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“I cannot imagine what,” Dimitri answered honestly. “Though naturally, I will do whatever I can.”
“I expected no less.”
Nor should Kon have. All three brothers had been raised with a strong sense of duty. Dimitri’s time in combat had only intensified his own sense of responsibility. Being the officer in charge when lives were lost had taught him how high the cost could be of making even the smallest error in judgment.
“Someone close to the family is leaking sensitive information to the press.” Kon said it baldly, with no buildup.
Dimitri sat up straighter, barely holding himself back from leaping to his feet. He was careful not to reveal too much of his inner thoughts or feelings. The practice was so ingrained, it came as second nature to him, even with his family.
“Personal or business?” he asked Konstantin in an even tone.
He didn’t ask if his brother was sure, or how he’d come to that conclusion. It was enough that he had.
“Both.”
Dimitri very deliberately bit out an expletive.
“Exactly.”
“You do not know who it is?”
He framed it as a question, but Dimitri had no doubt he was right. If Konstantin knew the name of the culprit, he would have named him.
“Not as such, no.”
“What does that mean?”
“The leaks happen after Jenna has been to visit Nataliya.”
Something inside Dimitri seized painfully. Jenna had been accepted into the inner circle of their family by all of them. If she had betrayed them, it would devastate more than Nataliya.
His father looked on the beautiful fashion journalist as a daughter, just as he did his daughter-in-law, Nataliya.
From the moment Nataliya and Nikolai became engaged, Jenna had been a frequent visitor to the palace. She and his father shared a love for reality television that frankly had the rest of the family baffled. Dimitri had thought Jenna was humoring the former king at first, but had soon realized she was as interested in the lives of celebrity strangers as his father.
“Impossible,” Dimitri said after a second’s thought. “Jenna would never betray the sister of her heart.”
Jenna had shown her loyalty to Nataliya time and again. She’d been vocal about how much she valued her place among the royal family, if equally outspoken about how much she had no desire to actually be one of them.
The woman with strongly feminist ideals had no desire to be a princess.
Konstantin sighed, suddenly looking like a man who had gotten up two hours early to make a secret phone call. “I would have thought not, but the timing cannot be denied. It has happened too many times to be coincidence.”
“Either she’s leaking information,” Dimitri mused, still not convinced, “or someone she trusts enough to talk about us is doing it.”
The latter seemed far more likely.
“That was my thought.”
“Have you asked her?”
“Are you kidding me? What do you think is the first thing she would do after such a conversation?”
“Call Nataliya.” And that would cause stress for the queen. “You really think Jenna would upset Nataliya right now?”
“Perhaps not on purpose, but even if she just lets it slip we suspected her, you don’t think that will upset our sister-in-law?”
“Sure, but I’m not convinced someone as intelligent and caring as Jenna would let something like that slip to Nataliya when the queen’s health could be at risk from stress.”
