Page 29 of The Prince's Green Card Scheme

PAOLO

This is not in any way how I was expecting to show Chloe my bedroom, but I need to take her somewhere quickly right now. If she’s seen, that’s going to raise way too many questions that I do not want to answer before we get our story straight.

Plus, if we’re up here, out of the way, she can shout at me and call me stupid. This is somewhere I can grovel for her forgiveness without being observed.

I can’t pretend it wasn’t good to see her. When she stepped out of the car, it all came flooding back to me. Seeing her face again, even if she looked unhappy — it made my heart flip in my chest. Her brown hair was streaked with gold in the sun; her angry green eyes were just as deep and gorgeous as I remembered.

And now she sits on my bed and fixes me with the most incredulous look I’ve ever seen.

“Okay,” she says, her face unchangingly stern. “Explanation time. Now.”

I open my mouth and close it again. There isn’t a single word I can say that will make any of this even remotely okay to her.

She stares at me expectantly, and when I say nothing, she bursts. “What the hell is going on? Why am I here? Why in God’s name do all these people think that I’m married to a royal?”

“Because you kind of are,” I say sheepishly.

The look on her face doesn’t improve. I know she’s waiting for me to say more, but what more can I say?

I know I owe her the truth. The truth is just hard to swallow.

“Okay,” I say, sinking to sit down on the floor, letting her judgment rain down on me from above. “Let me start from the beginning. A little over a year ago, I made some stupid mistakes and got myself banished from the kingdom.”

“Banishment?” she interrupts. “I didn’t think that was something that still happened.”

“Me neither,” I sigh. “But believe me, it does. And it was great for a while. I had fun. I just kept doing whatever the hell I’d been doing before — being an idiot, going out and getting drunk, hooking up with all the women I wanted. Those kinds of things. And then my grandfather died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says quietly, a flicker of genuine emotion flashing across her face. “That’s not easy.”

“No,” I agree. “It’s not. Especially when nobody told me, and I wasn’t invited home for the funeral.”

Her face finally gives way completely from sternness to pity, but right now I’ll take pity over anger. As long as I’m not being yelled at, I have a chance to make things right.

“So, I needed a scheme. A plan. Something that was going to get me back in. I needed some way to get home so I could pay my respects to my grandfather and — hear me out — the best idea I had was to find someone with Bellamari citizenship to marry me so I could sneak back into the country without flagging on any of the immigration computers.”

“So youdidhunt me down!” Chloe says, her eyebrows knotting together at the betrayal.

I nod slowly. “I did. And I’m sorry. But I didn’t lie about needing a green card.”

“You just lied about which country you needed the green card for. And also, you know, being royal. You made up this whole stupid plan, what, just to sleep with me? To trick me into coming home with you? This was all just some game to you, wasn’t it? Some dumb game where you thought you would play with people’s lives like they don’t matter at all.” Her voice gets louder and louder as she goes on.

She’s really angry now. She spits the words towards me and they hit me like a venomous lash. I sit, head bowed, and take it all. It’s the least I deserve.

“Yes. How I found you… the coincidence of meeting you was a lie. I did construct a scenario. But the way I felt about you that night… that wasn’t a lie. Surely you know that.”

She doesn’t say anything to that. Doesn’t shake her head. Doesn’t move an inch.

I have no idea what she’s thinking now. I couldn’t even begin to guess.

“Say something?” I plead, glancing up at her after enough time has passed for the silence to be awkward.

Chloe sighs hard, her eyes softening when she looks at me. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

Anything’s better than whatever this is.

She looks into my eyes for another long second, then lets out a harsh, bitter laugh. “I can’t do this,” she says, getting to her feet. “I’m going home. I’ve always wanted to come here, and you’ve gone and made this whole trip a nightmare. Actually, no —worsethan that. You’ve ruined this entirecountryfor me forever. I always thought the people here were supposed to be good, kind, honest — so I hope you’re happy that all of this has ruined everything for me.”

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