When he awoke the next morning, Valentin was disoriented.
It took him several seconds to remember leaning on Crystal and coming up to her apartment in a feverish haze.
Bright sunlight was streaming through the window into his face. It was making his head pound. Or maybe that was the residual effect of the illness. He could feel the weakness of his limbs, but the fever itself seemed to be gone. Thank God.
He sat up on the couch, letting his feet hit the floor. But weakness threatened to overcome him, and he put his head in both hands, elbows on his knees.
With his head down like this, he could smell just how badly he stank of sick and stale sweat. How embarrassing.
But Crystal didn't seem to be here. He glanced around the neat, eclectic space. Two overstuffed chairs brimming with colorful pillows. A half-sized bookshelf stuffed with novels, a small telly sitting on top of it. Separating the living area from the kitchen was a bar with stools. The walls were painted a soft blue. Pictures of her with two men, younger than she, hung on the walls. In one they were rock climbing, in another they were at the beach. In another they had their arms around each other, and they were laughing.
He suddenly realized he knew nothing about Crystal’s personal life. Mother would've vetted her before she'd been hired, but Valentin had been so self-absorbed that he didn't even know if she had a family. Or a boyfriend.
Where was she?
She'd been nearby when he'd woken several times during the night, always replacing his cool washrags.
He winced when he remembered ordering her to turn on the television. Demanding it like a toddler. What a prize she must think he was.
By taking him home like she had, she'd gone above and beyond her duty as an employee. She'd almost acted like a... friend.
And he'd treated her shabbily.
If he were lucky, she’d be sleeping right now. If he were doubly lucky, she'd forget about his actions in the night.
And then he remembered her call to Conrad. At least, he thought she'd called his assistant. He could've been dreaming it. She'd asked a question that niggled the back of his brain—
Max.
Remembering his brother was like receiving a punch to the solar plexus. For a few seconds, he couldn't breathe. He felt as if he'd blacked out and was seeing stars both at the same time.
Max with a baby.
There had been photographers outside the school when he'd visited. If they'd gotten a picture of Max and Valentin, the press would be in a frenzy.
And Conrad had probably told Crystal not to let him see it.
Some sick part of his brain insisted he raise his head and look around. And there was the remote, only a scant few inches away on a low, scratched coffee table.
Where was his phone? His keys? He had options. Probably Mother and Father were trying to reach him. He could call them.
Or he could get in his car and drive as fast and as far as he could. Abdicate, even, though that would leave Max to run the country when Mother no longer could.
He'd ignored his fanciful thoughts and gotten as far as picking up the remote when Crystal walked into the room from a hallway he'd barely noticed.
She was wearing jeans and a tank top, and her feet were bare. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she didn't have a stitch of makeup on.
Those freckles.
She glanced at the remote, her gaze zeroing in on his face. "You sure you want to do that before you have coffee?"
She knew. Of course she knew.
"I—how bad is it?"
She shrugged. "I saw a couple of things pop up on my social media feeds, but I haven't turned on the news yet."
He bowed his head, though he was aware of her moving into the kitchenette area, running water, cabinets opening. And then a coffee maker quietly chugged and hissed.
He used one hand to rub his face. He felt weary, even though he'd slept.
"I've spent several weeks finessing the language in the exports bill…" He waved off his own words. She didn't care about the details of some bill parliament was trying to push through. No one else did, either. At least that's what it felt like. "And the media is probably going crazy because my brother showed up with a baby in tow."
Max was surely playing the sympathy card. Eating up the attention.
"Who knows if that was even his child," Valentin burst out. He let his hand fall away from his face, and the remote clattered to the coffee table.
And Crystal was standing right there, a glass of water in hand. She'd abandoned the kitchen and gotten an up-close view of his temper. Again.
"I'm sorry." He stood up, ignoring the stiffness in his muscles. "You always seem to see me at my worst." Humiliation heated his neck, warmth leaching up into his face. "If you'll tell me where my car keys are, I'll get out of your hair."
