‘Yes to all of that. And I trained Rufusina under the tutelage of Winnow. There is a photo album.’ Rik brought out the photo album and a selection of books and before Mel knew it she was nose down in some gorgeous pictures, and some very interesting information. He didn’t have cookbooks, but he told her that some of the old recipes were still produced at the palace and described some of the dishes.
‘Truffled turkey. I’d like to cook that.’ Mel thought back through her cooking career. ‘The closest I’ve come to cooking with truffles is using truffle-flavoured oil a few times.’
Rik’s brows lifted. ‘You had a career as a cook?’
‘Yes, working for my aunt and uncle.’ Mel glanced at him through her lashes. She’d thought he would have known that already.
They were seated with her on the swivel chair, and him leaning back against the corner of the desk in his office. It wasn’t a large room, and as she let herself register the cosiness, his closeness, Mel suddenly became breathless. ‘I cooked for them for years. Cakes and desserts were my speciality, but I cooked all the meals, including for dinner parties. They liked to schmooze wealthy—’
She coughed and turned her attention back to the books. ‘These are wonderful resources. It’s an intricate industry. You’ve done well to get the black truffles growing commercially here.’
‘Not so well in the past two years.’ Rik glanced up and towards the windows.
The frown that came to his face made Mel follow his glance.
She hadn’t noticed the change in atmosphere, but now she saw it. ‘I didn’t know it had started snowing.’
‘Yes.’ He got up from the desk. ‘Why don’t you select what books you’d like to bring back to the palace when we return, while I see what’s in the kitchen that we can have for our lunch?’
Not that Mel minded either way and it wasn’t as though Rik were trying to trap her into spending time with him here. He’d probably enjoy the time away from the palace while he could, but would have been just as content to be up here by himself.
Something in his expression still made her ask. ‘How long do you think it will snow?’
CHAPTER SIX
IT SNOWED all that day. When darkness fell, Rik closed the curtains throughout his chalet home and turned to face Mel.
While Rik appeared completely calm Mel couldn’t say the same. She stood rather uncertainly in the middle of the living room.
With the prince. Up here in his chalet where he’d just made the decision that they wouldn’t be leaving until morning. So they would be here. All alone. Together. For all that time.
‘It won’t matter too much?’ She asked the question in a deliberately businesslike tone that somehow managed to emerge sounding chatty and confiding and breathless all at once. Mel forged on. ‘That you can’t get back tonight,I mean?’
Even despite the tone, Mel would have said she did well, that the question was at least focused on whether he might have problems because he couldn’t attend to duties at the palace tonight.
Yes. That was a good way to put it. ‘Your duties—?’ Really, she felt quite relaxed about this whole situation.
After all they were just staying in a different location for a night. She’d slept in a bedroom within Rik’s suite of rooms last night, which was rather intimate when you thought about it, and that hadn’t bothered her.
Not even when you leapt out of bed the next morning because you could hear him speaking just outside your closed door? Because you wanted to get through the shower and look your best for him before he saw you? Because you hadn’t been entirely certain whether he’d pulled the covers over you the night before when you might not have looked your best?
‘It won’t matter at all. I gave Dominico another quick call while I was outside checking the snowfall. He’ll take care of anything urgent until I get back tomorrow morning.’ His cheek creased as he gave a lopsided and quite devastating smile. He didn’t seem at all concerned or put out by their circumstances.
Which was great, of course.
That was exactly how Mel would feel in a moment when she finished pushing away these silly thoughts about being up here alone with him and how that might impact on the rest of the evening. It must be because he had kissed her on the mountainside earlier. Or because they’d spent the afternoon poring over truffle books and photo albums that showed many shots of Rufusina being trained by Rik and Rik laughing in some of the shots.
Perhaps it was also because she would be pretending to be engaged and then married to him.
‘We’ll end up holding hands and kissing …‘ Somehow the words were attached to the blood vessels in her face. Heat swept upwards from her neck and rushed into her cheeks.
‘Yes,’ Rik said in a deep voice. ‘At times we … will.’
Rikardo. Prince Rikardo. You’ll end up holding hands and kissing Prince Rikardo.
Oh, as though putting it in the correct words made it any better!
Even the reminder didn’t hold the weight it should have, and Mel just didn’t know what to do about that. Something had happened when he took her hand and got her out of the car and brought her inside and made her a hot drink and set to work to help her get past the ridiculous fear she’d experienced.
He acted just like your dream idea of a very ordinary man, showing a sensitive side while still being very, very strong and being wonderful and appealing and all the things you might want—
But Mel didn’t want a man. Well, not for a long time. Not like that in the way of settling down together and falling in love so she ended up vulnerable. She wasn’t ready for that! The thought burst through, and was somehow linked to her earlier panic while trapped in the speeding car with Rik.
Maybe she just felt panicky at the moment, full stop.
Maybe she needed to focus on right now because this was enough of a challenge, thanks very much!
Rikardo wasn’t an ordinary man anyway. Mel couldn’t afford to forget that.
Not while reading truffle books and smiling over Rufusina photos. Not while kissing him on a mountainside because that had been a kiss to seal a bargain. It might have blown her away, but he’d just kissed her and that had been that. Probably checking to make sure he could make it look believable any time they had to repeat the exercise over the next month and the months after that.
How many times might they … ?
Mel’s heart tripped.
She contemplated turning into a contortionist so she could kick herself for being so silly. The next months would be businesslike as often as possible. That was what they would be. Now what had they been saying? ‘Evening in. Yes. That’ll be fine. The only thing that matters is that it doesn’t interfere with other plans of yours. The treatment in the truffle groves—has that been done today or do you need to be there to supervise it? That’s the one thing I didn’t ask about while we studied those books.’
‘Winnow has supervised the treatment today. He knows what to do, and Dominico organised payment to cover it.’ He brushed this aside as though it were irrelevant.
Not the treatment part, the money part. Was it? Mel hadn’t got the impression that the money would come out of some endless royal coffer. If that could happen then Rik wouldn’t be stressing over getting the people out of financial trouble to the degree that he was. He’d said that there needed