Page 79 of Fit for a King

The sound of waves crashing on the rocks below got louder as I neared him, and had me wondering: what he was thinking as he stared out to sea? How his ancestors had traveled to Valoria all those years ago? Or how he wished he could jump aboard a ship and escape somewhere far away, where he wasn’t beholden to anyone’s wants but his own?

I’d just about reached him when he turned to see me. His blue eyes were troubled as he looked me over before turning back to stare out at the choppy waters before us.

“We used to come to Whitefall Cliffs every summer,” Nicholas said, his voice floating above the waves. “For one week.”

I remembered that. The village would be in a frenzy, the streets shut down, and most of the locals vanished. Nicholas’s father had been respected, but he was also known to be cold. He wasn’t interested in being loved; he merely did his job. So it was easier to stay out of his way than to accidentally incur his displeasure.

“I always wanted to stay longer,” he said, then took in a deep breath. “But my father would never let me.”

His voice sounded far away as I stepped up beside him, his mind somewhere in the past.

“He used to say: The sea will steal your heart like a beautiful face if you let it.”

Nicholas turned to look at me, his eyes roving over my features as he reached for me, cradling my face.

“For the first time, I understand what he meant. I’d give up everything…for this view.” My heart skipped as he took a step closer and lowered his forehead to mine. “For you.”

“Nicholas—”

“Let me say this, Noah. Let me tell you how much I love you. I can’t bear going another second without saying the words I feel.”

I curled my fingers around his and held them as I closed my eyes, letting his words crash over me like the waves hitting the cliffside.

“Everything’s against us, I know that. Nothing about this is fair. But no matter how many times I tell myself, no matter how many times someone else tells me this won’t end well, I can’t seem to stop my heart from coming back to you, to loving you.” He reached for my chin, angling my face up to his. “Yet I’m supposed to just forget you? Forget this face? This heart of yours? How do I do that? How do I stop loving you? Can you tell me?”

I placed a hand over his heart and shook my head. “No, because I love you too. It’s foolish and pointless, but no matter how hard I try to push aside my feelings, they always come back stronger. Maybe it’s a case of better to have loved and lost than not love at all.”

“I don’t believe that,” Nicholas said, ever the stubborn king.

“In this case, I don’t believe you have a choice.”

Nicholas’s eyes swirled with frustration and love as he ran his fingers down my cheek. “I don’t care. Choice or not, I love you, Noah Bennett. Nothing can change that.”

My heart swelled at the words I’d only ever dreamed of hearing. I hadn’t thought it would be possible to find love. It hadn’t even been on my radar, much less with the man who ruled our country—but here he was, standing in front of me at my parents’ home, confessing that he couldn’t go another second without telling me he loved me.

It was more than I ever could’ve hoped for.

I let myself get lost in his words, in the love swirling in his eyes, and shoved down the voice that was telling me to wake up.

Nicholas cupped my cheek and leaned in, kissing me softly and sealing the words we’d spoken to each other as the wind whipped around us.

The moment was perfect. Everything. And with it grew a small spark of hope that somehow we wouldn’t have to give up what it’d taken so long for us to find.

25

NICHOLAS

WE HAD RETURNED from the tour the evening before, and though the household had greeted me with the same flawless precision it always did, it felt…different.

So much had happened in the two weeks we’d been gone. Noah had ridden beside me more often than any footman had a reason to on the trip. There was Solterra. Alejandro. The dinner disaster. My own jealousy that I had done a piss-poor job of leashing. The rest of the motorcade going on ahead of us on the last day, my private car taking us to Whitefall Cliffs.

And then there was the thing no one knew.

When I closed my eyes, I could still see him standing there with the sea breaking against the rocks below as he told me he loved me. Those words lived in my chest now, and they made me foolish. Reckless. But so damn happy.

It was a dangerous combination for a king, but I wasn’t thinking logically at the moment.

Noah had come to me late last night, after the palace had gone to sleep, and I knew I shouldn’t have invited him. We both knew, and yet he’d slipped into my bed with the same ease he’d slipped into my heart, and there was no way I could deny him.