As soon as my hand left his cheek, I covered my mouth in shock.
Trip turned to me, and for one smoldering moment I thought he might reach out for me and pull me against him.
Instead, he laughed. Loud and boisterous, he tossed his head back and laughed.
“Ladies and gentleman,” he called out, “this American sure as hell has spirit!”
The assembled media broke out into laughter and the whole thing was quickly smoothed over. We were whisked away into a black town car that headed toward the capital city of Starkland and the royal castle, where we’d be staying during out visit.
My stepmother was livid. As soon as the doors closed, she whirled on me.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she hissed.
Lucy Koch was a couple years younger than my father, and I had no clue how he could stand her. Blond and severe, my stepmother seemed to only care about appearances and status and not about anything that actually mattered.
“He said something to me,” I answered, frowning.
“He’s the king, Bryce! He could whisper anything in your ear and you have to just smile and nod.” Lucy was fuming.
My father, though, simply put his hand on her knee. “What did he say, honey?” he asked.
Robert Koch was a kind and quiet man. Dark haired and blue eyed, everybody said he was incredibly handsome. I didn’t really see it, but he was my father after all. It’d be weird if I did.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m not repeating it. But it was inappropriate.”
“Maybe that’s how they greet people here?” he asked.
I looked at my stepmother. “Did he mention anything about panties to you?”
She paused. “No,” she admitted.
“Then I suspect it wasn’t that.”
Dad shook his head. “Maybe this was a mistake.”
“No. The only mistake was when Bryce slapped the King in front of cameras,” Lucy said.
“He deserved it,” I said.
She shot me a look.
“We can leave,” Dad offered. “Right now. It’s not too late. We can turn back around and leave.”
I bit my lip and could feel Lucy’s stare boring into me. I knew that if I said the word, we really would get the hell out of Starkland as fast as we could. But the truth was, I didn’t want to leave.
Starkland was beautiful. Even just having been in the country for less than an hour, I was already starting to fall in love with it. The whole place looked like it came right from that famous mountain meadow scene in The Sound of Music. It was picturesque, with rolling hills and majestic mountains and deep, dark forests. It was like a fantasy novel come to life or something.
And besides, I’d always wanted to know about my heritage. As far as I had heard, the Koch family had come to America with some of the original settlers. We were as American as possible, which meant we didn’t have a deep history. I wanted to know more about my bloodline, about the people I was descended from. As far as I could tell, this was my best chance to really understand my own history.
Finally, I wasn’t doing much back at home in Philadelphia. I was home on break from college, where I was studying to become a nurse, and I was bored as hell. I went to school at Temple University, which was right in the heart of Philadelphia. The suburbs were boring me to tears, and a trip to some tiny European country that I’d never heard of sounded like a lot more fun than working at Rite Aid for three months.
“It’s only two weeks,” I said finally. “Let’s just stay and see what happens. We can always leave later.”
Lucy nodded, looking smug. “See, Robert? She’s fine. She’ll apologize to the King and things will be fine.”
Dad frowned. “Are you sure?” he asked me.
“I’m sure. I won’t apologize, but we should stay.”
Lucy shot me another look, but I ignored her.
We were in a beautiful country, foreign and exotic. I was getting a chance to finally see where I came from, and all for free. Sure, I’d slapped the King in the face, but that would be smoothed over eventually. Besides, I doubted we’d even be seeing much of him again.
Not like I’d want to anyway. He was crude and totally out of line. So what if he was also incredibly handsome and had a grin that could melt glass? The man was a royal asshole, and that was all I needed to know.
As the car wound its way through the capital city of Stehen, I was already trying to put that cocky king out of my mind.
TRIP
“Your highness, shall we have that impudent American arrested?”
I could still feel the slight sting on my cheek from where Bryce Koch had slapped me in front of the media. I smiled to myself again at the angry look in her eyes.