thought before it could hit her. “You’re admitting there’ll be a next time?”
“Certainly not,” she answered, pulling a whoops face. “But if I may be so bold, you’ve gone to great lengths to avoid the royal family, and this plan could change that. It makes me wonder if it’s really okay with you.”
Frankie braced, reaching for her coffee mug. Hanna wasn’t exactly a friend. Their positions didn’t allow for that. But the woman saw too much and spoke too plainly for Frankie to lie to her outright.
Okay, maybe they were kind of friends, because she decided against pulling rank just to end the conversation. Swallowing coffee, she met curious blue eyes and raised a brow.
Hanna gave a quick, delighted smile. “Why would I think you’ve avoided the royal family, your face is asking while your mouth is conveniently busy? Let’s take the first time Prince Kristof found the staff dining hall.”
Oh, groan. Stellar first example.
Frankie had been eating a late lunch at a back table, minding her own business, when she’d distractedly caught eyes with Hanna across the room. Hanna, who’d been on shift. Meaning there was no other reason for the guard to be stepping into the dining hall other than to accompany Kris.
Instinct had shoved Frankie under the long wooden table a second before a room-wide murmur announced the prince’s unorthodox appearance.
“Hey, everyone, don’t mind me,” he’d said, and his deep, textured voice had plunged clean through her chest—a hard, sliding pressure that had almost reduced her to tears. That voice. That man. She’d fixed her stare on his leather boots across the floor and commanded herself not to move. Life would be better for him if he believed he’d left her behind in Montana. Better for them both. “I like to snack. So if you see me in here every now and then, just carry on as usual. No bowing or whatever.”
He’d stayed. He’d snacked. And Frankie had remained under the table for ten minutes after she’d been sure he was gone.
“Another example,” Hanna now continued, “is the occasional flash of a bright jacket and red hair I catch darting around corners.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Abrupt lunges through side doors, hiding in weird royal alcoves, even one undignified bolt down a corridor—she’d done it all. And not just to avoid Kris, but Tommy, and even Mark in the early days, before necessity had forced her to reveal herself to the levelheaded firstborn.
“No?” Hanna raised a shoulder. “Then there was your instruction on day one to never mention your name, and if his Highness ever asks to speak to the head of personal security—which he has done multiple times—to never bring him—”
“Get to the point, Johansson,” Frankie said tiredly, hating the measures she’d had to put in place for Kris’s own good.
“He knows you.” Hanna’s sparkling eyes had narrowed. “They all do.”
“Nothing slips past you, does it?” Just as Hanna started smiling, Frankie added with a level stare, “Except, of course, the future King of Kiraly.”
Hanna’s smile vanished.
“My relationship with the royal family is none of your concern,” Frankie said firmly.
Hanna’s shoulders settled back. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Hadn’t you better catch up with Peter? Pretty sure your prince likes a pre-breakfast snack right about sunrise.”
Hanna’s eyes bulged. “Oh my God, he never stops eating.” Then she straightened, gave a sharp nod, and departed.
Alone, Frankie turned back to the screen. Her guard was right. The prospect of personally confronting Kris made her want to shrivel out of existence.
Insides churning, she pressed play and set the footage to repeat.
It didn’t matter how high she angled her chin or how far back she rolled her shoulders—pain had speared through her the first time she’d watched it and there was no hiding that now. Instead, she used the pain to her advantage. Every time Kris spoke in the woman’s ear with his sex-soft smile, something fragile inside Frankie collapsed in on itself. Every time he hoisted the woman’s legs around his waist, Frankie’s arms wound tighter around her own middle, and every time the woman leaned in to place her mouth on his neck, Frankie bit down on her bottom lip so hard she tasted metal.
She’d never pretended to be over him. So she took the salt from her blinked-back tears and used it to cure her heart. Preserve it for the beating it was about to endure.
Philip had said he’d talk to Kris yet again about his behavior, but the prince couldn’t be tamed. He’d do it again. When he did, Frankie