Noah

 

Well. That had gone well.

I took out the check and stared at it for the twentieth time that day. I was afraid of walking around with it in my pocket. I felt like I was holding a neon sign advertising that I was now wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.

The entire morning had been like a hazy dream—the flight in the private jet, the chauffeur taking me to the palace, the sheer opulence on display.

It was all from another world. The kind of world where Gabriel got away with anything and everything.

But this time even he couldn’t escape unscathed.

I thought back to that night, when he had barely been able to stand and string a coherent sentence. Even in that state he had been the most gorgeous alpha I’d ever laid my hands on.

In the light of day though, he looked like a fallen angel. He was all sullen, pouty mouth and cheekbones that could cut glass and golden hair like a prince out of a fairytale. Too bad he didn’t have an attitude to match.

I remembered the contemptuous look on his face and his words were still ringing in my ears.

“Do you usually just roll over for anyone who offers you money to do something morally questionable?”

Well, I wasn’t looking for sympathy or understanding. I wasn’t bothered by Gabriel’s evident dislike of me. We just had to pretend to be in love, we didn’t actually even have to like each other.

Sure, I would have preferred to spend the next six months with someone who didn’t despise the sight of me, but you couldn’t always get what you wanted. And for this much money, I’d do a lot worse.

My phone rang. I quickly tucked the check back in my pocket and looked at my phone’s screen. It was from an unknown number.

“Hello?”

“Noah, hey, it’s Lucas here.”

“Hey Lucas,” I said.

Of the two of them—Gabriel and Lucas, I mean—Lucas seemed like the kind of person I would have liked to be friends with in real life. Too bad he seemed to like his cousin.

“I was just wondering if you’d be free tomorrow after lunch?”

“I am, yeah,” Because I’m stuck in this hotel room in a strange country I don’t know anything about without any friends, I mentally added.

“Great,” he said, “Can you meet us at the palace around 3 pm?”

“Sure,” I said, mystified.

But hey, they were my employer and for now I was subject to their rich people whims.

“We’ll send a car over,” Lucas said, “Thanks Noah! Bye.”

I was entirely resigned to have something horrible take place, the next day when I went to the palace. The stone-faced chauffeur and the imposing black sedan car were already familiar to me, but the first time I really had thought I was being kidnapped.

It all seemed too good to be true—the money, the perks, everything. So I was sure this was all going to turn out to be a trick like I was on one of those prank shows where the host would jump out from behind a flower pot and shout “Surprise! Did you really think you were going to escape a life of miserable poverty through sheer luck? Jokes on you, pal!”

And I would go back to my old life, the one without fancy breakfast spreads and silver cutlery and five star hotels.

“You’re late,” Gabriel said, sounding annoyed. He was tapping his feet impatiently on the marble floor. I noticed that he was wearing fancy-looking leather loafers—probably handmade Italian leather, the hedonist—and snorted. He looked down at his shoes.

“What?” he said defensively.

“Nothing, just—um—admiring your shoes.”

“Thanks,” he said, still looking suspicious. “They’re handmade Italian leather.”

See?

“What am I late for, anyway?”

“Didn’t Lucas tell you anything? That’s so fucking typical.”

He took my by the elbow and started guiding me down one of the palace’s small, hidden staircases. I had never even lived in a house that had more than one floor so the idea that a house would need several sets of staircases was still mind-boggling.

“We’re going to get you measured.”

“Um…what are you going to measure?” I asked carefully.

Was this some kind of archaic tradition the royal family had? To measure the genitals of the fiancé? Surely that was too ridiculous, even for an eccentric rich family.

Then again, they definitely were paying me enough money that I wouldn’t care about it…much.

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Gabriel said rolling his eyes. “You’re being measured for a suit. Several suits, actually. And probably a few tuxes as well, and there’s all the white tie events you’ll attend with me, obviously.”

“I’m supposed to…go to these things with you?” I asked faintly.

“Well, yeah,” Gabriel said, sounding impatient. “Did you think we would just have to announce that we’re engaged and that’s it?”

“No!” I said defensively.

That was exactly what I’d assumed.

“Sorry,” he said, to my surprise. “Listen, I know you’re new to all of this and I’ll try not to be a jerk about it, all right? It’s just that I keep forgetting how much you don’t know.”

“Are you sure you’re the right person to be teaching me all this?” I asked, because I was a fool with no verbal filter. “You end up in the scandal rags like every week.”

To my surprise, he grinned.

The trouble with Gabriel was that he was ordinarily a very good looking alpha. His excellent bone structure, his golden hair, his dark blue eyes, they all added up to an extremely attractive specimen.

But when he smiled…he looked extraordinary. He looked like he’d been put on earth to burn all the common sense out of me with one look.

“You may have a point,” he said, as we approached a door that was already ajar. I could hear raised voices from inside the room and my heart sped up. I couldn’t already be in trouble, could I?”

“Gabe!” Lucas said, catching sight of us. He was next to us in a flash, tugging us both frantically into the room.

“Thank god you’re here,” he said in an undertone, “Federico has been driving me crazy. He’s convinced that I’ll look good in an all-white pimp suit and he really wants to measure me for it!”

