Beautiful Dreams

Chapter Seventeen

I sit in a small office staring out the window at the beautifully decorated courtyard. I easily get lost in thoughts of dancing around the courtyard with a handsome young, faceless man and he suddenly transforms into Josh.

"So we can book the courtyard for Monday instead of the original date?" Ian asks pulling me out of thoughts.

"Yes we can change the booking," says the young girl named Maya.

"Thank you," I say pleased that I can still get the place I choose for my reception.

We say our goodbyes and head over to the kitchens for a meeting with George about the menu. When we get there, George has a selection of cakes for us to try for the dessert. I try each of them and decide on a chocolate cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting. We decide on the menu for the dinner.

"Kayla, I was wondering if you would like to cook dessert for the dinner tonight," George says.

"Yes, I would love to," I say.

"I should get going," King Ian says as he leaves.

"So what would you like to cook, Princess?" George asks expectantly.

"I was thinking a slice of custard tart with a dollop of cream and a serving of fruit salad with it," I say nicely.

"So I know we only have a short time and I thought we could use some pre-prepared pastry that I keep in the freezer for such occasions," he says with a pleasant smile.

"That would be great," I say as he grabs a couple of balls of pastry wrapped in cling wrap out of the freezer.

"These will be enough to make the number of tarts we need for the dinner tonight," he tells me politely, "We'll roll these out. When it is thin enough, we'll blind bake them and prepare the filling and salad while they are in the oven."

"Sure, let's get started," I say checking the time and seeing that it's quarter past nine.

He pulls out two rolling pins and we get to work quickly rolling out the pastry. When it is thin enough, he pulls out the nine tart tins. We start putting the pastry in the tins with the baking beads in on top of the pastry and put them in the oven to blind bake.

"Could you make the custard for the tarts, please, as I have never made custard before. I don't want to make a mess of it," I explain to him.

"I can do that," he says politely and sets himself to making the custard.

I go to the fridge and find all different kinds of fruit. I start grabbing out the fruit I would like to put in the salad. When I have all the fruits I want sitting on the bench, I find a bowl to put it in. When I've located a bowl, I chop up the apricots, kiwis, peaches, strawberries, raspberries, apples, half a rockmelon, half a watermelon, red grapes, green grapes, bananas, oranges, mandarin, nectarine and pineapple. When everything is chopped up and in the bowl, I add cherries and blueberries, squeeze fresh lime juice to stop it from going disgusting, cover it with cling wrap and put it in the fridge. By the time I finished making the fruit salad, George has pulled the tart pastry out. He removed the baking beads, filled the tarts up with custard and put them back in the oven.

"Okay, so I will pull these out when they are ready," George says letting me go.

"Bye," I say before leaving.

"Okay so you have another appointment at the salon with Cassie. She'll be doing your hair and makeup for the dinner tonight," Isabella lets me know before leading me off to the salon.

"Hello, Kayla, come right this way," Cassie says and leads me to a back room.

I sit down in the chair he points me toward and he gets straight to work on my hair giving me a side braid and puts orange citrine hair pins all through it. When he is finished with that, he sets to work doing my makeup in light oranges and yellows.

"Okay, all finished, Princess," he says after an hour of working on perfecting my makeup.

"Thank you," I say climbing out of the chair, "What do you think Isabella?"

"Princess, you look gorgeous," she compliments me.

"Thank you, Isabella," I say.

"Come on, there is another gift waiting for you in your room," she says leading me out of the spa.

She leads me towards the King's quarters of Council and looking at my phone I realize that I only have thirty minutes to get ready and get to the dining hall to help the king greet people. Walking into my room, I see a gorgeous orange floor-length, mermaid, one shoulder evening gown with a natural waist and lace up back, along with a pair of gold strappy wedge heels. Next to the dress are four boxes.

"The King had these specially ordered for you to wear tonight for the dinner he's hosting," Isabella informs me putting down her diary.

She helps me get the dress I'm wearing off and helps me into the evening gown and laces up the back all without messing up any of my makeup or hair. She then helps me into the shoes. Once the shoes are all done up, she grabs the first box and opens it. She pulls out a pair of orange citrine pendant drop earrings along with a matching necklace and helps me put them on. In the second box is an orange citrine tennis bracelet. The third box has a bottle of perfume, which has the scent of orange tulips and orange lilies. When I open the last box, my jaw drops. In it is a tiara that looks similar to the one I picked out. Sitting next to it is a scroll, and so I open it and read it.

Dear Kayla,

I wish for you to wear this tiara tonight. I know you can't wear the tiara you choose as your Crowning tiara, but since this is not your Crowning tiara it is fine for you to wear tonight. It is simply to be used as a symbol of your royalty. All crowned royals are wearing their crowns tonight, so since you are to be crowned in less than two weeks, you will still have to wear something to symbolize your status. So I have chosen this tiara for you. Wear it proudly, it has a great history.

Yours sincerely,

Ian.

While I read the scroll, Isabella puts the jewelry on for me. Once I am finished, I put a small amount of perfume on each wrist and my neck. I look at the clock and realize I have five minutes to get to the dining hall in a pair of heels and a tight floor-length dress.

"I don't know if I'm going to make it in time," I say concerned.

"It's fine if you arrive a minute or two late. The King has said he will wait for you to arrive. Since he is hosting the dinner to introduce you to important key people in the Succubi and Incubi community," she explains to me.

We head to the dining hall as fast as we can. When we arrive, King Ian is waiting for me.

"Princess, you look absolutely gorgeous," he compliments me.

"Thank you," I reply. "You have excellent taste."

"I had help to pick out the dress, but I know my jewelry," he says proudly. "We best start greeting guests."

He leads me to the main door of his quarters. When he opens the doors to let people in, I am swept into a whirlwind of greetings, people saying how great it is to see me, people saying how great I look and how much they are glad to meet me at last.

When it comes time for dessert, the King hushes everyone and dessert is brought out and served.

"Before everyone starts eating dessert I would like you all to know that Princess Kayla Lascher has cooked this dessert for you all tonight. She has a great passion for cooking and I hope you enjoy the fruits of that passion," he says with his voice full of passion, "so everyone dig in."

Once everyone is finished eating, he leads us out to the ballroom and a small string orchestra starts playing in the corner. All the men ask to have a dance with me and I don't get a chance to sit down. I just finish dancing with one gentleman and another asks me to dance with them.