“Aleki?”
Someone was calling his name from very far away. Aleki tried to groan in response but nothing came out. He swallowed thickly, his throat like sandpaper and tried again.
“Unf.”
It was enough. Footsteps sounded around his head and he heard the soft swish of the curtains being opened. A shaft of light softened the dullness behind his closed lids. He struggled to open his eyes but gave it up as a lost cause when it caused the pain in his temples to radiate like the sun.
“Gods.” Manu sounded amused. The bastard. “You look like shit.”
Aleki summoned every particle of strength in his body and, concentrating very carefully, flipped the bird in the direction of his brother’s voice.
“Now, now,” the cocky voice chided in Avalian. “That’s not nice. Especially when I brought you the elixir of life.”
Aleki valiantly tried to open his eyes again, and his success was rewarded with blinding agony.
“Here.” A bottle of water was shoved into one hand, and a couple of small tablets into the other. “Take these.”
“Why are you here?” He tossed the pills in his mouth and swallowed half the water in a single swallow.
“You missed church.”
Fuck.The photo op of him, Manu and the king attending a Sunday service had been organised by Iosefa and emailed out on Friday evening. He’d seen it while flipping through his notifications on Saturday morning before the tequila took total control.
“Is Dad mad?”
Manu shrugged. “When is he not?”
Aleki raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement and tipped the bottle to his lips to swallow the remaining liquid.
“So,” Manu looked around, taking in the empty bottles that littered Stella’s — his spare guest — room. “Where is the delightful Ms Warren?”
“Gone.”
“Just like that?”
“Yup.” Aleki crumpled the water bottle in his hand, frowning viciously at it.
“Hmmm.” Manu’s tone was indecipherable, but Aleki couldn’t be bothered looking up to determine his meaning. “What did you do?”
At that, his head shot up. “What makes you think I did something? Maybe she just doesn’t want this life. Maybe she—” he hesitated “—maybe she just doesn’t want me.”
His brother snorted. “Yeah, women hate princes. They make films about it all the time.”
“It’s not that.”
“So what is it?”
“It’s complicated. The wedding, the relationship.” He took a deep breath. “Stella’s pregnant.”
“No way?” Manu’s face lit up like he’d just been handed a ten-year rugby league contract. “I’m going to be an uncle?”
“There’s more. I asked her to marry me for the baby’s sake. I can’t take another scandal. I was very clear, there was even a contract at one point. Stella agreed for her own reasons. And now she’s gone. She thinks we’d be better as co-parents.” He infused the last world with all the bitterness that simmered under the surface of his skin.
“And you can’t get her back?”
Aleki gave a hollow laugh. “She doesn’t want me. She wants a father for her child, but not me as such. And anyway-” he swallowed thickly around the lie, “—I don’t want her like that.”
“Bullshit,” Manu laughed. “Men don’t spend two days drunk because their fake fiancée leaves them. They do when their real one does, though.”
Aleki groaned and rolled over onto his stomach.
“So if you’re not getting her back, what are you going to do?”
“The only thing I can do.” The pillow muffled his voice so he turned his head, inhaling a quick, dizzying hit of Stella’s perfume from the cushion. “I’m going to do my job. I’m going to secure the Samoan trade deal and reclaim my rightful place as heir from you.”
“I don’t know.” Manu’s cheerfulness suddenly sounded forced. “I might as well lead the country. I’ve got nothing else going on.”
“What about the league season?”
“They’re releasing me from my contract.” His little brother’s voice suddenly sounded smaller. “I’m still having some injury trouble and the club didn’t take kindly to me jumping on a plane this week to check on you.”
“You don’t have leave?” Shock raced across Aleki’s skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “Manu! Why would you risk something like that?”
Manu rolled his eyes, exasperation carved in every inch of his face. “For you, you idiot. You get engaged out of the blue, to a foreign girl we’ve never heard of, and I find out about it on the news? Of course I came to check on you.”
Guilt weighed heavy on Aleki’s shoulders, pressing against the uncomfortable shard of grief that always pinched in his chest when he thought about what his actions had cost his brother.
“You have to go back, Manu. You can’t risk your career for me. Not again.” The pressure built, a pointed tip that burrowed deeper down, crippling in its intensity.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Manu was by his side, kneeling on the tiles. “What do you mean, not again?”
“The accident,” Aleki gasped out, rubbing his fist against the radiating pain in his chest. “You almost lost it all after the accident. Now you’re risking it again. No matter what I do, I keep putting your job in jeopardy.”
“Is that what you think? You think you’re responsible for my accident? For my choices?” Manu sighed. “I’m twenty-five years old, Aleki. I make my own decisions. And I decided my family took priority over playing this week. I knew what the consequences might be, and I still got on that plane. And the accident was years ago. You didn’t cause it. Hell, I didn’t even know where you were when it happened. Tua and I could have made a million different decisions that day, and maybe he’d still be here and maybe my knee would be alright but maybe things would have gone the way they did anyway. We'll never know.” He shrugged. “But what I do know is that it’s time to stop blaming yourself for what happened to other people. You’re the best brother I could ask for. And I bet you’d be a pretty good husband too if you could stop blaming yourself for Stella’s choices.”