Up for Heir - Stella Starling Page 0,81

had to put the troublemakers somewhere, wouldn’t they have?

“Vinnie,” Hans snapped, waving a hand in front of Edvin’s face as Edvin yawned yet again. “Please pay attention. My time is valuable.”

Edvin adjusted his glasses and wondered what he’d ever seen in Hans. How had he ever convinced himself that he wanted to be with someone so cold and awful? And sure, Hans was objectively pretty on the outside. But inside? The way he thrived on putting others down was definitely not attractive. Although to be fair, Hans was right about one thing. Edvin hadn’t been paying attention just now.

“Sorry,” Edvin said more to keep the peace than because he regretted ignoring him. “Um, what were you just s-s-saying?”

Hans frowned. “I said that we’ll be eating breakfast in my office while we go over the parameters of the work we need to accomplish today.” He paused and eyed Edvin’s messenger bag with a look of distaste. “I assume you have it in there?”

“Have what?” Edvin asked, confused. The bag held his cell phone, a paperback he was reading, his lunch, and a pamphlet Astrid kept begging him to look at for some kind of international summer exchange program she was interested in doing.

Edvin had been putting it off because she was only fifteen and sending her off to the wilds of France or Portugal or Thedes just felt… felt too risky. She, of course, had accused him of being overprotective and wanting to ruin her life by denying her the right to have any fun at all, and, despite the overly dramatic teenage delivery, Edvin was a little worried that she might be right, at least about the overprotective part.

The truth was that he’d never been quite sure where the right side of the line between protecting his siblings and smothering them was, but since he’d never had anyone to give him advice on the topic, or to… to act as a sounding board—and also, frankly, because they’d all already lost two members of their family and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing any more—he’d always erred on the side of overprotection.

Now, though, his latest guardianship dilemma was just one of many things that he could easily imagine running by Leo to help him weigh the pros and cons about. The world may have considered Leo the irresponsible heir to the throne, but Edvin knew there was more to Leo than the rebel playboy image that the media had always portrayed. And maybe Leo had been that way before they’d met, but now things were different. Leo genuinely cared about Edvin’s family and the idea that Edvin wasn’t alone anymore, that there was someone else to share some of his burdens with, and who, Edvin hoped, he could lighten the load for as well, that was… well, it was everything. It made what Edvin had had with Hans feel like a bad dream that he was thankful he’d woken up from. And even better, it made all Hans’s huffy sighs, irritated looks, and petty, sniping little comments bounce right off Edvin without hurting him at all.

Hans simply didn’t matter, and even though it had never occurred to Edvin to try to get back at Hans for how poorly he’d always treated him—because honestly, retaliation wasn’t really Edvin’s style—it occurred to him now that with someone like Hans, indifference truly was the very best kind of revenge.

“Sorry,” Edvin said, biting back a smile because okay, he may not have been a vindictive person, but that didn’t mean he was such a good one that he couldn’t enjoy seeing a little steam come out of Hans’s ears as he added, “Um, I missed w-w-what you said again. Could you… could you repeat it?”

“I was talking about the breakfast you promised to bring, Vinnie,” Hans gritted out in a tight voice, grabbing Edvin’s arm and dragging him in the direction of his office again. “Now if you can please focus for a moment, we’ll be having breakfast in my office, during which we’ll be discussing the work ahead of us, and if—” he paused, turning to rake Edvin with his eyes as an unctuous smile spread across his face, “—if I’m pleased with the way that discussion goes, I may also be open to discussing the possibility of allowing you a few… rewards during your breaks today.”

Wait… what?

Edvin’s stomach turned over, sour bile rising in his throat so fast he almost didn’t manage to hold it in. By “rewards,” Hans meant… he meant