Majesty (American Royals, #2)(33)

She set the half-empty pizza box on the edge of her desk. “That was…surprisingly profound, for a late-night pizza conversation.”

“Pizza and philosophy, my two specialties.” Ethan grabbed her pillow and placed it behind his head, then leaned back with a contented sigh.

“You can’t steal my pillow!” Nina cried out.

“I need it more than you do. My head weighs more,” he argued. “It’s full of beer and profound thoughts.”

She tried to pull at the corner, but it didn’t budge. “A gentleman would never do this,” she scolded, laughing.

Ethan’s eyes were still half-closed. “Sorry, I used up all my gentlemanliness walking you home.”

“Give it back!” Nina tugged at the pillow, just as Ethan yanked it from behind his head and threw it at her.

“Oops,” he said cheerfully.

Then they were whacking each other with the pillow, just like when they were little and would all chase each other around the palace, shrieking with delight, with Sam always in the middle of the melee, leading the great girls-versus-boys joust of pillows.

Eventually they leaned back, both of them breathing heavily. Nina felt almost sore from laughing so hard. The laughter was still fizzing through her, dissolving into a bright, heady afterglow.

Suddenly, she realized how very close her face was to Ethan’s. Close enough that she could see each freckle that dusted his cheeks, could see the individual lashes curling over his deep brown eyes.

He reached out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Nina’s entire being centered on that point of contact, where his skin touched hers. She knew she should move, should remind Ethan that this wasn’t fair to Jeff and they needed to call it a night. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to say Jeff’s name, and break the magic that seemed to have spun itself around her and Ethan.

Ethan’s touch grew firmer, his hand moving to trace the line of her jaw, her lower lip. The air between them crackled with electricity. Very slowly, as if he wanted to give her time to change her mind—which she didn’t—he brushed his lips against hers.

Nina leaned deeper into the kiss, her grip tightening over his shoulders. She felt heat everywhere they touched; his hands seemed to singe her very skin.

Ethan abruptly pulled away, his breathing ragged. “I should get going,” he muttered, sliding off her bed.

As the door shut behind him, Nina fell back onto her bed and closed her eyes, wondering what the hell had just happened.





When Sam saw that the ballroom was still dark, she heaved a dramatic sigh. She had meant to show up late to this stupid wedding rehearsal, but it would seem that Robert had outsmarted her, and sent her a schedule with a false start time.

She wondered if he’d done the same to Marshall. Last week, when she’d informed Robert that Marshall was her wedding date, the chamberlain had sniffed in disapproval. “He’ll need to attend rehearsals. Please make sure he shows up,” Robert had said ominously.

“Fine,” Sam had snapped, though she wasn’t sure she could make Marshall do anything. He was like her in that regard.

She sank onto a velvet-upholstered bench and stared at the painting on the opposite wall: a full-length oil portrait of their entire family, the type of formal, choreographed picture that was intended for the pages of future textbooks.

In the portrait, Queen Adelaide was seated with four-year-old Jeff in her lap. Light danced over the latticed diamonds of her tiara. The king stood behind them, one hand on the back of the chair, the other resting on Beatrice’s shoulder. Sam’s breath caught a little at the sight of her dad. It felt like she was looking through a spyglass that sent her back in time, to before she’d lost him.

She glanced to the opposite side of the painting, where she stood, detached from the rest of her family. It almost seemed like the rest of them had posed without her, and then the artist had painted her in at the last minute.

“Do you remember sitting for that?”

Sam glanced up sharply. Beatrice hesitated, then sat next to Sam: warily, as if unsure whether she might bite. She was wearing a long-sleeved dress that buttoned at the wrists, which looked especially elegant next to Sam’s frayed jeans.

“Sort of.” Sam remembered the hypnotic sound of the artist’s pencil, remembered being so impatient to see herself—to witness this transformation of blank canvas into an image of her—that she kept trying to wriggle from her mom’s lap. When Adelaide had snapped at her, the artist had suggested that Sam and Jeff trade places. Don’t worry if she won’t stand still; I’ll fix it in the painting, he’d assured the queen. That’s the benefit of oil portraits: they’re more forgiving than photography.

She remembered seeing reprints of that portrait in the palace gift shop, and realizing that complete strangers were paying money for images of her family. That was the first time that Sam truly understood the surreal nature of their position.

“I miss him,” Beatrice murmured. “So much.”

Sam looked over at her sister. Right now she didn’t seem particularly majestic. She was just…Beatrice.

“I miss him, too.”

Beatrice’s eyes were still locked on the painted figure of their dad. “This doesn’t even look like him.”

“I know. He’s way too kingly.”