Up for Heir - Stella Starling Page 0,11

palace. He ducked his head, a stupidly wide smile spreading across his face even though obviously it wasn’t a date, of course. He knew that. Everyone knew that.

But somehow, it still felt a little magical anyway.

Chapter Three

Leo

“Hugo,” Leo called, hopping on one foot in an effort to keep Treble from shredding his pant leg while he flipped through a stack of shirts. “Where did I leave my phone?”

Hugo, ever attentive because of course he was, instantly materialized in the doorway of Leo’s suite.

“I believe,” the valet said in the unflappable tone of voice that Leo was convinced he used specifically to get under his skin, “that it can be found in the last place you left it, Your Highness.”

Leo’s lips twitched, but luckily, he was facing away from his valet, so there was no way Hugo could have seen. He schooled his face and grabbed one of the shirts, pulling it over his head before turning to face Hugo with a haughty look he’d spent hours in front of the mirror perfecting a few decades ago, back when he’d still been determined to be the perfect heir and make his family proud.

“Not helpful.”

Hugo, of course, didn’t flinch. An unfortunate side-effect of decades of service to the royal family. “And yet,” the valet replied dryly, a tell-tale sparkle in his eyes, “as with all my service, still indubitably correct, Your Highness.”

Leo refused to let Hugo win this round by laughing, a decision not made any easier by the restless energy he’d had trouble burning off today… even after a morning spent riding with his middle brother, Jules, followed by a couple of hours spent in the palace gym.

“If you’re just hovering to annoy me, Hugo, go back to searching for your missing facial expressions, or whatever it was you were doing,” Leo said, shaking Treble off his ankle and plucking a catnip-infused felt mouse from the ornamental silver platter on his dresser top. He tossed it toward the corner of the room. “Fetch, pest.”

Hugo didn’t move, and Treble ignored the toy and followed Leo across the room to fulfill her mission of tormenting him at all times.

Was it so much to ask for privacy in his private suite?

“Your Highness,” Hugo started.

Leo held up a hand to stop him. “I’m thinking.”

Leo was ninety percent sure he’d set his phone down in the general vicinity of his nightstand the last time he’d had it in his hand. Well, maybe seventy percent… or at least high fifties. Still, best to check it on the off chance that Hugo was, in fact, correct.

Hugo cleared his throat. “I did have another purpose in coming to your suite, Your Highness. If you were hoping to check your phone for new correspondence regarding—”

“I just want to know what time it is, Hugo,” Leo cut in, whipping open his nightstand drawer when his phone failed to appear on its surface.

No phone, just a bottle of blueberry-flavored lube that Leo categorically refused to touch until his brothers confessed to which one of them had stashed it there.

Correction: not ever. That was when he’d break down and use the lube. It was the principle of the thing. It was bad enough that Ben’s cat kept sneaking into Leo’s suite; he didn’t need his brothers doing it, too.

Leo slammed the drawer shut.

Eddie—er, the Bloms—were late.

“Perhaps if you’d occasionally wear one of your many watches, Your Highness,” Hugo said in a clear effort to be as unhelpful as possible. “However, as I was saying, if this is about—”

“Hugo,” Leo interrupted impatiently. “I’m expecting a guest. I’m sure it can wait.”

Well, guests, plural, since Eddie would be bringing his sister Linda… Leela… Lenora… whatever her name was, along for the rose garden tour Leo had promised them. Definitely not one of Leo’s typical Saturday afternoon pursuits and a completely impulsive invitation he still had no good explanation for having extended, and yet there was no denying that he’d been looking forward to it ever since his brief meeting with Eddie—no, with the Blom siblings, both of them—at the library earlier in the week.

And why this particular guest—guests—had Leo feeling so oddly anticipatory, he had no idea, but luckily for him, he’d discovered years ago that in direct opposition to what he’d been trained to do in matters of state, going with his gut without bothering to waste time analyzing all the “whys” and “wherefores” generally tended to work out just fine for personal matters. In fact, some of the most invigorating experiences of his