Page 26 of Tech Prince Troubles (Runaway Prince Hotel #6)

Chapter Twenty-Six

SAM

burned toast

“ M orning, coffee!” Ella came bouncing into the room as I was burning toast—for the second time that morning.

Only four days until the ball, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Adri. “Morning, bean. Did you sleep well?”

I never should’ve brought him over. His presence permeated every room. I could still picture him sitting across the table, inhaling espresso. Or sitting on the swing in the garden, his head tilted as he listened to me. For grinder’s sake, my bedroom still smelled of him.

Why did I miss him as if I wasn’t seeing him tonight? Instead of enjoying our time together, all I could think of was that he was going home.

“Coffee!”

I shook myself out of my thoughts. “Sorry, bean. What was that?”

“I dreamed that Gandalf made the clouds rain coffee, but I didn’t like it, so a unicorn came and made it rain cotton candy lemonade.” She rubbed a hand across her belly. “It was sooooo good.”

“Sounds yummy. Does that mean you don’t need toast?”

Ella climbed into a chair. “It wasn’t real lemonade. It was a dream.”

Fair enough. I made her toast with cinnamon sugar and poured her a glass of milk.

Ella wriggled sideways to look into the garden. “Where is everybody?”

“Julian and Alex are cycling, and Quinn and Charlie are reading in the garden.”

“Can I take my toast outside?”

Nice try. I raised my eyebrow. “You can join them when you’re done.”

Ella pouted but finished her breakfast without further complaint. She even put her plate on the counter when she was done and had time for a cuddle—a very short one—before she ran out. Which left me alone in the kitchen with my thoughts again—the last place I wanted to be.

I sighed and dragged myself through the daily chores—washing the kids’ clothes, folding mine, sweeping the kitchen, and handing out snacks.

Nothing distracted me long enough to keep my mind off Adri.

Not even giving my bedroom a good clean—again.

My bedroom still smelled of Adri. Or maybe that was just me.

Today wasn’t my day, it seemed. As if burning toast hadn’t been enough, I dropped a plate as I set the table for lunch, walked into an open drawer—twice—and knocked my elbow into the doorknob, causing me to drop the laundry all over the kitchen floor…

Shit. Was that a crack? I dropped to my knees and pushed everything back into the basket.

“Whoa.” Tammy joined me on the floor. “You okay?”

“Apparently not,” I muttered without looking up. “What are you doing here? ”

“I tried calling you, but you’re not picking up. Did you forget to charge your phone?”

My… Oh. Fuck no. I felt around in the laundry… and there it was. My phone. In my pants. I hung my head as I fished it out—cracks in the shell and drops clinging to it.

“Yeah. That explains why you didn’t answer. It also explains why Bethany called me.”

“She what? From work?” I stared at my phone, but no matter what button I pressed, it refused to turn on. That was going to cost me at least two rounds of sweets and a bunch of I-told-you-sos. Great. “Is it too late to ask you not to tell Julian?”

Tammy snorted. “Like he’s not going to find out,” she said, gesturing to the box of rice on the counter.

My box of shame. “Yeah.”

“Anyway, Bethany asked if I could take the kids out for some fun.”

“On my day off? Why?”

She pointed at my phone. “Because you’ve been moping.” She held up a hand to stop my protest. “You burned toast, Sam. You’ve never burned toast. Not even after we separated.”

I closed my mouth. I hated that she was right. But that didn’t mean I was moping. “I’m just… distracted.”

“Exactly. So. Scoot. Skedaddle. Scram. Go see Adri.”

“No. I… it’s my day off. The kids. I can’t just?—”

“You can. I’m taking the kids. There’s supposed to be a matinee at the theater. So. Go.”

“Without my phone?”

“Well, obviously.” She grabbed my phone. “I’ll take care of that.”

The kids came and hugged me as I took my bike out of the garage, eager to go out with Tammy.

None of them asked where I was going, but Julian told me to have fun.

He didn’t growl, so I assumed he hadn’t seen my box of shame yet.

Quinn smiled and whispered, “Tell Adri to bring his tablet. I’d love to see more of his drawings. ”

It threw me why they’d ask that until Tammy appeared in the front door.

“Bring him for dinner.”

Bring him for dinner? Tammy’s comment ran circles through my brain as I cycled to the hotel.

Bring him for dinner. Wasn’t that what I’d tried to avoid?

They didn’t even know he was a prince. I still pinched myself at least once a day to check I wasn’t dreaming.

And he was leaving soon. So, what was the point?

I didn’t want another LAT—Living Apart Together—relationship. I wanted him close, wanted to wake up with him next to me, wanted him sitting at my kitchen table, drinking espresso…

Damn it! I wanted him to stay.

My heart skipped a beat as I reached the plaza. Adri sat on a bench, his eyes closed, face bathed in sunlight. He wore a layered, sleeveless tunic in shades of gray on a loose, flowy cerulean skirt matching the color of his eyes. Fuck, he was gorgeous.

I wasn’t sure he heard me approach until the very last moment. He tilted his head and opened his eyes. Then blinked and frowned.

“Sam? It’s not… you’re early. Did something happen? Are the children okay?”

