ABIGAIL

I close the door to my suite and sag against it. The hard, cool surface feels nice on my back. I’ve been standing for eons, greeting visitor after visitor as they stopped by to say their hellos. “Please tell me that’s the last person for a while.”

My head assistant and best friend, Emily Morenzo, checks her phone. “I think so. That’s nearly everyone who’s arrived at the palace so far, according to the guest list, which the staff updated about an hour ago. But there will be more this evening.”

Striding into the adjoining bedroom, I look back at Emily. “Oh, I know. Believe me, I know.”

She gives me an empathic frown and tosses her phone on the chaise lounge. “It’s not too late to feign a dire illness. I’m happy to stand guard outside and warn everyone that you’ve got the plague or something.”

It’s a distinct possibility. Coming back home is like stepping a century or two back in time. If I were to claim sickness, it would be attributed to my frail female condition and the rigors of travel. Convincing Mom would be a different story. I reach the nearest window and begin tugging on the sash.

“Lovely thought, but I fear my mother would simply arrive with a biohazard suit and insist I join the activities, anyway.”

Emily snorts. “I can actually see that happening. What the Baroness wants, she gets. No stopping her.”

“Exactly. There’s no turning back at this point, unfortunately. Apparently, it’s been set in stone since before my birth.”

“So, what now? Would you like something to eat? Or shall I start unpacking your things?”

“Neither,” I say, tugging on the sash again. “Just come help me open this. I desperately need some fresh air. This room smells like mothballs and a century of dust.”

Emily joins me, and together we manage to get the stubborn sash to budge little by little, stubborn creak by stubborn creak, until the window is fully open, and a refreshing breeze is welcomed into the room. One by one, we open the remaining windows in the wide, spacious bedroom, all six of them.

“There,” she says when we’ve finished. “Better already. Well, the air is better, at least. Not so much anything else, unfortunately.”

As Emily commandeers the large desk in the corner of the sitting room and begins unpacking her laptop and a stack of files, I wander around the suite, a large, brightly decorated two-bedroom space in the north wing of the palace — my home for the next four weeks — looking at the paintings on the wall and nosing around in the drawers and cabinets.

Emily’s gaze roams around the room and she watches me with curiosity. She’s only a two years younger than I and I’ve grown to love her like a sister. We became fast friends many years ago after she took the position as my personal assistant just as I was beginning my university program. She’s never been to Pridemore Palace before. I’ve not visited here in all that time. Well, except for once, but Emily wasn’t with me then, and I didn’t stay long.

I feel heat rise across my cheeks as the memory of my brief visit flashes through my mind. I shake my head quickly, dismissing the vivid images. I’m sticking to my official story — this is my first return to Pridemore since I went off to boarding school. Otherwise, I’d have to explain why I came and went so quickly that day.

“I haven’t been here in seven years,” I say aloud. “It seemed so much bigger when I was a kid. Like I could get lost if I took a wrong turn.”

“I bet you were a real firecracker as a kid,” Emily says.

“How’d you know?” I ask with a smile. “I was a handful, that’s for sure. I used to hide in cabinets just like this one,” I say, nudging a long credenza with my foot.

My best friend tilts her head. “What for?”

“Oh, I was snooping on the adults. I loved sneaking about, spying on everyone. I made a game out it, pretended I was a detective.”

Emily smiles. “Abi, the case-cracking sleuth. I love it.”

I smile back, much more ruefully than Emily. “More like Annoying As Shit Abi. That’s what they called me. I would follow the boys down to the lake; they were the most fun to spy on. They were always up to no good.”

She raises her eyebrows at me. “The boys?”

I shake my head. “Just my brother and his friends.”

“Would this include the illustrious Prince Henry that I’ve heard so much about?”

I grab a throw pillow from the chaise and toss it at her. “Hey, I haven’t mentioned him that much.”

“Oooh, it’s not what you said. It’s how you said it. All dreamy-eyed and wistful.” Emily makes an over-the-top passionate face and raises her voice. “Oh, Prince Henry, you’re sooooo handsome.”

