Royal Pain (His Royal Hotness 1)

He glances over his shoulder at me. “What about the ones I found? From the photo booth?”

“Those were the very rare exception.” I smile at the memory. “The university had a long weekend, so he took me to a small town just over the French border. He’d rented a small house for us, right on the outskirts of the town. We didn’t go out much—mingling with the masses wasn’t really his thing—but the last night we were there, he took me into town for dinner.

“It was this little café. I still remember—they made the best chocolate mousse I’d ever tasted. It was so good we fought over it, so they brought us two more—on the house.”

I’m smiling now. It’s a good memory, and I’m glad to have the chance to pull it out and examine it. Things didn’t end well for us, and for a long time the good memories have been drowned out by the bad. It’s kind of nice to know they don’t hurt anymore, at least not in the same way they used to. Now, there’s a different kind of sadness when I think of Garrett and what might have happened to him. What might be happening to him still.

Kian clears his throat and the sound brings me back to my pretty little kitchen and the task at hand. I put the kettle on to boil, then carry the beans over to the grinder and pour them in.

“Where does the photo booth come in?” Kian asks.

I hold a finger up, telling him without words to hold on since the grinder makes a truly ridiculous amount of noise. When I’m finally done grinding the beans, I pour them into my French press and then continue the story as I wait for the water to boil.

“We were walking through the town, checking out all the little nooks and crannies of it. We found a traveling carnival set up in an empty field and I begged Garrett to check it out. He didn’t want to, but eventually h

e caved.

“We rode the Ferris wheel and one of those huge swing things. I won him a stuffed pink unicorn at the balloon toss and as a thank-you, he took me into the photo booth. We must have taken fifty pictures, maybe more.”

“Do you still have them?” Kian asks, all low and gravelly as he pulls a chair out from the table and sits down.

The husky sound of him sends a dark little thrill through me, and for a moment—just a moment—I imagine walking over and climbing into his lap. I imagine straddling him and rocking against him and licking my way deep into his mouth just for the thrill of hearing him call my name in that voice of sex and sin.

But considering I’m in the middle of telling him a romantic story about his twin and me, I’m pretty sure he’d dump my ass on the floor—which is no more than I would deserve.

“I don’t.” I deliberately turn my back on him and his sexy hair and his bedroom eyes, focusing instead on getting out mugs, sugar and a small carton of cream. “When we broke up, Garrett was very insistent on getting all the photos back. And making sure I deleted anything I might have saved on my phone or my computer. I thought he’d destroyed them.”

I open up the cookie jar, pull out the last couple snickerdoodles from the batch I made the other day and put them on a small plate for him. I’m so busy concentrating on what I’m doing—and trying to forget how much Garrett’s lack of regard hurt me—that I don’t even know Kian has moved until he’s standing right behind me.

“It sounds like my brother was a total dick,” he says as he rests his hands on my shoulders and turns me to face him.

“He was just…careful,” I tell him. “He didn’t want anything to mar the crown prince’s reputation.”

“Especially not an American girlfriend.”

“Especially not that.” I smile wryly. “Imagine the scandal.”

What I don’t tell him is how much it hurt that Garrett was so careful to hide me, how much it bothered me that I didn’t matter enough for him to tell his friends and family about me. I understood—and was grateful for—him keeping the press away from me. But everything else felt like rejection. Felt like I didn’t matter enough no matter what he said.

I put up with it because I loved him. And when we broke up, I put up with the obsessive secrecy because I loved him still. And because I’d always known it was going to end, always known that he wouldn’t stick around. After all, no one else in my life ever had. Why should he have been any different just because he said he loved me?

The water is boiling, so I switch off the stove and pour the water over the coffee grounds. We wait in silence as they brew, until I slowly depress the plunger. I reach for two cups, but Kian beats me to it. He places the cups on the tray I’ve set up, then pours each of us a cup before carrying everything through the kitchen doorway and into the living room.

“I thought we’d be more comfortable in here,” he says in response to my raised eyebrows.

“By all means, Prince Kian.” I take a seat at the end of the sofa, curling my legs underneath me.

“Careful, peasant, or I’ll have you thrown in the dungeon.”

That starts a laugh out of me, considering how close it is to what I was thinking the other day. “The dungeon and not the tower?” I ask, tongue in cheek. “That hardly seems fair.”

“Yes, well, the east tower is part of the palace tour and somehow I doubt American tourists would appreciate seeing one of their own in chains. And the west tower has been turned into Roland’s office, so—”

“Roland!” I clap my hands, delighted. “I didn’t realize he was still around. How is he?”

Kian freezes at that, and for long seconds the only sound is the gentle whirring of the overhead fan. “You know Roland?” he finally asks.

Aware now that I’m treading on newly rocky ground, I tone down my enthusiasm. “I’ve met him, yes.”