“Ah-ah, I heard that Luca!” The man I assumed was Federico said, wagging his finger reprovingly at Lucas, who didn’t seem embarrassed.

“The white, it is oh-so difficult a color for the light haired. The dear Gabriel, for instance, it will give to him the face of a ghost.”

“Washes me out,” Gabriel agreed with unusual humility. The corner of his mouth was tugging upward, like he was fighting a smile.

“You see? He knows! But you, my Luca, you were made for the pale, the white, the yellow and—dare I say it?—the pastel!”

“Not the pastel!” Lucas said, shuddering and throwing his hands up.

“Ah, you joke my friend,” Federico said with an indulgent smile, “But I, who is the real genius of the cloth, know! And you—you are the Noah that is causing so much trouble for my dear Gabriel?” he asked me suddenly.

“Gabriel causes plenty of trouble for himself without my help,” I said.

His face split into a smile.

“Truly, you were made for each other!” he said, throwing out his arms and hugging me. I looked over his shoulder at Lucas and Gabriel, who both shrugged at me like ‘what can you do?’

“Now,” he continued, all business as he dragged me to a rack of suits on display, “I have prepared some clothes for you in case of what they call an ‘emergency’, but these were not made with my own hands so I beg that you will not wear them unless you will die if you do not have a suit of an immediacy!”

“Er…is that likely to happen?”

“But see!” He said, ignoring me completely, “Here are some materials for the far superior suits that I will make for you with the toil of my own fingers! Day and night I will work to see you clothed!”

“Oh…I’m sure there’s no need for such working conditions,” I said timidly.

“But yes! Day and night! Of a certainty it is needed, for the royal Mama has already said that you will be attending functions on the arm of the fair Gabriel. What a beautiful pair you will make,” he added, looking misty-eyed. “Gabriel in the grey wool and you in the black, like a pair of sartorially gifted angels—people will come to me and rend their garments! ‘Free us from this prison of mediocre clothing’, they will say!”

“I’m sure they will say—er---exactly that,” I said politely, wondering how to stem the tide of words, Gabriel and Lucas were doubled over with laughter and unlikely to be any help whatsoever, “But…I like this charcoal grey? And this brown?”

“Ah, I see it was a mistake to ask you,” Federico said gloomily, snatching the fabrics away from me, “The gift of taste none of you possess! Except perhaps the royal Mama.”

“Careful, Federica,” Gabriel called, “She’s still married, you know.”

“You imply a thing which is distasteful,” Federico said with dignity. “But come! I will measure you now.”

After that, everything seemed to proceed quite normally. I slowly got used to Federico’s outsized personality and even chose a fabric that he approved of, so he said that I wasn’t ‘completely without hope’.

Gabriel had left sometime in the last hour, probably to do whatever he liked to do in his spare time—looking himself up on the internet, figuring out the most sexy lounging angle, torturing kittens, whatever. It didn’t bother me.

Lucas was still there, and he offered to take me back to the car and I gratefully accepted.

“Oh shoot!” he said as we were about to take the stairs up, “I forgot something—do you mind if we take a really quick detour?”

“No problem,” I said. The use of the word ‘shoot’ made me feel fond of him, and what did it matter if I was just going to go back to my hotel room and watch reality tv anyway?

“Thanks,” he said gratefully.

He led us through another door that led to another door that in turn led to a set of double doors.

“How the hell do you find anything in here?” I asked incredulously.

“Oh, you get used to it,” Lucas explained. “I’ve lived here since I was a kid, and Gabe and I used to play hide and seek here all the time.”

I tried to imagine baby versions of Lucas and Gabriel running around the castle, hiding from each other and causing mischief wherever they went. It stirred a kind of nostalgia in me, for a childhood I never had.

“Here we are. Hi Dad.”

Lucas opened a door—we were deep within the castle now—and it seemed to be a small library and study area. There was a huge teak desk with brass-edged drawers and lots of old-fashioned cubby holes for storage, behind which sat a man with greying hair.

His resemblance to Lucas was remarkable. They had the same hair—although the other man’s was more grey than sandy brown—and the same keen grey eyes, and I could see something of the man in Lucas’s aquiline nose and stubborn jaw.

“You must be Lucas’s father,” I said, extending my hand.

“I’ve lost the element of surprise, apparently,” said the man ruefully, shaking my hand in his strong, firm clasp, “I’m Nicholas—Lucas’s father, as you so correctly guessed. You must be Gabriel’s fiancé?”

His knowing look told me that I didn’t need to bother lying. Clearly he was in the inner circle of people who knew my secret—our secret.

“The fiancé who he’s leasing short term, let’s say,” I said. We both laughed.

“Well, this isn’t the most outrageous thing we’ve had to do to protect the throne, Noah,” he said kindly. “Lucas, I’m glad you’re here on time. Get these to Arthur, please.”

“Will do,” Lucas said, saluting his father. “All right, Noah, let’s get you to your car.”

Lucas led me through the bewildering labyrinth that was the palace, and saw me into the car that was waiting for me.

“Don’t let Gabriel get to you,” he said before my car took off, smiling at me. “He’s different once you get to know him, I swear!”

I had to admit, I had my doubts.