Up for Heir - Stella Starling Page 0,16

wouldn’t pick up on. A secret crush was fine—probably inevitable, actually, given the prince’s overall amazingness—but being found out about it would be another matter entirely.

Although the stupidly sappy grin he could feel spreading across his face probably wasn’t helping with his commitment to secrecy and discretion, was it?

No, no it was not.

“Hi,” he finally remembered to say, deciding not to worry about his failure to have any chill whatsoever because he had plenty of other things he could worry about if he really wanted to waste some of his Leo-time on worrying. Like, for example, the fact that he’d just greeted Rosavia’s Crown Prince with a two-letter word when there was probably some kind of multisyllabic, formal type of address he should have used.

Edvin bit back a groan. Clearly, he was no better at Leo-worthy conversation in real life than he was via text, but… hi? Really? Surely, he could do better.

Next time.

If there was a next time.

Oh Lord. He really, really couldn’t start expecting next times when he wasn’t even sure why he’d been granted this time and had no reason whatsoever to think Leo would want to give him even more time.

Leo smiled, clearly oblivious to how devastating that level of masculine beauty was, and pushed away from the car, striding toward Edvin like some kind of conquering… well, monarch.

Edvin’s insides turned distressingly fluttery.

“May I take that for you?” Leo asked, reaching for the canvas messenger bag that Edvin always brought his lunch and his Kindle to work in.

“Um,” Edvin said, a small part of his brain noting that if two-letter words—well, utterances, at least—were all he was capable of, he probably wasn’t going to be much use with whatever this “important matter” the prince wanted to discuss was… while the rest of his brain silently started freaking out about what the proper protocol might be for allowing a member of the royal family to do something as far beneath his station as carrying Edvin’s bag.

Then again, this particular royal had cleaned up a number of unmentionable bodily fluids with Edvin the weekend before—an event he still wasn’t entirely convinced hadn’t just been an exhausted hallucination, not least because it seemed totally out of character for the rebellious, irresponsible playboy the press always painted Leo as—and then had spent all week texting Edvin funny cat memes and pithy commentary on palace life. And really, all of that, on top of the increasingly distracting flutter situation, cinched it. It didn’t matter what protocol said Edvin was supposed to do; what he wanted to do was say yes to… well, to everything.

He handed over the messenger bag, physically incapable of stopping the smile that bloomed on his face as Leo’s fingers brushed against his. But since that smile would definitely make him look just as foolishly, pointlessly, besotted as it had already been established that he secretly was, he ducked his head to hide it, belatedly remembering a little basic courtesy, at least, and managing to mumble a stuttering, “Th-Th-Thank you, Your Highn—uh… Leo.”

It still felt presumptuous to use the prince’s nickname, but the prince kept insisting, which was… well, nice.

Edvin smiled a little harder, staring at the glittering chips of mica in the sidewalk as his cheeks started to hurt from it. He figured that was okay, though, because—given how much shorter he was than the prince—there was no way Leo could see how ridiculous he was being. But then Leo put a finger under his chin and tipped his face up, forcing Edvin to meet his eyes, and smiled right back, and Edvin tumbled even further into hopeless crush-ville.

Also, for the record? It was confirmed. Dark, chocolatey brown was still Edvin’s forever-favorite color.

“That’s right. No ‘Your Highnesses,’ if you please. I don’t like to stand on too much formality. I much prefer hearing you say my name.”

It was epically unfair for Leo to hold eye contact while saying something like that. It made Edvin’s breath hitch and his heart flutter and his stomach do excitedly jittery things. It made it feel personal, instead of like something that Leo—

Well, that Leo probably said to everyone.

Leo didn’t like formality. It was well documented. And the delivery? Everyone knew that the royals all had at least seventeen pretentious-sounding given names, and in Leo’s case, Edvin had no doubt that “charismatic” was one of his middle ones. “Utterly Irresistible” had to be another. And “Drool Worthy” would have been in the running, too, if it hadn’t sounded far too common for