Free The Frog Prince by Elle Lothlorien Page B

taken aback my ferocity for a berry pastry, but gamely fetches it while Roman flips through his wallet and pulls out some cash.
    We’re back in the car, me balancing the tart on my knee and shifting my tea from one hand to the other so I can slip into my seatbelt. “Where do almost-royals hang out around here?” I say. “Is there, like, an almost-castle?”
    Roman backs out of the space and heads back in the direction we came from. “A place fit for a prince, where else?”

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    “Roman Lorraine and one guest,” Roman says to the man in the guard house. The guard takes his driver’s license, and compares it to something on a clipboard before handing it back.
    “Have a good time, sir,” says the guard.
    The iron-wrought gate slides to the side, and we join a line of other cars on the winding road up the hillside.
    “That’s where we’re going,” says Roman, pointing to a house at the top nestled on a plateau among groves of aspen and pine trees.
    Perhaps ‘house’ is an understatement. ‘Mansion’ is only somewhat more appropriate. Even from this distance I can see the place is the size of the Death Star.
    I glance at Roman’s clothes and then my own. “Aren’t we going to be a little underdressed?”
    “We’ll find out what the itinerary is going to be,” says Roman. “Then we can change.”
    Ten minutes later we’ve pulled the car into a circular driveway. A seemingly limitless supply of valets relieves each driver of their car. None of the guests in front of us seem to be unloading suitcases. I feel panic at the thought of being separated from my wardrobe. At the same time I don’t want to muscle my own luggage through the front door like a hayseed fresh off the turnip truck.
    As if sensing my confusion Roman says, “Just leave your suitcases in the car. The house staff will take us to our rooms and make sure our luggage finds its way to us.” He chuckles. “I’ll bet our luggage will get to our rooms before we do. Faisal runs a very tight ship.”
    “Faisal?” The name sounds vaguely familiar.
    “He’s the eldest son of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. This is his house. He lets us use it for our Almost Royal weekend every year.”
    “This has been going on all weekend? Then why are you just getting here?”
    Roman eyes the line of cars in front of us as he replies. “I was supposed to be here Friday. But then I met you,” he says, shrugging as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
    I am stunned. He sacrificed a weekend of hobnobbing with the cream of worldwide almost-royalty so that he could hang out with a semi-functional social defective? Part of me glows from the weight of his simple compliment. The other part of me instinctively wonders if this is part of a cruel joke–perhaps a game of Pin the Tail on the Peasant or a round of Poor Provincial caps the weekend’s festivities.
    A valet spies Roman behind the wheel and immediately barks something into a walkie-talkie. He then motions Roman out of the line of cars and onto a side drive. Another guy comes running from the main entrance to meet the car. “Welcome, Mr. Lorraine,” he says, opening Roman’s door and taking the keys. “The gatehouse alerted us of your arrival.”
    The second man pulls my door open and helps me from the car. From further down the drive a black golf cart descends on us. The driver leaps from the cart and loads our luggage onto a rack affixed to the back. This all happens so fast that we are in the cart and rolling down a paved path before I have time to say so much as a “thank you.”
    “We hope you will be comfortable in the Orchid Guesthouse,” says our driver. “There are separate accommodations there for yourself and Ms. Fromm.”
    I start at the sound of my name.
    The man hands Roman a business card. “Transportation to and from the guest house will be provided by our shuttle fleet. You need only call the number on this card and a driver will