Page 29 of Her Royal Daddy
My father, who had been alert throughout my measurements, suddenly fell asleep.
That night, I finally just asked Norah. The royal family’s media consultant didn’t even know we were having a ball.
She not only hadn’t been invited, she hadn’t been told.
I found my father sitting up in his bed with his doctor taking his pulse and administering his nightly medications. A part of me felt guilty for marching in unannounced, but my temper was rankled. How could it not be? I’d just accidentally dropped a bomb on my girl telling her not only was she not invited to a family function that I couldn’t imagine attending without her, but that she had been cut out entirely from a royal event that her job should have required her to report on.
Her last words before I’d left her were, “Oh, my God, I’m getting fired.”
Those last words made my first words to my father a little sharper than they otherwise might have been. “Why has Norah not been invited to tomorrow’s ball?”
Having just finished what he was doing, the doctor bowed to my father, quietly packed his things and left, leaving my father, me, and the ever-present Jax staring silently at one another until we were alone.
“That is a conversation best left for private,” Jax tried to censure me.
Ignoring him, I glared at my father instead. “Is there a problem? Because, correct me if I’m wrong, one would think a royal family ball would be exactly the sort of event we would want our royal family media consultant to attend.”
Suddenly flustered, my father became preoccupied with smoothing the wrinkles from his bedding. He muttered something I couldn’t quite hear.
“I beg your pardon?” I asked, and it wasn’t until I couldn’t take it back that I realized I was using my ‘Daddy is not a happy camper’ voice. Surprisingly enough, it worked on him every bit as well as it worked on Norah.
Lifting his chin to better be heard, the king repeated, “We have decided that she will not be attending.”
“We have?” I echoed, my disapproval deepening as my temper rankled just a little bit hotter. “Who is we?”
I glared at Jax, pretty sure I already knew. When the two exchanged looks, my suspicions were confirmed.
“In the morning,” I told them both, “I will be taking Norah to the village and I will find her a dress suitable for tomorrow night. If I cannot find one there, then I will take her to the mainland. And lest you two take it in your heads to guarantee it, if I can’t find Norah a dress, I’m fine with her attending in her normal schoolgirl uniforms. That doesn’t bother me at all. But she will be there, or I won’t be.”
Turning, I started to leave, but Jax stopped me when he snapped out an irritated, “Of course you will attend, young prince”—he said ‘prince’ the way anyone else would say ‘you little shit,’ but I was picking my battles and I let that part go—“and of course she will not!”
“Why not?” I demanded, marching right back up to the foot of the bed.
“Mazi,” my father sighed, shaking a hand to silence the fight before I could really let loose. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Why not?” I demanded again.
“Because,” Jax snapped back, “you cannot have your paramour at the same ball in which you meet your future wife.”
He could have knocked me over with a feather. Eyebrows arching high, I stared at both men, absolutely certain that I’d just heard them wrong. “The next words out of your mouth had better be ‘just kidding, ha ha ha’ or I’m out of here,” I finally said, surprised at how calm I sounded.
I was not calm. Not even a little.
“Mazi,” my father finally said, picking his words carefully, though they still left me reeling. “You are the crown prince. You must have a bride and you must have an heir. I will not live to see the latter happen, but I will see you settled with the former. It is not just tradition, it is expected and necessary for the stabilization—”
I turned on my heel and headed for the door.
“Mazi, wait!” the old king called in despair.
But I was not about to wait. Angry as I was, I didn’t realize Jax was chasing me until I was at the door with the handle in my hand. I wrenched it open, but everything stopped when Jax suddenly caught the door and promptly slammed it shut again.
“No one is saying she has to leave,” he told me, his voice soft and yet shaking with anger. “You have no idea the exceptions that have been made for you already or what your father has had to do in order to find someone willing to wed his daughter to the Stripper King. What’s done is done. She holds your heart? Fine. Great exceptions shall be made for her as well. She may stay at the palace, even after the wedding if that is what you desire, but you must have a wife. You will meet her tomorrow at the ball, and thereafter you will be wed as soon as can be arranged.”
Oh, he did not know me well at all.
“Mazi,” my father called, his sickness and frailties clear in his shaky voice. “I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry, but every king needs a queen. With a good woman by your side, you will thrive as ruler of your kingdom and restore this country to greatness. It’s not that anyone dislikes Norah, son. It is just... she is not...”
“Princess material?” I caustically filled in the blanks when he faltered. “Yeah. You know, you’re the second person to say that to me, but the thing is, I don’t care.”
