Page 5 of Prince She Shouldn’t Crave (Royal House of Halrovia #2)

If Gabriel had thought that having someone managing his image would be harmless at best and an irritation at worst, he was wrong.

It had only been a week and Lena Rosetti was driving him to distraction.

Even worse, he was certain his parents wanted to exile her to the dungeons and order her execution, even though those kinds of punishments hadn’t been utilised in Halrovia for centuries.

‘Perhaps we could try the photograph with your jacket removed, Your Highness?’

Gabe wanted to pinch his nose against an impending headache. ‘Why?’

‘It’ll make the picture feel slightly less formal. Younger audience? It’d be even better if you could roll up the sleeves of your shirt. Maybe remove your tie?’

She’d have him totally undressed soon. Would she blush if he removed more clothes? He enjoyed it when tinges of pink flushed her cheeks. Though Gabe didn’t know why those thoughts entered his mind or why they seemed so enticing. He shook his head.

‘You can have my jacket. The cuffs and the tie stay put.’

He stood. Shrugged out of his suit jacket under her watchful gaze.

Was he mistaken, or did her eyes widen a fraction as he did?

Lena came towards him with her hand held out and he passed her the jacket.

As he did, their fingers brushed. It was like grabbing a live wire, the shock of sensation.

Did she notice the same thing? He flexed his fingers, yet she seemed unaffected, taking the jacket and hanging it in a cupboard on the opposite wall.

‘I am not removing my coat,’ his father said.

‘N-no, Your Majesty. I—I wasn’t planning to make that request.’

‘And why am I holding this compendium?’ his father asked.

They’d been in Gabe’s office for only fifteen minutes, trying to get the perfect shot as the photograph for the first social media post under his own name. For something supposed to be unscripted, this seemed to take a lot of directing.

Lena had initially asked Gabriel, his mother and father to simply talk whilst taking photographs on her phone.

No photographers, she’d said. She wanted candid.

That had been a disaster. Now, she was trying something else.

Flitting about the office in her dark suit and distractingly bright golden yellow blouse, she looked like an overly industrious, somewhat harried, bee.

‘Your Majesty, my idea is that I’ll photograph you handing it to His Highness whilst Her Majesty watches on. The folder of what could be important papers signifies you “passing the baton”, so to speak, to His Highness.’

Gabe’s father narrowed his eyes. ‘I am not passing the baton. The baton will pass when I do. Or should I decide to abdicate, neither of which events are in our near future.’

Lena didn’t hesitate, which was a marvel in itself because his father’s icy tone would have sent Halrovian courtiers scurrying.

She appeared blissfully impervious or dangerously ignorant to her impending doom.

The King treated the crown with deadly seriousness.

In the past he’d expressed determination to be the longest-sitting monarch in Europe, if not the world.

Not even Gabe would have suggested a photograph with Lena’s intended implication.

‘It’s figurative, Your Majesty. Designed to show trust in His Highness.’

The King gripped the dark, official folder a little harder, cast a piercing glance at Gabe.

The problem was, his parents had tried to keep everything under such tight control, kept so much hidden, that he wasn’t sure that they did trust him.

They’d never encouraged him to attend university.

He’d suspected the reason was they hadn’t believed he’d be successful in his studies, given his dyslexia.

Wanting to avoid the inevitable questions should he fail, even though their formal excuse was that he could more easily learn how to be a good king from his father.

He tried to ignore the sense that, in some ways, he was an impostor to the role of Crown Prince.

But what were his years of training at his father’s side, if not for the moment he’d finally take the throne?

Then there’d been an argument about him having an individual social media account as Crown Prince, as Lena had suggested.

Managed by someone else other than the King and Queen’s press secretary, not under the royal family’s exclusive banner.

In response, he’d fought hard for control of his own image.

It had never mattered before. Gabe hadn’t cared much at all, but the more control the royal machine tried to impose on him, the more he pushed back.

He’d won, as he was always going to. Yet his parents weren’t happy about it.

‘Symbolism is important to a royal family, Miss Rosetti,’ his mother said. Dressed in ice blue, her voice as frigid as the colour she wore.

