A Princess in Theory (Reluctant Royals #1)(101)
Change was exactly what Portia wanted, and even Dr. Lewis’s annoying but necessary questions hadn’t made her rethink her decision. Standing alone at Edinburgh station and realizing her boss wasn’t showing up had her reconsidering, though.
Now she was in the back of her cab, ignoring her driver’s slightly unnerving humming and hoping she hadn’t made yet another terrible life decision.
She decided to call the place one more time. She’d called as her red-eye train from London, full of rowdy university kids returning from a night of partying, had pulled into the station. The scent of stale booze and cigarettes that had permeated the train car had both grossed her out and made her desperately nostalgic for wild nights on the town, though how one could be nostalgic for less than a year ago was a mystery. She’d called when she’d found herself the last person in the station halls, except for the dude who’d decided that the corner next to a vending machine would serve double duty as a urinal.
She’d frantically searched through the emails regarding her internship, all starred, tagged, and sorted into a special folder in her email browser—yet another aspect of Project: New Portia. The project had three main aspects really, as she’d discussed with her therapist: getting organized, being a better friend and family member, not using booze and men as an escape from reality. Instead, she was using an internship in Scotland as an escape from reality, which seemed much healthier.
A message from her twin sister, Reggie, slid into view on her phone screen.
Hey, hope you haven’t been eaten by Nessie yet (unless you’re into that type of thing). Some of the GirlsWithGlasses community members saw your InstaPhoto post about being in Scotland for the apprenticeship and asked if you would do updates on the site in the Travel section. I understand if you won’t have the time, but would love if you could. People really dig the Wonder Twins aspect of us making content together. I dig it too, I guess. Later, loser.
Portia smiled and took a deep breath. She and Reggie were still in the process of rebuilding their relationship, mostly via chatting about Reggie’s überpopular site, GirlsWithGlasses. It was Reggie who had forwarded Portia the link about the apprenticeship after one of her followers had sent it in for the weekly Cool Opportunities posting.
Of course! she replied. Another key aspect of Project: New Portia—stop avoiding things that were hard. Letting down Reggie was all too easy, but Portia wouldn’t do that ever again if she could help it.
How did your sister’s illness affect you, Portia?
“Oracle, call Bodotria Armory,” Portia bit out. She left out the “again,” not wanting to confuse the phone, which had already tried and failed to do her bidding at least ten times.
“What’s that, lass?” her driver, who had introduced himself as Kevin, asked. The guy was young, white, with gelled brown hair more fitting for a night at the bar than driving people around in his old Renault.
“Just talking to my phone,” she said brightly, her gaze automatically heading to the left of the car before readjusting and flicking to the right, where it landed on the back of his head. She’d been ignoring his attempts to meet her gaze in the rearview, and she did the same as the peculiar buzzing ring tone that had taunted her all morning sounded through her earpiece.
Hello, you’ve reached Tavish McKenzie, master in arms and proprietor of Bodotria Armory. Please leave a message.
The voice was Scottish. Like, really fucking Scottish—deep with a strong burr that had Portia frantically clicking on the “Yes, I would like to subscribe to your sexy accented newsletter” box. She hadn’t found much info when she’d performed her obligatory internet dirt search on her new boss: a grainy picture on the website, where he was clad like a cosplayer at a fantasy con. A video of him in some type of armor that covered his face, displaying the proper technique for wielding a broadsword. She’d felt the tingles of interest then and had pulled the hand brake before they started barreling toward the Bad Ydeas Towne section of the renaissance fair.
Men were definitely not a part of Project: New Portia, most especially not her boss, who seemed to have forgotten her existence before she’d even arrived. She was done with fuckboys, and fuckbosses for that matter, no matter how sexy their accents were.
“Aye, ye Americans are a strange lot, aren’t ye?” Kevin said with amusement, cutting into her thoughts. “Talking to your phones, kissing your pets, destabilizing countries around the globe.”
Here we go. One of the benefits of being a rich American was traveling the globe, and one of the downsides was getting to be the sounding board against whatever fucked-up policies your country was pushing.
“You have voice command technology here,” she said, then peered around his old car. “Though maybe not you in particular, I guess.”
She had never kissed a pet or destabilized a country—except perhaps for that small incident when her bumbling attempt at “saving” her best friend from her now fiancé had almost cost her their friendship—and nearly deprived the kingdom of Thesolo of their future queen.
“I prefer a phone that doesn’t do my bidding, or anyone else’s, if you see what I’m saying,” Kevin said earnestly. “I hope you cover that camera on the phone. You know the NSA can tap in and peer at you while you’re doing, oh, just about anything.”
Portia sighed deeply and opened her text app, tapped the conversation, International Friend Emporium.