Page 39 of The Prince's Green Card Scheme

At least we’ve won this time.

We turn towards the garden again, and I clench my fists to stop myself from reaching for Chloe’s hand. “Thank you,” I say. “And sorry. But the less suspicious we can make my brothers of us, the less likely they’re going to be to pull some prank on you.”

“I know. I get it,” she says, avoiding my eyes.

I don’t know what else to say to her after that.

So, we just keep walking as if nothing happened.

It’s awkward for a moment, but then we relax again, exploring and enjoying a nice day, making jokes and laughing like old friends. When we stop thinking, we fall into such an easy friendship that it’s hard to believe I haven’t known her all my life.

It’s doing nothing to help the confusion inside my heart.

CHAPTER 19

CHLOE

Paolo makes us get up way too early, and we hit the road while we’re both still bleary-eyed and yawning.

I kind of get the feeling that leaving this early in the morning is a scheme to stop anybody else from speaking to me, but honestly, I don’t really mind.

Last night at dinner, I got my first interaction with Paolo’s brothers, and I don’t like the thought of being left alone with thematall. Talking to them even for that tiny amount of time has really made me understand why Paolo has always been so desperate to leave this house.

They’re like vultures, and they spent every second trying to find ways to undermine me or humiliate Paolo.

It was horrible.

We’ve been on the road for almost an hour when I finally turn to Paolo and ask, “So… where exactly are we going?”

He grins sheepishly at me, and my own face falls. That is a look I’ve come to know as the one he does when he has a secret he’sbeen keeping and now he feels embarrassed to tell me. I brace myself for the worst.

“Okay, don’t get mad with me,” he says, and I glare at him. “But we are going to the village of Ricatari.”

“Ricatari?” I echo. Why is that name so familiar to me? Then it clicks and I stare at him in horror, stammering, “But that’s… that’s where my father grew up. How did you know that?”

He scratches his cheek, baring his teeth in an approximation of a smile. “I looked him up on the public register. It’s not like it’s a secret. I didn’t do it to stalk you. I just thought you might like to see where you came from.”

Part of me wants to be mad with him, to tell him off for invading my privacy like this.

But against my better judgment, I don’t.

Mostly, I just think it’s sweet. He didn’t have to care this much. He didn’t have to figure out my father’s name or go to all the effort of looking him up, finding where he was born.

He didn’t have to make plans for us to come.

It’s not exactly a quick and easy thing to do. Paolo might sit here and claim that it wasn’t hard, but it was also no accident. The butterflies in my stomach raise their horrible heads again, and I try to ignore the message they’re trying to give me.

“Thank you,” is all I say instead. “For thinking of it.”

He just smiles in response.

We spend the rest of the journey in silence, staring out of the windows. Occasionally, I look over at Paolo to watch the summer sun brush over his face, lighting him up in gold.

Once, I swear I caught him doing the same back at me.

When we get to the town, it’s nothing like I imagined it would be.

It’s not big. It’s not busy. It barely looks populated at all. Between the houses there are tiny, cobbled streets, and all of the houses I can see have roofs made of thatch, the walls in red brick. There’s a tiny church in the town center, and a supermarket that looks more like a convenience store. It’s small and looks like it’s been owned by the same family for the last hundred and sixty years. The signs in the window are handwritten and faded, and it’s closed.

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