Page 65 of The Royal in Room 3

“I think so. Not for a while, though. I need some time to process things.”

“I’m proud of you.” He cupped my cheek and kissed me hard, then proceeded to cover my face with kisses. “You’ve grown beyond what I could ever teach you.”

Fifteen minutes later, we got into Jude’s truck and were on our way to see his mother. I placed my hand on his thigh just to feel closer to him, and he smiled.

“Watching you drive is so sexy,” I said.

“Yeah? You love being the passenger princess? I should let you drive sometime.”

I snorted. “Sure. If you want us to end up in a ditch.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “That bad, huh? Everyone learns to drive in high school. Didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know when I would ever be required to drive myself. I only know the basics because the body—uh—driver would sometimes let me get around the steering wheel.”

“You had a driver?”

Damn, it was a wonder he hadn’t figured out my background yet the way I’d been volunteering tidbits of information lately.

“It was necessary. My parents were afraid of something bad happening to us.”

“You lived in a bad area, then?”

“Relatively.”

It wasn’t technically a lie. Overall, one of Belvaria’s attractions was the low crime rate, but the royal residence received its fair share of threats when the public didn’t agree with policies.

The drive to Jude’s mother’s house took much longer than I’d expected. The Pacific Ocean disappeared behind us, replaced first by busy streets and shopping plazas, then by quieter neighborhoods where the houses sat closer together and children rode bicycles along the sidewalks.

Eventually, Jude turned onto a narrow residential street lined with modest single-story homes. The lawns were small but well kept, and most of the houses had porches with potted plants or wind chimes hanging beneath the eaves.

He pulled into the driveway of a pale yellow house with white shutters and a low brick border around the garden.

“This is it,” he said.

I looked through the windshield. The house was much smaller than Jude’s and older, though someone had taken care to keep it neat. Bright flowers crowded the beds near the porch, and a ceramic bird sat beside the front steps.

“Is this where you grew up?” I asked.

“Yeah. Lived here until I left for college. We didn’t have much money at the time, and I was on scholarship, so I stayed with my aunt in the house we now live in because it was closer to commute from there. She willed it to me when she passed away.”

Ah, I’d wondered how he could afford a house on the ocean. The properties seemed expensive when I considered how much I earned working at the club. On my salary, I would never have been able to afford such a house. I wouldn’t be able to afford any kind of house.

He got out of the truck and came around to open my door before I could do it myself.

“You know I can open doors,” I reminded him. In Belvaria, doors were always opened for me, but with Jude it was different. He wasn’t being paid to do it.

“I know.”

“Then why do you keep doing it?”

“Because I like to.”

That made me smile. I took his hand and followed him toward the house.

Before Jude reached the door, it opened. A woman stood on the other side, holding on to a walker. She was small, with silver curls cut close around her face and a soft blue cardigan buttoned over her dress.

“There’s my Jude,” she said.