He made a point of not meeting her gaze. Had it only been a couple of days before when he'd been thinking how much he liked her? And now this.
She set the water glass on a side table, and the next thing he knew, she'd reached out and touched his forearm, her fingers cool and soft.
At the touch, his frantic thoughts stopped whirling. A visceral memory fought through the haze of yesterday's chaos. Him taking her hand on the sidewalk. And knowing that because she was near, everything was going to be all right.
He looked down at the place where she touched him now, her paler skin against his tan.
And he wanted to hold her hand again. He needed it.
So he moved the few inches it took to clasp her hand in his.
For one blissful moment, everything else fell away. There was no Max, no royal duty, no scandal.
Only Crystal, only the solid weight of her hand in his, only her sweet scent in his nose.
He breathed in deeply, not realizing until she spoke that he'd let his eyes fall closed.
"What would happen if you didn't turn on the news? If you turned off your cell phone for a few hours? If you left the prince back at the castle?"
Nothing. Nothing would happen. His mother was the reigning monarch. Taking care of the country was her duty, for now and for decades to come.
Mother and Father might worry if they tried to reach him and couldn't. They'd forgive him once he turned his phone back on.
Conrad would handle anything that came up.
But—
"I'm not sure I can do it." He opened his eyes as he admitted it. He wanted to see her expressive face. "I've buried myself in my duties for so long... Apart from the prince, I'm not even sure I know who the man is."
Her eyes were soft. He wanted... he wanted things he shouldn't be thinking about.
"The man needs a shower." She said the words with an adorable wrinkle of her nose. "And then coffee. And then you can decide what to do."
Crystal was stirring pancake batter in the kitchen when she heard the shower shut off. With company watching curiously from the barstools at her counter.
She needed some way to warn Valentin what was coming.
But fatigue and confusion had her by the throat. She was out of ideas. She was going to have to bluster her way through this. She made her way around the counter but was too slow to catch the prince.
Valentin stopped short out of the hallway when he spotted the two men sitting casually on stools.
She'd raided the recesses of her closet to find the track pants that had once belonged to Michael and an oversize sweatshirt that she'd stolen from Reid last winter. She'd never seen the prince dressed so casually. It was his wary expression that she wanted to ease if she could.
And then Michael spoke. "You spent the night with the crown prince?"
Reid barked, "Is that my sweatshirt?"
She pressed the ball of her hand into the center of her forehead. It didn't relieve the pressure there, but it made her feel slightly more sane.
"It wasn't like that," she hissed at Michael. "He was ill. He slept on the sofa. I slept in my bedroom." She ignored Reid's statement and turned to Valentin, who remained frozen only a step out of the hallway. "Valentin, these two cretins are my younger brothers. Michael and Reid."
Her introduction seemed to galvanize Valentin, and he crossed the room to shake their hands.
From behind the prince's back, she gave both brothers the stink eye. They knew how to behave. She'd witnessed it before.
The question was whether they would.
"How do you know my sister?" Reid asked with the same suspicion he'd used when asking about the shirt.
"I'm working for him," she said at the same time Valentin said, "We're friends."
And then Valentin was meeting her gaze, his expression frank and more open than she'd ever seen it. "Friends."
Her heart thumped, hard, as she held his stare. After last night, she knew what it cost him to say that.
I've got a heart of stone, haven't you heard?
"Friends," she whispered. She finally broke the stare and realized both her brothers were watching them with wide, curious eyes.
Reid broke the silence first. "Uhh. You're burning the eggs."
She smacked her brother on the arm. "I haven't started the eggs." She moved around them, around the edge of the bar and back into the kitchen proper. "Valentin, I'm sorry. My brothers and I have a standing Saturday morning breakfast. I tried kicking them out, but—"
"We're bigger than she is." Michael grinned.
That. And she hadn't tried very hard. She loved her brothers, and this was usually her only chance to see them during the week thanks to busy university schedules and her own crazy job.
Valentin padded into the kitchen behind her. He was barefoot. The crown prince of Glorvaird was barefoot in her kitchen.
