Forever Theirs

by Katee Robert

  Fine.

  She lifted her chin. “It was a joke, Galen. People make them sometimes. You make them sometimes.”

  “Not about this.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “And to answer your question, no one can fuck with my security system because I have someone who handles it, and they’re one of the best there is. You won’t be hurt again.”

  Now they got to the crux of the issue. “My being hurt wasn’t your fault.”

  “Wrong, Meg. It is my fault. It’s my job, and I’m trained for it. I should have seen the attack coming and maneuvered to avoid it.”

  God, she wanted to shake him until he realized he wasn’t infallible. “Hmm. In that case, maybe you should just stage a coup of your own. Take over Thalania for Theo since you’re a one-man army who has thought of everything, and who is responsible for everyone.” She motioned to the rock wall. “Should Theo sit there? Because what if that rock scratches him and you have to go to battle against it, brooding all the while?”

  “I protect, baby. It’s what I do.”

  “Sounds like you need a hobby.”

  He moved toward her, backing her against the door and bracketing her in with his hands on either side of her head. “Sounds like you didn’t learn your lesson before.”

  “My lesson was not to eavesdrop. No one ever said anything about having a, gasp, opinion.” She flattened a hand against her chest and gave him her best damsel in distress look. “Should I go sit over there next to Theo so you can babysit us properly? Maybe you can get us an adult-sized playpen to keep us from getting into trouble since apparently you’re the only one here who is responsible for the lot of us.”

  He cursed long and hard, the gruff tone doing delicious things to her body. “You’re impossible.”

  “Only because you know I have a point.” She leaned forward and planted her hands on his chest. Meg couldn’t change Galen, no matter how much she wished she could relieve him of the burden he carried—one just as heavy as Theo’s. She couldn’t take it from him, but maybe she could convince him to lay it down for a few hours.

  She gave him a soft smile. “You won’t believe me that you’re not super human, and I guess that’s something we have to live with. But this is your place and your territory and we’re safe here. Put down the burden for a little while.”

  “Don’t coddle me, Meg. I don’t like it.”

  She rolled her eyes. “God forbid you actually be human.” She reached up and cupped his jaw. “Show me your house, Galen. Please?” She wanted to get another look at the man beneath the harsh exterior, the one he kept offering tantalizing glimpses of.

  And once he relaxed, she’d work on a really effective way of distracting him.

  14

  Galen followed Theo and Meg into the house. It had been years since he was here last. Before Theo’s father got sick. Before the world came crashing down around them. They used to make an effort to visit once a quarter, to unplug and spend some time recharging where their every move wasn’t scrutinized.

  He stood in the entranceway and let the memories wash over him. Eating with Theo around the small kitchen island. Scrolling through the endless selection of movies on the massive television in the living room before they decided they were their own best entertainment. Spending days wrapped up in each other on the bed situated in the other half of the loft. Fucking in the shower, the pool, against the windows that stretched the entire length of the back of the house.

  Theo moved unerringly to the liquor cabinet tucked in the corner of the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. As he began setting out three glasses, Galen turned to watch Meg.

  The open floor plan was really more suited for a loft than a house, but he’d always liked the smallness of it. Everything in Thalania had been opulent and over-sized, a race to the most ridiculous display of wealth. Theo participated by virtue of his birth, though his heart wasn’t in it. Galen just flat out didn’t play. But being surrounded by people with those kind of priorities wore a person down. This was more home than his various houses in Thalania because it was his in a way that was independent of his role for his country and his future king.

  Meg moved around the house as if in a daze, her eyes growing bigger by the second. He tried to see things from her perspective, but there was nothing particularly special about this place, aside from the location. Maybe the pool. It was just a house, albeit one that mattered to him.

  “Oh, Galen.” Her soft words washed over him like the morning mist. “This is wonderful.”

  “I designed it.” He didn’t mean to say the words. He just opened his mouth and they emerged fully formed. “For me and Theo. It’s our place.” He hesitated, and then cursed himself for hesitating. Galen walked up to stand next to her where she stood looking out over the pool and the Aegean Sea. From certain angles, the infinity pool looked like it actually merged with the sea itself. He watched her face in the reflection in the glass. “It could be your place, too.”

  A true sanctuary for the three of them.

  She gave him a smile weighed down by sadness. “I think we both know that I’ll never make it back again, but I appreciate the thought. It feels like magic here.” She wrapped her arms around herself, the movement mostly unhindered despite the bandage still wrapping her arm. The physical reminder of how badly he’d fucked up. “This whole experience has been like magic. I keep thinking I’ve stepped through a mirror or climbed into a wardrobe. I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to reality after this.” The last was said so low, he had no doubt she hadn’t meant to voice it.

  Stay.

  He clenched his jaw to keep the word inside. It wasn’t his place to offer that. Things between them worked now because they were perfectly equal. Going back to Thalania—taking Meg back to Thalania—would skew that. It had to. Even if he somehow convinced Meg to stay, to be with him publicly and with Theo privately… Theo would still marry someone else. They’d only be borrowing time against a future heartbreak.

