Page 44 of The Princess Trap

“Yeah, I—”

“Demetria!” Agathe bellowed, her raspy voice suddenly strong as a herd of elephants. Jesus Christ. Cherry resisted the urge to cover her ears as the woman shouted again, “Demetria! Come here!”

There was a pause. Then the soft sound of feet padding down the hall. “What?” Demi cried, rushing into the kitchen. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing, nothing. Calm down. Cherry just tells me that she likes to bake.”

Demi exhaled. “Agathe, we’ve talked about this. When you shout like that, people think something is wrong.”

“Oh, hush. Your nerves are so delicate. Young people.” Agathe clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes heavenward. “Anyway, I know you want to learn how to bake, yes? But my baking is a steaming pile of horse shit.”

Cherry blinked. Okay; so Ruben’s elderly grandmother, with her floral apron and love of cooking, had a potty mouth. Sure. Why not?

“You girls,” Agathe said, “neither of you have any fun. You should have fun together. Bake,ja?”

“Um…” Demi winced down at her watch. “I’m kind of—”

“Oh, stop. All my grandson does is pander to children all day. You cannot have so much work.”

Children? Cherry realised that she’d never actually asked about Ruben’s so-called occupation. When he first mentioned it, she’d been desperate to get away from him—to end their conversation before he did something utterly adorable or unbearably sexy and ruined her decision to hate him.

Maybe I can ask him about it tonight.

But her mind didn’t envision their standing dinner date when it thought about ‘tonight’. It envisioned darkness, and the heat of his body and the low, smoky hum of his voice.

“Fine,” Demi sighed. “I do want to learn how to bake.”

Cherry shook her head slightly, pushing her highly inappropriate thoughts aside. The man’s grandmother was standing right there, for Christ’s sake. “Bake, as in?”

“Cake,” Demi said. “I love cake. So I thought I should learn how to make it, but… Well, I’m not good at following instructions.”

Cherry found that rather surprising, considering how great Demi was atgivinginstructions. But the prospect of having something to do other than play with Whiskey or text Maggie or avoid calls from Rose—who was much harder to lie to than Jas and Beth—made Cherry’s day seem brighter. “Okay,” she said. “I’d like that. When do you want to start?”

Demi studied her watch. It was black and sleek and expensive and it had no numbers whatsoever on the smooth, shining face. “An hour?” she said.

“Sure. An hour,” Cherry smiled.

As she left, Agathe slapped a plate of bacon and rye bread on the table with a grin. “There. Is all good,ja?”

“Yeah,” Cherry murmured, something happy and hopeful blooming in her chest. “It’s all good.”

Ruben came home in a foul mood.

It was funny; he’d been so worried about Cherry for the past week, he hadn’t even noticed the fact that Hans was still pissed with him. But now that Cherry didn’t want to kill him anymore—he hoped—his eyes were being opened to all sorts of things. Like the fact that his best friend was still on the edge of fury.

“Will that be all, Your Highness?”

“StopHighnessingme,” Ruben growled, yanking off his hat and scarf and tossing them by the door.

Hans sent the scarf a speaking look. “If you leave those there, Agathe will tidy them up.”

“I keep telling her to stop fucking cleaning.” Ruben glared down at the pile of wool. “I live here because I don’t want people tidying up my mess.”

“Then you shouldn’t have given her a key.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He snatched the hat and scarf from the floor and hung them up by the door. “Happy?”

Hans simply sniffed before letting himself out.