Page 58 of Mistaken as His Royal Bride

He scowled at her. ‘No, actually. It was my idea. My parents...my mother was becoming unbearable. The tension in the palace was toxic. I came down here one day and asked Alfredo if he’d let me work in the kitchen. I was friends with his son. At first he told me no way, he couldn’t be seen to be making the future King work, but I managed to persuade him. I would have been happy washing dishes—anything to get away from the atmosphere in the palace—but he insisted on me working in the kitchen, actually learning something.’

Maddi felt something inside her give way. This was the exact moment when she knew she was deeply and irrevocably in love with this man...as if up to now she’d been fooling herself into thinking it might not be real. And it filled her with such an acute melancholy that emotion gripped her throat.

It was ironic. Maybe she was destined to be exiled by a king, just as her mother had been.

Somehow she managed to find her voice and not sound as if a storm was tearing her apart inside. ‘You never mentioned your culinary skills.’

He made a face. ‘It was so long ago now...but it’s like learning to type. I can chop anything you want with perfect precision.’

Maddi opened her eyes wide, and brought a hand to her chest. ‘You can type too?’

He reached for her and tugged her closer, saying, ‘I can type sixty words a minute. But my spelling is atrocious because I’m mildly dyslexic.’

Maddi refused to let the melancholy drag her down. ‘Wow, sixty words, and the skill set of a commis chef,’ she teased. ‘You’ll never be unemployable.’ And then, more serious, ‘You’re dyslexic? That must be tough...’

‘Both myself and Dax have dyslexia. He’s slightly more severe than me.’

‘You never mentioned it before.’

Ari shrugged lightly. ‘I’ve learnt to navigate around it. I don’t really think of it all that much.’

Maddi lifted a hand to Ari’s jaw. ‘In a way it’s good that you’re not completely perfect. You’re pretty insufferable as it is.’

He took her hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. ‘Oh, I am, am I? I didn’t hear you complaining this morning in bed.’

This morning...when he’d woken her by exploring every inch of her flesh and teasing her body into throbbing, aching life. She’d thought she was dreaming, but it hadn’t been a dream. But this...this, right now, was a dream. A dangerous fantasy she was clinging on to.

They were interrupted by a discreet cough. Maddi blushed and pulled her hand back. Alfredo was looking at them indulgently. Clearly delighted for his King and new Queen-to-be.

The weight in her gut was back.

The waitress deftly cleared their plates and Alfredo deposited new plates in front of them. ‘My special baklava, a secret recipe handed down by my wife’s relatives.’

Maddi’s tastebuds rejoiced. The weight in her gut didn’t. It sat there ominously.

Alfredo left and Maddi did her best to hide the fact that she had just realised she loved this man, and everything about Santanger, and yet none of it was hers or had ever been meant to be hers.

She knew the sweetness of the dessert would push her over the edge.

Ari was shocked. ‘You’re not eating the baklava? I would have bet money that you’d love it.’

Stop it, she begged inwardly.Stop making me fall even harder for you.

‘I do... But I think I’ve hit the limit, even for me.’ She looked at Ari. ‘You have to eat my portion too, because I can’t bear for Alfredo to think I didn’t like it.’

He looked at her for a long moment with a funny expression, and then eventually said, ‘Okay, but on one condition...’

‘What’s that?’

‘You make it up to me...later.’

In bed. Where they shared the only real thing about this whole situation. Sex.

Maddi hid her growing turmoil behind a smile. ‘If you insist.’

When they got back to the palace Ari led Maddi through the dimly lit corridors by the hand, but her mood of melancholy lingered, ominously.

In his rooms, he didn’t speak to her. A sense of wordless intensity and urgency filled the air, Maddi tried not to decipher why. Ari pushed her jacket off and to the ground. She kicked off the sneakers. Desperation overtook them as their mouths met and their hands pulled and ripped at clothes until they were both naked and panting.

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