CHAPTER 3

          Once the door closed firmly, Romaine let out a sigh and laughed quietly.

“I adore her though she’s a bit overzealous some days.”

“Is that right…?!” Kingston mused as he walked slowly about her rooms.

          When he shifted, Romaine noticed the bulge under his side where his jacket pressed against his side in the holster, reminding her he was not here for small talk.

“Yes… Well then… These are, of course, my rooms. My bedroom is through that door if there is ever an issue, though I assure you this palace hasn’t been broken into in decades. No one has targeted my family… Not that I’m aware of,” she added with a shrug.

          He wandered towards her bedroom door and peered inside.

“Still,” he said after a long moment of staring into her private chamber, “we can’t be too careful.”

          The flare of heat in his look had Romaine struggling to breathe, her chest tightening as she turned away from him.

          How dare he look at her like that? She was the princess.

          His eyes took in more than they should, regardless that he was her personal bodyguard. Her hand tugged hard on her earlobe, and she plastered a smile on her face as she walked around her rooms.

          ‘Polite… You must remain polite, Romy!’ she said to herself.

“My days are fairly simple,” Romaine informed him, returning to the task at hand. “Marisol wakes me at six thirty. Breakfast is served in my rooms unless my parents request otherwise. I do not leave my rooms until eleven when I visit with the heads of our parliament and spend the day in meetings.”

          Her smile sagged as the sad reality of the dullness of her days hit her.

“I…uh… I then join my parents for dinner and afterward retire to my rooms.”

          When she received no reply, Romaine glanced over. Kingston was studying her closely, his gaze lingering over her chest and lower, to her legs. Romaine bit her lip. She should tell him to get out and report the incident to her father, but for some reason, the words stuck in her throat.

“Very well,” he finally replied. “I will be here by six-thirty each morning.”

“That’s not necessary. Ralph was never here until nine.”

“I am not Ralph,” he said quickly. “If you are my charge, then when you wake, I will be here, and I do not end my day until you do. That is my job… Ma’am.”

          She tugged harder on her earlobe but stopped immediately when his lips thinned at the action.

“I don’t expect you to shadow me for so long during the day. The other guards will be nearby for the meetings and such.”

“Your Royal Highness, when I was given a job in the military, I was expected to carry it out word for word,” Kingston explained with a tinge of bitterness in his words. “I was given the task of protecting the Princess of the Royal family who rules this land. I will take it very seriously, as I do all things.”

          His words weren’t loud, but the promise in them was, and Romaine was so startled by it, that she nearly missed his next words.

“I have several other things to take care of with Raoul, Ma’am, before the ball.”

“Yes, of course,” she muttered a quick reply to his question about leaving her for the moment. “Please, do what you must. I will be here until the ball starts this evening.”

          He bowed his head, backed towards the door, and left the room. Romaine stared at it, her heart pounding. She barely had time to run through their very brief and very strange conversation when a knock echoed through her room.

“Yes?”

“My dear Romy! Happy birthday!”

          Romaine grinned as Thiago, her cousin, also recently twenty-five, hurried across the room and wrapped her into a bear hug.

“Thiago! I was wondering if you’d show up.”

          She tried not to look so surprised by his good mood, but lately, he’d been sour and cranky anytime they were together.

“Really? Why would I miss your birthday?”

          He kissed her on the cheek and set her back on her feet.

“Supposed to be quite the spectacle tonight. Quite a few hot single ladies as well.”

“Your mother still harping at you to find a suitable wife?” she teased.

“You know how she is. Suitable enough to marry her son.”

          Thiago sighed.

“I will never find that woman, Romy.”

          He shoved a lock of blond hair from his forehead as he plopped down on her couch.

“But lately, I just use that as an excuse to go out and have some fun away from this place.”

          Romaine laughed with him and kicked off her heels, sitting down on the opposite end after she shoved his legs aside.

“Must be nice to get out and see the whole island.”

          Thiago smirked.

“You can see the island from your balcony.”

