Up for Heir - Stella Starling Page 0,66

but still, the way he treated Edvin said enough, didn’t it?

Well, almost enough.

No. Greedy Edvin. It was definitely enough. More than enough. Leo was wonderful, and even if he never actually told Edvin he loved him, even if he never actually fell in love with Edvin at all, well… he clearly at least liked Edvin. And honestly, Edvin was pretty sure he loved Leo enough for the both of them, so… so his current surge of doubt was totally unfounded. A knee-jerk, Pavlovian reaction to Hans’s evil aura. He was going to the Royal Ball… although since it wasn’t something he’d ever mentioned, how had Maja…? Why did she think…? Did Leo want Edvin to keep it a secret?

Should Edvin confirm?

Deny?

Redirect?

Would Edvin jinx it if he said—

“You are going, aren’t you, Edvin?” Maja asked just before Edvin started hyperventilating about the whole thing. Her eyes sparkled with glee as she shook the newspaper at him again. “Now that you’re ‘friends’ with Prince Leopold—” she winked, “—I just assumed you’d be there.”

Hans scoffed before Edvin could figure out how to answer, snatching the newspaper out of her hands and scanning it quickly. “Vinnie isn’t friends with a prince,” he said with a sneer, tossing the newspaper back down. “This is obviously Photoshopped.”

It was the picture that horrid reporter—Ida von Tarr, Edvin had looked her up—had published from the first time Leo had taken Edvin out to dinner.

“You did meet the prince at the dedication ceremony here at the library last month, didn’t you, Edvin?” the director asked, a speculative gleam in her eyes as she looked from the paper to Edvin and back again.

Edvin gave her a cautious nod, because that was surely okay to say, wasn’t it? For one thing, it was true, and for another, Leo had never, not once, made him feel like he was meant to be a dirty secret, or tried to hide his interest in Edvin when they were out in public, or ever made Edvin feel like he was ashamed to be seen with him.

“Oh, were you at the dedication ceremony, Vinnie?” Hans asked, flicking something off his jacket and sounding bored. “I must have forgotten.”

Hans knew darn well Edvin had been there, because when they’d still been dating, Hans had bitched about how much of Edvin’s time helping to organize the event had taken away from him. Gah. He was… was such a jackhole. A piddling, arrogant, prick.

Edvin took a breath, biting his tongue. He wasn’t going to let Hans get to him. Or… or at last if he did, he was going to do his best not to let Hans know he’d gotten to him.

He took another breath, just like that silly mindfulness video Ollie was currently obsessed with recommended, then turned to the director.

“Yes,” he said, deliberately not responding to Hans… and okay, maybe, because Edvin wasn’t a saint, also taking the slightest bit of pleasure in the ugly look that flashed across Hans’s face at being ignored. “That’s where I met Leo—erm, where I m-m-met Prince Leopold, I mean.” He lifted his chin, adding, “And Maja’s right. Leo and I are f-f-friends.”

He couldn’t quite bring himself to say “boyfriends,” but that was probably for the best, since—dang it—he still hadn’t brushed up on proper palace protocol, and what if there was some… some royal decree against stuff like that? What if premature announcements, or claims to titles like “boyfriend of the prince”—a title that hadn’t technically been granted to him, even if it felt like that’s what he and Leo definitely were—got him exiled to Grechzen or something?

“Oh, please,” Hans said in a condescending tone, rolling his eyes. “Friends? I don’t think so.”

Edvin clenched his fists at his sides, but took another breath and stuck with his just-ignore-him strategy.

The director seemed to be going with that, too. She tapped the photo of Edvin and Leo with a look of hungry excitement on her face. Oh, right. She probably wasn’t deliberately ignoring Hans the way Edvin was, it was just that, like Maja, she thrived on the library’s gossip network and was a certified royal-family junkie.

“I don’t suppose the two of you have become good enough friends that you can shed light on the rumors about Prince Leopold’s engagement, hm, Edvin?” she asked with a wink. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper, leaning in. “There may or may not be a pool going with the board of directors about the identity of his future consort.”

“Well, there is a delegation