Royally Claimed Read Online Free

degree.”
    â€œGood for you.” Pride for her, misplaced or no, swelled his chest. “You always were the smartest woman I ever met.”
    The compliment broke through her polite shell and she snorted in disbelief. Now that was more like the old Julia he remembered. Or was it the young Julia he remembered? This woozy sense of past and present was mixing him up. “Why do you make that noise?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou don’t believe me.” He shook his head. “Do you remember me as a liar?”
    She pursed her lips. “Surely you’ve met smarter women than I.”
    â€œNo, and just to prove it, all of them would have said ‘smarter women than me.’”
    â€œGood grammar doesn’t make you smart.”
    He shook his head. “You always were terrible at accepting compliments.” Like how her dark hair shone in the sun, her hazel eyes sparkling like his estate’s premium sherry.
    â€œI was not!”
    â€œArgumentative, too.”
    â€œI am not—” She stopped arguing when he started to laugh. “Frank, that is not fair. You know I can’t say anything to that without arguing.”
    â€œThen you’ll just have to agree with me.”
    â€œHmmph.”
    â€œAh, Julia, no need to fuss. We are just old friends who have met again for lunch. What would you like to eat?”
    She pressed her pretty pink lips together. Oh, how could he have forgotten how her dimples appeared when she did that. He had to hide a delighted smile before she really lost her temper and walked out on him. Again. Well. Remembering that wiped the smile off his face.
    â€œFrank?” She gave him a questioning look.
    â€œLunch, oh, yes.”
    â€œWhere is the menu?”
    He pointed to the chalkboard outside. “Whateverthey feel like cooking today. Chicken with rice, salt cod stew and chouriço de carne —sausage with fava beans.”
    â€œMmm. I haven’t had chouriço in years,” she said wistfully.
    â€œYou can’t get Portuguese sausage in Boston?” There was not only a huge Portuguese-American community there, but a large portion of that was specifically of Azorean heritage.
    She shrugged. “I live in a different part of town.”
    That wasn’t much of an answer. How long could it take her to drive to a Portuguese deli? He’d driven to Massachusetts and Rhode Island Portuguese restaurants from New York when he’d had a craving for sausage or the sweet, eggy desserts that were an Azorean specialty. “Well, you must have it here.” He waved to the waiter and ordered the sausage and fava beans for her and the salt cod stew for him. “Sure you don’t want any wine?”
    She shook her head, so he ordered another bottle of water and switched to that, as well. Julia alone was making him light-headed enough.
    He acknowledged she had become even more beautiful in the eleven years since they’d parted. “How is it that you aren’t married yet?” he blurted, then winced. Smooth move, dummy. If she were married, she would either not be here at all or else her husband would be sitting across from him shooting daggers with his eyes at Frank. Maybe they’d have a few small kids, too, who would wonder in embarrassingly loud voices how this foreign guy used to know their mom.
    â€œI’m not married yet because nobody ever asked me.” Now her lips were really tight, her dimples even deeper.
    â€œI did.”
    â€œOut of some misguided sense of obligation. That doesn’t count.”
    He’d taken her virginity and changed her life forever—why wouldn’t he feel obligated toward her? And it wasn’t misguided, but he knew she would run away from him forever rather than discuss that now.
    She jumped to her feet. “Look, Frank, it was nice to see you, but I have to go home.”
    He jumped up, too. “Julia, please stay. I spoke out of turn. I