Page 16 of The King's Fake Bride

“Call me!”

We end the chat, and I set the tablet to the side, spinning around in my seat to look at Xander.

He arches an eyebrow, an amused smirk curling the corner of his mouth. “She seems like she knows how to have a good time.”

I grin. “Yeah, she’s always been the life of the party. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through college without her. She pulled me off the ground when my parents died. She was one of the few people in the world who kept me going.”

“Your parents died?”

“When I was seventeen.” I get up and grab the last of my clothing from the closet, packing it into the open suitcase on the bed beside him. “It was an accident. I didn’t know how to go on then. My grandmother came and picked me up, and with her and my friends, they forced me to get back on the right track.”

“I’m so sorry about your parents. How bad were you?” he asks, hesitation in his voice as he gets up from the bed.

“You should be amazed I still have a liver, to be honest. Those first few months after they died were rough. I spent most of the summer between high school and college going to parties and trying to forget they were gone.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Xander’s eyes appear to be pooled in unshed tears as he takes some jeans from the pile on the bed,folds them and puts them into the suitcase. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

I swallow hard, my throat thick. “Thank you. It’s hard to talk about them sometimes.”

“Well, maybe we should talk about what’s going to happen when we get to the castle.”

My jaw drops as I stare up at the towering white stucco walls and the blue shingle roof, looking like the picture of Aegean bliss.

Xander stands beside me, one of my bags slung over his shoulder and the other pulling alongside him. “Come on. Atticus is going to be waiting for us at the side door.”

“There’s a side door?” I glance at the massive iron gates set in the wall that surrounds the castle grounds.

“Yeah. If we go through the front gates, then there’s going to be a horde of advisors waiting to lodge themselves up my ass. I don’t want to deal with it, and I know without a doubt that they’ll be too much for you to handle.”

I scoff and put my hands on my hips. “I think you’d be surprised. Come on. We can go through the front door like normal people and give them a piece of our minds.”

He laughs as he shifts the bags around and grabs my hand as I stop to walk forward, pulling me back. “I don’t think so. That’s a battle for another day. Come meet my cousins, Atticus and Daphne, and then you need to get ready for dinner later.”

“Fine, you win this one.” I follow him down the cobblestone road that leads to the side of the building.

A much smaller door is open in the side, and two people stand there. The man and the woman both have the same dark hair as Xander. While the woman has sea blue eyes that match his, the man’s remind me more of dark chocolate.

Xander nods to them both. “Amy, these are the only two of my advisors that you should bother paying any mind to. Daphne, Atticus, this is Amy.”

“Hi.” I shift my weight from one side to the other, already feeling out of place.

Both are wearing jeans that look like they cost more than an entire month of rent for my apartment. They’re perfectly put together, and while neither of them looks down at me, I’m sure that they’re judging me.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Daphne says, smiling as she reaches out to loop her arm through mine, guiding me through the wall entrance and onto the castle grounds.

It’s like I’ve been transported to another world filled with pristine walls and beige stones, intricate pops of color contrasting with the lush gardens.

There isn’t a single world in which I should be here, but I am.

Xander hands my bags off to Atticus. “Take these to her room, please. I have to go speak with Jorge, and then we’ll all get ready for dinner.”

I want to ask him to stay, but Daphne is already pulling me toward the castle. She pulls open one of the wooden doors to showcase a wooden staircase.

“There are hidden passageways throughout the castle,” Daphne says, dropping my arm and climbing the stairs. “If you want to avoid most of the politics and getting bothered in the middle of the day, you’ll figure out where they are fast.”

I laugh, but the back of my hands feels itchy, and when I look down, nervous hives are forming on the backs of them. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“Everything is going to be fine. This staircase leads directly from outside to the hall just outside your room. If you ever get overwhelmed and need to feel like a normal person, just pop into the stairwell and take off.”

---