“Black,” he finally says, when my look gets through to him. “Like my heart.”
I lift a brow. “You e
xpect me to believe that?”
“It’s an inside joke with my brother. Kian says only bastards and psychopaths drink their coffee black.”
I hand him the mug, careful to turn the chipped rim away from him. I probably should have gotten him a different cup, but I like this one, with its cheery yellow background and optimistic message that reads, Throw Kindness Around Like Confetti. It seems to suit him. Well, that and I’m already using the I Can’t Adult Today mug. When I first got here, I was a little surprised to find such American mugs in a French-speaking, European town. Now I’m just kind of charmed by this little bit of home.
Then again, maybe that’s the point.
“So, how does Kian take his coffee?”
“Black,” he answers, deadpan, and I can’t help laughing.
“So, is he a bastard or a psychopath, then?”
Garrett pretends to consider it. “A little bit of both, I think.”
It feels weird to casually be asking something like that about the man nicknamed His Royal Hotness. Then again, Gorgeous Garrett, who also shares the His Royal Hotness moniker with his brother, is currently standing in my kitchen. Talk about a surreal turn of events.
Vera, my vintage buyer who also happens to be a huge royal shipper, would die if she knew. Then again, considering what’s being published about me and Garrett right now, she’s probably dying at this very moment…
The thought brings me back to our very uncomfortable reality and I gesture toward the table. “Have a seat and I’ll warm up another croissant.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Sure I do. I’m hungry and my grandmother was big on Southern hospitality. She would roll over in her grave if I ate my breakfast without giving you some.”
“Southern hospitality, huh?” He studies me over the rim of his coffee cup. “If you’re from the American South, how come you don’t have an accent?”
It’s a long story, and one I have no intention of telling a man I just met. Then again, if I give the reporters outside long enough, they’ll probably tell him for me. Just the idea makes my heart plummet to my knees, even as I tell myself that my past is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not my fault my father led a double life—his public life with his wife and children and the one he had with my mother and me. We were his dirty little secret, and even though that’s on him, not me, I still don’t want the whole world knowing my business.
“We don’t all talk like this,” I tell him, exaggerating the words until they sound like a Southern drawl. “No matter what they tell you Europeans. Besides, I’ve lived in California for years.”
“What part of California?” he asks, digging into the croissant I slide in front of him.
“Does it matter?” I answer. “Right now, I’d say we have bigger problems than black coffee or where I’m from.”
“Good point.” He puts down the croissant and nods for me to take the chair next to him. When I do, he reaches out and takes my hand. “What do you want to do?”
“You’re the prince. You’ve got all the experience with stuff like this. Shouldn’t you be telling me what we need to do to make this all go away?”
“So that’s what you want? For all this to go away?”
“Yes, of course,” I answer, even though his thumb smoothing over the back of my hand is making me feel like I want anything but that. But thinking like that is ridiculous. Yeah, he’s hot. Yeah, he’s a good kisser. Yeah, he’s nicer—and goofier—than any prince has a right to be. But he needs to get back to his life and I need to get back to mine. “Isn’t it what you want?”
“When I got the news this morning, yes. When I headed over here to try to solve the problem, absolutely. But now…”
“Now, what?”
“Now I’m not so sure.”
I swallow wrong, nearly choking on my own saliva. And he’s there—of course he is—patting me gently on the back as I nearly hack up a lung trying to recover.
“What does that mean?” I wheeze when I can finally get a word out.
“It means that there might be a better way to handle this than trying to turn it into a nonstory.”