by Ashlyn Kane
Brayden looked up. “Secret? What, that you’re the sort of posh person who attends fancy charity balls and who people recognize on international flights? I figured out most of that on my own, actually.”
“Touché.” Antoine shook his head and peeled back the corner of the creamer. “I meant that I’m….”
After a few seconds, when he still hadn’t finished the sentence, Brayden took a sip of his own coffee. “That you’re…?” he prompted.
Antoine sighed and shook his head, perhaps deciding he didn’t want to talk after all. But then a curious expression came across his face and he looked at Brayden, eyes narrowed in assessment. “Three weeks in Lyngria, you said? Any plans in particular?”
FLIP couldn’t quite believe his own nerve. Then again, he’d been raised to weigh boldness and caution, and perhaps he’d been afforded a rare opportunity. He’d be a fool not to take advantage.
“You see,” he went on, when Brayden confirmed that he had no particular agenda, “you might have heard I’m hosting an event later this week. The Night of a Thousand Lights?”
Brayden’s generous mouth twitched in an aborted smile. “I think I heard something about that. Going to be on national TV and everything.”
Well, the crown owned the national TV station, so yes. Flip cleared his throat. “I find myself in the unenviable position of playing host without an escort of my own to pull me away when conversations become tedious.”
Brayden had been sipping his coffee, and he spluttered a bit and reached for his napkin. “Uh, when you say escort—”
Damn North American euphemisms anyway. “I meant a date,” Flip clarified quickly. “Not the other sort.”
“A date, huh? To a fancy dance?” He licked his lips, chasing away a stray drop of coffee. “To be clear, are you asking me?”
Flip nodded once and resisted the urge to wipe his palms on his suit pants. Why was it suddenly so warm in business class? “Yes, I—if you’re still available.” As though Brayden could have made plans in the three minutes since the conversation had begun, but Flip felt as though he owed the man a graceful exit. “I know you’re only in town for a few weeks, but I would enjoy your company, and your presence would shield me from a number of well-intentioned matchmakers. I would, of course, take care of all the details.”
“Details?” Brayden echoed. “I, um. I’m flattered, and actually, rescuing you from people who want to bore you to tears sounds like it might be fun, but I definitely didn’t bring a suit, and I imagine this kind of event has a strict dress code.”
“Black tie,” Flip admitted as Brayden winced. “Don’t make that face. It was white tie last year. This was a major concession on the part of the royal tailor.”
“That is not a real thing.”
It was, but Brayden likely wouldn’t believe it until he met the woman. “If you’re amenable to an evening of dancing and canapés, I will of course provide a suitable ensemble, including access to the royal tailor.” Bernadette would love to get her pins on Brayden’s figure. “No strings attached,” he added in an uncharacteristically desperate bid to secure Brayden’s agreement.
“Dancing and canapés and a free tux,” Brayden mused. “That does sound pretty awesome.”
Flip’s spirits lifted. “So you’ll come?”
He realized the innuendo too late, but Brayden took pity on him and didn’t comment. “Yes,” he said and held out his hand. Flip shook it eagerly. Brayden’s grip was strong and sure. “It’s a date.”
Oh bollocks. It really was.
Chapter Two
BRAYDEN had scrupulously researched his vacation, eager to squeeze as many new experiences out of it as he could. But like every time he went somewhere, he found himself captivated by the novelty of his surroundings.
His hotel, located in a former palace, boasted thick stone floors and high ceilings and plumbing that creaked and groaned charmingly, as though it were a friendly ghost. A few minutes’ walk and he could be in the main square, with its multicolored facades and the Gothic spire of the cathedral stretching into the sky. Though the sun rose late and set early, Brayden found the glow of the shops and streetlights warm and welcoming—fortunate, since the temperature was hovering around freezing. But for a boy who’d grown up in Scarborough, it wasn’t too bad—until the wind kicked up off the Baltic, at least.
Also, market stalls lined all the pedestrian streets, offering roasted nuts, pickled fish sandwiches, and mulled wine, as well as handmade gifts—hats and scarves, slippers and sweaters, pottery and tree ornaments and fruitcake. Brayden spent the whole first day walking from stall to stall, sampling everything, until the time change and the cold and dark caught up with him and he dragged himself back to his hotel to upload the highlights to Instagram.
The next day he awoke to his hotel phone ringing, and he blinked disoriented into the darkness and managed to clear his mind enough to answer. “Hello?”
“Good morning. I hope I didn’t wake you. Is this Brayden?”
Brayden decided not to cop to still being asleep at—he glanced at the bedside clock—past nine. The day was getting away from him already. “Yes, hi.” He stifled a yawn. Drat. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I’d been awake for an hour already.”
