Maid For You 4

Chapter 18

My heart dropped to my stomach.

What did I do wrong? I wondered, immediately starting to scan all my actions from the previous week. As far as I'd known, I hadn't committed any treason of the sort, so there was nothing to warrant deportation. Honestly, I hadn't done anything wrong! I mean, I'd talked to Coleman on the phone, and Nikolas wasn't a fan of him, but he shouldn't know that we'd talked, and even if he did somehow know, Nikolas didn't seem like the kind of guy to kick me out because of it! Despite Chloe's innuendos that Nik might care for me as more than a friend, even if that were true we'd never communicated that, so it hardly seemed fair that he would make me leave just because Coleman had called me!

No, it couldn't be that. It had to be something that that Volkorn guy had told him. Everyone here at the palace didn't like me, and they wanted me far far away from their crown prince. He must have put pressure on Nikolas to send me away.

I swallowed hard, my stomach twisting and turning. "Did I...did I do something wrong?"

Nikolas looked at me in a way that felt hard. "What?" he asked.

I felt very nervous, and not in any sort of good way. "I just...why are you, why are you kicking me out?"

He continued to stare at me with his sharp gaze for a another second or two, furrowing his brow, when his whole face lightened up and a sort of realization dawned on him. "Oh, no, Cassie, I'm not—I'm not kicking you out." He looked quite sheepish in an instant, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I mean, I wasn't clear. Yes, you're leaving, but, but I'm leaving too."

Wait, what?

"We're going on a trip!" he explained. "Yes, we're leaving the palace for a few days and going out into the country. My cousin, Anastasiya, lives there with her husband. It's a nice home. We'll be staying there for a few days. It will be nice to get away from...from it all."

"Oh, I see," I said, my heart beginning to pound faster. Nikolas and I are going on a trip. Why does this feel so intimate? What is even happening? And why exactly are we leaving?

"I mean, unless you do not wish to go. I, I suppose I should have asked you first instead of barging in here so wholly unannounced."

"No, no, I want to go!" I assured him, surprising myself in the process at how strong my reaction was. Oh geez, what is happening? I wondered. "And, you don't have to apologize for 'barging in here unannounced' or whatnot. I mean, you live here so it's not a big deal or anything."

Then Nikolas's eyes began to dart around the room, as though he were surveying the space. "I, I will leave you now. I, it just occurred to me how improper the situation is."

"Improper?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, not looking at me. "It is not proper for a man to be alone in a woman's room."

"Oh, I see," I said. I thought about all the times I'd had guys in my room over the course of my life, and over the course of the last six months even. Luke, even Coleman. Nikolas's words threw me back like I was in a period romance movie or something.

"I shall take my leave," he said, bowing curtly and almost rigidly, whirling around and marching right out of the room as though his legs couldn't move quite fast enough.

The door closed behind him. Oh no, I thought. Oh no oh no oh no. I scrunched up my eyes and my fists and let out a silent scream, my "AHHHHHH" coming out as an aggressive whisper-scream.

I can't do this! I thought, screaming to myself in my very own brain. I can NOT have feelings to Nikolas! He is my FRIEND. He is a PRINCE. He will marry a PRINCESS, which I AM NOT. Falling for him would be futile!

Why did he have to ask me on a trip? Why did that feel like something special. I mean, trips are something that couples do together, right? No, I thought. Friends go on trips together, too. I was reading into things too much! He just wanted me to see the countryside as well and was kind enough to accompany me. Maybe his cousin doesn't speak good English and he'll be my translator, though I supposed Melanyia would be able to do that as well.

I'm sure Melanyia and Ivan are coming, too, I thought. So it's not even like a one-on-one trip. And his cousin is there, so we're not going up to stay in some cozy winter cabin up in the mountains by ourselves.

And then, I had this lovely image, or not so lovely image depending on whose side of the argument you were, of a quaint log cabin up in the mountains, with snow and pinewood trees surrounding it. And Nikolas and I were walking into the door with large coats, shoulder to shoulder, smiling at each other and laughing. I let my mind linger on the scene for a little longer than necessary, before snapping out of it. This was nothing like that! Nor should it be!

I blame Chloé for my thoughts. I blamed Chloé and Queen Klara and Nikolas's mom Queen Irina and the Korn guy and all the advisors and everyone for being so paranoid about Nikolas and I, because now it was making me overthink things! I sat on the sofa in my room and closed my eyes, trying to remember when we first met. I'd been a maid, his maid, no less, and I had felt so decidedly beneath him in ranking. He'd made it very clear that I was his servant and he was the prince, and there would be no blurred lines.

But then the Queen Maiden fiasco happened, and I asked him to be the Prince and things changed and somehow we were friends and now here we were going off on a little vacation together and I was starting to think of him as maybe potentially slightly more than as just a friend, which could only end in sad days for Cassie Carmichael!

He's told me, I thought. Over and OVER again that he must marry a princess, or someone of high ranking. I was not someone of high ranking. I was just a simple American citizen, and no amount of "Queen Maiden" or "Lady-in-Waiting" positions thrown at me by Queen Klara could really quite change that core.

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