Page 27 of Twelve Nights In The Prince's Bed

For Adrastos, the end of this pretence, and Poppy’s departure from Stomland, couldn’t come soon enough.

Poppy couldn’t help herself. The day after Christmas, while the royal family was at the hospital, she found herself watching the coverage on the national station, and when the reporters approached the Aetos family outside the hospital, almost all the questions were about Adrastos’s love life. It was quite remarkable how he tolerated the invasive remarks without flinching, answering with a practised deflection, turning attention back to the hospital whenever he could. It was a masterclass in PR.

Nonetheless, it was apparent to Poppy that her own life was going to be altered by this.

Even after their purported break-up, there’d probably continue to be a level of interest surrounding her that might even make it difficult to tackle her work in the usual way. Should she at least make contact with the HR department of her law firm, to explain the situation?

To explainwhat? she thought with a grimace. To broaden this bloody lie? To more people?

She was under no obligation to disclose personal details to her work. Surely they’d have seen the reports like every other person in the world. It wouldn’t impact her job performance—she wouldn’t let it—so there was no problem there. But she didn’t relish the idea of going about her business with a paparazzi entourage.

Surely it would only take a week or so, after they broke up, before the press bored of her. The interest would be in Adrastos, and his next quarry. He wouldn’t be single long. Then that woman would become the object of their scrutiny.

Just the thought made Poppy’s heart drop to her toes. She turned off the TV and wandered through the palace, not to Adrastos’s room, but to her own. She needed a little space and clarity, and somehow the familiar outlook of the rose garden would, she hoped, calm her fluttering mind and erratic, fast-moving pulse.

It was like stepping back in time. Six weeks ago she’d been here, but she feltdifferentfrom that Poppy. More awakened and alive. On the night of her twenty-fourth birthday, something had happened to her, and even though they were living a lie, she wasn’t sure if she would change anything about this adventure. Because it was an adventure to pretend to be Adrastos’s girlfriend. As if riding on a roller coaster, she felt as though she were zipping in one direction after the other the entire time, never sure what to expect.

But this was the room that centred her. She had been coming here for a decade—it was a home to Poppy. She moved to the windowsill, staring out at the beautiful garden, memories shifting through her mind.

It was lucky she’d been at the palace for a week already, on that first trip, before Adrastos had come back from military college. In that one week, she’d had a chance to fall in love with Eleanor, Clementine and Alexander. The latter had proven a balm to her broken heart with all the stories he’d told of her parents, almost making them come back to life for a grieving Poppy. Clementine had held her tight each evening, as Poppy had drunk a sweetened milk, and Eleanor had become her best friend almost instantly. They’d been so similar, like sisters separated at birth, they always joked.

They’d settled into a routine that was everything Poppy had needed. For the first time since her parents’ deaths, she’d felt as though she could breathe again.

And then, just like that, Adrastos had returned.

She’d known he was coming, because his arrival had been spoken of, but she’d presumed in the older brother she’d find another family member like the three she’d come to know and love. Instead, Adrastos had exploded like a tropical storm, so powerful and big, so different, instantly changing the atmosphere, charging it with an electrical current.

He was unlike anyone Poppy had ever met.

Her brow furrowed.

She’d been awestruck, yes, but it was something else. Something more.

Without her knowledge or consent, so much of her mind had begun to focus on him. She began to wonder about him, to think about him even when he wasn’t around. She was too self-conscious to ask Eleanor the million questions burning through her, and, in fact, instinctively knew she should hide her feelings from her friend. It felt illicit to fantasise about her best friend’s brother, but she couldn’t stop.

He never came back for long.

‘He’s always busy,’Clementine had said one day, a wistful smile on her beautiful face.

Poppy had felt the same wistfulness in her heart.

From that first visit onwards, she was on tenterhooks, waiting for him. Listening for him.

Those brief flashes of time, in which Adrastos would arrive and become a complete centre of gravity. When he wasn’t at the palace, there was no shortage of information online about Prince Adrastos. It was a double-edged sword to search his name because so many of the stories made her heart sink.

For as long as she’d known of Adrastos, there’d been speculation about his love life. Speculation about his girlfriends, whether this one might be ‘the one’, whether a royal engagement was in the offing. At the time, she’d told herself that the sense of irritation she felt about those stories was because she knew how important it was to Clementine and Alexander that Adrastos settle down. She told herself it was loyalty to them, and their wishes. But what if, even then, it had been more? What if even as a teenager, that overwhelming awe she’d felt for Adrastos was actually something far more mature?

She sighed heavily, turned away from the window and the rose garden and strode out of her room, back into the wide, marbled corridor, in the direction of the suite she was sharing with Adrastos.

She’d manoeuvred this; all of it. Not intentionally: she would have died rather than have the whole world know something so intimate as the fact she’d slept with Adrastos. But if Poppy hadn’t approached Adrastos at the party, it wouldn’t have happened. If she hadn’t dug her way out of Clementine’s disapproval by making up a pretend relationship, then this situation would have been avoided. But she’d done both those things, and now she had to act her heart out to convince everyone this was the real deal. For the sake of her relationship with the entire family, they had to pull this off.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘OH!’

She started as he entered, so it occurred to Adrastos, belatedly, that he should probably have knocked. While technically it was his room, they weren’t really a couple, and it was natural that Poppy should expect some privacy during this twelve-day sojourn.

Not that it had been anything like a sojourn, and it had only just begun.

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