Alex chuckled. ‘Are you asking if you can have mine?’
Ivy winced. ‘No, no. I just meant . . . I could massacre a burger right now.’
Olivia glanced around the room, suddenly aware of the silence that surrounded them. Twenty-nine other faces were turned in their direction. Ivy’s exclamation had come at just the wrong time. Burgers at a formal dinner?
Olivia could see her sister struggling to swallow and Olivia had no idea what to do to save her sister.
‘Oh, yes,’ Alex said, loudly enough for the whole table to hear. ‘Those wagyu beef burgers from Japan are such a delicacy.’
The Countess, sitting opposite them next to Mr Vega, agreed. ‘When I went to visit the Imperial House of Japan, they served the most wonderful kobe beef, which is a kind of wagyu.’
Olivia let out her breath as the other vampires nodded appreciatively. Ivy shot Alex a grateful look.
For a prince, Olivia thought, Alex seems really down-to-earth and welcoming. His modesty reminded her of Jackson a little.
She missed Jackson. Is he even missing me? Will he do anything at all for Valentine’s Day?
Across the table, the Queen snapped her fingers at the maid, Tessa. Olivia noticed Prince Alex watching intently. ‘My water is too warm. Bring me ice,’ she commanded.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Tessa curtsied and hurried off.
Gosh, Olivia thought. The Queen sure knows how to act like a royal.
‘If you like our Romanian countryside, Olivia and Ivy, I must show you our estate,’ said Prince Alex. For some reason, his face had coloured. ‘Please be my guests at the palace tomorrow.’
Olivia felt a thrill. The palace!
She glanced across the table and saw the Queen staring back, her face impassive. Olivia gulped. It seemed that the Queen of Transylvania wasn’t happy that her son was mingling with a human. Not one tiny bit.
As the rest of the courses arrived one by one, Ivy tried not to say anything. Every time she had attempted conversation, she’d said something stupid. Olivia fits in better than me – and she’s the bunny!
Ivy was used to being around vampires, but the vampires that she knew weren’t so hoity-toity. She missed Franklin Grove; she missed Brendan, she missed Sophia . . .
And to top it all off, she thought, I’m hungry! The food was delicious, but the portions were tiny.
‘Is everything to your satisfaction, my dear?’ asked the Count, wiping a drop of wine from his moustache. ‘You seem unsettled.’
Ivy didn’t want him to think she was too selfish to appreciate all the effort they were going to for them.
‘I think it might be jet lag,’ she offered.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the only thing that will revive me after a long flight is a sleep in my own coffin.’ Then he whispered, ‘And a formal dinner can put me in a coma!’
Ivy grinned at her grandfather’s rebellious streak. She couldn’t help but love him as he chuckled to himself.
He leaned in closer. ‘After dessert, I could distract everyone while you and Olivia slip away?’
‘What’s that, Nicholas?’ the Countess said with an arched eyebrow.
‘Nothing, dear Caterina.’ He cleared his throat.
‘I want the girls to join our important guests for petits fours and coffee in the parlour after dinner,’ the Countess said.
‘Mother,’ Mr Vega said, ‘if Ivy is tired, she can be excused.’
The Countess pressed her lips together. Clearly, that wasn’t an option.
Ivy stared at the table, resisting the urge to fiddle with the cutlery. She’d already drawn enough attention to herself, causing tension between their dad and his mom.
This isn’t quite happy families, Ivy thought. Not yet.
Chapter Five
‘This place is so amazing,’ Olivia said as she fell back on to her four-poster bed.
The heavy velvet curtains blocked out the bright moonlight and her long-sleeved pink flannel pyjamas made her feel cosy and warm. She didn’t even mind the flock of bats she’d seen flying across the moon when she was closing the curtains.
‘Wasn’t Prince Alex a surprise?’ she said, remembering how much laughing they’d done after dinner when Olivia told him about the first time she and Ivy had switched places.
‘He was the only person not horrified by my use of cutlery,’ Ivy replied, tying her hair back into a ponytail. ‘How did you know how to do it?’
‘I saw it in a movie,’ Olivia replied. ‘You just work from the outside in. And you’re supposed to curtsy, like, all the time around royals.’
‘I figured that,’ Ivy said. ‘My ribs ache from all your elbowing.’
‘Just trying to help my socially inept sister,’ Olivia said, chuckling. ‘We need to send you to finishing school.’
‘Ha ha,’ Ivy said. ‘They’re probably all talking about me and my uncivilised manners as they go home in their horse-and-carriages.’
Olivia laughed. ‘No one uses horse-and-carriages any more, not even vampires!’
‘Well, they don’t even have cell-phone signal out here,’ Ivy complained.
It was true. Olivia had practically hung out of the window when they’d first come upstairs trying to get even one bar on her new phone, with no luck.
‘You can’t deny that some people in the room really didn’t approve of us and our dad,’ Ivy went on.
Olivia remembered the look that the Queen gave her. ‘You’re right, but we can’t please everyone.’
Ivy grinned. ‘Especially the Ice Queen.’
Olivia laughed. She crossed her eyes, looking down at her nose. ‘My country is too warm. Fetch me a slab of ice.’
‘Fetch me an iceberg!’ Ivy put on a nasal voice and snapped her fingers impatiently.
The girls giggled together. They certainly were a long way from home.
‘But at least Grandmother and Grandfather are so nice,’ Olivia said.
Ivy shifted the mattress on her four-poster bed to reveal the shiny black coffin. Olivia knew that it was how vampires normally set up their rooms – a mattress for studying or, in Ivy’s room, throwing clothes on, with a coffin tucked away underneath.
‘The Count and Countess are just like I imagined them.’ Ivy climbed into her coffin. ‘I’m so glad we’ve been able to start putting our family back together again.’