Page 187 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

“I am a prince. The spare,” he said with what could only be described as a snarl.

It took far too long for that information to register inside her. It was as if her entire body froze as the fragile, tentative world they had built shattered in front of her. “That’s a joke, right?”

He scowled and backed away from her.

“Why did you keep that from me?” she cried, not bothering to keep her voice steady or rational.

Gustav had the nerve to look defiant. “Because I am constantly being judged for my position, especially by people who have no idea what they’re talking about.” His glare told her exactly who “people” referred to.

He had the nerve to tell her that she had no idea what she was talking about? After spending her entire life at this school, tolerating and even being targeted by duchesses and heiresses?

“That’s exactly the kind of condescending comment I would expect from a prince,” Livia snapped back. “I wouldn’t understand, just because I’m the daughter of a groundskeeper?”

His eyes widened for one tense moment. Then he scowled. Which told Livia everything she needed to know.

“That’s not what I said,” he snapped.

“You didn’t have to.”

“Clearly I made the right choice not telling you, now that I see the way you’re reacting.” His voice was so cold, and she bit her lip to keep from crying.

“Then I guess there’s no point in talking about it anymore,” she said and turned to walk away. Only then did she let her tears begin to fall.

Chapter Two

Present day

“It’s him. He’s back. The pictures are all over social media.”

Adele’s voice was usually a comfort, but the anxiety in it only fed into Livia’s own. The words were an ominous bell tolling through the phone line, then throughout Livia’s body. He’s back.

“I’ll send you a link,” added her sister.

“I thought the Institut Monte Vue didn’t allow you to have a phone,” said Livia. “Whose number is this?”

“It’s a shared contraband item, so, please, only cryptic messages in the chat. Nothing incriminating.”

“Got it.” Livia sunk into the soft white sofa in the airy living room of her apartment in the middle of Isrikesland’s Old City and clicked on the link her sister had sent. Someone had captured an image of the royal jet through the glass of the country’s main airport. And her soon-to-be fiancé. At the top of the staircase leading to the tarmac stood Edvin af Isborg, Crown Prince of Isrikesland. The person had tried to zoom in on Edvin with their camera, resulting in less-than-ideal resolution, but he looked as he always did. Confident. Stately, one could even say. Not like a man who might have endured hardships over the last eighteen days since the world had last seen or heard from him.

There had been all manner of speculation in the Isrikesland press about the circumstances behind the crown prince’s recent disappearance. From the start, the official party line from the palace was that he had left on emergency diplomatic relations, but as the days turned to weeks, Scandinavia’s less reputable news outlets had leaned into more scandalous theories that involved plane crashes, secret cabals and zany abduction plots. Privately, Livia thought that a tryst with a mistress was most likely, though eighteen days did seem excessive, even for him. She didn’t share this thought with her sister. It was possible that Adele, far off at her current boarding school, huddling around a borrowed, illicit mobile phone, had heard the rumors that Edvin af Isborg shared his father’s habits of excess, even if his cold disposition suggested otherwise. Livia hoped she hadn’t. At seventeen, Adele deserved to survive the last year of her childhood with at least one of her illusions intact.

“Here’s another one.” Her sister’s voice was followed by a ping as a link to another photo popped up on her screen. In this one, the crown prince was crossing the tarmac with an expression she could only describe as haughty self-importance. His dark blond hair was longer than he usually wore it, and he looked a little leaner than the last time she had seen him, she noted. Also, and quite unexpectedly, he wore a beard, a bit darker than his hair.

At least his beard made him look less like his half brother now.

That was the kind of unproductive thought Livia was better off ignoring. Gustav had disappeared from her life that night beside the river eight years ago, though one could argue she had pushed him out. That night had been followed by his rather explosive exit from the Alpine Institute for Boys—explosive enough for the details to make it to the girls’ school—and then…nothing. Not that Livia knew exactly what she would have said to him. Even if she had figured that out, how did one reach a prince? Slide into his DMs? Not that Gustav was on social media—she had checked. And not that he’d have wanted to hear from her.

But currently, she had bigger problems. The first priority was to reassure her sister that they had nothing to worry about.

“We can work with this,” Livia said, though the comment was as much a reassurance for herself as it was for Adele.

“While I’m happy Edvin is okay and all that,” said Adele, “couldn’t he have just stayed…lost for little longer?”

“Like eleven more months, until you’re eighteen?” said Livia with a little snort. “That would have been convenient. I’ll mention it next time I see him. When he decides to grace me with his royal presence.”

Her sister gave a huff of laughter. Belatedly, Livia made the same knee-jerk assessment of her sister’s emotional tone she made in every phone call ever since the Incident. That night seven years ago had split her life into a Before and an After. It had also been the turning point that had finally gotten their parents to take Adele’s bullying seriously, but it had been perilously close to being too late.

After Livia had graduated and left for college, Adele had taken to spending the weekends at home instead of in the dorms. She had been at home that Saturday afternoon, when her father was working and her mother had made the long drive into town for groceries. What if their mother had arrived home just a little later, when the twenty-three sleeping tablets had left Adele’s stomach and were working their irrevocable damage?