The Snow Prince - Raleigh Ruebins Page 0,19

a moment, all of the pretense was gone from his face. He was being real.

This wasn’t the cold prince. This was my best friend.

“I…” I started to speak, but had no idea what to say. I had no clue how to sum up so many years of emotion into a reply.

“I am sorry,” he said. “In the strongest way any person could be sorry. And I know it will never be enough. But you cannot dare tell me that I didn’t miss you. Or that I didn’t think of you every single day since that night. Most of the time you were the only thing I thought of, Henry.”

His fingers fumbled, just a little, as he clasped the button on the front of his jacket.

He was gone in another moment, whisking himself off like royalty that had places to be. Genoveve’s face appeared in the doorway, like a ray of sunshine in this grey ice storm of a castle.

“Sir, I can take you to the guests’ quarters right away,” she said with a genuine smile. “I think you’ll love it.”

“It’s Henry,” I said.

“Sorry?”

“Call me Henry. I don’t do well with all the sir stuff,” I said. I squirmed a little in my flannel, which suddenly didn’t feel thick enough to keep out the cold.

“Right then,” she said. “Henry. I apologize.”

“No, I apologize,” I said, letting out a long sigh. “I shouldn’t have caused the scene I did. Back in the car.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… telling Sebastian off. Telling him fuck you in front of you all. You didn’t need to see that.”

She waved a hand. “Sebastian said you were old friends. It happens, sometimes. Don’t worry about it, sir. Henry, I mean.”

“Sebastian never used to swear at all, you know,” I told her. “He was a very sweet kid.”

She smiled. “It’s so nice to meet a friend of his. You’re the first man Sebastian’s ever brought back to the castle.”

My eyebrows lifted. “That can’t be true.”

She nodded quickly. “Oh, he never brings men around. Only women. We’re very glad to have you here.”

4

Sebastian

The crystal glass was heavy in my hand as I watched Henry across the table. I tossed back the rest of my scotch, the liquor pleasantly burning at the back of my tongue. Sarah, one of the kitchen staff members, was quick to appear at my side, taking my glass to refill it at the bar.

“Little more this time,” I said quietly, trying to speak slowly. It never looked good when I started slurring my words this early in the evening. “Thank you, Sarah.”

My words were inaudible over the noise filling the rest of the table. I hadn’t seen the dining room this lively in years. The table felt warm under the dim glow of the chandeliers above us, and the staff had lit more candles than usual on the table and the surrounding walls.

It almost felt like a dinner party.

“So I see the bear, clear as day,” Henry was saying. “Right outside my cabin window. And I’m telling you, my cabin windows were not very sturdy.”

Princess Emma was rapt, smiling, sitting back after eating a delicious meal, eyes trained on Henry. He had always been a good storyteller, but he had the entire table wrapped tightly around his finger now. Even Genoveve was focused exclusively on Henry.

Henry was glowing, his cheekbones so defined in the amber light. I wanted to run my fingertips along his face, to feel the relative roughness of his skin against mine.

I kept staring at his mouth. His full lips. I ran my own fingers along my lower lip, idly wondering if he was still as good a kisser as he’d been that night long ago. Not that we’d gotten nearly as much time together as I’d wanted.

Or maybe I was just thinking that because I’d already had too much liquor, and any amount of liquor made me want to kiss someone. Seeing Henry in real life still felt like a dream.

“Were you scared?” the princess asked.

“At first. But then I was kind of excited.”

“Hah!” she exclaimed.

“I knew I had to outsmart the bear if I had any chance. So I tossed the rest of my beef jerky out to the side of the cabin, waited for him to go after it, then made a run for my truck. Spent hours downslope waiting for the bear to get the hell out of there.”

Things had started out awkwardly. Henry had seemed like he wasn’t comfortable being at the table, and I had worried