Page 16 of A Valiant Prince

“What else do you see?” I ask her.

She cocks her head to one side. I play with her hair, wrapping it around my finger. “I have freckles and highlights from the sun. My eyelashes—I have my mother’s eyelashes, long and curved. And my father’s eye color. I’m thin…” She trails off as she continues looking at herself.

“You know what I see?” I ask her. She shakes her head. I twirl her hair. “Silky, thick hair that I love to wrap around my hands. Beautiful dark blue eyes that I could get lost in every day, surrounded by the most perfect eyelashes I’ve ever seen on a woman. Your face looks like a painting, everything is perfectly portioned and elegant. You’re right, you are thin, but not so thin that you look sickly. There’s muscle tone and your curves are proportioned to your small stature,” I say. I cup her breasts. “And if you ask me, they are absolutely perfect.” She blushes, the pink creeping up her neck into her cheeks, her eyes flutter, but I take one hand and grasp her chin, holding her face in place so she can’t look away.

“You are the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen, Susanna…” I trail off, realizing that I don’t know her middle name. She gives me a curious look. “I don’t know your middle name,” I state.

She giggles, clutching her belly as she laughs. It’s like music to my ears. “Two middle names,” she corrects.

“Oh, I see,” I say as I playfully nip her shoulder. “And what are your two middle names?”

“Susanna Lisbet Louise,” she says.

“Last name?” I ask her.

“Royalty doesn’t really have them,” she explains with a frown. “We are the House of Alexander, so I suppose if I were a normal person, my full name would be Susanna Lisbet Louise Alexander.”

“That’s a beautiful name for a beautiful princess,” I say to her. She blushes again.

“What about you?” she asks.

“Logan Edvard Winters,” I say.

“You mean Logan Edvard Winters Hansen,” she corrects me. I frown this time.

“I…never thought about that,” I admit.

“Well, Hansen is your father’s last name, I mean if King Edvard had a last name,” she muses.

“I suppose…that’s correct,” I say. “Hansen,” I add, testing how the word feels coming from my lips. It’s foreign, yet familiar.

“You look like a prince,” Anna says.

“I do?” I ask. I study myself in the mirror. I look the same to me.

“Since the explosion, you’re…different, stronger,” she ponders.

“It made me realize what was actually important,” I say.

“What’s that?” she asks.

“You,” I answer, spinning her in my arms, so I can kiss her lips. She’s stiff and surprised for a half second and then melts into my arms and wraps hers around my neck, drawing me down while I lift her up to allow myself better access to her mouth.

There’s a knock at the door. I gently lower her to the ground.

“Yes?” Anna answers.

“Ma’am, your father is here. He wishes everyone to meet him in your uncle’s study,” Maria’s voice says from the other side of the mahogany door.

“Thank you, Maria. We’ll be right down,” she says.

“Very good, ma’am,” she says as she walks away.

“Ma’am?” I say to her.

She giggles. “Some staff say that. It’s more formal than calling me miss,” she explains.

I look to the ceiling. “God, I have a lot to learn,” I say.

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