After eight hours of deep sleep, my thoughts were much clearer.

First off, yesterday had been a disaster, to put it mildly. But today wouldn’t be. I’d make sure of it. It would help a lot, however, if I could actually use my phone. There was so much I was dying to know about Nickolaus and his family. Surely there was something online that could help me figure out how to reach the overworked single father and his shy children.

It was clear they needed help. They’d barely talked during dinner. Hopefully that wasn’t the case when it was just Nickolaus and the kids. How sad to have a family sit there and dine in silence—especially a family with children. During my teen years, it’d just been my sister and me, yet meal times had been full of conversation… at least when I hadn’t been studying my butt off at the library in the evenings.

Derrick and Elyse were royalty, but they were also kids. Did they ever eat finger food? Or drink milk with a straw and blow bubbles? I couldn’t imagine them doing any of those things, especially Elyse. With her elaborate hairdo and her gorgeous dress, she’d seemed ready for a state dinner, not a regular evening at home.

And except for what I now thought of as “the potato incident,” they’d looked so solemn during the meal. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how hard it must be for them. They must miss their mother terribly. Elyse had visibly stiffened when the queen told her she was like her mom. Was it because she was trying not to cry at the mention of her late mother? I’d been like that for the first few years after my mom died.

But I’d had my sister. I’d had my friends in the drama club. My heart went out to those poor children if they never got to relax and just be kids. Kids needed to have fun.

I tugged at the edge of one heavy curtain covering the window and light flooded the room. And just like that, my spirits lifted. The view was amazing—more than that, it was awe-inspiring. Immediately outside of my window was the gray stone roof of a lower part of the castle. Beyond that were idyllic fields that led to a heavily wooded area. And in the distance, picture-perfect snowcapped mountains. This was going to be my view for six months. It was hard to believe.

Now that I knew what was out there, I pushed at both sides of the curtains until they stayed open. A smile came to my lips as I remembered that Fräulein Maria had made her charges play clothes out of her curtains in The Sound of Music. Somehow, I didn’t think that jumpers made out of this heavy, navy-colored velvet would put Derrick and Elyse in a more playful mood. Not that my sewing was that advanced. I’d helped out in the costume shop during my years in the theater department, but that was more along the lines of sewing on a button or hemming a skirt, not exactly highly skilled work.

There was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Gretchen standing outside.

“Good morning, Miss Andrews. I was not sure when you would be up,” she said.

Fortunately, I’d awakened early. At least the alarm on my phone still worked regardless of whether there was reception. I’d actually received one text from Autumn, but it had sounded like most of mine to her hadn’t gone through. “Good morning,” I responded with a smile.

“Are you ready for breakfast, miss?”

“Please call me Cara.” I was determined to get that through to at least one person today. I’d go mad if I had to spend six months being referred to as “miss” or “Miss Andrews.” I heard enough of that last fall when I was teaching.

“I will try… Cara.” Her smile was doubtful, but I appreciated the effort.

She gestured toward the hall, but I hesitated. “Am I dressed all right?” I had on a pale blue sweater over a white blouse, slim gray pants, and black boots. It had taken a lot of willpower to resist bundling up from head to toe. It was still freezing in here. Last night I’d piled every blanket I’d found in the closet on the bed.

“Oh yes, miss—I mean, Cara. I am very sorry about last night. I did not know the queen would join you.”

“It was a bit of a shock,” I said with a laugh as I followed her into the hallway.

Gretchen nodded in understanding. “Still, she must like you.”

This was news to me. “Why do you think that?”

“Because you’re still here.”

Oh.

I gulped. Hopefully Gretchen meant that if the queen hadn’t approved, she would’ve sent me away, not to the gallows.

We arrived at the same dining room as last night. This time, I paid more attention to the route, but I still wasn’t confident I could do it on my own. After dinner, I’d wandered aimlessly for ten minutes before a passing servant guided me back to my room.

The dining table was empty as I sat down. “Did the others already eat?”

“Yes,” Gretchen said as a server brought me a plate of eggs. “The children spend mornings with the tutor. The prince is in his office. He would like to speak to you after your breakfast. I believe he wants to give you a tour of the castle.”