Lena smiled as if impervious to the chill descending on the room. ‘Which is why I would never ask His Majesty to hand over the sovereign’s sceptre or the crown itself.’

Gabe knew what she wasn’t saying. A folder made a statement, without really saying anything at all. It was all smoke and mirrors.

His father dropped said folder to the desk with a thud, displacing some of the supposed important papers . ‘I don’t like it.’

Lena’s smile faltered. Something inside him burned with an angry heat at the look on her face. As if she’d somehow failed when, in truth, she was only trying to do her job.

She checked her phone. ‘It’s ten. Perhaps we could have a break for a few moments and resume with a new idea.’

‘A coffee would be appreciated,’ Gabe said. Preferably Irish, with a substantial swig of whisky.

‘Of course, sir.’ He liked the way she said that. The lilt of her accent. Her voice soft like the brush of a warm summer breeze against bare skin. ‘Your Majesties?’

His father shook his head. His mother declined as well.

Lena went to a carafe on the sideboard. Poured a cup, added a dash of sugar to take the edge off just as Gabe liked it.

Took a little biscuit in some silver tongs and placed it on the saucer then walked to his desk.

Today she was in heels, and he was transfixed by the way they made her hips sway gently as she walked.

Though why he was even thinking about how she moved or how the skirt of her dark suit hugged her figure so well, he didn’t dwell upon.

She was an employee, not a paramour.

Lena reached his desk and smiled as she carefully lowered the cup. The liquid inside trembled as she did, the cup overfull. As she placed it down the coffee sloshed over into the saucer, drowning the biscuit and overflowing onto the polished desktop. Her eyes widened.

‘Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry.’ The words were said with such speed they almost became one. ‘I—I—’

‘Lena, it’s all right.’ He looked through the drawers of his desk and found some unused paper napkins and began mopping up the coffee whilst she looked at his parents, him, then picked up the cup and fled the room before he could provide some reassurance.

‘That woman…’ his mother said in Halrovian, which would have been unforgivably rude if Lena had still been with them—of course, his mother was never known for being overly polite to those significantly under her on the social ladder, who she didn’t think in some way worthy ‘…is a hazard to the orderly running of your office.’

Lena was certainly something. A hazard to his equilibrium, the way she flitted about. Yet he felt strangely duty-bound to defend her.

‘She comes highly recommended. Your private secretary endorsed her credentials. As did Priscilla.’

‘Talk about handing over sceptres and crowns.’ His mother sniffed.

‘She was only asking Father to hand me a folder.’

‘What are these important documents I’m supposed to be passing to you?’

His father picked up the embossed navy blue compendium from the desktop, opened it. Flicked over the first page. Stared for a moment. Began to chuckle. Closed the folder and handed it to Gabe. ‘Indeed, most important.’

Gabe opened it as his parents looked on.

Turned the page as his father had. There was a copy of a newspaper article.

A headline, a picture of their greatest nemesis, masquerading as an advisor and supporter.

Father to the young woman Gabriel had thought of as his girlfriend.

Who’d seen fit to threaten betrayal of Gabe’s trust because she wasn’t going to end up as his queen.

Awarding this man the position of Advisor of State was the price his parents had paid for his daughter’s silence all those years ago.

Except someone had scribbled on the picture in black.

The man now had cartoonish horns. Dripping fangs.

Flies buzzing round his head. He’d been turned into a comic villain.

Gabe shut the folder and glanced up at his father, who still looked entertained. Even his mother had a sparkle of amusement in her eyes. And there behind them, standing at the door with a faint wash of colour on her cheeks, stood Lena. Phone in hand.

Watching the scene with a look of something like guilt written all over her face.

Prince Gabriel’s gaze locked on her, cold and assessing. Something about it made her shiver, but the sensation wasn’t in any way unpleasant. What was he thinking? That he didn’t like having his photograph taken without him knowing? Or had he seen her handiwork in the folder?

Nope, surely not. There was no need for him to look inside and when she’d snapped the winning picture the folder had been closed and everyone had been…amused. Maybe they’d been laughing about her. That his employee had all the grace and agility of a giant panda.