“Looks slick. Where did you get it?”
“Ava gave it to me.”
Frankie nodded, noting that he still didn’t call Ava his mother. “Have you read it yet?”
“Yes.” But he crouched on the grass beside her and opened it, clearly expecting her to read it again with him.
“Uh.” Lord. Kids were about as familiar to her as a pair of loving arms. But this—how exactly did she say no to this? She cast a pleading, get-out-of-jail-free-card glance at Ava, but found the princess frowning at the stables. On her own, Frankie settled on her shins and gingerly drew the book closer. “Alright, just don’t spoil the ending.”
Darius leaned in as she started reading, fully resting against her thigh, and then, well, she hardly knew what happened. She wasn’t used to being touched by a child—feeling welcomed by innocence, and something neglected inside her gasped at the pain of it all. The way his small finger pointed out the pictures. The way his other hand fiddled lightly, distractedly, with the buckles on her boot. The way he wriggled at exciting parts, and looked up to watch her own reaction. It was so honest—but instead of wanting to run, she wanted more, and the impossibility of that welled up inside her like blood beneath a bruise.
“Frankie, why have you stopped?” Darius regarded her with his impossibly wide eyes.
“Sorry.” She shook her head. Pull it together. “I didn’t get enough sleep last night.”
He touched her leg. “You can nap in my bed.”
Jesus. Her laugh broke a little, and Ava turned to look down at her. “I’ll be okay.”
Frankie kept reading through the lump in her throat. And only once she’d finished, Darius closing the book with a grin up at her, did she pull herself together enough to realize everything around her was quiet. Her skin prickled. Cutting a swift glance over her shoulder, she found Kris standing in the doorway to the stables, one hand braced high against the doorjamb, the thumb of his other hand looped through his belt.
His attention was fixed on her.
For once, his expression was unreadable.
Nerves balled her stomach as she abruptly turned away. Her face burned hot; her cheeks pulsed. His crisp blue eyes could be startlingly disarming when he wasn’t mucking around. Fighting for composure, she nudged Darius lightly with her elbow. “We good?”
“Yes. Thank you, Frankie.”
“Cool.” She stood on unsteady legs, the thought of Kris’s scrutiny making her skin shrink several sizes—pulling tight, sealing her in. She deliberately faced Ava as she jerked a thumb down at Darius. “The manners on this kid.”
“You should hear him when he’s hungry.” Ava’s gaze was speculative as she angled herself toward Kris. “Will you quit looming like that? It’s boorish.”
Frankie dropped back swiftly, locking her hands behind her back and redirecting her gaze to the mansion. Her heartbeat was thick in her neck as she watched him approach from the corner of her eye.
“We’re all boors to you, Ava.” His voice was rough, weary, but he aimed for a brighter tone as he said, “Hey, Darry, how’s your new room? All settled in?”
“Yes.” Darius sounded shy. “Are you Tomas or Kristof? I’ve forgotten.”
Fair enough, since he’d only met them three nights ago at Mark and Ava’s engagement party.
“I’m Kris. Tommy’s the serious one.” There was a brief silence, before he said wryly to Ava, “I get that you avoid shortening names for some weird well-bred reason, but can you at least teach him ours properly?”
Ava practically sniffed. “I happen to like your full names.”
“Well, Markus is all yours,” he said. “And don’t worry. He’s fine, even though he deserved a round or two after he—” He cut off and Frankie felt his attention lunge for her. “You know,” he finished coolly.
Even peripherally, his attention left her breathless.
Then he was striding into her line of sight, his back to her as he aimed for the car. Within moments, Tommy appeared in his wake.
Time to go.
“See you, Darius,” she said, avoiding the look on Ava’s face before taking off after Kris and Tommy.
She could handle the brothers’ silent treatment and being cut out of their circle of trust. She could deal with her feelings for Kris like she always had—working around the beautiful, battered ache inside her, tucked up and under where her lowest ribs met. She could keep her head down—keep Kris out of harm’s way.
Zara had been weighted by middle-of-the-night pessimism when she’d declared this wouldn’t work. It would take some adjustment, sure, but Zara didn’t know the weight Frankie lugged around as baseline pain—the sacrifices she’d made to keep those she cared for safe.
It would hurt, but she’d honed herself to withstand far worse.
This was going to work.
5
Kris didn’t leave the palace grounds for four days.
He didn’t want to see Frankie. Didn’t want her near him, observing him, protecting him. Yet even as her deception clawed him raw, he didn’t want to request a new bodyguard. That would feel too final. As if he’d decided to cut her out of his life for good, and he couldn’t even reach the end of that thought without his stomach turning.
He pounded out his frustration in the palace gym, tore laps up and down the pool, and rode hard on the mountain tracks.
It just took the edge off.
Predictably, Philip practically crowed with delight at the resulting lack of PR disasters. Days on end without incident! Media coverage without reference to a cowboy! Kris contemplated short-sheeting the man’s bed just to wipe that smug smile off his face—and for being a player in Frankie’s concealment—but figured he owed him a few days’ respite.
This was hardly going to be the new normal.
Philip worked with him each day in the tower study, and with Mark’s help, Kris started to wrap his brain around the nation’s policies and agreements. His head swam with measures for strong national health, education, inclusion, and safe living; it grappled with strategies for environmental protection and sustainability, budgets, and taxes. Unexpectedly, it all began to make sense. The fact that his hedonistic, indolent uncle Vinci had approved such strong policies almost made Kris reassess his opinion of the man.
All was forgiven between Kris and Mark by the second day. Mark turned up for their usual Tuesday beer and poker night—which Kris insisted they play in his sitting room instead of the cabin beyond the palace grounds—and Kris felt something unstable inside him realign.
But he couldn’t forgive Frankie so easily.
A brutal kind of restlessness claimed him by the third night. He hated not knowing what to do, and hated that Frankie had put him in this position. The ferocity of his frustration built, making him want to knock down a wall or dig a well with his bare hands. Instead, he tracked Tommy down in one of the private libraries and stalked the rows until his brother finally agreed to play cards between his stacks of books.
“You can’t avoid her forever,” Tommy said, sighing as he lost another hand. “I can’t put up with you like this for that long.”
“Like what?” Kris shuffled the cards as if he wanted to snap their spines.