I mean, how could I be here again? What American woman falls in love with not one, but two princes, in her lifetime? In what universe does this even happen? And for one of those princes to be His Royal Hotness? The whole thing is completely unbelievable.
Except…here I am. Again.
I do one good deed because of my history with his brother and now I’m totally fucked. That doesn’t seem fair.
How could I not have seen this guy coming? How could I have not realized that this is where we were going to end up?
Because he’s smooth, that’s how. He slides in all charm and chuckles and sexy-as-fuck V-cut and you think you’re in for a good time. Except then he hits you with the gentleness and the intelligence and the hints of vulnerability that pull you under. And then, when you’re drowning, he slams you with the sweetness. And you are totally fucked.
And by you, in this case, I mean me.
Fuck. I mix drinks for Paige’s newest table and try my best to keep from banging my head against the bar. It’s hard considering how much I fucked this all up. Because really, how the hell could I have gone and fallen for the most eligible playboy in the Western world?
The night drags on and I measure it in drinks. A flaming dragon is three minutes down. A gin and tonic, thirty seconds. A rare bottle of cab? Six minutes to locate it in the wine cellar and then bring it back to the main floor of the bar. Drink by drink, minute by minute, the night ticks away with no contact from Kian. Big fucking surprise.
The fact that I can’t just drive over and check on him—at least not without getting myself shot by the Royal Guard—is yet another reason it’s bad to fall in love with a prince. I only have as much accountability as he chooses to give me.
Finally, finally, the night is over. It’s my turn to finish the cleanup—mop the floor, put away the final load of glasses from the dishwasher, wipe down the bar—so I’m the last one in the building when there’s a knock on the locked front door.
I ignore it—it’s not the first time a drunk’s come sniffing around after closing time and it won’t be the last—but the knocking just gets more persistent the longer I don’t answer.
Shit. I’m just about done here and I want nothing more than to go home and fall into my bed, laptop in hand as I pour all the angst and emotion from my crappy day into my latest story.
But there’s a drunk between the bar and my car and until I deal with him—or her—I’m not going anywhere. Damn it.
Praying it’s a woman—they’re so much easier to handle than drunk, entitled, belligerent men—I have my cellphone in one hand and my pepper spray in the other as I approach the heavy wood door.
Except a quick check of the building’s security cameras in the foyer reveals it’s not a drunk outside, at all. It’s Kian—along with his three trusty bodyguards.
Chapter 29
For long seconds, I stand frozen, staring at the video feed of outside the front door area. Kian’s out there. Kian has come to see me. Considering I spent all night angry at him—and telling myself not to trust him—I’m not sure how I feel about this latest development.
My cellphone lights up before I can decide what to do.
Already knowing who it is, I swipe it open anyway. And nearly laugh, because of course Kian is texting me now. Of fucking course he is. He can ignore me for four days, but when he finally remembers I exist, he wants me right this fucking second.
Not that that’s a fucking surprise. His Royal Hotness is pretty much known for his need for instant gratification, after all…
Pissed off now—which is so much better than hurt—I march over to the front door. Then I shove my phone into the back pocket of my jeans and click the locks.
I don’t even get the chance to push the door open before Kian’s grabbing on to it and pulling. And then he’s here, right here, in front of me, looking like absolute, utter shit.
Just that easily, my anger melts away. Not my wariness, but it’s hard to be pissed off at a guy who looks like he hasn’t slept in ninety-six hours. Especially when he’s so shaky on his feet that a stiff breeze—or any breeze at all, for that matter—would knock him on his ass.
“I’m sorry it’s so late,” he says after we spend several long moments just staring at each other. “I needed to see you.”
“Okay,” I answer cautiously, not sure what he wants from me at this point or what I’m supposed to do in this situation. I step back to let him in, then ask, “How are you? How’s Garrett?”
“He’s fine. He’s—” His voice breaks then and he looks away. Clenches his jaw. Shoves his hands deep in his pockets.
And fuck it. Just fuck it, because there’s no way my newfound sense of self-preservation can stand up against his pain.
Reaching out, I take his hand and tug him toward the bar I just finished cleaning. “Come on,” I tell him softly. “I’ll get you a drink.”
He lets me pull him along without a word and when he collapses on a barstool and slumps over the bar, my already bruised and battered heart shatters completely.
I’m aware of Lucas and the others checking the bar out and then settling in a booth toward the back, but I don’t pay any attention to them as I squeeze past his long legs and settle on the barstool next to him.
And then I just wait as I gently stroke a hand up and down his spine.
Minutes pass in silence—or near silence, as Kian is taking deep, shuddering breaths that hurt my chest…and everywhere else. I don’t know what to say to him, don’t even know where to begin since all I know is what the news shows and papers have said—that Garrett was rescued and is in stable condition back at the Palais des Fleurs.
Finally, finally, he speaks, in a voice so low I have to strain to hear it. “They tortured him. For three months, they fucking tortured him.”
My stomach drops. I was afraid of that—I think we all were afraid of it—but to hear Kian say it so bluntly makes every part of me hurt. Garrett and I didn’t end well, but I loved him once and the idea of anyone hurting him like that makes me ill.
