Charmed By The Mountain Prince(22)
“Iris, calm down.” I hear Violet talking to Hunter, obviously explaining this entire thing to him. “Iris, I put you on speaker. Start at the beginning, for reals this time.”
“Great, so Hunter can know how horrible my life is also. Do you know that I’m currently residing in a one-room cabin without electricity?”
“What?” Hunter laughs. And I wish I could reach through this phone and rip him a new one.
“It’s not funny, Hunter,” I moan, falling onto my mattress. My head hits the pillows, which smell like Garrick—so manly and so good.
I punch them. I punch the pillows. I don’t want a husband who smells good if it means he’s a total jerk. I want Garrick to be nice to me. I want the Garrick who held me all night and made my body feel so good. Not the Garrick who wants to fight, who wants to dig his heels in.
“Iris?” Violet asks. “Are you still there?”
“Do you know what I’m dealing with?” I ask. “You know how we joked that Garrick was a recluse? He really is. This whole country is super wealthy; the castle is what I dreamed it would be. Ball gowns and slippers and bonbons and harps. And wedding cake. They made us a wedding cake.”
“It sounds like a dream.” Violet says. “Now, Iris, what exactly is the problem?”
“Because that’s the castle, Violet—the castle Garrick refuses to sleep in. We live outside of town. In this tiny one-room cabin without hot water.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry it’s not what you expected.”
“Not what I expected? This isn’t what anyone would expect. This is a nightmare. No wonder eight other princesses refused to marry him. There aren’t any electrical sockets.”
“Hell, I know how you can deal with this guy,” Hunter says.
A surge of hope ignites within me. “Really? What do you think I should do?” At this point I’m game for anything. I know nothing about psychoanalyzing men.
“Play hardball.”
Deflated, I explain, “Oh, I tried that. I got naked for him, and then I told him we wouldn’t be sleeping together unless we moved out of the cabin. I thought for sure I could tempt him with that. But nope, he just stormed out with a gun. A gun. He said he was hunting for our dinner. What year is this? Because seriously, at the castle there were roasted pigs and steins of beer and plenty to go around. Instead of all of that, my husband is going to hunt for what, wild turkey?”
“Iris, calm down.” I hear Violet and Hunter giggling in the background and it makes me furious.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.” I can practically hear Violet smiling through the phone.
“Refusing sex once is one thing,” Hunters says. “But Garrick is a man with a pulse, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you slept with him on your wedding night?”
“Yes. More than once. That’s how nice I am, so willing and adoring, a perfect freaking wife. What do I get in return? Coffee.”
“Right,” Hunter says, not giving into my tantrum—or probably even understanding it. “But, Iris, think about it. You slept with him all night. Give it a day. Hell, give it a few days. There’s no way this man can hold out. You play hard ball and he’ll come to you begging.”
“Really? That’s the game I should play? You think?”
“In the meantime your job is to charm his pants off,” Hunter says. “Make him see that he can’t live without you.”
“No. I’m not going to be the one charming anybody,” I tell them, my voice fiery with rage. “He’s the one who should be charming me. I’m his wife.”
“Whoa, Princess,” Hunter says. “We get that point. So you’re not going to do any charming. I think the easiest route here, then, is denying him what he wants. There’s no way this poor sucker is going to hold out longer than a day or two.”
“I can do that.”
“Good,” Violet says. “Because we’re not leaving our honeymoon to come rescue you. This is your life—and Iris? It’s the life you’ve been waiting for.”
“I have not been waiting to move to this backwards village.”
“See if grows on you,” Violet says. “In a week, if it’s still just as horrible, we can come up with a different plan. Until then—”
“Until then,” Hunter interjects, “make him suffer.”
Violet laughs, and I can’t help smiling myself. I can’t believe Hunter is married to my uptight sister. He’s this joking, easygoing man. The perfect complement to her.