Page 76 of Royally Matched
I grin at her. “You know, I think I am.”
She lets out a sigh, throwing her eyes to the sky. “Give me strength.”
We climb out of the car and make our way to the café. We’re dressed similarly, both in worn jeans and T-shirts, and it feels like we’re a real couple, going on a journey together, stopping for food.
The thought warms me until I catch myself.
We’re not a couple.
As I look over at the beautiful woman at my side, I can’t help my heart from telling me how much I want her to be mine.
We take a seat at a booth in the diner style café and place our breakfast orders with an older woman who looks beyond bored. She rattles off the specials as though she’s listing ten ways to die before she glares at us as if to challenge us to eat their food.
“She loves her job,” I say once she’s out of earshot.
“What gave her away? The fact she didn’t smile once? But really, it must be a little soul sucking to work here every day.”
“Let’s give her a big fat tip.”
“Great plan.” She toys with the edge of the plastic menu. “I wonder what this professor is going to be like.”
“Old.”
“That’s a given. What I mean is I wonder what he’ll think of us bringing him an old scroll to translate—an old scroll that must be worth a lot of money. Do you think he’ll be suspicious?”
“Suspicious how?”
“He might think we stole it.”
“Do you think there’s a large ring of scroll-stealing thieves in Ledonia?”
“There might be. What did you tell him?”
“I made up a bit of a story, actually. I told him we had been in your great grandfather’s library—who is miraculously still alive at the age of one hundred and seven.”
“Thatismiraculous.”
“And that we want to understand what the scroll means because he so loves the scroll, but can no longer read it due to his tragic loss of sight, brought on by a severe lack of carrot eating in his youth.”
“And the fact that he’s one hundred and seven.”
“Exactly.”
Our waitress delivers our cups of coffee, and I take a grateful sip. “Not too bad for a motorway coffee house. How’s yours?”
She lowers the cup from her lips. “It’s better than Malveauxian tea.”
“Don’t they love their tea?”
“I have no idea why. Have you ever drunk it?”
“Dreadful stuff. I had tea in India. Chai. It’s delicious.”
“You’d get on well with my soon-to-be sister-in-law.”
“The new Princess of Malveaux? Madeline, right?”
“Maddie. That’s what we call her.”