“Do you disrespect your team so much?” Philip gestured behind him to where Peter and Hanna were stationed just outside the closed doors.
“I don’t disrespect them.” He didn’t know them. Despite his efforts, the pair rarely spoke, never smiled, and their expressions always lay somewhere between mildly disapproving and dull-minded.
“You must,” Philip said, “since you risk their jobs every time you run off.”
Kris turned his mouth down at the corners, impressed. “Breaking out the emotional manipulation, I see.”
“This is serious.”
“So is what I’m doing,” he said, telling the absolute truth.
“Look, this is the last time I’ll bring it up,” Philip said. “But be warned, security has tightened after last night. I’ve been told you won’t get away again.”
Kris almost groaned. Tighter security. Great.
Instead, he cocked a challenging brow. “Tell them to tackle me.”
“I’ll do no such thing.” Philip’s lips thinned. Then he tossed the folded newspaper onto the table. “Care to explain this?”
Curious, Kris and Tommy both tipped their heads to see the headline. Cowboy Prince Shouts Round at Foreign Embassy. Beneath was a photo of Kris standing at the entrance to the embassy of the neighboring minister for agriculture, flanked by his guards, holding a six-pack of the palace’s own microbrew.
“I told you I’d sort it out.” Kris gestured to the newspaper with his toast. “Publicly.”
Philip’s face flushed. “With beer?”
“Why not?” He bit into the sourdough. “We shared a few drinks. I apologized for walking out of his presentation. He gave me a few pointers on political extrication, as he called it. He’s an alright guy. No hard feelings.”
There was a room-wide silence in which even the serving staff seemed to hold their breath for Philip’s response. But he just said faintly, “I’m not built for this. I’ll see you in your study in twenty minutes.” With that, the advisor left, the grand double doors closing in his wake.
Twisting his lips, Kris returned his attention to Tommy.
His brother was watching him steadily. “Are we really sure Mark loves Ava?”
“Why does everyone keep asking that? I can handle this.” Kris leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “Want to come out with me tonight?”
The corner of Tommy’s mouth quirked. He gestured to where Philip had been standing. “Did we just experience two different conversations?”
“I didn’t say we’re going to slip security.”
Tommy raised a wry brow. “You know I’m not coming. And we both know what you’re going to do.” He paused. “And that it’s a bad idea.”
“I have no choice.” Kris shoveled the last of his toast in his mouth. “Didn’t you hear that challenge?”
His brother muttered, “Oh, dear God,” as he scratched between his brows. “Just bring her back here, will you? She can even have breakfast with us.”
What?
For a few seconds, Kris blinked at him. Then it hit. Tommy assumed, like everyone else, that he slipped his guards in order to get laid.
“Nah,” he answered. “That’d be weird.”
Tommy glanced at the huge table. “It’s not as if we don’t have a spare seat.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“No, you won’t.” Pouring a second serve of coffee, his brother added, “But you should think about the risks of being the ascending member of our family alone on the city streets at night.”
“What’s that word you call me sometimes?” Kris stood, running a hand through his hair. It was getting long, but he kind of liked it. “Encourageable?”
Tommy gave a soft snort. “Incorrigible.”
“Yeah.” Kris picked up his cowboy hat from the corner of the table and set it on his head with a grin. “Same thing.”
2
Frankie made no sound as she stuck to the shadows.
It wasn’t the first time she’d tailed her best friend. Four years ago, she’d finally tracked Kristof Jaroka—living under the name Kris Jacobs—to his college campus, days before his graduation. She’d believed then, sliding into the student bar behind him, that he was the only child of the outcast Prince Erik. She’d had no reason to think otherwise—Philip certainly hadn’t made her quest easier by confiding that there were three of them. Whispered gossip in Kiraly about the far-flung royal had only ever mentioned a single son, and she’d been sure Kris was it, lounging on a bar stool with rippling sexuality and wild blue eyes.
Silly, laughable past-Frankie.
“Your breathing is off.” Peter spoke quietly in her earpiece. “Everything okay, Cowan?”
“Fine,” she whispered, lying to avoid the treacherous cliff edge of those three words. Everything wasn’t okay. Her heart was pounding viciously and nervousness made her insides itchy.
In this dark street, she was alone with Kris for the first time in months.
It was almost midnight. He’d done another quick change earlier, disguised by the crowded bar and a new woman with her arms around his neck. Frankie had watched the security stream on her phone from a block down the street, trying to ignore the reluctance yanking in her gut. She couldn’t do this.
Yet all day her weakened heart had yanked back. No more hiding. I can’t bear it.
So she’d given the guards strict instructions. Let the prince escape. Leave him to her and follow at a distance. Only close in once she had him secured.
Unexpectedly, he’d parted ways with his date within minutes. For a man whose nocturnal brain was located squarely between his legs, his behavior was a real head-scratcher.
He’d ditched his cowboy hat and checkered shirt at the bar, leaving only the black tank he’d worn beneath. Paired with his jeans and a hand in his back pocket, he looked like any other local wandering home on a warm summer night. That was, if any other local had shoulders made for carrying saddles, arms for throwing hay bales, and an ass so tight it shouldn’t reasonably expect anyone to ever look away.
At the next backstreet intersection, he veered right. The road levelled out, running horizontally across the mountainside. He occasionally checked over his shoulder—a casual, just-because-he-should kind of glance. As if a threat would stick to the middle of the road behind him. Unnoticed after his fifth head check, Frankie almost fell for it. Her anger sparked. He was being careless. Foolish. This was dangerous. She knew the area, the direction he was headed. The bars speckled on street corners would become seedier. The alleys and side streets that ran unlit and steep off this road would start to conceal the scum of society.
Then she cursed herself.
He knew he was being followed.
The first time he’d driven her to the middle of freaking nowhere to watch the stars from the tray of his truck, an animal had slunk out of the trees beside her. In the darkness, all she’d been able to make out was a canine form and stealthy gait. Kris hadn’t noticed; he’d just lounged there, hand propped under his head, gazing up at the sky. Unwilling to overreact, she hadn’t commented as it approached, until finally Kris had cast her a soft half-smile. “It’s okay,” he’d said. “It’s just a fox.”