Page 38 of The Reluctant Heir

He hands back my fork. “It is good.”

I snatch the fork from his hand, narrowing my eyes. “Try that again and you might find yourself with a fork stabbed through your neck.”

He smirks. “I’m a vampire—you can’t kill me with a fork to the neck.”

“No, but it would hurt.” I glare at him once more before turning my attention back to my cheesecake. “If you’re going to yell, wait until I’m done eating.”

“You’resupposedto be eating with Prince Lucas,” Kaine reminds me.

I stab my fork through my cheesecake with a little too much force. “Well, I decided that spending any amount of time with Prince Lucas would be unpleasant for me. So I had Julien send him home.”

He shakes his head back and forth. “You know, you will eventually have to face this whole marriage alliance thing.”

“Yes,” I agree. “But I’m not marrying Prince Lucas. If you want me to marry a prince, find one that I can stand being around for more than ten minutes. It’s an important quality when choosing a husband.”

Kaine coughs to cover a laugh. He turns his head, but I can still see the way his lips curl up in the corners.

“You know, you don’t have to call me by my title. You can just call me Madeline,” I tell him, hoping to distract him from the subject of Prince Lucas.

He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

I lift an eyebrow. “What did you call Lucien?”

“Lucien and I have been friends since birth. In private, I called him Lucien. But when we were in public, I always referred to him as Prince Lucien,” Kaine explains, then quickly adds, “But it’s different with you.”

“How is it different?”

He waves his hands toward me. “Well, you’re a female. It wouldn’t be appropriate. It might give others the wrong idea. I don’t want anybody to believe we’re amorous of one another.”

I snort. “Please. As cold as you are, nobody would believe that. Have you ever even been out on a date?”

“I’ve been out on plenty of dates.” He crosses his arms over his chest.

A grin tugs at my lips. “Defensive, are we?”

He huffs. “You’re just trying to distract me from the fact that you blew off your date.”

I sigh, putting my fork down. “Look, I will try to find a husband from the limited pool of princes that are available, but I’mnotgoing out with Prince Lucas.”

“Then who do you want to go out with?” Kaine asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Can’t you just pick for me?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You want me to pick out your husband?”

“Maybe.” I chew on my bottom lip, wondering if that would be a terrible idea.

I’m not good at this whole dating thing. Maybe it’s not Prince Lucas at all. Maybe it’s me. Okay… it totallyisPrince Lucas. But my lack of dating experience probably doesn’t help matters. I can’t just have Julien send all my dates home.

“All right.” Kaine nods his head firmly. “I will go through the files and choose who I think is best, based on your unique personality.”

“Unique personality?” I tilt my head to the side, trying to decide if he’s complimenting or insulting me.

He stands up from the chair. “Talk to you tomorrow, Princess Madeline.”

“Seriously,” I call after him, as he leaves the room. “What do you mean by unique personality?”

But Kaine is gone before I even complete my sentence.

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