American Royals

At least she was here as Sam’s friend. If Jeff had invited her, Nina knew she would have been relegated to the guest cottage, the way Daphne used to be. There was a twenty-four-hour security guard stationed on the property, which would complicate things if she tried to sneak across the yard back to the main house. She wondered how Jeff and Daphne used to do it, then flinched at the thought.

There was no point in tormenting herself with questions about Jeff’s ex-girlfriend. So what if Daphne was in Telluride right now? Maybe they wouldn’t run into her at all.

When Nina judged that she’d lingered long enough, she held her breath and darted silently into the hallway, tiptoeing along the corridor until she reached Jeff’s room.

“Finally!” He pulled the door shut behind her. “I was worried you might not be coming.”

“I had to wait until the coast was clear.”

Jeff’s room was larger than Nina’s, though decorated in the same style: suede pillows, a braided rope ottoman, cozy cashmere blankets. On one wall hung a series of framed black-and-white photographs that the former king had taken in the mountains.

Nina sank gratefully onto Jeff’s bed, tugging his arm to pull him down next to her.

“Nina,” Jeff began, and the way he said her name, Nina knew he’d been thinking about this for a while. “I still don’t understand all the secrecy. Why can’t we at least tell Sam?”

She tried to play it off in a lighthearted way. “Sam can’t keep a secret. Remember how she ruined your parents’ twentieth wedding anniversary?”

“She didn’t mean to,” Jeff reminded her. The Washington siblings had tried to plan a surprise anniversary party for their parents, but the surprise was blown when the Post got wind of their plans and ran a story about it the week before. Apparently Samantha had gossiped about the party at a brunch with some friends, and another table had overheard them.

“I mean it,” Jeff insisted. “When that reporter asked today whether I was dating anyone, all I wanted was to shout about you to the whole world. How much longer do we need to keep it a secret?”

Nina ran a hand over the red-and-black tartan of his bedspread. She didn’t know how to explain the confusing geometry of her emotions: that she was falling for Jeff all over again, and far too fast. And whatever this was between them, it was still too uncertain, too eggshell fragile, for her to share it.

She took a shallow breath. “I’m just not ready to tell anyone. Once we do … it won’t be just us anymore.” Their relationship would be public property.

“Why is that such a bad thing? People are going to find out eventually.”

“Because they won’t approve! I’m different from the type of girl America wants you to be with, and it scares me, okay?”

To his credit, Jeff didn’t automatically dismiss her objections, or tell her that none of those things mattered to him, the way he had last time. He was silent for a while.

“I can’t pretend to know how everyone will react,” Jeff said at last. “But I don’t care about public opinion, and neither do you. For what it’s worth, I like the ways that you’re different. I like that you’re smart, and ambitious, and that you call me out when I’m wrong. That you talk to me, and not to my titles, the way everyone else does.”

“Wait a minute, you have titles? This changes everything.”

She made as if to push him away, but he circled his hands around her wrists and held her close. His eyes danced appreciatively. “You’re funny. I’ll take two of you, please.”

“As if you could handle two of me,” she scoffed.

Jeff laughed, a great hearty laugh that seemed to emanate from deep within his chest. “True,” he conceded. “I’m in enough trouble with just the one.”

She settled against him, her head tipped onto his shoulder. His hand curled around her waist, not in a demanding way, but simply because it seemed to belong there.

“I’m sorry,” Nina said at last, “but can’t I just … keep you to myself, for a little while longer?”

Jeff smiled. “No arguments here. I quite like when you keep me to yourself.”

The wind crooned as it brushed the snow against the windows. It felt like the rest of the world no longer existed: as if they had fallen under a temporary spell, and there was nothing but the two of them, and this moment.

Nina shifted. “You know, I seem to remember that we had some unfinished business from this afternoon.”

“Did we now?” Jeff’s voice was a low rumble.

Nina’s hair fell loose around them, curtaining their faces as she leaned forward to kiss him.

Out there was the world: cold and harsh, full of contradictions and judgment. Out there, he was His Highness Jefferson George Alexander Augustus, while Nina was a commoner whose mom worked for his family. But here, in this cocoon of golden warmth, they were safe.

Here they were just a boy and a girl, kissing in a cabin in the mountains.



DAPHNE



Daphne made slow, wide turns down the last fifty meters, drawing to a halt at the entrance to the Apex lift. There was still no sign of Jefferson.

The liftie, a guy in a Raiders beanie with a scruffy beard, gave her a puzzled smile, as if he knew that he should recognize her, but couldn’t remember what she was famous for. It needled Daphne a little, though she hated to admit it.