“Is he—” I stop, not willing to ask if he’s all right, because obviously he isn’t. “How is he?” I finally say.
“I don’t know.” Kian lifts his head then, looks at me with green eyes so dark and shadowed they break my heart all over again. “I mean, he’s healing, physically. He had two small surgeries two days ago, and then there will be a series of procedures to help reset bones that healed badly and do away with some scars—” His voice breaks on the word “scars,” and I take his hand and squeeze tightly as I bring it to my lips.
“But when I talk to him…when I try to talk to him, it’s all surface, you know. All jokes and sarcasm and big brother bullshit. Every once in a while he’ll lash out—which is the only time I get to see what’s really going on inside him. The rest of the time, it’s like he’s wearing a mask, pretending to be who he used to be to keep from dealing with what’s happened to him.”
I wait for him to say more, and when he doesn’t, I turn a bunch of words over in my head, trying to come up with the right ones in the right order. “I think that’s actually pretty normal, don’t you? I mean, I’m not a psychologist, but I feel like after three months of hell, Garrett would want some normal. Even if it’s not really normal, even if it’s just some weird charade of normal, maybe it’s what he needs to feel secure. What he needs to prove to himself that he’s free from that hellhole and he’s never going back.”
“Do you think that’s what it is?”
“I don’t know, baby. I just know that if I was Garrett, I’d be holding on to whatever bits of normal I could get. After my parents died in that car crash—which, I know isn’t the same thing at all—”
“I didn’t know that’s what happened to them.” It’s Kian’s turn to squeeze my hand. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. We weren’t really that close.” I give him the answer I give everyone, partly because it’s easy and partly because now isn’t the time to be talking about my
shit.
“But afterward, when the funeral was done and the house was packed up and on the market…I’d gotten through all the hard stuff, you know. All the unspeakably painful stuff and I found myself trying to go back to life as usual. I just wanted to find normal again, no matter how abnormal things were. No matter that nothing would be life as usual—or at least not, that same kind of life as usual—ever again.
“Maybe that’s what Garrett’s doing. For three months he was living in the most horrible, painful circumstances imaginable. And now that he’s free, now that he’s back home he’s probably struggling to find normalcy again, trying to find the person he used to be—or at least the parts of that person that are still there. Until he does, until he gets those parts of himself back, I don’t think he’ll be able to deal with what happened to him and who it turned him into.”
“I don’t know how to help him do that?” It’s a question as much as it is a statement.
“I think you just follow his lead. Make things as normal for him as they can be while his body heals. Show him that he’s still your big brother and that you don’t see him as any less just because he went through this terrible thing—”
“Of course I don’t! The fact that he’s still alive and sane proves how strong he is.” His voice breaks. “If you could see him, Savvy. If you could see what they did to him. It kills me.”
“I know, baby. But that’s exactly what he’s afraid of, I would imagine. That when you look at him, you don’t see him anymore. All you see is what was done to him. I would think, for a guy like Garrett, knowing that would be almost as hard as getting through three months of torture.”
He doesn’t say anything then, just kind of stares at me. But I can practically see his mind working on what I’ve said. I lean over the bar, grab a bottle of Powers whiskey and pour him a glass, neat.
“You don’t have to figure it all out at once, you know,” I say as I slide the drink over to him.
He wraps his hands around the glass, but doesn’t take a sip. “I just…I don’t want him to be hurt any more.”
“I know that. And he probably does, too. More, he probably doesn’t want you to be hurt by what happened to him, either. The Garrett I used to know was a pretty overprotective guy. I can’t see that changing just because someone hurt him.”
“Yeah.” Kian laughs, but there’s no humor in the sound. “That hasn’t changed at all.”
I wait for him to say something else, but he doesn’t. He just stares down at his drink, locked in his head in a way I’m pretty sure isn’t healthy.
“When’s the last time you ate anything?”
He shrugs. “I had some pudding with Garrett this afternoon.”
“That’s fantastic,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “Come on, let’s go to my place. I’ll fix you some real food.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t have to do anything. But man cannot live by pudding alone, so…” I grab his hands and tug him to his feet. “Let’s go.”
At first I think he’s going to argue with me some more. But he just grabs the whiskey and drains it in one long swallow before letting me propel him toward the door.
He doesn’t speak again until we’re seated in my car, and then he reaches over, rests a hand on my knee. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I tell him.
“You did everything. You are everything.”
His voice aches with sincerity and even though I tell myself not to—even though I warn myself that I’m just going to get hurt again—I let myself believe him. Just for a little while.
Chapter 30
Kian
Savvy’s asleep when I get the royal summons from the king. Part of me knows I should wake her, that I shouldn’t just disappear, but she looks so peaceful I don’t want to disturb her. Especially since I’m anything but right now.
In the end, I decide to let her sleep. It’s only eight A.M. and we didn’t get to bed much before five. I dash off a quick text thanking her for taking care of me last night and telling her to call me. Then I stop by the kitchen and set up a pot of coffee for her, so all she has to do is turn it on when she wakes up. I straighten up the kitchen quickly—washing the pan from the omelet she made me last night, along with the plates and forks.