Did I make him nervous? That wasn’t good. “Yeah… long story.” Who was I kidding?

“Oh? Is it a fairytale?”

A strangled laugh escaped before I could stop it. “I don’t know.” How could it be?

There was a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes crinkled in mischief. “I’d invite you up to my room, but I have a feeling we’d better talk first.”

The tone of his voice, deep and filled with want, lit a fire in me and made me want to wrap him in my arms. I took a breath. “Yeah. I guess we should. Here? Or walk to the park?”

“I don’t want to get out of the sun yet. I sat in my room too long.” His expression betrayed a hint of… being overwhelmed. Or maybe sadness. I wasn’t sure.

“Are you okay?” I sat next to him, clenching my hands in my lap. He didn’t have his tablet with him, so he hadn’t been drawing.

He scrunched his face in thought, the way he did when he talked about the Bakelite phones. “I don’t know.”

“Did you have a bad shift?”

“No. Not at all.” His face lit up, and blue lines shimmered across his bare arms and the top of his tunic. “Only a few issues left to fix. Riley was dancing and cheering. We finally started on her chandeliers.”

“That’s great news.”

He said nothing else, and we fell silent. Now that we were here, I wasn’t sure where to start or what to tell him when all I wanted was to kiss him and forget he was leaving. Why did I have to tell him it was a long story?

Taking a deep breath, I told him how my family noticed that I’d been moping. “So, Tammy’s watching the kids and shooed me out of the house.”

Adri’s eyes went wide. “But you love spending the day with your children.”

“I love every day with them.” Having them back home, their voices filling the house, put me at ease. But it hadn’t been enough to drive the thoughts of Adri away. “They deserve all of my attention… not burned toast.”

“You burned toast?” He gazed at me with a puzzled expression. “Is that an American expression?”

“No. I actually burned toast. ”

“Oh.” He frowned. “That’s bad.”

Really? Even Adri thought that was noteworthy? “And I dropped plates.”

“Because you’ve been… moping?” He mouthed the word twice as if he was trying it out. “What does that mean?”

“That I’ve been… behaving oddly, distracted, out of sorts.”

He studied me. “Why have you been out of sorts?”

Yeah. That was even harder to admit. Because once I told him I wanted him to stay, that I didn’t want him to go, I wouldn’t be able to take it back. How could I demand a prince to fit his life around a twice-divorced father of five?

“I talked to Layla earlier,” Adri interrupted my thoughts. “About booking one of the renovated rooms after the ball.”

My mouth dropped open. Not that he could see that. He had his eyes closed again, tilted toward the sun. “I thought you were going home?”

“I am. Until the wedding, at least.”

My heart pounded. That was at the end of September, wasn’t it? But… “You’re coming back after the wedding?”

“Yes. In October.”

I had the feeling I was missing something. There were so many questions circling around my brain as I sat staring at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. “How long?”

“I don’t know.” He took a breath. “Maybe permanently.”

My heart raced and pounded like it wanted to burst free. “‘Permanently’,” I repeated, as the meaning slowly dawned on me.

“Yes.” Adri glanced at me with a shy smile.

“I thought you had duties to attend to?”

Adri nodded, though his shoulders tensed. “I had a long conversation with Frank and my mins. I don’t have to live on the island for that.”

“You don’t? ”

He shook his head.

“And this is what you want?” My head filled with all the reasons he shouldn’t. That traffic was too loud. That there were too many people.

“I like it here.” His voice didn’t waver. “I like you.”

His words touched me deep inside. Would my heart ever slow down again? “You’d move here for me?”

“For us. If that’s what you want.” Adri took my hand in his. “I don’t want to leave.”

Me. He didn’t want to leave me. He didn’t say it, but I still heard it.

I squeezed his trembling hand and took a moment to order my thoughts.

“The whole ride here, I thought about ways to tell you not to go. But I have no right to ask you to rearrange your life for me when I can’t do the same.

Even a month apart seems impossible, because I convinced myself I can’t do long distance.

” As the words left my mouth, an unexpected calm settled over me.

None of that mattered. Not because he’d be coming back, but because never seeing him again was not an option.

Adri gazed at me, his shoulders twitching. He needed to hear the words.

“Yes. Yes to coming back. Yes. Please stay.”

Lines shimmered brightly beneath Adri’s skin as his shoulders relaxed, and his hand stopped trembling.

I ran my free hand across his bare arm, tracing the blue glow.

Giddiness washed over me, and I threw him a sheepish smile.

“I’m not sure my family will survive our moments apart, though. I broke my phone.”

“Oh. That’s…” A twinkle appeared in his eyes and his lips twitched as if he was trying not to laugh. “Did Julian scold you?”

“He will when I get home. I left it in my pants… put them in the washing machine.”

He was smiling openly now. “Because you were moping. ”

I was going to regret teaching him what it meant. “Because your scent still clung to my clothes, my bed sheets, my room, and I couldn’t stop?—”

He claimed my mouth in a searing kiss—sparks shooting from his lips to mine—halting my brain… and my words. When he let me go, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

We could do this.

I rose, dragging him with me, and headed for the lobby.