Eggs. She tried to get herself back on track, but it was hard while he was so close. Her kitchen would never be described as "roomy," and having him in it made it feel downright cramped.
"I was promised coffee," he said.
"Yes. Coffee." The pot had finished percolating. She used her chin to point to the upper cabinet where she kept the mugs. "Milk's in the fridge."
"Shouldn't you pour it for him?" Michael asked with a cheeky grin. If she blinked, she could still see the ten-year-old boy he'd been sitting with legs swinging off the barstool.
"If you really work for him..." Reid said, suspicion still dripping from his voice.
"Not that kind of work." Valentin appeared completely unruffled, but she could sense the fine tension in the tightness around the edges of his smile. "Your sister is working on my love life."
Her brothers broke out into hoots and laughter.
She shifted from pouring pancake batter onto the griddle to cracking eggs into a bowl. She pretended each one was either Reid's or Michael's head and took particular satisfaction from cracking them open. "Watch it," she said. "Unless you want some arsenic with your scrambled eggs."
Valentin sent her a puzzled look.
"They're picturing me all dolled up and on your arm at a state function," she told him, “which they apparently find hilarious.”
He frowned.
"Crystal is most comfortable in sweats and a T-shirt," Michael said. "She's not exactly in the same category as the women you're used to dating."
She was whisking the eggs with vicious wrist action when Valentin moved in next to her, nudging her with his elbow as he reached for a spatula.
He flipped the pancakes easily, not even setting his coffee mug down. He was a pro.
Meanwhile, she was overheating at his nearness.
"Maybe I'm tired of women who are all style and no substance," Valentin said.
The words surprised her so much, she looked up into Valentin’s face.
One of her brothers, she couldn't tell which, snorted softly. But she couldn't tear her gaze from Valentin's as he looked down at her.
"Maybe I'm looking for someone more like your sister."
At that, her brothers fell silent.
He didn't mean it, of course. Or he did, the part about wanting someone like Crystal. Not Crystal specifically.
Telling herself that enabled her to finally break the stare.
She poured her eggs into the skillet, where they sizzled. "I'll remember that when I'm choosing your candidate for date number three. 'Someone like me.'"
Valentin smirked, but there was something behind his eyes that she couldn't make out.
He flipped the first four pancakes onto her brother's plates, splitting them equally.
"Good plan," she said as he poured more batter onto the griddle. "Sometimes feeding them distracts the grizzly bears from their playthings."
He laughed, then turned to ask her brothers what they were studying and how their classes were and when they'd graduate. Not soon enough.
She needed to match Valentin or she wouldn’t have the money to pay their next semester’s tuition.
"And what about your parents?" he asked, including her in the question as he leaned back in the corner where her counter made a V. He now had a plate full of pancakes and eggs in hand and had abandoned his coffee mug to the counter beside him. "I'm realizing I've been remiss in knowing the things a friend should know."
"Dad died right after Reid was born," she said. "And Mom passed three years ago."
"Crystal's been our mom in every way that counts," Michael offered. "Our mom worked a lot, so Crystal was always the one fixing dinners and tucking us into bed and helping us with our homework."
"Doing our homework for us," Reid said.
She rolled her eyes. That'd been one time.
"She makes a mean pot of spaghetti and meatballs." Michael let his fork clank onto his plate, a satisfied sigh escaping him as he sat back and rubbed his stomach. "We had it almost every night for supper."
"Can't get her to do our laundry, though," Reid pouted. "Not since I turned ten."
She stuck her tongue out at him. And then caught herself, stealing a glance at Valentin. He was watching her with a bemused expression.
"So she's bossed you two around your entire lives. And then she invented a career where she gets to boss other men around in the guise of finding them a woman?"
She gaped at him.
"When you put it that way..." Michael lifted a hand over his mouth as if he were considering it.
She tossed a crumpled paper towel at the prince. "What? How dare you! I feed you breakfast and this is the thanks I get?"