Then, when I can’t put off leaving any longer, I make one last detour by her room to make sure she’s covered…and because I’m just sappy enough to enjoy watching her sleep.
I’m not sure how I got here, but the truth is, I could stand here all morning watching the way the light plays over her skin, watching the way her lips purse and her face wrinkles up just a little when she’s dreaming.
She’s so beautiful, so goddamned beautiful inside and out, I have a hard time imagining that she’s mine. That I’m the man lucky enough to have her in my bed and in my heart—which is cheesy as shit, I know. But I can’t help it. Savvy brings it out in me.
Duty calls, though, so with one last look, I let myself out of her house. Lucas and Niall are at the curb waiting for me, and as I climb into the driver’s seat, I think about apologizing for making them spend yet another night in the SUV. But we all know I’m not the least bit sorry—not when it means I get to spend the night with Savvy—so in the end I settle for giving them both a shit-eating grin meant to set their teeth on edge. When Lucas just rolls his eyes, I know I’ve failed, but I’m too damn happy to care.
Yeah, I know I probably shouldn’t be, considering what I’m heading back to the palace to face. And considering the fact that the woman who put this smile on my face was once Garrett’s girl. I have to tell him about her—about us—but I don’t know how to do it. Or when.
Part of me thinks I should wait until he’s better, but if I wait that long, will he think I’ve been deliberately lying to him? Plus, what are the odds I’m going to be able to keep this a secret that long, anyway? Especially when I want to claim Savvy in front of everyone so that the whole world—and all the men in it—know she belongs to me.
I’ve got to introduce her to my father, get with Roland so that he can start planning how to introduce her to the world. Talk to her about what she wants in terms of our public relationship…but first I need to tell Garrett. Which I’ll do, when I think he’s ready.
By the time we get to the Palace des Fleurs an hour and a half later, my father is blowing up my phone. The fact that he’s texting me himself instead of having one of his minions do it is more than enough to tell me how serious he is.
Still, I detour by Garrett’s room, determined to check on my brother before bearding the lion in his den. But Garrett’s sleeping fitfully—whether from nightmares about his captivity or the obvious pain he’s still in, I don’t know.
Part of me wants to wake him up—I can’t stand the idea of him suffering any more than he already has. But the truth is, I’m not sure he’ll find any more relief awake than he’s already got. So, in the end I just slip out quietly and make a mental note to visit him again after I see my father.
Maybe the intelligence agencies will actually have some answers for us by then, answers that don’t involve the words “unhinged,” “cult” or “new mythology.”
I know in many ways, those are the answers to what happened to Garrett. But I want more. I need an explanation that tells me more than it was a bunch of insane people with a charismatic leader and an axe to grind against my family who did this to Garrett. I want to know why—want to be able to tell Garrett why—and I need it to be something more than just they’re crazy or brainwashed.
Because crazy and brainwashed are actual defenses in court and these bastards shouldn’t have any defense. They should rot in jail for the rest of their lives and to hell with a fair trial. To hell with jurisprudence. They killed three men, kidnapped my brother and then tortured him for three excruciating months.
In my opinion, there isn’t enough crazy in the world to show them any mercy. I just hope the justice department agrees—and that th
e intelligence communities can back it up.
I make it to my father’s office an hour and a half after he originally summoned me and he is pissed, for all the icy calm in his eyes. Roland is pacing the room like a scrawny chicken on speed, flapping his arms back and forth in agitation as he goes over the king’s schedule for the day.
It’s a formidable schedule from what I can hear, one that ends with a half-hour address to the public regarding what has happened to Garrett. So far, we’ve only issued statements through our PR people, with the exception of the very brief minute I spent at the podium, telling Wildemar that Garrett had been recovered.
Standing there in front of the news cameras, knowing thousands of our citizens had gathered outside the palace for what they’d feared would be an opposite announcement, the weight of the crown I wear finally caught up to me. I finally understood not just the duty and the perks that come with it, but the soul-deep responsibility to lay a path for my people to follow.
In that moment, I understood my father—understood Garrett—in a way I never have before. And while I appreciate the clarity and the purpose, I’m so glad that I’ll never have to act as Wildemar’s crown prince again.
And that’s even without having to keep up with my father’s prodigious schedule.
Knowing the old man can go all day, I clear my throat in an effort to interrupt. Roland stops mid-squawk when he catches sight of me, then bows his head in the least obsequious manner I have ever seen. Then again, that’s par for the course between the two of us.
“Your Highness.” He reaches for a folder on the desk. “Thank you so much for joining us. I have your schedule—”
I’m about to ask what schedule—after all, I have a social secretary of my own who does her best to keep me honest—and the last thing I need is Roland on my ass about not being seen enough or being too gruff with one group or another.
I may like the guy a hell of a lot, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of my days being called to task like a recalcitrant toddler. Especially now that Garrett’s back in the palace. Once he starts feeling a little better, all that shit is at his door, not mine.