“I don’t slip them.” Since Kris had arrived in Kiraly, he’d made a habit of getting out of the palace a few times a week. He needed the relief of being surrounded by normal people, and in a crowded bar, he could settle back into his old cowboy skin and forget the royal he’d become. Philip’s problem was that very occasionally, Kris would just . . . leave the bar. “They choose not to follow me.”
Philip’s lips thinned. “From what I’ve heard, you work hard to take that choice away from them.”
“I need you to try, Kris.” Mark leaned forward, elbows on his knees, blue gaze steady. “If you’re serious about being king, you can’t mess around anymore. Respect protocol. Please.”
Sobering at the plea, Kris raised his hands in surrender. Mark’s future with Ava depended on Kris doing this properly—for if Kris wasn’t prepared by the coronation in three months’ time, Mark would put Kiraly over his own happiness and take the crown.
“Alright,” he said. “I promise to do the right thing.”
A clever verbal loophole even if he did say so himself.
Mark gave a nod. “Thank you.”
Satisfied with that, Philip bowed to them both and left the study.
Kris blew out a breath and ran a hand along the back of his neck, fingers digging into muscle. “Summits, hey,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Do we get a lot of those?”
Mark gave a laugh. “No idea.” He stood, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows. “How’re you holding up?”
Honestly? His life had been upended and everything that had once brought him comfort and peace had tumbled away. Horses and back porches and big skies were all out of reach.
“Hard to know,” he said.
A sturdy upbringing in Montana couldn’t have prepared him for daily life as a monarch. This life was bait for all species of predatory stress.
The sharp-toothed stress that preyed on responsibility. His smallest choice could have far-reaching consequences, and that pierced deep into his conscience.
The stress of dramatic change. It was always there: a million crawling wrongs throughout the day. Every time he woke to find his manservant setting down his morning coffee, it stung him. Every time his guards fell into step behind him, sting; every time someone called him ‘Your Highness’ with a bowed head, double sting; and every time he reluctantly handed the reins to the stable master after a ride because he had somewhere else to be, he stung all over his capable cowboy body.
And dwelling in the shadows of his mind was the stress that he was in over his head. That he might not be able to pull off this king thing and would cause the end of Mark and Ava’s relationship.
His only defense was to give his attention to everything Philip and Mark taught him in his daily training. It had been less than two weeks, but he was trying his best. Kira City looked breathtaking at night—he knew, because he often stayed late in this tower study, revising notes, reciting what he’d learnt, memorizing names and agreements and political relationships. He might not be a natural leader like Mark or a natural learner like Tommy, but he’d be damned if he messed this up through lack of trying.
Not that he’d tell Mark any of that. His brother needed Kris’s unfazed, raffish front—needed to sigh and roll his eyes. Because if Kris started acting too seriously, it’d be a neon warning sign that he was freaking the hell out, and Mark, being Mark, would back down from his abdication.
And that was not going to happen.
“The view from up here still makes my head spin,” Kris said. “But I’m getting used to it.”
Mark glanced distractedly out the nearest window. “I meant how are you holding up after last night.”
Oh. The engagement party? “Fine. It didn’t get that wild.”
He received a pained glance. “I thought it might have made you think of someone,” Mark said carefully, “and how much you miss her.”
Gut suddenly aching, Kris looked away.
He didn’t need an engagement party to remind him of Frankie. She was an emotional shadow, clinging to the heels of his heart, always half a thought away. The last time he’d seen her . . . it haunted him. I can’t do this, she’d told him. In the months since, he’d called, messaged, emailed—and heard nothing. At first, her silence had burned a hole in him, and restless