, next to the suits of armor. I smiled when I noticed someone had wrapped ribbons around the neck of the helmets on the armor. Here in the giant entry hall clear glass ornaments had been hung at varying lengths, like an artistic interpretation of snowflakes.

Festive didn’t even begin to cover it. Christmas had exploded in the castle.

Lemon told me she’d see me later as Giacomo hustled me up to my room. Apparently I was to have a meeting with a seamstress. Before I could ask why, Serafina had launched herself on me. “Oof,” I said as I held on to her.

“I missed you!” she said in a desperate voice.

I lifted her up onto my hip. “What have you been up to?”

“Nothing. It’s been so
boring
without you.” Like I was solely responsible for her entertainment. Like she didn’t have a life before I came to the palace. I tried not to laugh. I liked her a lot. She was fun.

Giacomo introduced me to Liliana, one of the three full-time seamstresses on staff. She had laid out a variety of fabrics on my bed. I put Serafina down, and she climbed up on the bed to rub the different materials against her cheek.

“What’s this for?”

“You will need a cocktail dress for the day after Christmas, and then one for the ball on New Year’s Eve,” he said.

Another ball? And why did I need a dress for the day after Christmas?

“I need a new dress,” Serafina told Liliana. “So that I can match with Kat.”

“I just finished two new dresses for you,” Liliana responded.

“But I
need
another one.” Serafina said it the same way a dialysis patient might say, “But I
need
a new kidney.”

“Which color would you like?” Giacomo asked.

“Pick purple! Pick purple!” Serafina exclaimed as she bounced up and down.

“Purple’s fine,” I said.

“Do you have any preference for style or fabric?” Giacomo asked me in a serious tone.

“Um, just something pretty?”

He blinked twice, slowly. “Something pretty. I believe Liliana can manage that. But the ball on New Year’s Eve is a costume ball. Do you have an idea of what you would like to wear?”

“I know!” Serafina looked like she was about to burst. “Be Elsa!”

I shrugged. “Okay, sure. I’ll be Elsa.” A costume ball on New Year’s Eve? I had come to accept that weird things were a regular occurrence in this household, and it was easier to just go along with it.

Liliana put me up on this little stand, and then she took all my measurements. It was a slightly disconcerting experience. Serafina told me everything that she had done in the last twenty-four hours since I had abandoned her.

When Liliana finished, she gathered up all her things and left with Giacomo. They had their heads bent closely together as they spoke in rapid Italian. They were probably despairing over my fashion cluelessness.

I put my purse in the top drawer of my nightstand. I wanted it close by just in case. In case of what, I didn’t know. But I would sleep easier knowing it was nearby.

I collapsed on the bed next to Serafina. “What should we do now?”

She thought for a moment before saying, “Do you want to meet my father?”

I didn’t know anything about their father, only what that reporter in Paris had mentioned. That he had been in an accident. I admit, my curiosity got the better of me.

“Sure,” I told her.

My bedroom door was flung open, and there stood Chiara, chest heaving. “Did. You. Take. My. Phone?”

“I didn’t!” Serafina sounded so indignant. For some reason it reminded me of her brothers, which made me smile.

“You’re lying,” Chiara hissed through clenched teeth. “I know you took it! You always take it!”

“I didn’t this time!”

Which was exposed as a total lie a few seconds later when the phone fell out of Serafina’s pocket.

“I knew it!” Chiara dove onto the bed to grab it.

“I’m telling!” Serafina howled back, trying to get it away from her sister.

They started screaming at each other in Italian, and I thought it high time I intervened. “Guys, stop! Give that to me!” I pried the phone out of both of their hands and stood up. “Is this Chiara’s phone?”

Serafina didn’t answer. She just looked at me sullenly.

I handed the phone to Chiara, and she clasped it to her chest like Gollum with his ring. I was going to tell Serafina to apologize, but stopped. She wasn’t my kid. They could sort this out themselves.

Distraction always worked well in situations like these. “Come on, what were we going to do? Visit your dad?”

That seemed to snap Serafina out of her funk. “Let’s go!”

She took me through a part of their private apartments that I hadn’t been in yet. “Have you seen our Christmas tree?”

“I’ve seen a lot of Christmas trees today.”

“No,
our
Christmas tree.”

She brought me into a room that seemed unlike the others. This was a lived-in room. Full of modern and antique furniture, decorated in greens and creams, but I could tell this was where the family gathered to spend time together. There was a giant flat screen with video game consoles and controllers. Large, overstuffed, comfortable-looking couches dotted the room. I saw dolls and a dollhouse alongside one wall.

And in the corner of one room, the largest Christmas tree I’d ever seen. Like Rockefeller Center big. Unlike the other pristine trees I’d seen in the palace, it had both white and multicolored lights. There were no delicate, elegant, matching ornaments here. Just a huge hodgepodge of all different types of ornaments and clumps of tinsel.