On the other end of the line, Antoine backtracked gracelessly. “I apologize. If this is a bad time—”
“It’s fine,” Brayden assured him as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked around for the hotel-provided slippers. These stone floors were a bugger on warm feet. “I prefer to get up earlier than this, actually, but the late sunrise is throwing me off. What can I do for you, Antoine?”
“Please, my friends call me Flip.”
“Flip.” Brayden smiled despite himself. Antoine was so poised and proper that the incongruous nickname felt perfect. “What can I do for you at quarter past nine in the morning?”
“I was hoping you remembered our agreement for Friday night, and I was able to clear my schedule until lunch. I don’t suppose you could make yourself available for some shopping?”
“At the royal tailor’s?” Brayden teased.
“Bernadette informs me that we’ve already cut things very close by giving her only four days to prepare,” Flip said, his voice grave. “I would hate for you to miss out on your bespoke-dinner-jacket experience.”
“And I would hate to embarrass my horrifically posh date by wearing something off the rack.” Brayden slid into the slippers. “Give me ten minutes to shower and then—should I meet you somewhere?”
“No need,” Flip assured him. “I have a car. I’ll see you soon, Brayden.”
With no time to waste, Brayden got acquainted with the shower, which did gurgle and hum a bit but had excellent water pressure. He wished he had time to test out the different settings on the expensive-looking showerhead, but that would have to wait until after his appointment.
He didn’t realize until he was dressed and standing outside the lobby that his hotel was on a pedestrian-only street. Wondering if he’d been had, he glanced from the cheerfully decorated potted cedars that bookended the hotel doors to the Christmas lights that adorned the lampposts. A bakery down the street exuded the smell of cinnamon and sugar, reminding Brayden he hadn’t eaten since last night. A handful of people strolled down the cobbled street, oblivious to Brayden’s indecision. Should he go back inside? Maybe Flip had the wrong hotel?
But then, from two blocks down, came a low rumbling of tires on stone, and a long car with blacked-out windows rolled serenely down the street as curious passersby turned to look.
Brayden didn’t blame them. If James Bond had a sugar daddy, he would drive a car like this—shiny and black, sleek, badgeless, with an immaculate chrome grill and a back seat that seemed to go on forever. Not that Brayden was getting any ideas.
At least not until the rear passenger-side door opened and Flip stepped out, hotter than any James Bond in a pale gray peacoat that probably cost more than Brayden’s first
year of university tuition.
“Dear God,” Brayden muttered, glad the cold provided an excuse for his flush.
Then Flip smiled at him, and Brayden nearly melted into a puddle. “Brayden. There you are. I didn’t keep you waiting too long, I hope.”
“No, I really just got out here,” he promised. “Though I did worry that maybe you had the wrong hotel, since you said you were driving. I hope I’m not going to cost you a ticket.”
Flip laughed as though Brayden had said something charming… or maybe as though traffic tickets happened to other people. “If you do, the favor you’re doing me will be well worth it. Shall we?”
Once upon a time, Brayden’s mother had warned him about getting into cars with strange men. He didn’t know if ultra-rich regular passengers counted as strange, but what his mother didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
Inside, the car was luxuriously appointed in leather and polished wood and utterly silent, even as they pulled away from the curb. A tinted-glass divider separated the passenger compartment from the driver.
The center bore a very subtle insignia—a crown in a circle made of two twisted loops, and below it the monogram AP.
Oh. Shit.
“Sooo.” Brayden cleared his throat and wiped his palms on his best jeans, which seemed incredibly shabby just then. “When you said we were off to the royal tailor….”
Flip’s answering smile held both sympathy and rue. “Les Fils Royaux has been the tailor for His Highness Prince Antoine-Philippe since he was in diapers.” The smile turned wry. “Though I don’t believe the diapers were tailored. That seems excessive even for us.”
Oh shit. “So you’re….”
“The crown prince of Lyngria, heir presumptive, et cetera. Sorry. You really didn’t know?”
“Honestly gobsmacked, promise.” Wow. Wow, Brayden was dumb. His sister was going to laugh her ass off when he told this story. Airline captains were supposed to brief them on passenger VIPs, but maybe they had no idea either. And now Brayden was doing a favor for a prince. “Are you sure I get to call you Flip? That’s not, like, an offense worthy of, I don’t know, deportation or ritual fruit-throwing?”
“Well, we do have an annual food fight, but I reserve the rottenest tomatoes for people who insist on calling me Antoine.”
Brayden snorted and then had to cover his face in embarrassment that he’d made such an undignified noise. But that didn’t last long, because this situation was honestly too cool to dwell on his many faux pas. “Right. I apologize for that. I’ll bring that up at the next managers’ meeting too. ‘Maybe we can add a preferred-name section on those manifest lists. Also Prince Flip says we need to get on adding more Dirk Gently.’”
“I’d appreciate it.”
They grinned at each other in silence for a few seconds before Flip shook his head minutely and continued. “In any case, I thought, well, now that you know the full extent of what you signed up for, I ought to give you a graceful way out.”