  It might be worth it.

  “I was serious before, Galen.” She kept her voice pitched low. “You didn’t fail. You were working with the parameters of what you knew. Theo lived. I lived. We got out of there because of you.”

  “It’s my job to keep him safe—to keep both of you safe.” A job he’d spent his life doing. Theo might think it was a debt long since paid, but even after all this time he didn’t understand how thoroughly he’d changed Galen’s life. Theo was loved by his parents, and when his mother died and his father remarried, he was loved by his step-mother as well. He never wanted for anything, emotional or otherwise.

  Galen’s path to his teenage years differed greatly. His family had the money and power, but his home life was… less than ideal. He shook his head. “You’ve done enough. Though I suppose you could offer that sweet pussy up in the way of comfort.”

  “Don’t do that.” She turned to face him, her hazel eyes large in her face. “I love the dirty talk and you know it, but don’t throw it between us like some kind of weapon because you’re done with the conversation.”

  He sighed. “Look, I don’t do this shit.”

  “This shit.” Meg gave a half smile. “Have conversations?”

  “Relationship shit.” He ignored her surprise and kept going, well aware that Theo had drifted closer again. Things were easier between Theo and Meg. Their personalities complimented each other. Theo might drive her up the wall, but he’d pull her out of her shell the same way he coaxed Galen out of his. There was no resisting Theo when he set his mind to something. And Meg gave Theo a piece of something he’d never had access to before—normalcy. A woman who cared about him first, and his power and rank and country second.

  For Galen and Meg, it was different. Fucking her was as easy as breathing. They fit. They fit even better with Theo in the mix. Conversations? Emotions? The rest of that shit? Not so easy.

  But he hated the wounded look in her eyes when he shut her down, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself from
trying to fix it, even knowing he’d likely make it worse. “Theo and I have been friends for so long, sometimes it feels like we’re two halves to a whole. We don’t have misunderstandings. We know each other as well as we know ourselves. Fuck yeah, we fight. We’re both stubborn bastards and that throws wrenches into the gears sometimes. It’s not effortless, but I know what Theo needs from me and vice-versa. This is different.”

  “This is temporary.”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that. Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

  She didn’t seem to have an answer for that, so he kept going. “I won’t use sex as a weapon again.” He allowed himself a slow smile. “Though I meant what I said. I am going to take my frustrations out on your sweet pussy.”

  She blushed a cute pink. “Yeah, I got the memo.” Meg turned to face Theo. “Are those shots?”

  “Indeed.” He passed out one to each of them and raised his own. “We’re alive. A celebration is in order. Bourbon, good food, and fucking until dawn.”

  Meg laughed. “That’s a toast I can support.”

  They took their shots as one. Theo met Galen’s gaze and raised his eyebrows, and then turned to Meg. “Why don’t you grab that shower while I get food started?”

  She looked between them and sighed. “If you needed time to talk, you could just say so.”

  “We could,” Galen agreed. “But you have a nasty tendency to eavesdrop. It’s a terrible habit.”

  This time, her smile was bright enough to light up the room. “You love it. What’s the point in devising all those ways to punish me if I never do anything to deserve said punishment?”

  Theo chuckled. “She’s got you there.”

  “Shower. Now.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m going.” She blew them both a kiss and strode to the only door in the interior. There was a spare bedroom and second bathroom downstairs, but no one had ever used them. They were an eventuality that Galen had planned for without ever following through on. He’d had Theo here. Why would he want to bring someone else?

  Meg sure as fuck wouldn’t be using the spare bed.

  They waited for the shower to start going before moving to the kitchen. Theo poured another set of shots and slid on toward him. “What if this wasn’t temporary?”

  “Don’t.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  Galen downed his shot. “This has to be temporary, Theo. You have to marry one of the nobles to keep everyone in line. Your mother was a foreigner, and if your father had married another outsider for his second wife, the Families would have revolted.”

  “Fuck the Families.”

  “You can say that and get away with it. No one else can.” He couldn’t let Theo do this, couldn’t let him offer hope where there was none. “With most things in life, you can power through them and bulldoze people into doing what you want. This isn’t one of those things. We’re taking back our country, Theo. That comes with responsibilities for you. A marriage. Being king. You don’t have the luxury of choosing.”

  Theo looked at him a moment too long. “This isn’t only about Meg, is it? You’re already working on the wall you’re going to build between us. How does that look in your head, Galen? This future you’re planning without talking to anyone.”

  Of all the variations of Theo, Galen hated the reasonable one the most. His friend was so much easier to deal with when he was being sardonic or driven or fanciful. He clenched his jaw. “Like I said—you marry one of those noble girls. She has your babies. Your children inherit. There is no place for me in that picture, not outside of being your head of security.”

  When they were young and dumb, they’d gotten blindingly drunk one night and talked about what it would be like if they got married. It was a pretty thought, but it couldn’t happen. The succession had to be cemented, and it had to be cemented without anything too complicated fucking it up. Theo and Galen getting married had complicated written all over it. An impossible dream, just like a future with them and Meg together. Emphasis on impossible.

