Her Off Limits Prince

"I do not understand why you would think you marrying Lady Ingrid would hurt me," Tor said honestly. "But let me set your mind at rest, I have absolutely no objection to it. We are talking marriage here, right?"

"Of course we are talking marriage. I should have made things official before this, but…" Uncharacteristically his father let his voice trail off.

"You were inexplicably worried that I would be upset."

"Not so inexplicable. You are my youngest son."

"But I am no longer a child."

"No, you are right. I think I just wanted my son's lives settled before I allowed myself to move on. I wanted to know you were settled."

And now his father knew that Tor would not be settling down with Else. He respected that the older man was not insisting the countess continue to wait on such an eventuality.

"But you deserve happiness," Tor said with absolute sincerity.

Blythe was getting ready and paused in applying her makeup to give him one of those looks. The ones that said he was a prince among men, and not just because of his title.

He smiled at her.

She blew him a kiss and went back the mirror.

"You can say that after the way I abandoned you after your mother's death?"

"You were grieving." Tor did not deny the abandonment. His eight-year-old self had been devastated.

But he'd been a man for a long time now and mature enough to realize his father had never hurt him purposefully.

"So were you."

"I had my brothers."

"They are good brothers."

"Yes, and you are a good father." If not always the father he had needed.

"That you can say that when we both know it is not true."

"I think the countess is already having a positive impact on you. I could not imagine having a discussion like this before you met her."

"You are right. She makes me examine my feelings as well as my actions." His father sounded bewildered by that, but clearly he'd been willing to do so.

"Father, nothing would please me more than to attend a wedding between you and the countess."

He said the words because he meant them, but the reward he received from Blythe for saying them after he got off the phone sent his senses into the stratosphere.

His father and the countess were married two months after Tor's elite unit was deployed to a high priority zone, as he had expected. While he refused to take leave when his unit was in a dangerous situation, Tor did attend via video call.