Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
But it was known widely he had a head for business, and he spent a goodly amount of time amassing a vast fortune to coincide with the colossal fortune the Starknight Dynasty already owned. It was also known he gave freely to charitable endeavors. However, in doing so, he didn’t put himself front and center. He just gave funds that they were so grateful to have, they were vocal about him giving them.
He wasn’t picced on a horse playing polo or participating in a laser joust (like Timothee). He wasn’t snapped frolicking on a sky yacht, or a sea one either (like Timothee…and Errol). He wasn’t caught on digital drunkenly lurching out of an ice casino in Sky’s Edge after losing a veritable mint at a gaming table (again, like Errol).
In fact, I didn’t know what he did as hobbies or in his downtime, outside date gorgeous females and any private activities my active imagination speculated might come with that.
I had built him up in my mind as being so unattainable, and so extraordinary, I’d never even bothered to dream about what meeting him might be like.
However, if I had, this would not be it.
Further to this not being it, I’d had all these many thoughts, sitting stiffly in his presence, his whatever that human was to him off to get me a drink, and he’d not said a word. Not even hello. And I didn’t know if I was allowed to do so without his permission.
I did know he was watching me, his head turned my way, and there was something I didn’t like about that either, since the way the booth was illuminated, I knew he could see all of me, but I couldn’t see his face, and as such, his expression.
This went on so long, unusually for a quiet person like me, I couldn’t take it any longer.
“Am I allowed to speak?” I asked.
“Why would you not be?” he asked in return.
I’d heard his voice. He made speeches every once in a while. He spoke for the Dynasty, and occasionally, for the king. He was a succinct speaker and had a smooth, deep, delicious voice.
Live and in person, the deep, rich, posh silk of it was staggering.
And for some reason, it made me mad.
I pried my fingers off my bag to flick a hand to where I’d curtsied. “Obviously, I’m unaware of royal protocol.”
“Obviously,” he replied.
“I feel like I need to apologize for that,” I said, not sounding apologetic at all.
“Accepted,” he said, sounding scrumptiously, but infuriatingly haughty and like he deserved the apology he very well knew I didn’t want to give him.
And this, for reasons that didn’t escape me, made me even madder.
“For future reference, considering I’m stunned to my absolute core that I’m privileged enough to be in your presence, say, if I ran into you at Captain Jacques’s Fish and Chips, and you were incognito, enjoying a tri-filet boat, should I curtsy to you then?”
There was droll amusement that I couldn’t be sure wasn’t aimed at me, rather than shared with me, when his remarkable voice queried, “I’ve never had a tri-filet boat at Captain Jacques’s. Is that the meal you suggest?”
Of course he hadn’t eaten at Captain Jacques’s fast food fish emporium.
“No. Totally go for the chicken schooner. Less greasy,” I advised.
“I’ll file that for future reference,” he murmured, even though we both knew he’d never be caught dead in a Captain Jacques’s.
And mm-hmm.
I was amusing him, and not in a good way, or at least, not in a good way for me.
Was it the pink dress?
Everyone was wearing dark. Sleek. Sophisticated.
It wasn’t that mine was gauche, or even inexpensive. I was a costume designer. I didn’t do gauche (though, I did inexpensive, but that had more to do with budget than choice). I’d designed period pieces and curated elaborate contemporary wardrobes. I knew clothes down to the last stitch over the last three hundred decades (this was not an exaggeration). Some of my dearest friends were well-known artists in the fashion world (this why my current frock was not inexpensive, friends gave discounts).
But my dress was light and airy. It was soft and girlie.
It was me.
Was it so boring being a prince that you had to call over a strange woman and get your kicks by making fun of her?
I noticed his long, attractive fingers were wrapped around a squat glass filled with amber liquid. He had this resting on the knee of his very long crossed leg. And I noticed it because he lifted it to his lips.
This movement brought him into the evasive light, and for the first time, close up and personal, I saw in profile the sublime beauty of Prince Aleksei, the True Heir of Night’s Fall.
The elegance of his brow, the enticing hollow under his high cheekbone, the strength of his square jaw, the allure of his full lips, the shine to his thick black hair.