skin and the light freckles that he’d once complimented at his own risk. She should have been a verbal nudge away from rolling her eyes or dragging him out for late-night pizza—and it jarred that their intimacy had rapidly taken on a different shape. It was distorted and unfamiliar, as if their friendship had never been.
His teeth clenched against the pain. “Say something.”
“I understand my job has upset you,” she said, her tone measured.
“Your job.” His brain slipped over the reality of it, and edgy, he moved behind the armchair to his right. His fingers gripped the back, squeezing the cushioning. “Your job has no power to upset me. But you do, Frankie. You just told me that you work for the royal guard.” His focus stumbled as a vulnerable part of him pleaded for it not to be true. “That you have the whole time I’ve known you.”
Her green gaze didn’t waver. “Yes.”
Lowering his head on a hard breath out, he sank his weight into his shoulders. His entire life had already been shattered once this year. He’d lost his ranch, his town, his community. Now he would have to rebuild all over again without the friendship he’d had with Frankie.
“Our friendship was never real,” he said, the words breaking apart between them. He’d been her in; her reason to stay close to him and his family. Suppressing a noise he’d be sure to regret—too close to a wounded groan—he let go of the armchair and ran a hand firmly over his mouth. “You used me. You’ve always been using me.”
She waited until he looked at her to answer. “Yes.”
He tried not to show how deeply that cut, but his hand still ended up over his chest. “You lied to me.”
“I lied to you,” she said, the admission peeling a thick strip off his heart.
“Every day.” His voice rose with his hurt.
Her expression didn’t change. “Yes.”
Another strip gone. “And it’s never bothered you.”
Her gaze flickered to the woven cotton rug at her feet. “I’ve never wanted you to know who I really am.”
It hurt to breathe. Anger. He needed the lifeboat of his temper to survive this pain. He fumbled for it as he demanded, “How could you do this to me?”
“You never told me you were a prince.” Her tone was neutral, but something in her gaze betrayed it as an accusation.
“I never told . . .” Suddenly his anger wasn’t hard to find. “Because I was never supposed to end up here!” The truth tore ragged from his throat. “Because this isn’t me, Frankie—not deep down or even halfway down, and you know it. But this—” He flicked a hand toward her uniform, her position in this place. “You came from this. You’ve lied to me since the day we met. You’ve tricked me.” Pain rose in him, threatening to swamp his strength, but he shoved it down. She’d claimed to be a private investigator but hadn’t divulged that he and his brothers were her major case. “I’ve spent every day I’ve known you thinking you were someone you’re not.”
And he had no idea how he was supposed to handle it.
“No,” he said, and closed the distance between them, staring at her in dawning dismay. He pressed a steadying palm against the door, angling himself toward her, and fought the pull of her body. She watched him, impassive, just outside of arm’s reach. “I haven’t known you at all.”
Her only reaction was to breathe in slowly through her nose.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said, hating his own weakness at even asking.
Her gaze was bleak. “You don’t know me.”
In the silence, her previous words surfaced. His eyes narrowed. “I never told you I was a prince. Is that what you said?”
She jerked her head, shoulders back.
“That day,” he said, the memory twisting like a torture tool in his mind. “You knew I wanted to tell you who I was, and you stopped me.” Disgust spilled down his throat. “All these months I’ve been sick over that. The way you left; the way I let you go.”
He’d blamed himself for not trying harder. Cursed himself as every kind of idiot for ruining the best relationship he’d ever had.
She’d had no time to talk because she’d been running late for a new job.
This job.
He growled as the pain ripped down his sternum—as if she’d dug her hands into his chest, grabbed hold of all the parts that mattered, and thrown them onto an open flame.