Warmth rose to my cheeks. For a moment, I couldn’t figure out why, but then it all came back to me. When I’d thought the prince was an ordinary driver, I’d asked him if he’d ever taken a tour of the royal palace. Talk about embarrassing! Before arriving in Falkenberg, I would’ve said I didn’t embarrass easily. However, the last twenty-four hours had really challenged that assumption.

A server brought a plate of toast as Gretchen left. That was good. I had a feeling that tour or no, I was going to need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find my way around.

It might not be a bad idea to learn how to get up in the highest towers, too. In fairy tales, it was a wicked witch who locked a young maiden in a tower. But if I didn’t stop doing dumb things like spilling food down the front of my dress, I just might have to lock myself up there.

Still, the memory of everyone’s shocked faces last night at dinner danced through my head. At least no one could claim that my first dinner at the royal palace had been boring!

“Did you sleep well?” Prince Nickolaus leaned against a desk neatly stacked with papers and computer equipment. Who knew that princes wore black jeans? Or that they looked so good in them? With his gray-blue button-down shirt and black boots, he looked like an ordinary man, not a prince. A seriously good-looking man, but an ordinary one.

“Yes, very well, Your Majesty,” I said. Was I supposed to curtsy every time I saw him? Or, like, once a day? He didn’t seem to expect that.

“Good. I trust my mother didn’t place a pea under your mattress?”

“Huh? I mean, I don’t understand, Your Majesty.”

He laughed. “Haven’t you heard the story about the Princess and the Pea? Sorry, I got the impression you were a fan of fairy tales.”

I blushed, remembering how I’d said that he looked like a fairy-tale prince. That wasn’t fair—I hadn’t known he was the driver. I guess he wasn’t too bothered by it if he was teasing me about it today. Was it okay for me to joke around, too? Normally, I couldn’t resist, but it was probably best not to do it so soon after he’d mentioned the queen. “Umm… yes, Your Highness.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Sorry… I meant Your Majesty.”

He shook his head.

“Your Honor?”

One corner of his mouth twitched upward. “I’m not a judge, jury, or executioner. It’s Nico.”

“Pardon me?”

“Call me Nico.”

“Really?”

“That’s what people used to call me when I lived in the states.”

“Thank you… Nico.” It was harder than I thought. Though his wavy light brown hair was uncovered, it was like I could almost see a crown there. It was impossible to forget he was a plainclothes prince.

He raised one eyebrow. “You’ll get used to it. Sit down for a minute. We’ve got a few things to discuss, and then I’ll take you on a quick tour.” He gestured to a small table by the window.

“I need one,” I said, taking a seat. “I’ve already gotten lost three times.” It was a testament to how handsome he was that I wasn’t even tempted to look at the view out the window.

Nico joined me. “Well, you know how some people joke that a building was designed to confuse the enemy? This palace actually was.”

Seriously? What enemy? I really needed to Google the prince, his family, this castle, and everything within a ten-mile radius. “Is there Wi-Fi here, Your, umm, Nico?”

His polite expression remained, but his eyes seemed to assess me in a new light. “There is, although I should caution you that when it comes to my country—and my family—the internet isn’t always the best source of information.”

My face reddened again. Being a natural blonde with fair skin, that happened a lot. However, regularly embarrassing myself in front of a gorgeous prince seemed to have kicked it up a notch. Had I really been that obvious?

Nico scrawled something on a piece of paper and then handed it to me. “Here’s the password. I spent far too long in the US to put up with a slow internet connection. The Wi-Fi here is excellent.”

“Thank you.” I folded the paper in half and then in half again. “I’m not trying to spy, but I would like to find out enough information to keep from making more faux pas and possibly causing an international incident. Plus, I’d like to order some kind of homing device I can use to find my room.”

A slight grin tugged at Nico’s mouth before disappearing as quickly as it had come. “You’ll learn your way around. The children can help, too. They know every inch of this castle. But…” His face closed off, and when he spoke, his baritone voice was deeper. “When you’re online, be discreet. I value my family’s privacy a great deal, especially the children’s.”

The stern note in his voice made me sit up straighter. “I understand. The au pair agency was very insistent on that point. But… can I tell my sister? We’re very close, and we normally talk every day. I…I don’t like the idea of lying to her for months on end. Plus, as I told the agency, she’s coming to Europe in May, and I’d like to see her then, if that’s okay, sir.”

“It’s Nico,” he reminded me, but he seemed lost in thought. At last he said, “What can it hurt? Just ask her to be discreet as well.”