He didn't even have to dodge her ineffective missile. The paper towel fell harmlessly to the floor well short of him. "Bad aim," he said cheerfully, stuffing another bite of eggs in his mouth.
"Try the saltshaker," Reid offered.
"Or your pancake," said Michael.
She went back to her breakfast. "I'm not going to make a mess that I'll just have to clean up." She smiled. "I'll just choose someone really obnoxious for your next date, princey-poo."
Valentin did not look impressed.
"Let's see. There was someone from your university days. She claimed to have been your perfect match. What was her name...? Hildy? Hilary?"
She tapped the tines of her fork against her lips.
Now Valentin was going a little green. "You wouldn't dare."
"Heidi! That was it. I happen to have her phone number in my files. I'm sure she'd love a chance to catch up."
He set his mostly empty plate on the counter. "I'll have you run out of the country," he said sternly.
"What?" Michael asked.
"She was in a couple of my early college classes and is obsessed with royalty,” Valentin said. “She followed me around for weeks, constantly asking me out for coffee or drinks. There's no way—"
He broke off when her giggles escaped.
And the look he shot her was pure venom. The benign kind, a look she'd received from her brothers frequently during their childhood.
"I am relieved to know you're only cruel enough to joke about torturing me with a date with a maniac. Not actually cruel enough to submit me to it."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Reid said before he slurped his coffee. "She's got a mean streak. Once dyed all my unmentionables pink."
"That was Michael," she said.
Unmentionables? Valentin mouthed to her.
She shrugged, a second case of the giggles sucking her under.
Some time after Crystal's brothers left, Valentin found himself lying flat on his back on the floor, staring up at her ceiling. There was a plaster patch in one corner, he thought. At some point, there'd been a leak there.
She'd shooed him out of the kitchen when he'd volunteered to help clean up. So he'd come in here and now listened to her rattling around as she washed up. He just basked in the sunshine.
"Who is Harry?" he called out to her.
He'd overheard Michael murmur to her as the two men had been leaving the apartment. I like him much so much better than Harry.
And for some reason, he felt a burning need to know who Harry was. A friend? An ex-husband?
He heard the tinking of dishes. She didn't answer, and he wondered if maybe she hadn't heard.
And then she did answer, hesitatingly. "Harry was my ex-boyfriend."
"Ah." What was the twisty, uncomfortable feeling in his gut? It couldn't be jealousy. He had no claim on her. They were friends.
"Are you dating anyone now?" That was a friendly thing to ask, wasn't it?
More swishing. More clinking. "No. Things didn't... end well with Harry. It's made me a little gun shy."
Join the club.
"What happened?"
She didn't answer.
"Sorry. Too personal," he called out. Though he was dying to know.
There was a clatter as if she'd dumped a bunch of silverware into her dishwasher, and then the thing started with a soft hum and glug.
"It's okay. I've pried into your personal life, haven't I?"
He caught movement from the corner of his eye, as if she was moving around the kitchen now. Wiping down the counters, maybe.
She sighed. "He wanted me to be someone I'm not. His mom didn't like my job, thought I should go to university for something else. I thought he respected what I do, but... he wanted a society wife. And I'm definitely not that."
Her brothers had joked about it during breakfast. Had their quips hurt her feelings? Or was that just normal interplay within a functional family? He’d never questioned whether his mother loved him, but the crown demanded much of her time. There was not a lot of time for teasing or horseplay within the royal family.
So what if she didn't want to give up her job to meet the expectations of some jerk's mother? That made her independent. From what he'd gathered, she was helping fund her brothers' tuition. If she'd given up her matchmaking gig, who would've helped them?
"I'll get back out there eventually," she said. "I've just been... busy."
The truth or an excuse? He didn't know.
At least she was courageous enough to try again. Not like him. He was determined to stay out of the game. He'd agreed to give her four dates, but he didn't plan on falling in love.
No thanks.
She appeared in his field of vision, looking down at him. Time to go?
