Chapter 4

Noah was much too tall and much too broad for the backseat of a sedan. Especially the floor of a sedan. Zara had moved the passenger seat up as far as it would go, and if he put most of his weight on one arm, he could almost fit.

To cover him, though, the blankets would need to go almost all the way to the windows, and he thought that was way too obvious. And how would he get out? Spill out the door and shake off a dozen blankets like he was Boomer?

Foolishness raced through him. Maybe he should abandon this insane plan to be seen volunteering in Getaway Bay. It wouldn’t create that much sympathy for him, because everyone would just leave comments like, “Oh, he has to spend his summer in Hawaii. Too bad for him.”

Noah had read hundreds of sarcastic comments in his lifetime, and he didn’t need any more.

“Okay,” Zara said, starting to cover him with the blankets. “Are you ready?”

“Maybe this is stupid,” he said. Their eyes met, and in that moment where she wasn’t saying something about how he stunk because he hadn’t showered or telling him he’d named his dog wrong, there was a tenderness in her gaze.

“You want to volunteer at the wedding, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Then this is what we have to do.” She started unfolding another blanket to cover his legs. “And you better text me a grocery list so we don’t have to do this more than we have to.”

“I’ll need your number for that,” he said, his heartbeat rioting the slightest bit. He wanted her number, and not just to send grocery lists. He’d lain awake in bed last night, thinking about her downstairs and wishing he could talk to her. Tell her some private, personal things about himself that he’d never told anyone before.

Because despite being wealthy and having nearly everything he wanted, Noah was desperately lonely. And sometimes, he made bad decisions just to have someone to talk to. That was all that had happened in Venice, though it certainly looked like something else entirely had gone down.

She laughed, which made Noah smile, and she said, “Oh, you’re good, Mister Wales. Very slick.”

“Hey, you’re the one who suggested it.”

She lifted a pile of folded blankets and dropped them on his head and shoulders. He grunted, but when she said, “Give me your number, and I’ll text you,” he decided he could handle having the blankets unceremoniously tossed on him.

He recited his number, and a few seconds later, his phone chimed and vibrated.

“That’s me,” she said. “Now, let’s get going. This day is almost halfway over already.”

The ride down the twisty, winding road from the bluff to the city seemed to take forever. Every turn put more pressure on his arm, and by the time she parked, his entire left side was numb—and he was sweating.

They hadn’t spoken, so when she said, “All right. The coast looks pretty clear,” her voice was muted and muffled by all the blankets. “Am I coming to let you out?”

“Yes, please,” he said, his royal training kicking in. His tutors would be so proud.

“Oh, there’s a couple with a dog.”

Noah wanted to scream, but he held still and waited.

“Bicyclists,” Zara said next, and Noah started to squirm, trying to find a position that didn’t cause agony from his hip to his spine. But her floor in the back wasn’t flat, and he felt like a rainbow over the hump that ran down the middle.

Finally, finally, the door opened, and she lifted the blankets off his face. It was like breathing for the first time. The sun was too bright, and he squinted as he looked up at Zara. She was haloed in sunshine, and the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes on. His pulse thrummed through his body, and he wondered what it was trying to tell him.

“Come on,” she hissed, breaking the vision. “You can’t just lie there and stare.”

He wiggled his way out of the car and onto the hot pavement, jumping up a moment later and dusting off his hands. She dumped the blankets on the backseat and closed the door behind him. “Very graceful, Your Highness.”

Noah froze, his heart racing around his chest for a completely different reason now. “So you know.”

“I have a Smartphone,” she said. “I looked you up when I was parking yesterday.”

Noah clenched his teeth and pressed his lips into a tight line. “Did you recognize me?”

She scoffed like this wasn’t the most important conversation on the planet. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

A measure of relief moved through him, especially when she said, “You gave me your name. I Googled it.” She clicked her tongue as she started walking around the car to the driver’s side. “You brought up a lot of articles, buddy.”

Embarrassment heated his blood now. “Which ones did you read? Because you know, not everything on the Internet is true.”

Zara laughed, the sound magical as it lifted into the sky. “I read enough to know you’re a….” She glanced around and closed her mouth, thankfully. “I’ll be back in a bit. You better text me what you want for lunch, and at the grocery store, okay?”

He nodded and looked out at the ocean. It had been so long since he’d actually touched an ocean despite living beside one. “Okay,” he said.

She gave one curt nod like she was his nanny and slid behind the wheel. So Noah watched as her shorts hitched up a little higher on her leg. It wasn’t a crime.

Zara was beautiful, with long limbs and miles of that Indian skin. Noah looked away and walked toward the boardwalk that would lead him down the beach a bit to the offices of Your Tidal Forever, hoping that by the time he called his mother that night, he had an action plan in place. Otherwise, the Queen of Triguard would dictate one for him, and Noah was much too old for that.