“Every year we get a new ornament with our name and the year on it.”

I touched one of the ornaments and turned it over. Nico’s, from when he was a year old. It was hard to imagine him as a baby. “It must be nice to have traditions like that.” I had no traditions. Nothing to tie me to a place or a family. Nothing I was a part of.

“We have
lots
of traditions,” she said, taking me by the hand. I decided to leave my self-pity party behind.

She led me to a pair of large wooden doors and pushed them open. I heard the queen’s voice before I saw her. The king was lying in a hospital bed, and the queen sat to his left, reading a book to him. She stopped and closed the book when we entered.

He had black hair shot through with silver, and brown eyes that he fixed on me as soon as we walked in. He looked skinny and a bit deflated. He had Nico’s nose and the same strong jawline.

“Papa, this is my new best friend, Kat.”

Serafina climbed onto the bed and nestled into her father’s shoulder. He turned his head to kiss the top of her scalp.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you,” the king said, turning his attention back to me. His accent was more pronounced than his children’s. “I have heard a great deal about you.”

Was that good or bad? And what should I say back? Usually I would be like, “Yeah, me too,” but I’d heard hardly anything about him since I’d arrived.

“Please, have a seat.” I took an empty chair on the right side of his bed, across from the queen. She gave me a serene and sweet smile. I nodded at her and smiled back.

“Aria? Would you give us a moment?”

The queen stood up, putting the book on the nightstand next to his bed. She told Serafina to come with her, and the little girl kissed her father’s cheek before leaving with her mother.

I had to admit, I was more than a little freaked out. What did the king want? As I watched the queen leave, my eyes settled on a large, black, motorized wheelchair. I looked back at him, wondering.

“I am quadriplegic,” the king said. “My body has a difficult time leaving this bed, but my mind still can. My wife spends a great deal of time every day reading to me. I know she has other responsibilities, but she insists. I know she must tire of always reading to me.”

“I’m so sorry,” was all I could think to say.

“I’ve had a few years to adjust.”

“Does the wheelchair not work?”

That surprised him. “It works very well. Why?”

“Oh. I was just wondering why you would stay in here if you had a wheelchair.” I had seen the elevators. The rooms were all enormous. He could maneuver easily. “Don’t get me wrong, this is a very nice room, but if it were me, I’d hate to be stuck.”

Maybe he didn’t want to be pushed around everywhere. “Is it self-operated?”

The king didn’t respond. I raised my eyebrows in alarm. Had I offended him somehow? I didn’t mean to. Typical me though, saying out loud whatever thought crossed through my brain.

The uncomfortable silence stretched between us as he studied me. When he finally spoke, I nearly jumped out of my skin, I’d been so anxious. “So you are the young woman my son has spoken about so often.”

I just nodded. I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or bad thing. My heart did a happy skip at the idea that Nico talked to his dad about me, but what if the king didn’t want me around Nico? Maybe he was going to tell me to stay away from him. That would seriously suck. I finally felt comfortable enough to spend time with him, and now his dad was going to forbid me from doing that?

He continued to look at me. Irritated, I thought about offering to show him my teeth while he considered my worthiness, but I kept my crazy at bay. Right now I was just jumping to conclusions. I had no idea what he was thinking.

“You must be careful with him,” he finally said. “He has been betrayed by women who were interested in only fame and fortune.”

I immediately thought of Lady Claire Sutherland.

“I don’t care about that stuff.”

The king looked thoughtful. “You must promise me that you will be gentle with his heart.”

I had no intention of handling any of Nico’s body parts, including his heart. Whatever there was between us, it wouldn’t last. It would be light, breezy, fun. No hearts would be harmed in the making of our film. No one would get hurt.

But I couldn’t say no to a king. He still had that dungeon downstairs. So I smiled and said, “I promise.”

A man dressed in white scrubs entered the room, reading a clipboard. He stopped short when he saw me and said something in Italian.

“No, please come in, Dr. Franco. Signorina MacTaggart was just leaving.”

I knew a dismissal when I heard one. I was more than happy to scurry out. Before I had a chance to think about what the king had said to me, what he wanted me to do, and what it might mean, Serafina appeared out of nowhere and grabbed my arm.

“My mother has some beauty ladies here today. Let’s get a pedicure. ”

That sounded wonderful. And just what I needed. “You are one awesome kid, you know that?”

“I really do.”

Chiara and the queen joined us, and we all got our fingernails and toenails done. In between the laughing, talking, and teasing, I thought about the king and his wheelchair. Was he embarrassed to use it? Was it too painful a reminder of his life before? He seemed like a proud man. I couldn’t imagine it would be easy to let other people move him from his bed to his wheelchair.

We had an informal lunch together, just the four of us. I watched as the queen spoke so lovingly to her girls. I wondered what my life would have been like if my mother had loved me more than she loved getting high.