          She kicked him as he laughed.

“That’s not what I mean, silly, and you know it.”

          Romaine tried to tame her envy of her cousin, but it was hard when he was allowed to explore the island and beyond, sailing across the open waters of the Mediterranean, while she was trapped behind the palace walls.

          Her parents were overprotective of her. The reason was simple… Everyone knew it, and it had been years since her older brother died in a tragic accident. Yet it was that very accident that had doomed Romaine to live a cloistered life.

          When it happened, Romaine had just turned six. She didn’t remember her brother well but knew he looked like their father and was strong and full of life. The death hit the family and the whole kingdom hard, but it was Romaine who suffered because of it now.

“They won’t let up now that you’re about to inherit the throne?” Thiago asked, nudging her leg.

“No, probably not. That just makes it worse.”

          Thiago was also in line for the throne… after her, of course. But since he was not in the direct line, he wasn’t kept under lock and key, nor always under guard.

“I thought all night, hoping to find an excuse to get out of the ball.”

“Come on, Romy… It won’t be that bad. I’ll be there,” Thiago said shaking his head.  

“And you’ll be swarmed by ladies and watched by your mother all night long,” Romaine teased. “I would hate to get in the way of Thiago, the ladies’ man.”

“Speaking of…” he changed the subject, “I saw your new bodyguard. He’s a piece of work.”

“You know him?” she asked, confused, trying to forget the heat in Kingston’s eyes when they had gazed at every inch of her body.

“Not personally, but I know of him. Used to work security at the nightclubs in the city,” Thiago told her. “He’s got a reputation as being a hardass while on the job, but when he’s not working, he’s quite the womanizer.”

          Romaine pushed herself off the couch and paced around her room.

“Really?”

          Thiago nodded.

“Many of the ladies speak very highly of him, but as far as I know, he’s never had a relationship. Just one-night stands. They say he’s pretty intense, too.”

          That she could tell after only being around him for a few minutes. Warmth spread between her legs as her mind wondered about how good he must be as a lover for all those women to spend just one night with him and not care. Her mind drifted, picturing him in her bed…

“Romy?”

“What? I’m listening.”

“Yeah… Sure you are,” he laughed. “What were you thinking about? Your face is red.”

          She turned away quickly, her cheeks burning hotter, and shook her head.

“Nothing at all. So, I’ll see you tonight, then? At the ball?”

“Of course. I’ll save you a dance,” Thiago said, and she heard his steps. “Romy, you sure you’re alright? Your mom said she thought you might be coming down with something.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” she assured him, hoping her face wasn’t as flushed as it felt.

          His scrunched face said he didn’t believe her, but Thiago shrugged and waved over his shoulder. Romaine wanted to hear what else her cousin knew about her new bodyguard, but that would’ve been highly inappropriate.

          That, and… Thiago, who had a big mouth. He would relay it all to his mother without even thinking about what she would say to the Queen. Her aunt Alba was not a woman Romaine enjoyed dealing with on a regular basis.

          Alba was a spiteful woman, only tolerated because of her relationship with the late Prince and her husband. Thiago wasn’t so bad when he was by himself, but the second the two were in a room together, Romaine wanted to smack him upside the head.

          Romaine knew what her aunt was really after, though she would never say it out loud. It was the other reason she was in no mood to celebrate her birthday, knowing her aunt was after the throne for Thiago and would keep pushing to find a way to make it happen.

          When Marisol returned with a steaming cup of coffee, Romaine was seated at her large, ornate desk, shuffling through the terms for the new educational reforms she was trying to establish on the island.

“If you continue to frown like that, you’ll get wrinkles,” Marisol warned.

“If I could get anyone to listen to me, I wouldn’t have to frown,” Romaine mused. “Thank you, Marisol.”

“Of course, but you do not have all day for that. We’ll start getting you ready soon.”

          Absently, Romaine nodded and tried to picture herself anywhere but stuck in this damn palace for another stupid ball she did not want to attend.