Page 4 of Once Upon a Royal Billionaire

Lily giggled.

“Oh, don’t I know it.”

Her father picked up Lily’s luggage and winked over his shoulder. “Best be going while it’s still light.”

“See you later, love bug.”

“Bye, Mom!” Lily waved over her shoulder, but then stopped and ran back, throwing her arms around Emily’s waist, her chestnut curls cascading down around her head.. “I love you so much!” Her new clothes said she was a tween and all grown up, but her sweet hugs revealed the sweet little girl Emily knew was still there.

“I love you too.” Emily hid her tears.

Her father winked again. “We’ll call every day if you want.”

Emily nodded. It was silly that she was getting all emotional about this. She was just going to have fun with some old friends who happened to be her age and attractive and male—and had coincidentally remained single. And even though Emily was also single now, she should be able to spend time with them without calling everything a date. She shook her head. What a complicated mess.

She would mostly be there on business anyway. The royal princes’ first summit would be the networking opportunity of the century, and she wouldn’t miss it for anything.

She watched Lily drive away in her parents’ limo until the car turned at the next block.

Timothy Parsons cleared his throat behind her. Their butler had been a part of the family since before Emily could remember. “Oh, Parsons. Off she goes.”

“She does indeed, madam. And if I’m not mistaken, you are soon to follow?”

Emily lifted her wrist to check the time. “Oh my goodness. You are correct.” She rushed up the stairs. She was mostly packed, but she still wanted to freshen up a bit and go through her list one last time. Her suite of rooms faced the back acreage of their New Hampshire property. There was an old well out there that always made her smile. Rumor had it that Revolutionary soldiers and then Union soldiers had all drunk from their well.

Her father had installed a grate across the top of it a few years ago. And when Emily and Lily had moved back in, Emily had been so grateful the potential threat of falling in had been taken care of.

When Emily was younger, she used to roll her eyes at her mother’s reminders to stay away from the well. Did she think Emily was looking to fall in? But once she’d become a mother, she’d finally appreciated her mother’s vigilance.

Her mother had been right about most everything. Even about Emily’s ex-husband. She’d warned Emily about him but had accepted her decision to marry him and had loved the man through all his faults. Until Emily had come to her, shaking and crying about the hitting. Then she’d been the champion Emily needed, the strong front of resistance to any thoughts of returning to Jackson. Her mother hadn’t mentioned him again after that. She hadn’t mentioned Rhett either—not by name, at least—but the thought of him hovered at the edges of any conversation about her dating life.

She threw her bathing suit, makeup bag, and favorite heels into her suitcase and zipped it up. “I’m ready,” she called out.

Parsons paged her on the intercom. “The car is here. I’ll have the driver come up for your luggage.”

“Thank you. And thank you for always watching over things while we are away.”

“It has always been my pleasure.”

When everything was packed up and she was on her way to the airport, she sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. The pilot texted that the jet was ready to go. All she had to do was climb aboard, and she would be off. She smiled. The Mediterranean. Old friends. And new ones. And Rhett. She felt her face frown. What was she gonna do about Rhett? Ignore him possibly. Maybe he wouldn’t come?

She shook her head. Impossible. As far as she could tell, he was the mastermind behind this gathering of royals. And she’d been invited. She could have been added to the list by any number of people, simply by virtue of her being childhood friends with most of them. But she strongly suspected that Rhett had been involved.

She smiled. Nico. The Valdez brothers. She couldn’t wait to see them all again. And Seraphina. It had been too long. That girl was taking the world by storm. She was so proud of her—her writing, her environmental work. Seraphina was changing the literal layout of the Mediterranean.

She sipped her drink. She’d asked the staff to have hummus for her on the plane. As soon as they were in the air, she’d calm the rumblings in her stomach. Unless they were caused by something other than hunger.

Rhett.

She pushed away the memory of her feelings for him, but his image would not be stifled. Tall, sparkling eyes, confident stance. What would it be like to command a room like he did? And when they’d dated, his eyes had only seen her. She dug her fingernails into her palm. The way he’d looked at her made her feel like the most important person in the world.

Did she miss him? She certainly missed the way she felt when they were together. But breaking up had ruined their friendship, and she’d lost not only her boyfriend but her best friend. And that’s when she’d turned to Jackson. He’d been everything Rhett wasn’t. He wasn’t busy. He wasn’t organized. He had nothing to do but date her, and she’d loved being the center of his world. But she’d soon noticed that what she thought were strengths, were really grave problems. And with them came a quick and powerful temper, which she challenged all the time, even to the point of violent reactions from him. Everything about Jackson told her she’d made a mistake in letting Rhett go. She’d needed him, craved his logical way of looking at the world, but she’d pushed him too far away to reach out.

For the hundredth time, she questioned whether she should go to the princes’ event. Did she really want to participate in the water ski competition? Her team, Mountain Blue, competed every year, but she didn’t have to participate.

She didn’t want to have her heart broken all over again by a guy who was too busy to have the kind of relationship she hoped for. And she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. Her life was falling apart—her failed marriage, her business in need—but she didn’t need him to fix things for her. She just wanted to be friends again. Her heart ached to share confidences with him. And, more than anything, she just wanted to see him.

She spent the remaining minutes of the drive trying not to think about Rhett. She had other reasons for flying all the way across the ocean that she needed to focus on. And she should have been getting some of her work done. She knew her team was waiting for approval on several pieces of their project.

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