“And we will,” Jean-Luc says. “But the intelligence community agrees that reconnaissance is the best bet for now. Give us a week to do our jobs—”
“You have seventy-two hours.” Once again, my father’s voice cuts through the room. “While I understand the importance of intelligence gathering, I agree with Kian that we’re reaching a critical point. I want to meet back here in seventy-two hours, and at that point, I want to know exactly how you’re going to go in and get the crown prince.”
The meeting goes on for an hour after that as all sides discuss the logistics of what my father and I are asking. And though I pay close attention, there’s a part of me that keeps wondering if seventy-two hours is going to be too late. Or, worse, if we’re already too late.
If maybe Garrett is already dead and I just don’t want to admit it.
Chapter 18
Savvy
I wait all day for Kian to call, but he never does. Not that I really expected him to. He’s got other things way more important than me to deal with right now. It’s just…it’s just I really wanted him to call. Really wanted to know that last night meant something to him.
Which is stupid, I know. And unfair to Kian, considering he might have just gotten a lead on his missing brother—who also happens to be the heir to the Wildermar throne.
Garrett’s kidnapping shocked the nation, threw the country’s financial markets into absolute chaos and turned a lot of other things inside out. Including Kian’s life.
Because not only does he now have to deal with his private grief over his missing twin, but he also has to take on the duties of that twin and help steer the nation through the crisis. It’s a lot for anyone to deal with. Expecting him to worry about my feelings on top of all of that…it’s ridiculous, not to mention selfish.
I know all this. I really do. And I believe it one hundred and ten percent. But knowing it doesn’t stop me from checking my phone every fifteen minutes—even while I’m tending bar—on the off chance that I might have missed a text or a phone call from him.
Which I didn’t.
When two A.M. rolls around with still no word from Kian, I tell myself it’s no big deal. Tell myself that it doesn’t matter. That I’m expecting too much from a guy I’ve only slept with once.
It’s just…I really like him. I shouldn’t, but I do. And just once, I’d like someone that I care about to care about me the same way. To treat me with the same respect and concern that I try to treat them with.
No matter what that movie says, sometimes a guy not calling isn’t a sign that he’s not into you. Sometimes he really is just busy—especially if he’s second in charge of running an actual country. Or at least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Except, as I walk out to my car, I know that even that’s not true. It’s only been twenty hours since Kian walked out of my kitchen and into my head, and I’ve already let him go. Already convinced myself that he’s moved on like everybody else in my life. Already believe that I don’t matter to him any more than I’ve ever mattered to anyone.
After all, why should His Royal Hotness be any different than everyone else in my life?
As I get to my car, I can’t help pulling out my phone one more time, can’t help checking my messages one more time. Can’t help being disappointed when there’s nothing there. It’s not exactly a big freaking surprise, but still…
The drive home only takes about ten minutes—the great thing about a middle of the night commute is no traffic—and as I pull onto my street, I promise myself that I’m going to curl up on the couch with a pint of butter pecan ice cream and my poetry journal. Lately I’ve spent so much of my free time doing research for the mystery novel I’m about to start that I haven’t actually written anything for weeks.
Tonight, I’m determined to change that.
But as I pull up to my house, a familiar, black Bentley SUV is sitting at the curb. My heart starts to beat a little faster and suddenly ice cream is the last thing on my mind.
He came. He really came.
I pull into my driveway on autopilot, park the same way. I’m still trying to figure out what to say, how to act, when I climb out of the car. But my time is up because Kian’s already here, standing next to me. Closing my car door with a smile. Wrapping me up in a hug that smells a lot like home, and feels that way, too.
Shit. I’m so completely screwed.
The knowledge doesn’t stop me from burying my face against his neck, doesn’t stop me from breathing in the warm orange and bergamot smell of him as he holds me like I’m the most precious thing in the world.
“Sorry I didn’t call,” he says as he starts to pull away. I want to hold on to him a little longer, want to feel him against me and revel in the fact that he’s real. That he’s here. “But by the time I got free of meetings—and a rousing fight with the king—I was afraid you’d already left for work and I didn’t want to bother you there.”
Trust him to make all those hours of angst and worry seem like the stupidest thing in the world with him trying to be all respectful of my work situation. The jerk. Not.
“No problem. I figured you’d get around to me when you had time.”
“Get around to you? I spent all day thinking about you, wishing that we were still tucked up in your bed, eating snickerdoodles and talking about anything and everything.”
I do laugh, then, because right now His Royal Hotness sounds downright domesticated, and we both know how untrue that is. “Is that what they’re calling it these days? Eating snickerdoodles?”