"Do you need me to leave?” he asked. “I can call Conrad." He made the offer but it was halfhearted.
"You can stay, your orneriness. How are you feeling?"
"Like I want to lie on your floor forever."
She frowned as she bent to touch his temple with the back of her wrist. "At least your fever hasn't come back."
And then she surprised him by lying down on the couch beside him, also looking up at the ceiling. He supposed there wasn't enough floorspace for them both down here.
Although it might've been cozy to try.
She was only silent for a few seconds. "I don't think you'd really be content to hide here for longer than a day. I'm quite a boring person, even with my job bossing people around."
He smiled. He'd been proud of that crack earlier, and her brothers had found it hilarious.
"I like your brothers," he said. "It's obvious they adore you."
"They adore free meals once a week." But he heard the affection in her voice.
"Do you want to know my most vivid memory of my brother? Not this last mess," he hastily clarified.
She murmured a soft assent.
"I had my fourteenth birthday party. I thought I'd grown past kiddie parties, but Max insisted we let the castle staff put on an event on the castle grounds and invite our friends from school. I was convinced no one would come. I had a hard time making friends in school." He hadn’t intended to share that part. "About twenty kids came. A mix of kids from my class and Max's. We played cricket and ate cake until our stomachs ached."
"It sounds like fun," she said softly.
"It was. All the way until the party was breaking up and I discovered my brother handing hundred dollar bills to each guest. He'd paid everyone to come."
Mother had been furious. For a while, Max had insisted he'd done it as a way to help his brother. But after he was pushed, Max had admitted—
"He thought of me as dull, and he'd wanted a chance to punish me for being... I think he put it 'perfectly boring'."
Her arm slipped off the edge of the couch. He didn't think anything of it until her hand clasped his on the floor.
She didn't say anything as he let himself relive the humiliation of that day. Not only the embarrassment in front of the people he'd hoped were his friends, but how devastated he'd been to discover what Max really thought of him. He and his brother had been the best of friends as small children and throughout grade school. They'd never recovered from that one event.
"Family can be cruel." He heard her quiet words but was more focused on the sensation of her skin against his as she threaded their fingers together.
He'd called her his friend today, but that title didn't feel quite right. Not anymore.
"Don't think you can distract me," she said after a few minutes of silence had passed. "You wouldn't be happy hiding here, and we both know it."
He grunted. She might be right, but he wasn't admitting to it.
"You're a good man," she said. "A man who loves his people too much to leave them without your leadership."
He scowled. "Do you have to be so reasonable?"
Her thumb rubbed a slow line against the fleshy part of his palm. "That is not one of the usual flaws I'm accused of."
Of course he was going to turn his phone on. Return to the castle.
Couldn't he enjoy these last few moments with a beautiful woman and pretend like he hadn't any cares in the world?
He'd even face off with his brother.
"What?" she asked.
"Hmm?"
"You sighed. What were you thinking about?"
He let go of her hand, throwing his wrist over his eyes. "Why did he have to come back?"
She made to response, but he could hear her reasonable response in his head. He said he needs help.
"I can't trust him," he muttered. "Why should I let him back into my life just because he claims he's sorry?"
When she still didn't speak, he moved his arm so he could see her. "That wasn't a rhetorical question."
She rolled over onto her stomach and propped her chin on her hands so that she was looking at him. "Who can you trust?"
He considered that for a moment. "My father."
"Why don't you let your father talk to Max first and then trust his judgment?"
"I'd feel like my mother, using Father as a go-between."
She raised that expressive brow and he explained. "My father is more sensitive to relationship issues."
Her lips twitched in a smile. "So you're your mother's son?"
Any humor he'd felt at the mention of his father turned into a scowl. "Probably."
She reached out and patted his shoulder. "This is helpful."
He couldn't see it. "How so?"
"Oh, not to you." Her gaze had gone far-off, as if she was thinking furiously. "To me. Your perfect match is someone who can finesse difficult relationships, see the connections, ease tense situations. I'm sure I know someone like that."
He was beginning to think he did, too.