His Royal Highness(30)

“I won’t keep you,” Whitney says, smiling guiltily at Ava. “I just wanted to say hi.”

The older woman swats her arm. “Nonsense! I’m glad you came in here. And look at you! I’ve never seen you so fancy. Doesn’t she look pretty, Derek?”

Beautiful. Radiant. Un-fucking-believable.

“Yes,” is all I manage.

Ava chuckles to herself and pushes off the counter, heading over to the chefs. “Do you two need any help over here?”

“Ava, c’mon,” I warn playfully. “It’s your night off, remember?”

She throws up her hands in surrender and leaves the kitchen, laughing. Cal will be glad I insisted. She’s as much of a workaholic as the rest of us.

Whitney and I stand alone. Across the kitchen—what feels like miles away—the two chefs continue working, but I get the sense they don’t even realize we’re here.

She makes no move to speak, and neither do I.

This back and forth between us has been confusing to say the least. I’ve been around her all week and technically we’ve communicated verbally, yet I don’t get the feeling I’ve actually talked to her at all except for the morning she admitted to her old crush on me.

She’s looking down at her drink, dragging her delicate pointer finger around the rim.

The warm light above the sink highlights the different hues of red in her hair. Her ivory skin is tinged with pink undertones.

I have a million things I want to say. Compliments could tumble out of me forever, but I don’t want to talk about how beautiful she looks. That much is obvious. I’m more curious about the thoughts she’s trying to hide away, namely her teenage crush on me.

“Seeing you here with Ryan is unexpected.”

She glances up, her eyes no less stunning than the last time I saw them.

“I thought it would be nice to have a friend by my side.”

“And Carrie?”

The corner of her mouth turns up. “All right then, two friends.”

“So you and Ryan are only friends?”

She nods, for once not looking away. “For now. Before you returned, I thought I had feelings for him.”

I latch onto the admission. My head tilts. “Before I returned?”

She catches her mistake. “No. That’s…I just meant I’ve been busy these last two weeks. I wanted to invite him tonight so I could spend time with him, figure things out.”

I hum, disappointed that she seems to be telling the truth.

“What about you?” she asks. “Did you bring a date?”

The idea of bringing someone else tonight hadn’t even crossed my mind. Now, I wonder if that was silly of me.

“No date.”

“What about back in London? Do you have a girlfriend there? Or a wife? I mean, you don’t wear a ring, but I don’t want to assume—”

“No girlfriend. No wife.”

She nods, finally stepping toward the kitchen island. I join her and we stand facing each other. There’s a charcuterie board between us, piled high. Once I steal a few grapes, she follows suit and we eat in silence for a moment.

“I’m sure you weren’t single for eight years,” she says, fishing for more information.

I smile. “No. I dated here and there.”

“What was your last relationship like?”

This isn’t what I want to be discussing with her, but for the first time since I’ve returned, she reminds me of her old self. Curious, bright-eyed.

“Oh, well…Laurie was fine. There’s not much to say. She was an attorney. Mostly litigation.”

She fights back her amusement. “Truly, I think I just nodded off there for a second.”

I smirk at her obvious teasing. “Laurie and I dated for a few months. It was fine. She fulfilled my needs at the time.”

“Fulfilled your needs? I can’t…I just—” She points at the food in front of us. “I feel like I could conjure up more feelings for that block of cheese than you just did for your ex-lover.”

“It’s not as if I’m going to go into lengthy detail with you about all the things I loved about Laurie.”

She immediately sobers.

“Did you? Love her, I mean?” She looks so earnest in that moment. No pretenses.

I shake my head quickly, for some reason desperate for her to know that. Why though? It’s not as if I didn’t love her because I loved Whitney.

“No. I’ve never been someone to fall in love very easily.”

She smiles again, her mood seeming lighter now. “Really? I feel like I fall in love all the time.” She must pick up on my skepticism because she clarifies. “Not just with people. With anything! A good book, a new flavor of ice cream. When I love something, I love it unabashedly. Take my job, for example. I’ve worked at the Knightley Company for over a decade. I’ve been in the same role as Princess Elena for over four years!”

“You were like that when you were younger too. Vivacious. Eager. Enthusiastic about any assignment I’d give you.”

She chuckles and looks down. Her fingers tap against the countertop. She’s silent while she debates something. Then she looks up with those feline eyes and I’m riveted. “You know earlier tonight, I read through an old email I sent while you were my mentor. Call it morbid curiosity. A part of me wanted to see it with fresh eyes, judge it the way you probably did back then. I’ll admit, at first, I was embarrassed. God, did I want to impress you. I wasn’t even good at hiding it. For an instant, while I reread those words, it was like no time had passed at all. I was still that eighteen-year-old girl. It made me so angry to think I haven’t changed one bit. I immediately wanted to prove to myself that I have, so Carrie came over and dressed me like this.” She waves her hand down her body. “I wore fancy heels and took time to pick out the perfect shade of lipstick, as if that would do the trick. But now I’m standing here, realizing it was all for nothing.”