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“Felix Wilde, may I have this dance?”
There stood William Triannon Frederik Harald Christien Grimaldi, Crown Prince of Monaco and King Lior IX of Liorland, in all of his glory. And he wanted to dance with me.
“I’d be honored,” I said with a shaky smile, reaching out to take his hand. With no way to hear the music from the tiny, enclosed room, we just swayed together in each other’s arms for several long minutes. I ran my hands up and down the luxurious fabric of his coat and nuzzled my nose into his Lio-scented skin.
He whispered words of love and devotion into my ear—enough to thicken my throat and tighten my arms around him. The moment was magical… no, it was majestic.
But it had to end.
I pulled back from his embrace. “You need to go back in there,” I said with as bright a smile as I could fake. “There are hordes of people waiting for an audience with the new king. You are going to be the most amazing king Liorland has ever known.”
“Where are you going? Can I come to your room after the night is over?”
I thought about how I wanted to leave things with him, how I wanted him to feel once I was gone. He needed to be able to focus on the job ahead of him without the distraction of someone five thousand miles away. If I told him I was departing for home right after I left him there, he would beg me to stay. The ensuing argument would interfere with his evening even more than my presence already had. If I didn’t tell him I was leaving, he’d be pissed at me for lying. But at least he’d manage to get through this important evening before discovering my absence.
“Yes. Now go have fun. I’m going to leave the ball early so I don’t shoot puppy eyes at you across the crowd all night, okay?”
His own dark blue eyes bore into me. “I love you,” he said. “Of all the vows I spoke during my coronation mass and all the promises I made to the people of Liorland in my speech, do not doubt that those three words I say to you now are the most important ones I said today. Do you understand?”
My chin trembled as I nodded.
“Say it, baby,” he breathed. “Tell me you understand how important this is to me. How important you are to me. Please.”
“You love me,” I repeated. “But you have to understand I feel the same way about you.”
“I do. I know how much you love me, Felix. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Before I could ask him what he meant by that or even steal a final kiss from him, there was a commotion outside the door. Jon cracked it open just enough for us to hear him tell Lio’s mother the king would be out momentarily.
“See you soon,” Lio said with a grin before dropping a quick kiss on my forehead and sliding out the door.
I waited at least fifteen minutes to ensure the coast was clear before sneaking out into the hallway and finding my way back to the guest suite where Grandpa and Doc were packed and waiting.
“How did you know?” I asked, pulling off my clothes as quickly as I could before slipping on comfortable sweats for the long flights home. I left the custom-fitted tuxedo laid out on my bed and turned to my grandfathers. It was impossible to ignore the looks of pity etched in both of their faces.
“We raised you, son,” Grandpa said in a quiet voice. “Of course we knew. Let’s get you home.”
I didn’t say a word as we snuck out of the palace, out of Lio’s home.
And I tried not to feel as though I was closing the book forever on my real-life fairy tale.
Chapter 39
Lio
“That fucking coward!” I hissed the words at my sister before slinging my phone across the room toward the sofa. It missed by a mile, clattering to the ground and sliding to a stop under an antique blanket chest my sister had stolen from my mother’s apartment after she moved into her house in town. I’d asked her to stay as long as she wanted to at the palace, but she’d declined. It had taken me a few weeks after the coronation to figure out that she was relieved to have a break from everything Grimaldi for a while.
I could hardly blame her.
My father had retreated to the house in Grasse and was secretly ensconced in the countryside with Eleanor. I’d begged him to go public with his situation so that our public relations people could manage the fallout our way, rather than being reactionary when it inevitably came out anyway. Despite Eleanor’s begging him to do it too, he’d refused. While I was still supremely pissed at my father, I was secretly a little happy for Eleanor finally at least getting his full attention. I’d hated seeing her exhaustion and sadness that day at the palace.
