Thrown into Royalty [chicklit romance] [REVISING]

IV.

I glanced down at my outfit before looking at Noah. "I need to change."

"Why?" His frowned deepened.

"I'm not dressed appropriately." I chuckled nervously.

He studied me up and down, then his eyes softened. "Maeve, you look beautiful that way. You don't have to change your clothes. It's a casual dinner, even if my parents are quite formal."

I tugged at the sleeves of my red dress, my eyebrow cocked. "You're not helping."

He sighed out of exasperation. "You look absolutely stunning to me, and that's all that matters, okay?"

I still wasn't convinced, but decided to shrug it off. "Fine."

He grinned. "Come now, I'll give you a tour around the Palace."

He offered his hand and I took it. I felt his fingers curl around my palm, and my hand just felt like it was where it should belong. A small smile tugged at his lips.

He gave me brief introductions on the notable places in the Palace, and we took about an hour just to look around. We were walking through the halls of his parents' wing of the palace when I heard giggles in one of the rooms. Noah stopped, then approached it.

"Noah?" I questioned his sudden interest.

He glanced at me, all his attention to what was behind the doors. "This is my siblings' playroom. Sounds like they're inside," he told me. He opened the door, and he had a full-on smile on his face.

There were two children playing in the playroom. One of them was a girl who looked about seven years old, the other was a boy who looked around four. The girl had dark blue eyes and long dark hair while the boy had green eyes and was blond. The girl was sitting at a small table, playing with a couple of dolls seated on chairs as she pretended to have teatime with them while the boy was playing with toy guns by himself, but the children weren't alone in the playroom. There were a couple of women watching them, whom I presumed were their nannies.

The women immediately curtsied a little as they saw us. Their eyes casted downwards in respect. "Your Royal Highness," they greeted Noah.

The brown-eyed boy looked up as he heard them and immediately dropped his toy guns. "Noah!" He squealed excitedly as he ran and hugged Noah's leg.

"Matteus, hey," Noah chuckled, picking him up in his arms. "I missed you."

"I miss you too! You been gone a long time!" The little boy said as he hugged Noah tightly.

"Who's that?" I heard the girl say as she walked towards us. She tilted her head to the side as she stared at me curiously.

"Oh, Astrid," Noah said, glancing at her. "This is Maeve. Maeve is a friend of mine." He then looked at me. "This little guy here is Matteus, and she's Astrid. They're my two youngest siblings. Astrid's turning seven next week, and Matteus is already four."

I kneeled to Astrid's height to greet her. "Hi there," I simply said in Swedish. "You're turning seven next week?"

She nodded vigorously, a wide smile on her face. "My birthday is next Thursday."

I arched my eyebrows. "Next Thursday? Well, guess what, Astrid? My birthday is next Thursday too." I told her, a big smile on my face.

Her eyes widened. "We can get two cakes!" She exclaimed enthusiastically. "One for you and one for me!" She turned to Noah, jumping a little. "Will she come to my party?"

"I think I will," I said to Astrid. "We'll celebrate our birthdays together, then."

She squealed and grabbed my hand, trying to pull me to her teatime table. "Can you please have tea with me?" She asked eagerly.

Noah shook his head at her. "She's in the middle of something right now. She'll have teatime with you another day, but not now." He told her gently, letting Matteus down from his arms as he did so.

She pouted.

"Astrid," he warned gently when he saw her expression.

I sighed. "Okay, look, Astrid," I started, "I promise that we'll have a teatime session soon. Pinky promise."

She broke her gaze from Noah and surprisingly, a smile reappeared. "Pinky promise."

She then linked my pinky finger with hers, and a small pinky promise was sealed.

"And now we have to leave you both to your toys. We'll see you during dinner, alright?" Noah told them.

Matteus unexpectedly gave me a short hug. "See you later, Miss Maeb." He said shyly before running back to his toys.

"You too, Matteus." I said as I stood up again. "And the same goes to you, Astrid."

She curtsied at me and I chuckled before she went back to her teatime with her dolls. The nannies acknowledged our leave and we headed out of Astrid & Matteus's playroom.

"Well, that was nice," I commented.

He chuckled under his breath."Astrid & Matteus are the youngest two, and they're still learning a lot about behaving properly like people of their titles as Prince and Princess. When I was Astrid's age, my mornings and noons were filled with private music, language, basic etiquette, mathematics, and science lessons by the same governess that currently teaches Matteus. Sometimes, Louise would check in and see how I was doing. She would help whenever she could. Christoffer would have his own separate lessons in the palace library. My lessons would be conducted in my father's old study." Noah told me.

"Oh. That must be really hard, then." I said as we walked through the halls again. "Did you have a nanny when you were young like Astrid & Matteus?"

"Well, my siblings and I grew up with nannies around us a lot when our parents couldn't make time for us." He responded. "I did have a nanny, and she had to take care of both me, Christoffer, and my other younger sister Caterina who's sixteen this year, unlike how Astrid & Matteus have their own nannies."

That made me think back to when I was younger. I have never had a nanny— after my parents' death, Aunt Julia would drop me off at a daycare centre before she'd go to work in the city at the human resources department for a big company based there. She would then pick me up after work and we'd have Italian for dinner at our favourite restaurant. That tradition stopped after I entered secondary school, when I was able to take care of myself most of the time, but she'd bring home takeout from the same restaurant, even until now.

"So your birthday is next Thursday? May twenty-eighth?" Noah changed the subject.

"Yeah. I'll turn twenty in five more days." I said.

"I'll have to think of something to give to you for your birthday." He told me. "Now, how about we wander around the dining hall since dinner will start in half an hour?"