Page 10 of The Heart of the King

It took about fifteen minutes for them to make it to the SUV. David entered the near side while Jasmine was directed around the vehicle. Once seated, he put his seatbelt on. Jasmine did the same.

The drive to the airport didn’t take overly long, but the ride remained quiet. They drove through the security checkpoint to the private portion of the airport and parked near the plane that waited for them.

It didn’t have any official insignia on it. Not yet. It would once he became king, whether he was on official business or not. Until then, his plane remained unmarked.

Jasmine looked around a bit, impressed but not over-awed. Hadn’t she flown to Las Vegas on a private plane? Maybe that was why she wasn’t overwhelmed. Most first-time guests were.

He wanted to use the flight to get to know Jasmine, but a notification popped up on his screen with an email full of files he needed to read through.

Once they were in the air, Jasmine muttered something about her head hurting. She leaned her seat back as far as it would go, pulled her knees into the chair, and hunkered down under a blanket.

The flight only lasted a couple of hours. David finished reading through one of the smaller documents and made a few notes. He hoped he understood enough of it to talk intelligently about it later. About ten minutes before they landed, the steward woke Jasmine and asked her to straighten her seat.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her take her hair out of its bun, twirl it around, then secure it again. How did she do that?

David cleared his throat. “How far did you say the drive is to your house?”

“Thirty or forty-five minutes, maybe? Depends on traffic. Could be a bit shorter. I live in Trumanville. It’s about twenty-five or thirty miles as the crow flies, but you have to go around the lake to get there, so it takes a lot longer.”

“How big is Trumanville?” What kind of name was Trumanville for a town?

She stared out the window as they descended. “About six thousand full-time residents. More in the summer, plus the resort. I didn’t grow up there, though. I grew up in Serenity Landing, about ten miles north. It’s up to about twenty thousand residents.”

The first set of wheels bumped down on the runway, followed by the second set and rapid deceleration. A couple of minutes later, they were walking down the small set of stairs to a waiting car.

A local security expert stood off to the side. “Jazz?” he asked, recognition and confusion in his voice.

“Jonathan?” Her tone sounded almost scared. “What are you doing here?”

“Providing a vehicle for a VIP.” The man she called Jonathan looked between the two of them. “And the VIP’s guest. I presume that’s the two of you.”

Jasmine closed her eyes. “Do you have any sort of confidentiality agreements or anything?”

“Of course,” the man replied.

“Good. No one can know I’m here with David. I’m holding you to that.” Her voice held a note of warning.

“No one will hear it from me,” the man assured her. He turned to David, bowed his head slightly, then held out a hand. “Your Royal Highness, I’m Jonathan Langley-Cranston.”

David shook his hand. “David of Auverignon.”

“A pleasure to meet you, sir. This vehicle is at your disposal while you’re in town. Do you need a driver or an escort?”

David glanced at his head of security then shook his head. “I don’t believe so. My team can handle the vehicle. Jasmine can handle the directions. Beyond that, we’d like to attract as little attention as possible.”

“Of course, sir.”

A few minutes later, they were on their way to Trumanville. “You grew up in a small town,” David started as the SUV pulled through the gate to exit the secured area of the airport. “And moved to an even smaller one. I’ve visited small towns, of course, but never lived in one. Can you tell me what appeals about them to you?”

Jasmine shrugged. “I’m a true ambivert. I love cities like New York with all the people and things to do, but after a few days or a week or two, I tend to feel hemmed in and my heart constricts, and I can’t quite breathe right. So I come home to my apartment over a garage on twenty acres of land. I don’t see my landlords unless I want to, and I can give my inner introvert the quiet she craves.”

“Interesting.” David wasn’t certain what else he could say.

Or how that would work when they made it back to Auverignon.

4

When the car pulled up next to the garage, Jazz didn’t know what a stinkin’ crown prince, who would be king in like a week, would think about her one-bedroom walk up over a three-car garage.

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