Page 29 of Expecting Royal Twins!
Talk about living large. The grandeur of the interior exceeded the castle’s fairy-tale exterior. She felt as if she were staying in a museum with antique furniture, famous paintings and exquisite tapestries. Everything looked so expensive she didn’t want to touch anything she could break.
Inside the expansive bathroom, Izzy found her toiletry kit sitting on the gold-veined marble countertop. Someone must have removed it from her duffel bag. Having people do everything for you was really weird.
A thick, plush white robe hung on a gold hook. She ran her fingertips over the soft fabric. The robe was nicer than any of the clothing she had brought with her. A good thing she was going shopping.
Izzy brushed her teeth in the gold sink. Everything was gold, from the faucets to the gold seals on the pretty soap wrappers. Even the fluffy white towels had gold embroidery on the bottom portion. Uncle Frank would have gotten a kick out of this big gold bathroom.
She felt a familiar tug at her heart.
Then again, he hadn’t been a simple car mechanic. He would have been used to castles and bathrooms like this. Living in a motor home had been the opposite extreme. Had he been hiding her? Or maybe Uncle Frank had wanted to give her as normal a life as possible, not one with gold sinks. Izzy believed he’d kept the past a secret and raised her the way he did for a reason.
Aleksander and Evangaline Zvonimir might have been her birth parents, but Frank Miroslav had been Izzy’s father. He had wiped her tears when she hurt herself, boosted her self-confidence when the kids at school teased her for being different, and taught her everything she knew and loved about cars. He’d saved her life by leaving his own family to raise her in another country. She was only beginning to comprehend what he’d given up for her. It was too late to say thank-you, but Izzy wanted to make it up to him somehow. Maybe she could find his relatives and tell them how wonderful he’d been to her.
Emotion clogged her throat. She shook it off. The way she’d learned to do these last five years.
A shower would make her feel better. She turned on the water. As she undressed, steam filled the bathroom. She stepped into the large shower.
Hot water pulsed down on her as if she were standing in a heated waterfall. She nearly sighed at the decadence of the oversize showerhead.
Okay, Izzy grinned, comfy beds and amazing showers were definitely perks to being a princess. She could even forgive the invasion of privacy while she slept. A shower like this could make her forgive and forget most everything.
Normally she finished showering in a couple of minutes due to the size of the RV’s tiny water heater. This time, Izzy stayed in until her fingertips shriveled like raisins.
Best shower ever.
She turned off the water, dried off with a towel, slipped into the luxurious robe and combed her hair.
Out in the bedroom, she padded to her duffel bag. It wasn’t where she’d left it.
Izzy looked around. Her backpack sat on the table, but her duffel bag was nowhere to be seen. That was odd. The purple would be hard to miss against the yellow and gold decor.
Maybe whoever placed her toiletry bag in the bathroom had put the duffel bag away. Izzy checked inside the gilded armoire. Empty hangers hung on the rack. She slid out the two drawers. No bag or clothing. She checked under the bed. Nothing there, either.
This wasn’t good. She wanted to get dressed.
Izzy had the clothes she’d worn on the flight, but she didn’t relish the thought of putting them on again. They were dirty, and she was clean.
Her cell phone was no use. Anyone she could call was half a world away and asleep. They couldn’t tell her where to find her duffel bag.
She thought for a moment. Only one explanation made sense. Someone must have taken her bag. To wash the clothes, iron them, who knew why?
A castle this size had to have a large staff. She would flag someone down and ask how to contact Mare.
Izzy poked her head out of her room. The wide hallway was empty. Waiting for someone to appear, she shoved her hands into the deep pockets of the robe. No one came.
“Is anyone out there?” she half whispered.
No reply.
Come on. Izzy grew impatient. This was a castle for goodness’ sake. Maids and butlers should be running around. She would have to find someone herself.
