ears still rang with her father’s words, even as she moved through the motions of greeting the rest of the guests at the formal luncheon. It was not every day that your father informed you that you were set to marry a stranger, after all.
But, then again, her father was a king.
And the King clearly thought that the best time to impart news of this magnitude was no less than thirty seconds before he introduced her to her intended fiancé—a complete stranger. It was a wonder that she had managed to greet their guest of honour at all before she’d hurriedly made an excuse to leave.
Princesses were generally not permitted to sneak away during royal functions. Especially when that royal function concerned a very esteemed guest of honour from a faraway kingdom. Still, Olivia found herself making her way slowly across the room in search of fresh air.
‘Another glass of champagne, Your Highness?’
Olivia stopped her progress and gracefully accepted the crystal flute from the waiter’s hand, noticing the way his fingers trembled slightly as he tried to balance his tray. He was quite young—fresh out of school, she would bet.
‘Is this your first Royal Races?’ she asked, glad of the distraction while her eyes scanned the room, plotting her escape.
‘It’s my first day, actually. In general,’ he replied.
‘You are doing a wonderful job.’
She smiled, hoping her words might help to calm his nerves somewhat. It couldn’t be an easy start, balancing priceless crystal while surrounded by some of Europe’s wealthiest and most famous people.
‘Thank you, Princess Olivia—I mean, Your Highness. Er…thank you.’ He stumbled over his words, then smiled nervously, showing a mouth full of shiny metal braces.
Olivia smiled back with genuine warmth as the boy made a wobbly attempt at a bow and moved away. She sighed, taking a small sip from her glass. She would happily have spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with the teenager simply to avoid thinking of the bombshell that had just completely taken her by surprise. As if these royal functions weren’t difficult enough.
The usual array of eager guests had predictably occupied her afternoon so far, with wave after wave of polite, banal conversation. Her parents, King Fabian and Queen Aurelia of Monteverre, stood at the opposite side of the long balcony surrounded by people and bodyguards. Her own personal security team stood at strategic points around her, trying and failing to blend into the crowd in their plain black suits and crisp white shirts.
The Royal Monteverre Races were infamous around the globe for their week-long parade of upper-class style and glamour. The historic racetrack was spread out below them, and thousands of guests had gathered in their finery for a day of sport and socialising.
No one’s style was more closely watched than her own. Her morning had consisted of three hours being transformed by her own personal styling team. Her naturally wavy long red hair had been ironed and pressed to perfection, and her fair skin polished and highlighted in all the right places.
The public hailed her as a stunning natural beauty, but she knew the effort that went into upholding that image was far from natural at all. She was a public brand—a symbol for an entire country with her every single step followed closely by the whole world.
Even her older sister, Crown Princess Eleanor, was not given the same amount of attention. Perhaps it was because she was already married. The press took much more pleasure in the single siblings than they did in the ‘taken’ ones. And yet her younger sister had the excuse of her studies in London to avoid the limelight.
For the past five years Olivia had been very much at the centre of public attention—since taking her official role in palace life at twenty-one. She did not shy from the pressure—she had been trained for it after all. She knew to expect intense scrutiny. And yet there was nothing that could make her feel more alone than being surrounded by thousands of people who treated her like an ornament to be admired from afar.
A sudden crash jolted her out of her thoughts and she looked up with a groan of empathy to see that the young waiter seemed to have lost his balance and gone crashing into a nearby couple.
‘You absolute imbecile!’
The roar came from an elderly duke, a close friend of her father, who seemed to have been the sole recipient of the tray’s liquid contents. Shards of priceless crystal lay scattered across the floor in a pool of expensive champagne while the teenage server stood frozen with a mixture of embarrassment and fear.
‘Have this clumsy idiot taken back to the schoolroom. Out of my sight!’ the Duke spat, his eyes bulging as his equally outraged wife hurriedly tried to dry his sodden shirt with a napkin.
As Olivia watched with horror, a single bodyguard materialised from the crowd and took the boy roughly by the shoulders.
‘Stop!’ She moved forward suddenly, her body seeming to propel her towards the dramatic scene of its own volition.
‘A princess should never concern herself with such matters.’
Her late grandmother’s voice seemed to warn her from her subconscious. But she pushed the thought away, arriving by the boy’s side and looking up at the burly guard with all the authority she could muster. A hush had fallen over the crowd around them.
‘I think there is a better way of managing this, don’t you?’ She addressed the guard, then turned her attention to the elderly Duke and his wife. ‘Duque L’Arosa, this young man is a friend of mine. I know he would appreciate your kindness on his first day of work.’
The Duke’s eyes widened horribly, his face turning even more red as his much younger wife gripped his arm and snorted her disapproval. Olivia stood her ground, flashing her best royal smile as the guard immediately released the boy. The young waiter avoided her eyes as he hurriedly gathered his tray and rushed off in the direction of the kitchen.
Olivia became suddenly painfully aware of the quiet that surrounded her. Members of the Monteverrian nobility and various public and government figures all averted their eyes, no one daring to speak or whisper about a member of the royal family while she stood in their midst.
A strange sensation began to spread over her bare shoulders, and she instinctively turned her head and found herself pinned by the gaze of a man who stood a few feet away. He was remarkably tall—taller than most of the men in the room. Perhaps that was what had drawn her attention to him.
She tried to look away, feeling uncomfortable under his obvious scrutiny, but there was something about the way he looked at her. She was quite used to being stared at—she was a public figure after all. But his dark eyes seemed to demand her complete attention. It was quite inappropriate, she told herself. She should be annoyed. But even with the length of the room between them, having his eyes on her seemed to make her heart beat faster.
A strange quiver of anticipation jolted to life in her chest, making her want to close the gap between them just to hear how his voice sounded. She raised one brow in challenge and felt her heart thump as a sinful smile spread across his full mouth, making him appear all the more rakish and infinitely dangerous.
No man had ever looked at her that way before—as though she was a tasty snack he might like to sample. She shook her head at the ridiculous turn of her thoughts and forced herself to look away.
When she finally looked back he had vanished.
She steeled her jaw, nodding politely to the Duque and Duquesa before making a slow and graceful exit through the main doors. Her own personal team of guards made themselves known as she walked faster, all five of them closing in from their previous placements. She had never felt more frustrated at her newly heightened security than she did at that moment. There was no immediate threat—no need for the ridiculous new measures her father had put in place the week before.
‘I’m feeling ill,’ she announced to the men once they had exited into the empty corridor outside the racetrack’s function