She was catching her breath after racing down the stairs to the car park when the lift bell rang. Luca’s bodyguards stepped out. One checked as he saw her hovering, nodding slightly when he recognized her. An SUV slid to a halt, and Luca glanced at her as he appeared and walked across to the door that was opened for him.
“I didn’t believe you could find what you wanted in less than an hour.” His gaze dropped to the bag she swung as she hurried toward him. “Your ability to follow through on a promise is reassuring.”
“Reassurance is the cornerstone of our work. I’m not being facetious. I mean that.” She let his bodyguard take her purchases and climbed into the vehicle beside Luca, firmly ignoring the cloud of the king’s personal fragrance, which may or may not have been a combination of aftershave, espresso and undiluted testosterone.
Whatever it was, it made her ovaries ache.
As the door shut and the SUV moved up the ramp into the daylight, Amy withdrew her tablet from her satchel, determined to do her job, nothing more, nothing less.
“I was going to look up some background information unless you’d rather brief me yourself?”
He pressed the button on the privacy window, waiting until it was fully shut to ask, “How much do you know about my family?”
“Only the—” She pursed her lips against saying sketchiest. “The most rudimentary details. I know your father passed away recently. Six months ago? I’m very sorry.”
He dismissed her condolence with an abbreviated jerk of his head.
“And your mother has been gone quite a bit longer?” she murmured gently.
“Twenty years. We were eleven.” The flex of agony in his expression made Amy’s attempts to remain impervious to him rather useless.
“That must have been a very hard loss for you and your sister. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” he said gruffly, and something in his demeanor told her that even though his mother’s death was two decades old, he still mourned her while his grief over his father was more of a worn-out fatalism.
“And Princess Sofia is...” Amy looked to her tablet, wishing she could confirm the impressions that leaped to mind. “I believe she’s done some diplomatic work?” Amy had the sense it was far more substantial than a celebrity lending their name to a project.
“Sofia is extremely accomplished.” His pride in his sister had him sitting straighter. “She began advocating for girls when she was one. We both studied political science and economics, but when I branched into emerging technologies, she pursued a doctorate in humanities. More recently, she played an integral part in the trade agreements in the Balkan region. She’s done excellent work with refugees, maternal health and global emergency response efforts.”
“I had no idea,” Amy said faintly. Her parents had disinherited her and she’d come a long way from a hard start, but women like his sister made her feel like a hellacious underachiever.
“She’s remarkable. Truly. And has way more patience for politics that I do. I don’t suffer fools, but she’s willing to take the time to bring people around to her way of thinking. We both know where Vallia needs to go, but my instinct is to drag us there through force of will. She has the temperament to build consensus and effect change at a cultural level. She’s better suited to the role, is arguably more qualified and, most importantly, she’s an hour older than I am. The crown should be hers by birthright.”
“Wow.” If her voice held a touch of growing hero worship for both of them, she couldn’t help it. “It’s rare to hear a powerful man sound so supportive and willing to step aside for anyone, let alone a woman. That’s so nice.”
“I’m not ‘nice,’ Amy. Shake that idea from your head right now,” he said tersely. “I am intelligent enough to see what’s obvious and loyal enough to my country and my sister to make the choice that is right for everyone concerned. This has nothing to do with being nice.”
He was using that voice again, the one that seemed intent on warning her that any designs she might have on him were futile.
Message received, but that didn’t stop her from lifting her chin in challenge. “What’s wrong with being nice? With being kind and empathetic?”
“I’m not advocating cruelty,” he said with a curl of his lips. “But those are emotions, and emotions are hungry beasts. Soon you’re doing things just so you feel kind. So you have the outside validation of people believing you’re empathetic. Ruling a country, doing it well—” he seemed to pause disdainfully on the word, perhaps criticizing his father’s reign? “—demands that you remove your personal investment from your decisions. Otherwise, you’ll do what appeases your need to feel good and lose sight of what’s ethically sound.”
She considered that. “It seems ironic that you believe giving up the crown is the right thing to do when your willingness to do what’s right makes you ideal for wearing it.”
“That’s why my sister won’t challenge me for it. She refuses to throw Vallia into turmoil by fighting for the right to rule, not when I’m healthy, capable and wildly popular. From an optics standpoint, she can’t call me out as unsuited and install herself. She has to clearly be a better choice, recruited to save the country from another debacle.”
“Why was she passed over in the first place? Primogeniture laws?”
“Sexism. Our father simply thought it would make him look weak to have a woman as his heir. He was too selfish and egotistical, too driven by base desires to see or do what was best for Vallia. When it was revealed my mother was carrying twins and that we were a boy and a girl, he declared the boy would be the next king. Even though Sofia was born first, making her the rightful successor, the council at the time was firmly in my father’s pocket. No one pushed back on his decree.”
“Does that council still have influence? Can’t you simply abdicate?”
“I’ve tried.” Impatience roughened his tone. “Once I was old enough to understand the reality of my position, I began to question why the crown was coming to me.” He pensively tapped the armrest with a brief drum of his fingers. “Our mother knew Sofia was being cheated, but she worried that pressing for Sofia’s right to inherit would cost her what little influence she had. She used her mandate of raising a future king to install a horde of conservative advisers around us. They genuinely wished to mold me into a better king than my father was, and they are extremely devoted to their cause. That isn’t a bad thing, given the sort of people who surrounded my father.” He side-eyed her.
Amy briefly rolled her lips inward. “I won’t pretend I haven’t read the headlines.” Countless mistresses, for instance, sometimes more than one at a time. “I don’t put a lot of stock into gossip, especially online. Paparazzi will post anything to gain clicks.”