and at one point, he was certain she considered leaping over the valet rather than sidestepping him.
At the car, she pressed her forearm over the driver’s window to speak to them and Kris caught sight of a shoulder holster concealed beneath her jacket. Then she was hauling the back door open and clambering in, breathing hard as she sat opposite him and Tommy. Scrubbing her face with one hand—something she did when she was beyond exhausted—she reached around to strap herself in with the other. Everything about her was uncontrolled energy, until the car glided away from the palace and she sat back and just . . . shut down. Staring at the vacant middle seat between him and Tommy, posture rigid, face impassive.
This again.
Kris shifted slowly, deliberately, knees widening so his leg interrupted her line of sight. Her gaze flickered and he sensed his movement steal her complete attention.
Tension bristled in the enclosed space.
“Morning,” Tommy said quietly.
Her only acknowledgement was to incline her head.
Kris bit his tongue. He wanted to say a thousand things, but it would all spring from heartbreak and he didn’t want her to look inside him with that blank stare.
Teeth clenching, he turned to stare out the window.
“I have questions,” Tommy said. There was a pause in which she gave no verbal response, but he continued with, “Did you instruct my guards to show me the cabin and passageways?”
Kris almost turned to gape at his brother. That’s what Tommy had been thinking about? The reality of her working in security? Kris was too deeply entrenched in her lies to consider anything else.
“Yes,” she said.
The sound of her voice, throaty and detached, collected all the tension inside him and knotted it in the center of his chest. Frankie, was all he could think. What have you done?
“Why?” Tommy asked.
“I thought it would interest you.”
“It would have interested me to know you were here,” Tommy said, voice hard.
Kris pressed his eyes shut as the knot tightened.
She didn’t respond.
“Were our guards randomly assigned?”
“Of course not.”
There was the light sound of Tommy shifting. “Why did you assign mine?”
“Aside from being faultless at their job, I’d thought you’d be comfortable around them.”
Kris frowned out the window. That clearly wasn’t the reason she’d assigned Hanna and Peter to him. It was impossible to be comfortable around statues.
“Was I wrong?” she asked, tone agonizingly neutral. “I can find you different guards.”
“Leave them.” Tommy moved on. “What was your role in the palace before you came to Montana?”
“I—” She stopped. “I didn’t work in the palace.”
Kris tried not to frown; tried not to seem as if he cared enough to listen.
“Philip sent you to monitor us without appropriate experience?” Tommy sounded incredulous. “The man I’ve seen order staff to refold napkins because the creases weren’t suitable for royal use?”
“He didn’t exactly send me.” Her tone was equal parts uncomfortable and exhausted, and a deep-down part of Kris wanted to tell Tommy to do this another time.
“Explain didn’t exactly,” Tommy said.
“Philip wouldn’t hire me. But I got him to agree that if I could find the estranged Jaroka family, he’d give me a job.” She hesitated. “So, I found you. And instead of coming back immediately to a position in the palace, I—I stayed.”
Kris curled his fingers against the urge to ask why.
“You stayed to monitor us,” Tommy said, “officially entering the employment of our uncle.”
She hesitated again. “Something like that.”
“Funny how things turn out.” His words were edged with cynicism. “After years of spying and lying your way into our lives in order to secure a job, your position is now in our hands.”
Kris swung a glance at his brother with a sharp, “Tom.”
“I’m not firing her,” Tommy murmured, gaze still on Frankie. “But I feel it’s important to point out that we could.”
Christ. In the corner of Kris’s eye, Frankie remained stiff and unmoving, and Kris almost choked on the power imbalance.
“She’s concealed herself for over three months. Our own head of personal security deliberately hid from us. Not to mention the real reason for her being in Sage Haven. The general trend is that she thinks it’s okay to lie to us. That we don’t deserve her respect. You might have known us as cowboys, Frankie, but don’t forget that we’re your sovereign.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” Her features were pinched. “Your Highness.”
The silence was suffocating for the rest of the journey.
Mark was waiting as they pulled up at the top of the drive, his arms crossed and expression somber in the first