“She will be. My brother-in-law is a wealthy businessman, and they’ve had to deal with the press, online gossip, and that kind of thing, too. They know how to keep private information private.”

“Then I trust your judgment on this.”

He did? But he barely knew me, and he seemed to keep wavering between approval and disapproval. Still, it was kind of him to let me tell Autumn. “Thank you.”

I waited a moment, expecting him to say something else, but he still seemed distracted. Might as well dive in. “Why don’t you tell me about the children’s schedule?”

His hazel eyes met mine, like he was trying to see inside my head. Then he cleared his throat. “The children don’t attend public school. There’s a classroom upstairs. They meet with a tutor five mornings a week learning English, German, science, and math. And twice a week, I teach them European history.”

“They don’t go to school outside the house? Err, I mean, the castle?”

Nico hesitated, and then added, “I was sent to boarding school in the US when I wasn’t much older than they are. I prefer for them to live here and study here.”

Wow. That was really young to be so far from home. I couldn’t imagine him as a young boy. Had he been lonely or homesick? Or had he been as self-contained and closed-off as he seemed now?

The prince was looking at me evenly. “It was good preparatory school. I spent six months there and six months here right up until university.”

It must’ve been a top-notch education, but to me it sounded a bit lonely. But I didn’t want the prince to see that on my face, so I changed the subject. “The twins’ English seems really good.”

Nico frowned. “I don’t think Elyse has said more than two words since you arrived, but yes, they’re fluent. They lived in the US until they were five. Now, naturally, they’re becoming more comfortable speaking German, but as long as you’re here, they’ve been told to use only English. That’s one of the reasons I wanted an American nanny.”

I wanted to ask him where they’d lived in the US and why they’d been there. I didn’t know of too many foreign royals who made America their home for an extended period of time. But it seemed wiser to steer away from any topic involving the life he’d shared with his late wife.

“The nanny is expected to watch over them in the afternoons and evenings,” Nico continued. “They like to read, play games, or go on walks in the castle grounds. I need a nanny to supervise, not entertain them every second. Though sometimes they go on pre-approved outings. We have a chauffeur who goes into town a lot.”

“A real chauffeur?”

“Yes, of course,” Nico said, gruffly. Then he seemed to realize what I meant, and he smirked, tilting his head to the side. “Sometimes it’s nice to get out of the castle.”

“Dressed like a driver?”

“Sometimes it’s nice not to be recognized,” he said with a shrug.

My brother-in-law sometimes wore a baseball cap and mirrored sunglasses for that very reason, so I couldn’t argue with that.

Nico stood up. “Let’s walk and talk.”

His comment made me involuntarily look at his legs. Prior to this, I’d mostly seen pictures of him in ceremonial costumes, but god, he looked good in jeans. His legs were long and he moved with powerful strides, so much so that I had a difficult time keeping up with him. There was one obvious advantage to being a few paces behind him, but it was only my second day, and I didn’t want to get caught checking out the prince’s ass.

We started with the children’s rooms. As far as I could tell, they were in the same wing as my own, although I couldn’t swear to it. Derrick’s room looked like that of any other little boy, only neater. He had shelves full of books and games, and plus bins of other toys. Elyse’s room, on the other hand, looked like everything I imagined a young princess’s room should look like.

She had a huge four-poster bed with a white canopy. White and pink seemed to be the theme of the room from the curtains, to the small table and chairs in the corner, even to the dolls and the tea sets. I’d never been much of a girly-girl, but even I wanted to stay in here. Some of the dolls on a shelf under the window appeared to be Disney princesses. Ironic.

Nico showed me the classroom. However, he didn’t enter. While somewhat smaller than a regular classroom, it had a variety of desks, tables, posters, and white boards. Derrick and Elyse sat at a round table examining some papers their tutor, a forty-something woman, was showing them.

“So… their time with me in the afternoon is more about playing, not teaching, right?” I kept my voice to a whisper until we were well past the classroom.

“Right. The nanny’s job is to supervise their free time. Play with them. Keep them safe. Leave the teaching to the tutor. Think you can handle that?”

Wow. Was he angry at me? “Yes, of course. That’s what I signed up for.”

At the end of the hall was a long flight of stairs. The prince ran up them two at a time while I followed more slowly. When I reached the top, I felt unexpectedly dizzy, as if the prince’s abrupt mood swings were messing with my head. He was still going, though, up a narrower flight and I followed after him.

