Maid For You 4

Chapter 61

The next day, I was with Princess Calista and Lucille Rylin in Calista's room sitting on the couch, having just returned from a charity event, when Prince Coleman walked through the door.

"Coleman," Calista said. "Have you ever heard of knocking?"

"I don't think so," I muttered.

"Calista, always a pleasure," he retorted. "Actually, I'm here to steal Cassie away for a bit. Do you mind?"

I rose my eyebrows, and I caught Calista and Lucille glance at each other with these knowing looks in their eyes that I personally didn't appreciate.

"Sure," Calista said, smirking at her brother.

I saw his jaw flex just a bit. I guess he hadn't missed their suggestive glances either. "Thank you," he said. He turned to me and extended his hand. "Shall we?"

"Um..." I didn't know what we were doing. Maybe he wanted to further discuss the career paths Mercucio had suggested last night. "We shall?" I took his hand, and he pulled me up from the couch before promptly dropping my hand.

He glanced back at Calista. "I'll return her at some point."

She smiled at him in a sly way that reminded me of Queen Klara.

"I'll be back!" I assured her. So please wipe that smirk off your face.

"Have fun," Calista said.

I was pretty sure my face was red by the time I left her room. "So what are you doing with me?" I asked him as we walked down the hall.

"Why so grumpy?" Coleman asked me. "Normally you aren't so pouty about spending time with me."

"Because," I said. "It's just—you saw their faces, didn't you?"

"And you care about the opinions of a couple of teenage girls?"

"Yes," I said honestly. One of those teenage girls was the Princess, my boss, and the fiancée of Nikolas.

"I'll talk with Cali about it later," he told me. "She just doesn't appreciate our friendship nor its respective parameters yet."

"In fairness to Calista, how many female friends have you had, exactly?" I asked.

He grinned. "Quite a lot...though, it depends entirely on your definition of 'friends'."

I rolled my eyes. "I can understand poor Calista's confusion."

"You should be honored, Cassie." He placed a hand on my shoulder. "You may be my first ever female ­just-friend."

Strangely, I didn't feel honored. For a moment, for a fraction of a moment, I felt a twinge of disappointment, but as soon as that gut feeling came, I tried to push it away. It was nice to be his friend and that was all I wanted anyways: being his just-friend was a compliment. I was glad he wasn't trying any funny business with me! The last thing I needed was that. Madeline was certainly right about one thing: it wasn't worth it to mess with princes.

"Let's keep it that way," I said. If I hadn't been looking at him, I wouldn't have seen his smile droop for half a second.

"Calista, Mercucio, all of them," he continued with his jovial tone. "They have no idea what they're talking about."

I sighed dramatically. "And here I was hoping you had a crush on me."

There was a beat before his answer. "You were?" Coleman asked in a tone that wasn't dripping with its normal sarcasm.

I furrowed my brow slightly and looked at him quizzically. "I was...kidding."

"Oh." He smiled sheepishly. "I was playing along."

"Oh!" I said, feeling my muscles tighten with embarrassment. "Right. Duh."

Stupid, I thought. Why did I make things awkward? What's wrong with me?

"Anyways," I continued. "What are we doing, exactly?"

"Learning. Well, you're going to be learning, and I'll be teaching."

"Teaching what?"

"Areganan and international politics." He grinned.

I grimaced. "Mercucio was looking into journalism jobs for me, or editing positions. What does Areganan politics have to do with it?"

"Well, if you're intent on marrying Lord Harrison, you ought to know these matters in greater depth."

"Who said I was marrying him?!" I exclaimed.

"Well you did go on a date with him last night."

"So?" I demanded. "That hardly constitutes marriage! I dated Luke for months and we didn't get married!"

Coleman laughed. "Our lesson will be fun, Cassie."

"Will it?" I asked.

He paused for a moment. "Well, it will be fun for me."

***

Coleman was a surprisingly engaging teacher. Sure, he made fun of me at times for confusing the various names, but I did find that I was enjoying myself more than I thought that I would. I glanced at my watch and saw that an hour had passed.

"It's already been an hour!" I cried. "Calista must be wondering what we're up to."

"She probably assumes we're in flagrante at the moment," he mused, grinning at me lewdly.

"Well that's just lovely," I deadpanned.

He picked up his red leather notebook and pencil and began taking notes again. "Enough chit-chat," he said. "Tell me, Cassie, what is Lord Christopher Edwards'—as in Harrison Edwards' father—what is his rank?"

"Uh...he's a Lord?" I said tentatively.

He glanced up from his notebook. "Cassie!" He sounded exasperated, though not truly upset.

"Well I don't have notes in front of me like you do!" I cried.

"Lord is not a noble rank," he said, raising a haughty eyebrow. "It is merely a title, or a name. I am not a 'your highness.' People refer to me as 'your highness', but my rank isn't 'your highness'. I am a prince. So what is Lord Christopher's rank?"

I scrunched up my face, trying to remember. I was pretty sure Coleman had mentioned his rank at some point, but I couldn't remember what it was. "I don't know...it's..."

"He's a baron. The lowest of the noble ranks," Coleman interrupted, before continuing to write in his notebook. "And you are failing the quiz."

I glowered at him. "What are you writing?"

"I'm taking notes on your performance."

"What."

"I'll be faxing over a full report of your performance to Lord Harrison so that he knows just what he's getting himself into."

"Don't be stupid!" I snapped.

"Me? Stupid?" he asked, dropping his mouth in faux shock. "I'm not the one who couldn't remember that Lord Harrison is only going to inherit a barony."

My mouth did drop, but it wasn't in a fake way like Coleman's. He just called me stupid. I stood up, leaned over the table and snatched his red leather notebook straight out of his hands. In an instant, Coleman was on his feet.

"Cassie, give that back!" His voice was panicked.

"Let's see..." I started, flipping over the notebook to read what he'd written about me.

"That notebook contains highly confidential information!"

I looked at the page in front of me, at the 'highly confidential information.'

It was a drawing of me.