Hope Sorensen blew around the building like a tornado, and Noah kind of just wanted to stand back and watch. But she had her assistant, a curvy brunette named Shannon Bell—who Noah had communicated with the most—hand out assignments to everyone there to volunteer. Shannon put him to work on the Invitation Committee, which turned out to be the absolute worst place for him.

He didn’t care what font was used on the announcements. Then he realized they hadn’t even been talking about the actual announcement, but something called the “Save the Date” card that needed to be out in the next three days. Apparently, if it wasn’t, the world would end. Or something.

The four women at the table with him kept looking at him as if he had something to say. So he threw out things like, “I think the cerulean is nice there,” and “Honestly, I don’t think the seal matters.”

They took his advice on the blue, though he had no idea why, but one woman actually gasped when he said the bit about the seal. It was a sticker, for crying out loud.

But Noah had never been married, so clearly he didn’t understand the importance of pictures, and colors, and stickers. Oops, seals.

His mother would be all over this, and Noah found himself thinking of her a lot during the two-hour meeting.

Then he got put on something he could actually get behind. Addressing envelopes. It was boring, tedious work. Every time he messed up and had to reposition a sticker, he felt a bit bad at wasting the paper. But at least he could see something getting done.

In Noah’s opinion, there was absolutely nothing worse than a meeting. He was convinced the good Lord had invented them just to torture men like him.

Now, his father adored a good meeting, which summed up exactly how different Noah was from his father, the King of Triguard. About the only thing they had in common was the fact that they both wanted the Queen to be happy.

And there was that thought of his mother again. Noah would call her as soon as he got back to the privacy of the house.

With the thought of the mansion, his thoughts turned to Zara. An exasperated sigh slipped from his lips, and he hadn’t even seen her for hours. He just wanted some time to himself. Time to figure out why he still didn’t know what to do with his life after thirty-one years.

But her being the house sitter would testify that the house was indeed empty. And the mansion was huge. Noah could probably go days without having to see her, and he just might.

“Those look great,” Hope said when she buzzed into the room. Four long tables had been set up and no less than ten people worked to type in addresses, print them on labels in a font that had taken fifteen minutes to choose.

“You went with Desire?” Hope asked, picking up one of the ivory envelopes. “And are these from our scented line?” She brought the paper to her nose. “Ah, yes. Vanilla crème.”

Noah stared at her, sure she was joking. But the small smile on her face wasn’t of the kidding kind.

He tuned out the redhead who explained how the decision to use the font had transpired, and instead focused on getting that return address label exactly squared away in the corner of the vanilla crème envelopes.

This wedding was actually the union of two celebrities, one of whom lived right here on the island. Apparently, Collin Marsh was a huge action star, and he was marrying a woman from one of those reality TV shows.

So the island would be crawling with reporters. Thankfully, those who wanted pictures of a prince from a tiny island in the Greek Isles didn’t usually run in the same circles as those capturing Hollywood stars.

He thought he’d be okay. He hoped. He’d actually prayed for it while he was underneath those blankets, coming down off the bluffs in the back of Zara’s sedan.

With only two hundred envelopes left to stuff and label, his phone buzzed against his hip. He pulled it out and checked around the room like he was doing something wrong. But he was a volunteer; Hope couldn’t fire him.

Still, all he’d ever done in his life was volunteer. Serve. He’d never had a real job to speak of, and his mother had always taught him to live in the moment. Be present. Put your phone away.

But it was Zara, and she was asking him how much longer he thought he’d be. He glanced around at this pop-up post office, and texted back, Thirty minutes.

I’ll be straight out from the front doors, on the beach.

Noah acknowledged that he’d come find her when he got done, and promptly slid his phone back in his pocket, glad he’d made it through a four-line conversation without wanting to say something sarcastic to Zara.

Baby steps, then.

Forty-five minutes later, he’d agreed to come back on Thursday to help with the construction of…something. All he knew was that Hope had asked him to be there for something requiring hammers, saws, and a nail gun.

He was all over that, as the castle at Triguard had a crew of six gardeners and four maintenance men, and the closest he ever got to building something was when he tried to fix some stupid misunderstanding between him and the rest of the world.

He left Your Tidal Forever in favor of the hot afternoon sun. It actually soothed him as his dark skin drank it up, and he sighed. He found Zara on the beach all right, wearing a black swimming suit that showed the entire length of her toned, tanned legs.

She carried a beat-up surfboard under one arm as she laughed with another man.

Something hot and spiked roared through Noah, and he paused, still back on the loose sand. Who was that guy? Did Zara have a boyfriend?

Why Noah hadn’t thought a woman as beautiful as Zara wouldn’t, he wasn’t sure. But the thought had never crossed his mind.

It was crossing it now, and Noah didn’t like it. Not one little bit.

So he was jealous. Didn’t mean he wanted a new relationship with the gorgeous Zara Reddy. It just meant he was a male and had happened to notice that Zara was an attractive female.

After all, they didn’t get along, and her having a boyfriend would actually be a good thing. Maybe then, she’d leave him alone in the mansion.

Maybe then, he could stop thinking about her.