Page 100 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

“Have you just been walking around with a ring box?” I asked as I pressed my hands against my flushed face, realizing that wasn’t possible. “Did Lemon and Kat tell you I was coming?”

“This is the ring I picked out for you on the show. I carried it in my pocket when I missed you, which was all the time.” I thought of all the time we’d spent together. He’d had this with him the whole time? “And don’t be upset, but when you were taken, Marco put a watch on your passport just in case that monster tried to take you out of the country. So he got an alert when you got on a plane to Milan, and he told me. I didn’t know what you would say or why you were coming, but for the first time in a long time, I had hope.”

This was how my life would be. It would be more public than I’d prefer. Sometimes I would be watched. Sometimes I might feel trapped. But the trade-off was that I got Rafe, and he was worth anything else I had to go through. “I’m not mad,” I told him. “But I will have to go back to Iowa on Monday. I have class.”

“We can spend part of the year here, part in Iowa. We can create a room for your aunt and her husband in the palace, if you’d like. Whatever you want.”

I’d never felt as loved as I did in that moment.

He started to open the box, and then stopped. “Wait. I’m not sure you have follow-through. You never did do what you said you would.”

What in the world was he talking about? “Which was?”

“You never taught me to cook,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

“I suppose I do still owe you cooking lessons.” I put my hands on the sides of his face. “Especially since you taught me to love.”

“In that case ...” He opened the ring box, and there was an enormous marquise-cut diamond that threatened to blind me.

“Was that your way of asking me to marry you? Because that wasn’t asking.”

He immediately caught my reference to the moment when I’d kissed him on Christmas Eve. “Are you saying you don’t want to marry me?”

“Maybe I don’t.”

“Liar.” He grinned. “Genesis Kelley, will you do me the honor of becoming my princess?”

“Princess Genesis.” I shook my head at the reminder.

“It only rhymes in English. We can make sure you’re addressed asLa PrincipessaGenesis.”

“If you promise not to make me a walking Dr.Seuss character, then yes, I suppose I can marry you.”

He slid the ring onto my finger and finally stood up, kissing me again and turning my knees to jelly. “I’m glad to see you still have a way with words.”

“Yes, I’m quite the orator,” he said, holding me close. “So ... it turns out that I’m the right man. Any idea when the right time will be?”

Probably not as soon as he hoped for. “I’m willing to entertain oral arguments.”

Then he launched into the most persuasive, compelling, mind-blowing argument ever.

Things had started to get a little interesting when we heard someone say, “Ha!”

The sound had come from the open doorway. We broke apart to see Serafina. “I told you! Five sisters! But ew, kissing.”

His sister ran off, cracking up both me and my Prince Wonderful. He kissed me again. “Kat warned you about betting against Serafina.”

She had. And where before it had just been me and Aunt Sylvia, now I would jump full speed ahead to five sisters, two brothers, parents-in-law, an assortment of animals, an uncle, a quasi-stepsister, homes in two countries, and the best husband I could have ever hoped for.