Page 21 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

‘You look beautiful, Your Majesty,’ the stylist said in hushed tones. ‘Mr Lord is a lucky man.’

I’m not sure he would agree with you.

Isabelle cut off the errant thought. ‘Thank you, Maria.’

She took another constricted breath as she imagined seeing Travis Lord again, for the first time since their kiss in Sariyelva.

The correspondence between her government officials, the Ruling Council, the wedding planner and Travis’s coterie of assistants and advisers and Lord Culture’s management and PR teams had been fast and furious and at times exceedingly fraught ever since the pictures of their kiss had broken in the press, the morning after their fake date.

The media attention—when the engagement had been officially announced two days later—had been intense and intrusive ever since. Even though Travis had returned to the US that night and she had spent the past two months fulfilling as many of her official duties as was practicable, the whole world had continued to speculate feverishly about every aspect of the ‘fairy-tale romance’ between the ‘bad-boy billionaire and the alpine queen’.

Given the media scrutiny, it had been decided they wouldn’t release official engagement photos as any more meetings in person could only add to the furore. Not to mention distract from the intense planning necessary to arrange a major state occasion—however low-key—in a scant eight weeks.

The Ruling Council had been aghast at her haste, and her privy council had gone into a complete meltdown over the logistics, but they hadn’t objected when she had insisted on a very short engagement. Each time she had repeated the lie though—that she was madly in love with Lord and could not wait to marry him—it had become harder and harder not to panic at the prospect of seeing him again.

Their marriage was a fraud, so why had her nerves only increased as their wedding day drew near?

Ironically, the only things that had alleviated the stress were the texts she had received on her private phone from Travis, himself, which had started when their engagement had been announced and continued every time he had an issue with the wedding protocols—which had turned out to be rather a lot.

Her heart bounced against her ribs as she recalled those unconventional texts—the man’s demands and her increasingly forthright responses...

The truth was, she had begun to anticipate his messages—reaching for her phone first thing each morning to see if another had arrived—almost as often as she had panicked about her wayward response to his kiss, which was also far too frequent an occurrence.

She pulled her phone out from the gown’s secret pocket—as the stylist continued to fuss—and scrolled through their latest exchange from four days ago, while struggling to even her breathing.

Travis: Tell Arne no way am I wearing a uniform when I’m not in the military. A monkey suit is bad enough.

Isabelle: I will tell Arne not to insist, as long as your monkey suit passes muster.

Travis: Don’t u worry about my monkey suit.

The winking and laughing emojis that had accompanied the text had confused her when she had first read the message. Was monkey suit a euphemism of some sort that she was unaware of? She had puzzled for two agonising hours over how to respond appropriately, as she had done with so many of his texts. This time though, with her nerves already on edge, she had become so annoyed with herself she had opened the emoji keyboard for the first time in her life and dashed off one of a hand with a middle finger lifted. Of course, the second after she had pressed send, she had realised how utterly inappropriate her reply was—despite the increasing familiarity that had seeped into their conversations over the past weeks. But while she had still been frantically trying to figure out how to delete her reply, his response had appeared.

Travis: Expect payback for that on our honeymoon.

The thrill that had shot through her had been even more inappropriate—and disturbing—than the impulse to use a profane emoji in the first place.

And after four days, during which her anxiety had continued to build, she still hadn’t been able to figure out where that urge had come from, or how to repress the thrill at the thought of seeing him again, which had only become more pronounced.

‘Shall I take that, Your Majesty?’

Isabelle glanced up to find the wedding planner smiling at her politely.

‘We don’t want it going off while you’re walking down the aisle,’ the woman added.

‘Of course.’ Isabelle switched off the phone and handed it over, but the stab of loss and regret—as the planner tucked the phone into her pocket—only increased her anxiety.

Why had she become so excited by those silly communications over the past weeks? Checking incessantly every morning to find out if he’d sent another? Being secretly thrilled when she opened the app to find one of his disgruntled complaints waiting for her, no matter how contrary? Then procrastinating endlessly over her response.

In the last week, she’d even taken to scrolling through their past conversations, late at night, like a schoolgirl with a silly crush, instead of a queen negotiating with a business partner—albeit a somewhat unconventional one. She’d found his irreverent sense of humour and his dogged determination to ridicule Androvia’s centuries-old traditions amusing, when she should have been appalled. She was Androvia’s monarch, surely it was her job to respect and uphold those traditions, not joke about them?

With those thoughtless exchanges she had blurred the boundaries between them, exactly as she had during their snowball fight and while obsessing about their stunt kiss?

‘Hey, Issy, are you okay? You look kind of spooked.’

Isabelle lifted her head to find Mel standing in front of her. Her best friend handed her the bridal bouquet, while looking beautifully poised and relaxed in her cream silk maid-of-honour gown. But Issy could see the concern in her eyes.

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she managed, pasting on what she hoped was a competent smile. After all, she could hardly confide in Mel the reason for her latest panic attack—because she hadn’t told anyone about her clandestine text conversations with Travis.

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