  “What if we just walked?”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Who’s laughing?” Theo took his shot and set the glass down on the counter with a clink. “Phillip might be fucking evil, and Edward might be a child, but I have no doubt they want what they think is best for Thalania. They aren’t going to drive it into the ground and scatter its people to the wind. Maybe it was narcissistic to think that I should be king. I have you. We have Meg. We have more money than we could spend in a lifetime. Why the fuck do I need a country, too?”

  Galen snagged the bottle and put it away before either of them could give into the temptation to get shit-faced. “No, Theo. You’re not going down the road. Your father wanted you to be king. He trained you to be king. You have visions for Thalania that are a damn sight better than not driving it into the ground and scattering its people to the wind. That matters.”

  “Why?”

  He turned to look at his friend. Theo seemed to have aged years in the last few weeks. It should have made him look strung out and exhausted, but the stress had only sharpened his good looks. He really was a pretty fucker. Galen shook his head. “You know why.”

  Theo was meant to be king by more than birth. He genuinely loved his people, and he’d been in the process of putting policies into place that would bring their country to the world stage in a big way. That was important. More than that, Theo knew Phillip wouldn’t be satisfied until he sat on the throne, instead of behind it. Right now, he stood as third in line. The only way he could achieve his ambition was if both Cami and Edward were removed from the equation. He couldn’t pull the same trick of picking the legalities of their parents’ marriage apart. Their mother hailed from one of the oldest Families in Thalania. Her relatives would never stand for it.

  Phillip would kill them.

  It might take years. He was never one to do something to cast suspicion on himself, but he would do it.

  Galen didn’t say any of that. He didn’t have to. Theo knew the truth, just like Galen knew why he was letting despair creep in. He walked around the corner of the island and pulled Theo into a hug. “We had a setback. It’s not the end. Don’t let this fuck up your head.”

  “I know. Fuck, I know.” Theo’s lips moved against his temple as he spoke. “It’s hard to see the positives in this. I’m fighting and fighting and if we succeed, the prize is that I have to sacrifice two people that are most important to me.”

  “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”

  Theo huffed out a laugh. “Now I know you’re worried—you’re misquoting Shakespeare at me.”

  Galen clasped the back of his neck and rested his forehead against Theo’s. “You were born for greatness. You were born to keep your people—all your people—safe. That matters more than anything as mundane as happiness.”

  “Fuck, Galen, you’re terrible at pep talks.”

  “It’s not one of my skills.” He couldn’t let Theo diverge from his path, no matter how attractive Galen found the idea of walking away and never looking back. It wouldn’t work. Theo was too ambitious to sit back and meander through life without some great cause to fight for. He might think he could leave Thalania behind, but the truth was he’d change his mind.

  Or he’d spend the rest of his life resenting Galen and that resentment would poison everything.

  No, there was no other way.

  Theo had to be king.

  Galen would do whatever it took to make it happen.

  Something had changed while Meg was in the shower. After pulling on one of Galen’s T-shirts, she’d walked out to find Theo brooding, his normally expressive face closed down and discouraging questions. Galen’s mood hadn’t lightened, either. Meg picked at her pasta and promised herself that next time she would most definitely eavesdrop. It was the only way to get reliable information with these two, for all that they claimed they wanted open communication.

  Apparently, that only applied to sex.
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br />   It shouldn’t sting. They hadn’t promised her forever, despite Galen’s comment earlier, and she’d be a fool to want it.

  She was a fool to want it.

  Sometime in the last few weeks, Meg had slipped. Her anger and desire had morphed into a deeper emotion that she wasn’t quite ready to put a name to. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. When this was over, she’d go back to her life in New York and she’d only have her memories with these two men and the magic the three of them created together.

  It wasn’t perfection. They were too human for something so flawless. What they had was messy and complicated and filled with an intimacy she hadn’t expected. Meg wasn’t sure of much in this world, but she was sure that Galen and Theo cared about her.

  It wouldn’t stop them from leaving, but it still warmed her.

  “Why an accountant?”

  She jumped at Theo’s voice filling the silence at the table. Meg looked up to find both of them watching her. Had he asked the question more than once? She took a quick sip of water. “What?”

  “Of all the things you could pursue a degree in, why did you choose something as boring as accounting?”

  He would see it that way, wouldn’t he? She fought down her instinctive urge to bristle and tried to sort out an honest answer. “My home life wasn’t a dream when I was growing up. I worked my ass off to get enough scholarships to get the hell out of the town I grew up in, but I knew the only way to stay gone was to go into a stable career. You know that old saying about death and taxes? There is never a lack of demand for accountants.”

  “Stability.”

  She glanced at Galen. “Yes. There’s the added bonus that numbers make sense to me. There’s no gray area or emotional bullshit. It’s just cold, hard facts. Black and white and red.”

  Theo considered the bourbon in his tumbler. “What would you do if you weren’t so concerned with stability?”