Two steps from the top, I had to pause, putting a hand on the banister for support.

Realizing I wasn’t next to him, Nico stared down at me, and then held out his hand. “It’s the altitude. The air’s much thinner here than where you’re from. I forgot.”

Gratefully, I took his hand, appreciating the warmth when his fingers engulfed mine. I climbed the last few steps and paused at the top to catch my breath. Thin, cold air—why couldn’t the au pair agency have sent me to sunny, southern Spain?

Without letting go of my hand, the prince led me to a window set in the ancient brick wall. Leaning against the sill, I looked out. We were pretty high up. I could see the gardens far below, the grass and hedges brown and brittle.

“Sorry,” Nico said, and I turned to him.

“It’s my fault, I didn’t even think about—”

“Not about that. About what I said about teaching. I just meant that that’s not what Derrick and Elyse need in the afternoons.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? But you used to be a teacher, right?”

“Right.” I shouldn’t have been surprised that he knew that. I’d supplied all my information to the agency, but somehow I wasn’t expecting him to ask me about that. “Yes, I taught high school English last fall.”

“Just for one semester?”

I took a moment to answer, partly because I was still breathing a little harder than usual—but mostly to stall. “Yes. A teacher went on maternity leave, so I taught her classes.”

He frowned. “Couldn’t you get another position this year?”

The honest answer was yes. Another teacher had moved away at the end of December when her husband got transferred. But the answer I gave was true, too. “I, um, wanted to try something new.”

“But you studied to become a teacher.”

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway. “And now I want to try a different way of helping children.” I really, really didn’t want to be having this conversation, but the prince didn’t show any signs of letting the topic go. “Taking care of kids is every bit as important as educating them.”

A face flashed through my mind—a young, eager girl named Teresa. She’d been my student but I’d neither educated nor taken care of her.

Nico’s gaze was unrelenting—and unreadable, at least to me. “Why study for four years and then only do something for four months?”

This was beginning to feel like an inquisition. How fitting that we were in a castle. “It just… it wasn’t for me.”

“How can you know that after just one semester?”

“I just do.”

“Why? What happened? You’re not being forthcoming.” His voice was demanding, and suddenly he didn’t look like an ordinary guy anymore. I needed to remember that. He wasn’t an ordinary man. He was my employer—and royalty.

As such, I owed him some kind of answer, but all I could think about was how much I didn’t want to talk about this. “I just decided it wasn’t for me.” If I had my way, Teresa would be the last student I ever let down.

“Don’t you think I deserve an answer? You expect me to entrust my children with you, yet you’re not very forthcoming about your past.” The anger I’d sensed in him before was back now.

“The au pair agency did a very thorough background check. If I’d run off and married a student or lost one on a field trip, they wouldn’t have sent me to you.”

Nico stepped away from the window, pacing in a little circle of frustration. “What happens after six months here if you’re done with teaching?”

The answer came readily to my lips. “I’m going to start graduate school.”

“To study what?”

“English literature.”

“And that’s really what you want?”

Yes.

No.

I don’t know.

But I had to do something while I figured out a new plan for my life and I’d already been accepted my spot in the program.

The prince was no doubt watching the play of emotions running across my face. His question had been a familiar one. I’d heard it from the principal at my old school when I quit. From my old friend from my theater days, And from my sister, Autumn.

Finally, I answered him. “Yes, it is. It’s what I want in August. What I want right now is to spend time with your children. To get to know them. To play and laugh with them. To help them. That’s all I want—unless you don’t also want that?” For reasons I couldn’t imagine, it was beginning to feel like he didn’t.

A flicker of surprise crossed his face before his forehead furrowed again. Turning his back to me, he placed his hands on the wide windowsill and looked out. I waited patiently, unsure about him or about any of this. But the one thing I did know is that those quiet, somber children didn’t seem to be having much of a childhood. And that much, at least, I could help with.

If he let me.

Finally, he sighed and straightened up. “Meet the children at twelve thirty in the dining room for lunch—then you can spend the afternoon with them. If you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.”

The sound of his boots on the marble steps echoed in my ears as he left.

Still a bit dazed, I watched until the top of his head disappeared at the bottom of the first flight. Now who was being less than forthcoming? Him.

And who was lost again? Me.

Dammit.