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‘He’ll come to see you shortly.’ The King waved his fingers.

Recognising the dismissal, Tilly fled. Powerlessness burned through her blood. The last thing she wanted was a meeting with the King’s sycophantic enforcer. She hurried along the cavernous corridor of the main wing, barely registering the double-height walls festooned with gilt-framed portraits of king after king after king.

Montaurella’s Royal Palazzo was affectionately known in the local dialect as dimoro miele—a home of honey—with a creamy white stone exterior and lavish gold detailing. It was the glittering centrepiece of the stunning Adriatic coastal city, flanked by an equally enormous cathedral on one side and a majestic theatre on the other. Centuries old, those gleaming, oversize buildings were opulent symbols of the prosperous, fiercely proud kingdom that sat between Italy and Croatia. The country was a priceless jewel with mountainous riches and a coastline that awed even the most widely-travelled. Not even Domenico’s latest increase in tourist taxes had dimmed the number of visitors eager to explore it.

Tilly kept her head down, avoiding the stares of the King’s guard as she went to the princes’ wing. Hopefully it had been a helicopter she’d heard. Hopefully Erik had arrived home from the country estate early. Hopefully he’d not heard about the video yet. Except everyone had—she saw the smothered smirks on the soldiers’ faces as she passed them.

But Erik would know what to do. He always gave the best advice. She went straight to his apartment. Even if he wasn’t home, she’d phone him from there. If she returned to her own room Hugo would arrive, and she wasn’t ready for that. She opened Erik’s door without knocking and her heart leapt when she saw his dark hair poking above the back of his deep armchair.

‘Oh, Erik.’ Hugely relieved, she hurried forward. ‘I’m so glad you’re here…you’ve got to help me—’ She drew up short as the occupant of the chair rose and faced her. ‘Oh.’

Because it wasn’t Erik, second son of King Domenico and her closest friend, who now walked towards her. It was Alex, Crown Prince of Montaurella and all-round ass.

‘What are you doing here?’ she wheezed.

The jerk was rarely seen in the palace. In the seven years she’d lived here she could count the number of nights he’d stayed over on one hand.

The two princes of Montaurella couldn’t be more different. Alex, the playboy heir. Erik, the perfect spare. Erik the Worthy. Alex the Wild. The media had pegged them years ago and the labels were bang on. Yet despite his decadence, despite the fact he was a dilettante, Alex was still adored not only by the people of Montaurella, but also by the whole damned world. He was the perfect example of both pretty privilege and wealth privilege—his movie-star good looks and vomit-inducing ability to have become a billionaire in a private capacity filtered how everyone saw him. It was extremely aggravating because Tilly got the pleasure of seeing his true nature—the sarcastic, smug, selfish side. But it wasn’t only money and looks helping Alex, he also had a veneer of charisma so dazzling he had almost everyone else fooled. He really should be a Hollywood legend.

‘Matilde,’ he said calmly. ‘Whatever could be the matter?’

And there it was, the soft, drawn-out tone he used to undermine and attack. Her. Only her. She gritted her teeth as he not-so-subtly waved his phone at her before pocketing it. Of course he’d seen it. Everyone had seen it. It was horrendous. But, given his legendary hedonistic tendencies over the years, Alex had no right to judge.

And yet here he was, judging her now—as always. She braced as his cynical gaze leisurely trailed down her body, making her aware of how her cream blouse was sticking to her back and that her ankle-length skirt suddenly didn’t feel long enough.

‘Where’s Erik?’ She folded her arms across her chest and glared into his annoyingly deep brown eyes.

‘Not here.’ He negligently twisted his ostentatious watch. ‘I believe he’s working at the estate.’

He put the faintest emphasis on ‘working’ as if she’d never heard of the concept. But he could hardly judge. While Erik managed the Crown estate, Alex worked in private finance on his private island—adding to his already enormous personal fortune. Tilly refused to be anything like him. She used Erik as her guide—offering service to the King and Crown.

‘You mentioned you need help.’ He eventually broke the thick silence with exaggerated politeness. ‘May I be of assistance in any way?’

Of course not. Where Erik was her best friend, Alex was her dread enemy and she didn’t take that soft offer as remotely genuine. He’d been at university abroad when she moved into the palace and since his return lived in his own empire on the pristine island just off the Montaurellan coastline. He’d made his feelings towards both her and her mother extremely clear and they’d never changed over the years. Now he stared at her with as much undisguised impatience as ever. And yet she was so overwhelmed by Domenico’s demand, she couldn’t help hoping Alex might have a little humanity somewhere inside him.

‘You’ve seen the video,’ she mumbled, then winced. ‘Of course you’ve seen the video. The whole world has seen the video.’

Something slithered inside her at the thought of Alex seeing that debauched spectacle. Somehow it made it even worse.

He stared for another moment into her eyes. Then cleared his throat. ‘Forget it.’

How? Her temper flared. How could she forget the soundtrack they’d added, the things they’d made her do and say, performing directly to the camera with—

‘It’s a violation. It’s ick,’ he added harshly. ‘But it’s not real, the interest will pass.’

‘You’re minimising it?’

Even though the rational part of her agreed with him, she hated his dismissiveness. But maybe he’d made those kinds of videos for real—for the fun of it. Of course he could shrug it off.

‘If you want to be royal, you need to learn to ignore everything the media writes about you.’ He brushed a speck of dirt from his finely stitched blazer. ‘This sort of thing is merely the latest iteration of that.’

If she wanted to be royal.

Because she wasn’t really royal. Her mother had married in and Tilly’s title had been a wedding gift to her from the King.

‘So I should just accept it?’

‘You have little choice,’ he said brutally. ‘There’s no scrubbing it from the internet completely. It’s being reposted as quickly as it’s being taken down. It’s whack-a-mole.’