you left me with him.”
“Of course I left you. It was always the two of you.” The woman had darted another look down the quiet suburban street. “I don’t want you here.”
“But Mum—”
The door had slammed shut.
Frankie swore she could still feel it—the impact of that rejection inches from her face.
Kris was shaking his head beside her. He hadn’t said a word as she’d spoken.
“That was our big reunion.” She raised a shoulder as if it didn’t matter. “Bit of a letdown, am I right?”
After a long silence, Kris said, “This is all so sad,” and looked off down the road.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she tugged the scarf off her head and ruffled her hair loose. “Want me to call the car?”
He ran a hand over his eyes. “Can we walk back?”
“We’ve been walking for almost two hours.” She glanced toward the palace as she draped the scarf around her neck. It was probably twenty minutes away from here, and all uphill. “I’m not convinced your quads have acclimated to Kira City enough for that route.”
He ignored her attempts to move on from her pathetic past. “I want time to process this.”
She sighed. Pulling out her phone, she called the team on standby and informed them of the prince’s plans. “They’ll follow us a block behind.”
He nodded distractedly.
As they turned onto the avenue that led to the royal parade, she wondered how long Kris intended to keep holding her hand.
“Is this why you don’t want kids?” he asked quietly.
Startled, she turned to stare at him. “What?”
His eyes were grave beneath his cap. “Your childhood.”
She arched a brow as insult burrowed into her pride. “You think I’m scared that I’ll raise my children as thieves? That I won’t know how to love them because I’ve never been loved?”
Strain bracketed his mouth. “That’s not what I—”
“I do want kids.” She cut him off fiercely, even though she’d scarcely admitted that brittle truth to herself. It was an unspoken dream spun from what remained of her threadbare self-worth. “I’ll raise them to be good. I’ll love them with everything I am. All this has done is make me want my own family, because I’ve been without one my whole life.” She had no idea how to form a loving family. But she knew how not to do it, and that had to count for something.
“But—” His frown was confused. “But you said—you told me that you’d never be the right person to—for us to—produce heirs.”
She clenched her jaw and rallied a steady tone. “That’s still true.”
“You want a family,” he said slowly. “But you don’t want one with me.”
“I want a family.” She tried to slide her hand out of his, but he held fast. “But I can’t have one with you.”
“Because I’m royalty.”
“God, Kris.” This was not a conversation she wanted to have on a sidewalk at midnight. He clearly needed longer to process everything she’d told him. “You might believe I’m nothing like my father, but that’s not enough. Not for Kiraly. Not for a king.” She shook her head, fighting distress. “Royalty is the highest class of citizen. The monarchy’s reputation is the cornerstone of its influence. You’re already going to be a cowboy on the throne—put a criminal beside you and the entire institution will fall apart. This can’t happen. We can’t happen.”
He walked steadily beside her, silent, eyes on the road ahead.
Then he asked, “How would anyone know? You were never caught.”
“My father was,” she said, trying to dodge the memory of his time in prison—and his conviction that she’d see the inside of a cell for herself one day. “Journalists would pursue that and he would delight in telling them about me. I don’t know how, but he’d manage not to incriminate himself in the process. He’d smear my name through mud so deep, I’d never crawl back out.” She paused, blaming her struggle for breath on the hill. “If you defended me, aligned yourself with me, your popularity would plummet. And in the twenty-first century, that might not be a passing threat. It could be a tipping point in the perception of the royal establishment and ultimately bring the end of the monarchy in this country.”
Kris had cooled beside her. Temper chilled, body language contained. “Back at the bar, you said we could get close again. I had hoped that meant you might spend tonight with me.”
She pressed her eyes closed. “It did,” she said. “I think.”
“But only tonight.” His tone was cold with