to Sage Haven to meet her after this case and explain everything. But he’d have to time it perfectly or town gossip would tell her for him and there’d be nothing worse. “When can we talk?”
He frowned at the look she cut back at him—burning with regret, wide with pain.
She didn’t answer, but for one unbearably hot second, her gaze slipped down his body like she might command him to his knees for real. Then she turned away, features shuttering. “See you, Kris.”
She closed the door behind her.
He waited until her footsteps faded before slamming his fist against it. As predicted, their conversation hadn’t ended well.
And he hadn’t told her a damned thing.
Now
1
Kris had been king-in-training for less than two weeks and he’d already started a war.
At least, that was what Philip seemed to believe.
“You walked out!” Philip exclaimed as he burst into the royal study.
Exclusive to the monarch, the round room was positioned at the top of the palace’s tallest tower. Kris had only recently started working in here since arriving in Kiraly three and a half months ago, and the curved walls and panoramic views made him uneasily aware of just how far away he was from having earth beneath his feet. A large balcony overlooked Kira City, and he stood in-line with the open glass doors—because blame it on the intense summer heat or a well-founded wariness of palace balconies, Kris wasn’t keen to set foot out there.
He turned to Philip, his peace shattered, as the royal advisor strode across the room to stand before Kris’s desk. Thin as a grass blade and flushed with spluttering indignation, the man said, “Your Highness, with all due respect, you can’t just walk out of the Bergstadt Summit!”
Well. Kris returned to the desk and lounged back in his chair, propping his boots up beside his laptop. “Should’ve told me that before I went in.”
Philip appeared to be holding back some very strong words as Mark entered the study. The look his brother shot Kris as he strode to the lushly-padded sofa against the far wall was equal parts amusement and exasperation.
“I didn’t think I had to.” Philip’s voice rose.
Kris picked up a pen and clicked it. “I’m not psychic, Phil.”
“It’s Philip!”
“Kris,” Mark said, sitting down with a sigh. “Give it a rest.”
“Prince Kristof,” Philip said, and started pacing. “This summit has been an annual tradition for Kiraly and our bordering nations for almost a century. To get up and leave—while a neighboring minister is mid-presentation—is not only a major breach in royal etiquette but could be interpreted as an act of political antagonism.”
Kris looked from his advisor to his brother. He raised a shoulder. “He was talking shit.”
Philip made a sound that should have accompanied great physical pain.
“It doesn’t matter.” Mark frowned at Kris. “You sit through it anyway.”
Sit through another hour of bull? “It didn’t feel right.”
“It is!” Philip raised his hands in frustration. “It is right! That’s what kings do. You sit there—without sprawling like a male youth at the back of a school bus, I might add—and wait until the presentation has finished.”
Mark was still frowning. “You’ll have to apologize.”
“Sure.” Kris had figured that much. “I’ll find him later.”
“Publicly,” his brother said firmly, even as he rolled his eyes.
“I’ll sort it out.” Kris tensed as his irritation resurfaced. The nerve of that minister, trying to manipulate the attending nations with scare tactics and a slick slideshow. “But we’re not agreeing to his proposal.”
“Markus.” Philip spun to him desperately. “Are you quite sure you love Princess Ava?”
Kris scoffed, clicking the pen again.
Mark stiffened despite his smile. “Very sure.”
Understatement. They’d scarcely arrived in Kiraly when Mark—his older brother by a whopping forty minutes—had gone and fallen in love. Ava was the last woman Kris would’ve imagined stealing his brother’s heart, but something about her courage and scathing wit had clearly melted him. Their relationship had come hard won and without a tidy future.
“I need you to stay with me,” Mark had begged Ava when all had seemed impossible. “We’ll figure this out.”
Kris had figured it out for them.
Mark would abdicate.
And Kris would take his place as king.
He was still reeling. He hadn’t suggested abdication because he craved power. It was just that anyone with a beating heart could see it was the only way the pair could be happy.
It had to work. Happiness had become too scarce since leaving their ranch. Some days, Kris felt like an animal in an enclosure built for a different species. His strides down