Would she be like one of the silly girls his parents kept presenting him with, women programmed like automatons eager to prove how subservient they could be? Or like the women he wined and dined while traveling, so blinded by proximity to power that they never noticed there was a prince beneath the crown?

Your objective was to rid yourself of this weakness, not indulge it. If she’s a twit, all the better.

“Your Highness,” Likotsi said, hand moving toward the tablet as if she wanted to snatch it away. “I’m sorry, but in my excitement I failed to relay that her response was less than optimal. I believe that her parents have poisoned her against you. There can be no other explanation for this crass response to my perfectly polite messages.”

“Hmm.” Thabiso scrubbed his thumb over the screen, and his betrothed’s words slid into sight.

FUCK. OFF.

The smile that tugged his cheeks upward wasn’t controllable, and the laugh that followed was ridiculous. Royalty shouldn’t laugh like a hyena from a bush story; his deportment teacher would reprimand him. But he read the two words out loud and laughed until tears streamed from his eyes and caught in his beard.

As a child, he’d imagined Naledi in some tower far away, being held by an evil sorcerer. He’d imagined she’d needed saving and he would be the one to do it.

FUCK. OFF.

Oh no, Naledi didn’t need his help at all.

“Prince?” Likotsi’s loafer was tapping again. “I don’t know what spurred this attempt to find your betrothed, but now that she has responded, how would you like to proceed in light of this . . . unsavoriness?”

Likotsi’s nose scrunched as if she smelled burned mealie pap. That was okay because Thabiso had always liked the burned part of the corn meal porridge; perhaps because it was one of the few imperfections that made it through the many quality filters surrounding a prince who was the sole heir to a kingdom.

“It seems that this Naledi may have been worth the wait. I would like to meet her. Now.”

Likotsi glanced pointedly out the window of the jet, then back at Thabiso.

“Well, I don’t expect you to summon her thirty thousand feet into the sky,” Thabiso said. “When we land in New York City, have her brought to me immediately.”

Likotsi raised her brows. “Well, that would be considered kidnapping in the US, Highness. You are protected by diplomatic immunity, but perhaps we could save that perk for a more important matter. We can ask her to come to you, but given her response I’m not sure that she will.”

An unfamiliar annoyance pulsed through Thabiso. He wanted something, and it wasn’t guaranteed he would have it. That was rare, indeed, and it whet his desire to a sharp edge.

“Fine. Then I will go to her.”

Likotsi gasped, but when Thabiso looked at her she had schooled her face back to bland acceptance.

“Whatever you think is appropriate,” she said. “I don’t have a home address yet, but I believe I’ve located her place of employ. It seems that she might be”—another wrinkle of the nose—“a waitress. What a life her parents’ thoughtlessness has condemned her to! In Thesolo, she would have lived a life of luxury! Her hands would be as smooth and soft as—”

“Likotsi!”

She flinched and straightened her tie. “My apologies.”

“You said you could locate her—get on with it. I could use a diversion on this trip, and I believe I’ve found it.”

“Yes, sire.”

Thabiso sat still on the massage table, any relaxation Melinda’s work had provided forgotten. His muscles were taut with excitement—and fear? No, that wasn’t it. It was the same sensation he got before making an important speech or having to make a decision that would impact his people for generations.

“I’m nervous,” he muttered to himself.

Life had been nothing but a series of mundane duties for so long—even the occasional trip to a hot new club or date with a Nollywood starlet had become just another part of his job. He hadn’t been this nervous about a woman since his first time making love, but he’d had some idea of what to expect then. Naledi was a mystery, and perhaps a mistake. Part of being a good prince meant he avoided mistakes at all cost, but this time . . .

He didn’t expect a happily ever after like in the slim white romance books of his youth. He expected excitement, and it looked like Naledi could provide just that.

Chapter 4

Ledi, I know you’re busy but—”

She whipped around and glared at Dan, also affectionately known as “fuck-my-life Dan” and “Shit-I-have-a-shift-with-that-asshole-Dan Dan” to her and her coworkers at the Institute’s dining hall. Ledi was regretting having agreed to work in the weeks leading up to finals, and his presence wasn’t helping.

When she’d walked into the Institute’s kitchen, he’d been dramatically scribbling in his Moleskine with his shiny Montblanc. Of course, he’d had to share the profound spoken word poem he’d written, entitled “Macchiato Mama.” And now he wanted more of her attention.

“I. Am. Busy.”

Her words came out sharp as the steak knives on the plates she balanced on her forearms.

She was already covering four tables to his one. The group of astrophysicists was keeping her on her toes with their requests for detailed explanations of every dish on next week’s special tasting menu. The mathematicians lingering across the dining room kept forgetting to eat their food as they debated some theorem or another—Ledi had already been chewed out by Yves, the Swiss chef, for bringing their meals back to be reheated twice. As if she wanted to destroy the textural integrity of his precious swordfish.