Page 42 of Royal Rising

But I don’t say it.

“What’s going on?” she asks Dillon. “I thought you have tonight off?”

“Duty calls when his Highness goes out.” Dillon, who has handled everything from a tourist who fainted at the sight of me, and another that I needed a restraining for, looks irritated. Annoyed.

Mad at me.

Edie turns to me and my stomach sinks because— “Oh, sh…” I begin.

“What are you doing tonight?” she demands.

“I gotta go out for a bit…” I swallow, wishing I could rewind my conversation of last night. “I told Fenella…”

Edie stiffens again and the fire in her eyes returns, only this time it’s worse because she looks like I’ve slapped her. “You just asked me to marry you and now you’re going on a date with Fenella Carrington?” Edie throws out each word like a dart.

“I didn’t think.”

“You haven’t been doing that much lately, have you?” And she stalks away; lucky for me because she looks like she’s about to throw me across the bar. Or something across the baratme.

“What did I miss?” Dillon asks.

I sigh. “Too much to get into.”

“But you’re still going out with the Carrington girl tonight?”

I check my watch. I told Fenella I’d meet her at seven, in only a couple of hours. “It’s too late to cancel now,” I tell Dillon. “Edie’s already ticked at me so there’s no point making two women mad at me.”

“What did you do to make the woman mad?”

“What makes you think I did something?”

“Did I, or did I not hear something about getting married? You and her?” Dillon points to where Edie takes an order from a table on the other side of the bar, smile miraculously back on her face.

She’s so pretty when she smiles. She’s pretty all the time, but when she smiles, it’s like she’s opened a window to see what she’s really like.

“No.” I shake my head. “It was an idea and I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.”

Both of us watch Edie walk to the kitchen, black jeans hugging her curves, the strings of her apron crossed and twisted at her back.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Dillon offers.

I turn away from the sight of Edie as she heads into the kitchen. “I know, right?”

“It’s a big step, considering both of you insist you’re just friends.” He waves his hands as he says it, which cracks into the miserable feeling in my stomach. “But what are you going to do abouthim?” And he points to the phone sitting on the bar.

Edie’s phone.

And I glance at the screen to see a notification of a text from Mathias pop up.Are you working tonight?

And that’s when I realize I’m going to lose her. And I don’t have the faintest idea what to do about it.

13

Edie

Kalle Erickson is anintelligent man. I’ve seen proof of this—or at least I think I did, because, now, there’s no evidence ofanythinginside that pretty head of his.

Or maybe he’s still intelligent but the beer he shared with his brothers has wiped out any other feelings.

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