“You know I could have you arrested for calling the heir to the throne a coward.” Christian frowned. It was probably an attempt to channel the death glare that King Julian used when displeased, but that sort of overkill never worked on Elias. He knew the prince too well to be intimidated by him.
Instead, he pushed right back. “Yes, but then you’d have to make public the reason why I insulted you. Which would simply highlight your yellow-bellied cowardice all the more.”
“You’re an ass.” Christian gave him the finger to drive the point home.
“I’m your best friend. Pretty sure that’s in the job description. Be an ass when nobody else will dare push back at you.”
“Can I demote you to a bodyguard for the rest of this ride?”
Elias snorted. He tried that gambit at least once a week. “No. Here’s my first idea of what you can ask the princess: What sort of music do you listen to?”
“Isn’t that a basic club pickup line, one that should be screamed over a techno funk beat while flailing your arms and holding a plastic cup of beer?”
“Holy shit. Is that really one of your lines?” Elias’s laughter echoed off the cliff wall beside them. They could follow the stream at its base all the way to the edge of the palace grounds. “Christ, it’s a good thing you’re the heir to the throne and can get women with your title alone.”
“It works.” Christian paused to let Bariq drink from the clear water. “But I don’t think it’ll work with Kelsey. What else have you got?”
“Where do you stand on the ramifications of globalization?”
“Am I trying to get to know my sister, or am I at a global economic conference trying to convince a bunch of foreign ambassadors I know my ass from a hole in the ground?”
“If you don’t want to do small talk, I thought you could try and get a feel for her worldview.”
“You suck at this. Did you lift that last one from my trade meeting in Croatia last month?” Christian asked.
Actually, yes. He’d forgotten about his promise to come up with talking points for Christian until last night because 1) it was stupid that the man was scared to talk to his own sister, and 2) he’d been all in his head thinking about Kelsey nonstop.
It was the first time he’d ever come close to forgetting to carry through on a request by the prince. Which proved that getting in any deeper with the princess was a dumb, horrible, idiotic risk to take. Equally horrible for both his career and his friendship.
“Of course not.” He lifted one shoulder. “Maybe I remembered something like it.”
“You suck at this,” Christian said flatly.
“Well, I’m not in your communications department. I’m the hired muscle. I can kill a man with my bare hands. Reassemble a weapon in four-point-five seconds. Defuse seven kinds of bombs.”
“So a limited skill set, then. Remind me of this during your next performance review.”
“Now who’s being an ass?”
Christian laughed. “This feels good. The fresh air, bullshitting with you. Not worrying about which courtiers are hovering about trying to overhear our conversation. We should do this more often. We used to.”
“Yes.” Elias missed that freedom, too. But neither of them got to put their own wishes and desires first anymore. The good of Moncriano came first now. Always. “Back before you fully assumed all the duties and responsibilities of the Crown Prince of the Realm.”
“Fuck.” Christian sounded almost as frustrated as Elias. “I’m not even thirty. I’m too young to have such a regimented life. I want to be able to go for a ride more than once a week. To not feel like I’m playing hooky to hang out with my best friend. To not have to work through two sets of schedulers in order to simply have a conversation with my sister.”
The simplicity, the ease of the ride when weighed against Christian’s complaints gave Elias an idea. “What about a vacation?”
“You know everything is on lockdown until this vote on joining the European Union is behind us. No unofficial trips for us. No fun.”
“I’m well aware.” The king’s private secretary himself had laid down the law in that regard. And in a belts-and-suspenders move, had made sure to alert the security details for the entire royal family of the fact. As if they were supposed to barricade them in their rooms if a fun getaway was mentioned. “But after. After everything shakes out, one way or the other in a few weeks. What if you all got away?”
“The whole family? Aunts and uncles and cousins? It’d be a circus, and probably break the budget.”
“No. Not the hangers-on.” The string of barely related bootlickers that circled the court were as numerous as the pine trees in the forest around them. “Just you, Genevieve, Kelsey, and the king. A forced bonding experience. Like boot camp.”
“We don’t go away as a family. Not ever. All of that shut down once Valentina…I mean, Kelsey disappeared. No group travel that included the heir and the spare, for safety’s sake.”
How messed up was this life they led that a family of four couldn’t go on vacation together?
“What’s the use of being in charge of the country if you can’t occasionally screw the rules?” That’s what he said, anyway. To lighten Christian’s pissy mood. What Elias meant was that he’d turn the entire Royal Protection Service inside out to pull this off, if he got the okay. “We’d keep you safe. And keep it under the radar. What if you went to the Seychelles, or hell, even hiking in New Zealand?”
“Can you imagine the look on Genevieve’s face if we told her we were going hiking for a week?”
She wore heels everywhere. Even with all the time he spent in the private royal apartments, he hadn’t seen her barefoot in the palace in at least a decade. Casual was not Genevieve’s style. “Yeah, that might’ve been an overshoot. But lounging around in a bikini on a yacht is her speed. Lots of opportunity to talk or not, just be a family. No courtiers. No photo ops. Totally off the grid.”
“The idea has merit. The Villani family road trip.” Christian threw him a lightning fast grin. “Papa will probably laugh himself silly when I suggest it.”
“Perhaps, but I’m sure he’ll see the value in it. And, ah, I’d suggest it sooner rather than later.”
“Why?”
“The only way this works—the whole slotting Kelsey into this foreign, weird-to-her situation—is if you give the princess roots in Moncriano. And roots mean family to her.” She’d commented at least half a dozen times about not managing to speak to her parents yet. Probably twice as many that he hadn’t heard. Her closeness to Mallory was evident from the get-go.