Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Beep.
Beep.
My eyes shot to the bedside, but my phone wasn’t there. If it wasn’t my phone...
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Grabbing the bottom of my dress, I ran into the hall only to see a thick haze of smoke coming from a pan on fire on the stove, followed by yelling from my kitchen.
“What the hell are you doing? Get the fire extinguisher!” I screamed, already halfway down the stairs.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“Where is that?”
“Move!” Pushing him out of the way, I grabbed the extinguisher from under the sink, pulled out the pin, and sprayed white foam that exploded all over the place. I tried to turn my head from it, closing my mouth, but still, I could feel it spray into my face. It was only when the fire was out that I took a deep breath.
“I—”
I spun on my heels at the sound of his voice. He took a step back and held out his hands.
“I was just trying to make breakfast—”
“You failed!” I screamed, making him wince...him! I was the one with the headache, and he was wincing.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Slamming the extinguisher onto the counter, I grabbed a magazine from the stack of mail and handed it to him. He glanced at it and then back at me.
“I do not read these type of things—”
“It’s not for you to read. Get up there and fan the smoke detector!”
“Fan the smoke detector?” He looked at me, confused.
Seriously?
“Yes, get on the stool and fan it.” Oh, God, my head. My head hurt so badly. “Go!” I pushed him toward it.
“I’m going!” He took it from me, walked around to the kitchen stool, then got on top of it to reach up and wave the magazine.
Sighing, I faced my stove—my foam-covered, burned stove—on top of which sat a frying pan with only God knew what inside of it.
“Your Highness?”
I turned to see his guard, the white-haired one, coming back inside, holding a small grocery bag.
“The tomatoes are useless now, Iskandar. I nearly burned down her kitchen, and now she is punishing me in this way.”
“Punishing you?” I glanced back up at him. “I’m the one being punished right now.”
“Exactly how long am I supposed to fan this thing?” he asked, clearly changing the subject.
“Until it stops beeping.”
“It has stopped.”
“Then, I guess you can come down.” I frowned, wishing he had to stay up there all morning fanning it.
“I apologize,” he said as he was hopping down and dusting off his hands. “Truly. I did not mean to ruin your kitchen. I wanted our start to be much better than last night.”
“Our start?” I repeated, not sure what he meant.
He nodded, reaching for paper towels. “The start of our relationship.”
“Relationship? What—” I stopped as he brought the paper towel closer to my face.
“You have a little—”
“I got it,” I said, quickly cleaning off my face.
It was only as I wiped my face that I saw the brown makeup stain on it...and then felt one of my fake eyelashes, which was definitely coming off. When I glanced up at Gale, he didn’t say anything, which was worse because I could see the humor in his blue-green eyes.
I didn’t even want to know how crazy I must have looked.
Turning my back to him, I found his guard arranging papers on the desk, avoiding watching us.
“Iskandar? Right?” I called out to him.
“Yes, miss?”
“Please make sure he doesn’t burn down the rest of my home while I get cleaned up,” I said, already moving to the stairs, trying not to look like I was running even though that was what I wanted to do.
“It was an accident,” His Royal Highness declared behind me.
“Of course, miss.” Iskandar nodded at me.
“Thank you, and you don’t have to call me miss. Odette is fine,” I said, heading back to the stairs.
“Should I phone in an order for breakfast then?” I heard Gale call up to me.
“Do whatever you want, Your Royal Highness, just don’t touch anything in the kitchen,” I stated, going into my bedroom.
I held my composure until the door closed and then ran into my bathroom. I nearly dropped to my knees at seeing my reflection.
“Oh, God!” I cried out, grabbing onto the edge of my sink. Not only was one of my eyelashes falling but the red lipstick I had worn was also smeared across my lips and the side of my cheek. My hair was a frizzy, tangled hot mess. My dress was nearly falling off me, and I think ripped. It looked like I had just been rescued off some deserted island. Why couldn’t I look like those women in the movies who woke up with their makeup still perfectly in place and their hair only slightly disheveled but still cute? Huh? Why wasn’t that my reality?
Then again, why was I so annoyed? So what if I looked bad? Who was I showing off for?