“You’re imagining stuff. I did no such thing.”

She throws herself across the desk with dramatic flair. “Henry, take me away… or just… take me. Please, now!”

“You are such a brat!” I say, but I’m already laughing so hard I have to lean against the credenza to catch my breath. “You make me sound like a silly teenager in a cheesy movie!”

Emily stands up, grinning ear to ear. “Well, you were a silly teenager then. Maybe you should revisit that before you get locked away in stuffy ball gowns and endless Ladies’ committee luncheons for the rest of eternity.”

I tilt my head, still trying to catch my breath. “What do you mean?”

“He’ll be here, right? Henry. This is his home. Maybe, I don’t know… you have a fun little tryst. A secret tryst, of course.”

I give her a get-serious look. “That is not happening.”

“Abigail, you need to let loose a little. Please, for me — have some fun before you’re married to Sir Stiffass.”

“As enticing as a distraction sounds, he doesn’t think of me that way. I was just the obnoxious little sister, the very uncool, awkward girl who tried to tag along to everything and told on them when they wouldn’t let me join in. Truthfully, I really was a pest.”

“Abigail, Super Pest Detective. Your childhood story is really coming together in my head now,” Emily teases.

“In my defense, there wasn’t much to do around here as a teenager, except narc on other people or find creative ways to get into trouble. I chose the former, he chose the latter.”

“Well, maybe it’s time for you to choose the latter. You could use some… trouble. A nice, long, hard night of really big trouble. I mean, you know what they’ve said in the tabloids…”

My cheeks grow hot at her words. “Emily!”

She shrugs unapologetically. “I know you didn’t cut loose in college, Ms. Studious. So, you’re running out of time.”

I shake my head and walk to the closest window, hoping the cooling breeze will help return my cheeks to a normal shade. I look at her over my shoulder.

“You’ve read the papers, right? And watched all those celebrity gossip shows? Henry has women dripping off him like sugary icing on a hot cake. I’m surprised he can even manage to walk down the street without needing a police barricade with the sheer number of women throwing themselves at him. I’m sure — even if I were interested in such a thing, which I most certainly am not — that his social card is more than overflowing with plenty of ‘activities’ to keep him occupied.”

Emily sighs as I return to staring out the window. “You have a point. He is quite the playboy. But… never say never. It could happen…”

Her words ring in my mind. Soon, I’ll be saying forever and ever to some man my parents have picked out for me. Some guy eager to ensure his position of status and wealth. Some guy with the power to save my family from a sad fate simply with the words “I do.” He gets my family’s prestige and my hand in marriage, and my family gets to keep our titles and our ancestral home, Beauregard. It’s a story that goes back eons. These next three weeks, they aren’t about being wooed and falling madly in love with a handsome suitor.

I’m not here to be swept off my feet and kissed passionately, much less carry on like a starry-eyed teenager with a head full of lusty thoughts and impossible dreams. I’m here to make an important decision for the future of my family, to pick a husband and assume my duties as Lady Strathmore of Beauregard. My entire existence has come down to this, to uphold tradition and fulfill my responsibility to the estate.

My eye catches movement in the garden below. I look down and let out an audible gasp. Speak of the devil. Prince Henry, walking amongst the fall mums and late-season fruit trees with my brother.

Henry looks up at the sound of my gasp, searching along the exterior walls of the castle for the source of the noise. His face is so familiar and yet so different than I remember — even from here I can tell that the pictures I’ve seen in the press are true — time really has enhanced his smoldering good looks. His jawline is firmer, his cheekbones more chiseled than I remember.

His haircut is different than the most recent photos of him in the press. Gone is the length; now it’s much shorter, and is currently being tousled by the evening breeze just enough to give it that enchantingly messy just-woke-up look.

As I stare down at him, his eyes fixate on me. I quickly step back from the window, clutching my hands against my chest, vaguely aware that my heart has been skipping beats for the last few seconds.

After all these years, the mere sight of him can still take my breath away.

Emily’s right.

Whether I like it or not, I’m in trouble.

Big, big trouble…