Free The Royal’s Pretend Wife by Sophia Lynn Page B

and she knew that she would always welcome him as her leading man.
    In the palatial dining room, the women served their husbands. Trinity could see how sour Serafina and Carolina were about this. They were used to being served, not the other way around. Trinity found herself more amused than anything else. After all her time in the restaurants, getting to sit down to enjoy the meal would be a welcome treat.
    To the surprise of absolutely no one, Jozef and Serafina ended up quarreling over the mess of pastry she had produced.
    “Did you even try following a recipe?” he asked, poking at the gray mass.
    “Why should I?” she sneered. “I know that you would never bother sitting down to the meal…”
    It ended with her throwing the cashmere scarf he had bought her into his face and storming off, Jozef on her heels ready to finish the argument.
    Then it was Trinity's turn and she brought out the fajitas she had made. Apolo raised his eyebrows.
    “I didn't know that you could cook,” he said.
    She laughed. “Well, when we eat as well as you like to, why should I?”
    “A point. Maybe I need to put you in the kitchen more often…”
    She smiled as he took a bite, but then she froze as his eyes went wide. She wouldn't have called Apolo the most expressive man, but suddenly his face was very expressive indeed. She watched as he forced himself to chew the bite before swallowing hard and giving her a weak smile.
    “What is it? What's the matter?” she asked, suddenly tense.
    “It's…simply not what I am used to, that is all. Is this something from California?”
    Trinity bit her lip. Fajitas made in the Tex-Mex style were hardly challenging food. She had kept it on the mild side so that they could spice them as they liked at the table. She started to feel a tickle of dread in her belly as she looked down at the food.
    “No, it's Tex-Mex,” she said.
    Trinity picked up a fork and tried a bite herself. Immediately she saw why Apolo had made the face he had. It was all she could do not to spit the bite of meat out. Somehow, she had managed to make the fajitas overwhelmingly, ridiculously salty. It was so salty that it made her mouth pucker.
    “Oh my god, we can't eat this,” she said, pushing it away. “I'm…I'm so sorry, I don’t know what happened.”
    This was absolutely nothing like what she had anticipated. As an actress. Trinity was used to always being prepared, and something this disastrous had never happened to her. Unexpectedly, she felt her eyes fill up with tears, and a well of horror rose up in her.
    I can't cry here and now, she thought. Oh god, I cannot cry…
    Apolo seemed to pick up in her despair. Making a concerned expression, he came around the table to sit next to her.
    “It's all right,” he said. “Don't worry, it's all right. We can give the recipe another try some other time.”
    She tried her best to smile at him, slowly wrestling her emotions under control.
    “I just can't believe I messed up the recipe so badly,” she said. “I…I can try making us something else, or I guess if you don't trust me, I can order us something. I've never failed at ordering us anything yet…”
    He laughed a little, shaking his head. “Actually, not that I doubted you, but I think my present is going to fix things.”
    She watched in increasing surprise as he pulled out a spread of small jars and food items. There was an elegant loaf of dark bread, several cheeses, and a few sausages, all of the highest quality, some from very far away indeed.
    “Oh my god, you knew I was going to trip up so badly?”
    “No, but the rule was to find you a good gift. I figured that we could eat what you had cooked tonight, and then perhaps tomorrow, we could have this. Are you hungry?”
    “Famished,” Trinity said with a sigh, and together, they began spreading her present out on the table.
    There was one dark jar that made her pause.
    “Is…is this caviar?”
    “Yes. A certain young lady told me that she always