“You don’t know how to be with someone,” she said. “Stay with someone.”
“I know how to stay with you.”
“As a friend.” Shaking her head, palms still raised, she said, “In Sage Haven, you had someone different in your bed every other week.”
“I—look, you confused me, okay?” His voice grew a little louder as he moved closer and his nearness rippled across her skin. “I didn’t know what you wanted. One minute I’d swear it was about to happen, that I’d spend the next month buried inside you to make up for lost time, and the next minute, you’d hardly look at me. You were never willing to talk about it, and as badly as I wanted—want—you to be the woman in my bed, I didn’t want you to think that I was waiting around expecting you to go there with me.”
Tipping her face down, she forced her hands into her lap. This was too real. Her skin stung. He was directly in front of her in a kind of earnest crouch, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever been asked to speak so honestly in her life.
“And let’s be fair,” he added, a slight edge creeping into his voice. “I wasn’t the only one who left the bar with other people. You’d choose a stranger instead of me.”
“Sometimes,” she said. But most of the time, she hadn’t invited those strangers upstairs. She’d just wanted Kris to drop the idea of her as anything more than a friend.
“I hated watching you leave with another guy.”
“I know.” God, the intensity of his stare across the bar on those nights. The hurt, the anger, the desire crackling in that blue gaze. “And I hated seeing you watching me leave.”
“Then why—”
“I’ve told you,” she snapped.
“Because I’m your prince?” The question was coarse. “That doesn’t matter to me. Who the hell cares that you’re not high born? I’ve spent my life shoveling horse shit. I want to be with you, and I’m done pretending. If status is the only reason you’ve got, then get over it.”
“Kris.” Gripping her hands together, she looked up. His temper flickered out and that cut the heart right out of her. “What are you really asking of me?”
“Everything,” he said, soft and fierce.
Oh, God. She might actually die from this.
“In three months, you’re going to be King of Kiraly.”
“Yes.” His features were severe, determined. “And when I recognized you in that laneway, you know what I thought? With you by my side, I might actually stand a chance of pulling this off.”
And there it was—her weakest point.
With you by my side.
Everything strong inside her crumpled.
“Stop,” she said, eyes pricking. “Just stop. Think. When you’re king, what will be expected of you?”
Concern lined his features as he scanned her face.
“And what expectation would that put on me?” she pressed.
“I don’t expect anything from you.” He frowned. “You can still work for the royal guard.”
“No. Kris. Please. You need to produce heirs.”
Born with dignity and unquestionable descent.
The blood left his face. “I need—”
“And I’m never going to be the right person to help with that,” she said, words cracking.
A seal broke inside her. Sorrow flooded to her edges, then rose rapidly to swallow her heart.
“Oh,” he said.
He stared at her, desolate, like a man with one second left on the clock, faced with an impossible puzzle that he’d have no hope of solving even with all the time in the world.
“Oh,” he said again, quieter.
They ate dinner in excruciating silence.
Frankie pretended to sleep with her back to Kris. Her hands were sweating and she couldn’t stop shaking. That had been too close. This wasn’t about being common. If it was, she’d have unraveled at his reckless disregard of royal expectation.
No. Frankie Cowan was not a rags-to-riches story the people would celebrate.
Journalists knew how to dig into the past until they drew blood, and they would smear hers across headlines. How far back would they go? High school? Elementary school? Would they drain her upbringing dry until her own mother spoke out against her? Or worse. What if they found her father?
It’d be the end of her.
Queen Consort—or Queen of Cons?
Frankie had been born in the squalid corner of her father’s crimes and raised to stay there. Her mother used to mutter that Frankie was just like him. Quick-minded, fiery, with a pretty face that disguised a leech’s mouth.
And her father’s mouth was always open, sucking at the susceptibility of strangers.
Kira City was his most loyal accomplice. For him, it attracted