“You hurt?” Hanna asked in Frankie’s earpiece. “Your posture looks weird.”
“I’m fine.” Apparently, she slouched when her organs collapsed from impending loss.
Kris eyed her, looking confused. “Good.”
“Your Highness.” Peter spoke clearly.
“Hey there,” Kris answered. “Sorry about earlier. I thought you were right behind me.”
Instead of accusing him of a bald-faced lie, Peter simply said, “If you’re both ready now, we’ll escort you back to the palace.”
“Sure.” He leaned in, his thumb brushing over her knuckles, and spoke just to her. “You’ll hate it, but this team follows me everywhere. If you ride with us, we can talk in my rooms. Or, you know, any room of the palace you want. I’ll show you around. It’s stupidly big. We might get lost. But you’ll love the kitchen. You’ll want to live there, I swear. I’ll take you there first, okay?”
Soft words, a little cautious, like he feared he was losing her. It sliced her apart, and defenseless, she hauled ass behind her emotional guard. She was going to need the distance to effectively sever their friendship at the neck.
“Your Highness,” Peter said again.
“Coming,” he answered, and tugged her hand lightly. “Coming?”
She wasn’t Lola. She never would be.
And Kris would always be royalty.
“I can’t,” she said, and slid her hand out of his. She stepped back.
“Frankie.” A plea spoken with desperate eyes. “Don’t do this again.”
“Kris.” Her skin broke out in a cold sweat. For the first time since they’d met, she dropped her affected American accent in his presence. “I tackled you.”
He started smiling. “Trust me, I noticed. You’ve never so much as touched—” He stopped. For a few sickening seconds, he stared at her, smile fading. “Why did you do that?”
The eyes of her team prickled on her back; her answer rose like bile in her throat. “Because Philip told me you requested it.”
Kris blanched.
“Your Highness,” she added, and inclined her head.
Silence, but for the sharp hiss of his inhale.
The world spun. The cobblestones were a blur at her feet.
Then, “What did you just say?” His question was nothing but breath.
Shrugging off her jacket, she forced her chin up and found him staring at her shirt. Palace-issued uniform, with a stiff collar, and the royal coat of arms embroidered on the breast. She’d borrowed it from Hanna. Her gun and shoulder holster were strapped over the top.
His face was blank with incomprehension.
“I understand this might come as a shock, Your Highness, but I work for the royal guard,” she said, her voice as hollow as her heart. “And I have since the day we met.”
Frankie’s words spread through Kris like slow poison.
At first, he failed to process them. I work for the royal guard. The statement made so little sense that he followed her into the back of the car in blank silence. Then, as they set off and a shard of light from the street hit her stark features, her confession slipped, a little too hot, into his bloodstream.
Reaction reared painfully in his chest—crude and undeveloped—but he pushed it down.
She must be having him on.
Except she was wearing the palace security uniform—sitting with an empty space between them, hands balled on her thighs, staring straight ahead. No. He shook his head as something nasty punctured inside him.
“Frankie,” he said.
She tensed. “Wait.”
“For what?” They’d been apart for months. “Part two of this prank?”
Her throat flexed and she swallowed. “I’m not doing this here.” She kept staring ahead.
The puncture ripped wider. No. She couldn’t have been lying since the day he’d met her. It would mean too much; erase too much. He shifted, spreading his knees and turning his shoulders toward her as his reaction started to take form. Voice low, he murmured, “You’re going to have to do something more than ignore me.”
Her hands bunched tighter, and his focus shifted to the snagged skin of her knuckles. He reached toward her. “You’re bleeding.”
She yanked her hand away. “A scrape. It’s nothing.”
“Jesus, Frankie.” He hadn’t treated her with care when he’d roughed her onto her back. “Where else are you hurt?”
Her answer came a beat too late. “Nowhere.”
“Then explain what’s going on,” he said firmly.
She hesitated before giving the tiniest shake of her head. When she next spoke, it was with the rich vowels and swift cadence of Kiralian English. “He can live without it until tomorrow.”
He almost asked who she was talking to—then he caught Hanna’s eyes in the rear-view mirror through the soundproof partition. A chill raced down his spine as the guard swiftly