Up for Heir - Stella Starling Page 0,34
uncomfortable. Love wasn’t something he expected. He’d never really looked for it, and—as intriguing as Eddie was; as attracted as Leo was to him; as much as he genuinely enjoyed Eddie’s company, his mind, his laugh, his inherent sweetness and fierce loyalty and quiet strength—love was… it was…
Well, it wasn’t something Leo had any experience with, or expected he’d even know how to recognize if he found it.
Treble batted at his wrist, talons at the ready as she stood tall in the chair next to him, and Leo lifted her into his lap as an act of self-protection, shoving another piece of ham in her mouth for good measure.
“There’s more to consider than your own needs here,” Aubrey said, giving the cat a pointed look of disapproval that was made far less effective by the way her lips twitched in humor. Cats were not to be fed at the table, a royal decree that Leo was fully behind, but—
“Bite prevention technique,” he said. “Hugo keeps forgetting to order the muzzle I’ve requested.”
The king chuckled and the queen shot him a tender, private look that made something inside Leo’s chest pang with longing as they shared their amusement for a moment, but then she turned back to Leo and continued the lecture on duty and responsibility and all the ways in which Leo’s status as heir rigidly defined his choices.
Leo tuned her out, an unexpected lump in his throat that even Treble’s purring couldn’t rattle loose. His parents had been a love match. It was legendary. They were also among the most respected monarchs in Europe. So, clearly, the idea wasn’t incompatible with wearing the crown. But the question—the one that he couldn’t quite admit to himself silently seethed under his rebellion over choosing a consort from their pre-approved list—was: why didn’t they want that for him, too?
“I’m sorry,” he said, rising abruptly to his feet and cutting his mother off mid-sentence. “I just remembered an appointment Hugo added to my schedule. You’ll have to excuse me.”
He tucked Treble against his chest and left the breakfast room before they could call him on the lie. He actually did have a full schedule for most of the day. He couldn’t actually remember what was on it, but it had been getting steadily fuller and more restricting the closer they got to the Royal Ball, like a noose closing around his neck. When Hugo had gone over it with him earlier, it had been clear that the open slots during which he could steal away to spoil Eddie and take him away from the weight of his own responsibilities were getting fewer and farther between, but as his mother had just said, there were other needs—the crown’s, the country’s—that took precedence over Leo’s own.
And it was… unfair.
He pushed that thought aside almost as soon as he had it. Unfair, but irrelevant, just like finding a love match was, and despite half a lifetime of rebelling against the restrictions placed on him, he was too much a van Rosavia at heart to fault the king and queen for their priorities.
He knew that they cared for him, of course. He’d never doubted that. His family was large and close knit and fundamentally kind, and he loved each of them with a fierce, if often buried, passion… exactly the kind he’d seen reflected in Eddie the first time they’d met, when Eddie had set aside his shyness and held his ground for his sister’s sake. But despite Leo’s love for his family, the truth was that being the oldest born van Rosavia, the heir, and bearing the responsibilities of that position, had always meant that Leo and his parents—and Leo and his brothers, as well—had a slightly more distant relationship. A more formal one.
Treble suddenly hissed, piercing his collarbone with her claws, and Leo loosened his hold on her and pried them out of his flesh, then continued petting her absently as he wandered back toward his suite to check with Hugo about what actually was on his calendar for the rest of the day… Hugo, who’d known him since birth but still couldn’t bring himself to call Leo by his given name because Leo wasn’t Leo, he was also the crown prince.
And because of that, even in the midst of his loving family, even in the private areas of the palace where he was most comfortable or in the middle of a packed club seething with warm bodies, it could still feel…
Well.
Not lonely. It was