Page 38 of Expecting Royal Twins!
She crawled out of bed, shrugged on the white bathrobe and stepped into the hallway. Still not sure which room was hers, she left the door open.
A few minutes and a couple wrong turns later, Izzy sat in the castle’s deserted kitchen poking at a slice of chocolate torte with her fork. Her appetite was still missing in spite of her tummy’s grumblings. She couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm to take a bite of chocolate. Pathetic.
“Here you are.” Niko’s voice cut through the silence and startled her. “I wondered where you had disappeared to.”
“How did you know I was gone?”
“The door to your room was open.” He walked toward her, past the wall of stainless steel refrigerators and around the massive commercial stoves.
“All the doors look alike.” She noticed he wore the same dress shirt and pants as earlier, but he’d ditched the jacket and tie. He’d also unbuttoned the collar and rolled up the sleeves. The casual style looked good and made Niko seem approachable, more like a normal guy than a crown prince. “I left mine open so I wouldn’t walk into the wrong room.”
“Smart move. I called your name, but you didn’t answer.” He sat in the chair next to her. “I thought you might have run away.”
“Running away was the first thing I thought of doing.” Izzy stared at the uneaten torte. “But I crossed it off the list.”
“You have a list?”
“Well, yeah.” She stabbed the fork into the torte and left it there. “I know this doesn’t really affect you, but we’re talking about my future. I’m not going to grab a splash of gas and hope I can make it to the end of the race. I need a full tank before I take an alternative to your father.”
“What happens to you does affect me, Isabel.” Niko’s lips thinned. “Why do you think I’m still awake?”
She shrugged. “Just heading back to your own room for the rest of the night?”
“No.” His jaw tightened. “I’ve been trying to come up with a solution myself. If I had thought this would happen, I would have never brought you back to Vernonia.”
Izzy felt lower than pond scum. She’d accused him of having a midnight tryst while he’d been playing knight in shining armor trying to save her butt. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. We need to find a way out of this.”
We. Izzy didn’t feel so alone. She didn’t like needing help, but she liked having Niko with her now. She wasn’t getting very far on her own.
He eyed her torte suspiciously. “Are you going to eat that?”
“No.”
“May I?”
She pushed the plate toward him. “It’s all yours.”
“Thank you.” He raised the fork. “What stopped you from running away?”
“Logistics,” she admitted. “I can’t get back home without a U.S. passport or cash.”
“Ah, yes. You only have the temporary Vernonian passport Jovan arranged for you.”
Izzy nodded. “But I don’t have it. Jovan does.”
“If you want it—”
“If I ran away, you wouldn’t be able to get an annulment. That means you couldn’t marry Jules without committing bigamy.”
“Thank you for sticking around. I’m much obliged, as will Julianna be.” He scooped up a forkful of torte. “I did think of one possibility. It’s a bit extreme.”
“I’m open to anything at the moment. Including extreme.”
“How about faking your death?”
She stared at him in disbelief. “That’s on my list.”
The edges of his mouth curved. “Great minds think alike.”
“It’s a good idea,” Izzy said. “I don’t want to die, but if people thought I was dead, there would be no issues with the Separatists. No one would complain if you married Julianna. I would be free to live my life however I wanted.”
“The logistics would be more complicated than running away.”
She nodded. “There can’t be a body.”
“That limits the ways a person can die.”
“I know.”
“Fire,” Niko suggested.
“Wouldn’t bones and teeth be left?” she asked.
