Page 68 of The Prince of New York

“Let him destroy one of those suits he hates. He’s due to be fitted, and I’m pretty sure even his clothes are a source of baggage at this point.” Terry got to his feet. “Your Majesties, if you want a turn at the mud run, go for it. You could both use some exercise. Do it as a pair. Try not to fling your wife off the net because you can. If you make it through it once and then want to try to beat Ian’s time, you get an extra milkshake before bed.”

Rachel whooped, surged to her feet, and bolted for the mud run. “You snooze, you lose, Ethan!”

I gave it five minutes before the pair turned the obstacle course into a flirtation fest, resulting in the royals heading to their suite to work out their energy in private. Shaking my head over the whole situation, I headed in the direction of the garden in search of a hose.

* * *

My little girlsmight run the kingdom out of chicken noodle soup, and my first real task as a father was to stand my ass in the kitchen and learn how to make it for them. The chefs, upon learning I intended to roll my sleeves up and dive in, waged an amusing thumb war battle amongst themselves to decide who would be stuck teaching me. At first, I feared their enthusiasm was to escape, but the first elimination, which resulted in disappointment from the loser, corrected my initial impression.

“You can help teach me how to make ice cream,” I whispered to the woman when she came close to me during her regular duties. “If chicken noodle soup excites them this much, ice cream is going to drive them both wild.”

“Once they get clearance to have it, I’d love to teach you how to make it,” she replied, and she grinned at me. “Most of us came from a teaching school, and we love having chances to help others learn how to cook.”

I regarded her with interest. “I am sure the palace is full of staffers who would love to learn how to cook but don’t have the time they’d like. I’ll talk with my sister about it. If you all just want people to teach, we can find you people to teach—including volunteers at the shelters and soup kitchens in the city.”

“We love a good challenge.” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Soup kitchens have limited ingredients. That is the ultimate challenge for a good chef.”

I feared I had sparked a flame, one that would somehow find a way to bite me in the ass later. “Since you were the first eliminated, why don’t you make up a proposal about how the royal kitchen can help improve things for soup kitchens? Include ingredient lists, how we can help the soup kitchens and shelters, and include orphanages in the outreach.”

If my little girls faced starvation, they weren’t the only ones, and Icouldthrow my weight around as the heir to make change happen. I’d just have to dance around so my sister didn’t catch me in the act until it was time to involve the politicians.

“I can do that. Thank you, Your Highness.”

“In the kitchen, just go with Ian, especially if the girls are underfoot. Ideally, they won’t realize they’re princesses for at least five years,” I muttered.

She laughed. “You can call me Lily if you’d like.”

“I prefer names over titles unless I’m trying to convince the physician to leave me alone,” I quipped.

While it took ten minutes, Vincent LaRonde, the palace’s lead chef for all things European cuisine, emerged as the victor and sent everyone off to start preparing for lunch and dinner. I’d caught the older man in the kitchen, late at night, battling recipes that typically took wine for alternatives good enough for me and my sister, something that’d earned my trust.

My sister remained clueless about the man and his choices.

I suspected Vincent had been the mastermind behind the honeyed salmon recipe when he’d first come to the palace as a prep chef.

He wasn’t that much older than me.

“I had no idea thumb war was such serious business in a kitchen,” I informed him while several of the other chefs began hauling over bags of vegetables and setting them in the prep station for us to work with.

The current prep chefs would move their stations elsewhere in the kitchen until we finished making soup for the girls.

His Royal Majesty of Maine thought I’d get three or four more days of quiet before the peace came crashing to a halt and the girls recovered enough to want to get into trouble. In the meantime, my job would be to provide soup for them whenever they woke up, feed them as much as they would eat, help them bathe, and put them back to bed. While I questioned the three to five times a day of taking a bath, the girls loved soaking in the tub and playing with rubber duckies together.

I suspected the routine was more about their emotional health than their physical health, and if bubble baths with rubber duckies worked, they’d get bubble baths with rubber duckies.

The first bath I’d navigated with some help from Maine’s king. The second one, I’d developed a hint of wisdom and summoned Madelyn to assist, especially with the scrubbing portions. Danielle allowed me to help her without issue, but May flinched.

I read between the lines, beginning the search of a therapist that would be able to help them both overcome the consequences of abuse.

No matter how often I’d been struck, no matter how many times my parents had attempted to break me through physical violence, neither of them had ever tolerated even the hint of sexual assault or any form of sexual abuse. If even a hint of a rumor of sexual violence had happened in their court, it had been dealt with immediately and without mercy towards the accused.

Back then, New York had liked making Montana dance to its tune, and due to the nature of the accusations, Montana had participated without hesitation.

My parents had been many things, but they had made it clear from the start: New Yorkers only accepted willing partners.

Even Sylvia, while pushy, entitled, and spoiled, had understood that.

Some days, I missed my sister despite all her flaws. Every time I questioned if I might ever be a decent person, she had reminded me of what I wished to avoid becoming. And because of her—and my parents—I had picked a different path.

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