“Are you kidding? How many guys can say they’ve gone to a fancy charity ball with a real-life prince? That’s almost as good as the tux.”
Flip laughed. “Not nearly. You haven’t seen Bernadette’s work. But you do understand the scrutiny you’ll be under? Everyone will want to know who you are, how we met. They’ll think you’re after my title or wealth….”
“Not your hot bod?” Brayden teased, but the once-over was 100 percent genuine. He shrugged. “I don’t even live on this continent. My family doesn’t follow the tabloids, and I doubt charity-ball news from a tiny backwater European country is going to make even the International section in the Toronto Star. Uh, no offense.”
Flip looked vaguely amused but waved it off. “None taken.”
“So the only way they’re going to find out about it is when I go home in a couple weeks and tell them about the one extremely cool date I went on with the prince of Lyngria. And I’ll have my swanky tux to prove it. As long as you don’t mind that I’m probably going to eat with the wrong fork or whatever, I’m game.”
The car pulled to a very quiet stop. “I think the monarchy can weather a cutlery scandal,” Flip said. “Shall we?”
BRAYDEN’S eyes went as wide as saucers when Flip opened the door to Bernadette’s shop. “Oh wow. It literally smells like money in here.”
Flip carefully controlled his smile. Brayden didn’t have a filter on his mouth, and while that might be a problem come Friday night, right now Flip was having a hard time minding. “Paper, coin, or plastic?”
“Silk, darling,” said Bernadette as she walked from the back of the shop.
Les Fils Royaux had all the trappings of an exclusive club. But Flip looked right past the dark-stained wood furnishings, bright, flattering lighting, limited inventory, and, of course, the shop’s logo, specially granted by Flip’s ancestor to Bernadette’s—a crown threaded with a sewing needle, encircled by a loop of thread.
Bernadette fit in exactly, from her flawless dark skin and perfectly applied makeup to a three-piece suit that fit impeccably despite the fact that she was about seven months pregnant.
“Antoine-Philippe,” she said to Flip—one of a few people from whom he didn’t mind the use of his full name—and he bent to perform the customary triple cheek kiss. “Qui m’as-tu amené?”
“Bernadette Villiers, please meet Brayden Wood,” Flip answered in English. “Brayden agreed last-minute to attend the Night of a Thousand Lights with me, and he tragically doesn’t have any formal wear in the country.”
“Hi,” Brayden said, pink-cheeked, as he extended his hand to Bernadette. She shook her head at him and kissed his cheeks: left, right, left. “I’m sorry I’m so hopeless. Flip says you might be able to help me?”
Bernadette took a step back and looked him over head to toe, holding his shoulders. Then she looked at Flip. “Are you allowed to bring a twink as your date?” she asked in French.
“I should probably mention he speaks perfect French,” Flip continued as though he hadn’t heard.
“And I’m too muscular to be a twink,” Brayden sighed, put-upon. “I used to rock the look, but then my metabolism slowed down and it was either stop eating everything or start going to the gym.” He looked at Flip and fluttered his eyelashes. “Are you allowed to bring a twunk?”
“I’m the crown prince. I can do whatever I like,” Flip said with forced loftiness. Brayden grinned at him, but Bernadette rolled her eyes. He should have known the two of them would get along.
Clucking, Bernadette plucked at Brayden’s coat. “Well, take this off and let’s get your measurements.”
Normally Bernadette took measurements in a private back room. But when she suggested that to Brayden, his face fell and he gestured toward the windows. “Look, I saw you lock the door when we came in. This place is definitely by appointment only, right? We could just close the blinds. This is the coolest store I’ve ever been in. I don’t want to miss a second.”
Flip suspected he simply wanted to parade around an opulent location in his underwear, but he could hardly say so in front of Bernadette, who didn’t offer any objections.
“The lighting is better out here anyway,” she said with a smile. “And if you stand on the podium there, it’ll save my back and my knees. I don’t like to complain, but getting up and down gets harder every day.”
Suddenly Flip worried he’d asked too much of her. “I’m sorry. I should have thought. You shouldn’t be working so hard in your con—”
The look Bernadette shot him shut his mouth. “Your Highness,” she said icily, “as you are well aware, I am pregnant, not ill, and perfectly capable of deciding whether I am fit to work.”
Well, at least there weren’t any cameras to document Flip’s mortification. “Of course. I didn’t mean—” Bollocks, how was he supposed to extricate his foot from his mouth when he’d shoved it in past his tonsils? He sighed. “I apologize.”
“Apology accepted,” Bernadette said primly as she relieved Brayd
en of his chunky green sweater. “In any case, as if I’d have let anyone else dress your date. There’s such a thing as professional pride.” She gazed up at Brayden, now clad only in his boxer briefs. That was unfortunate for Flip’s sanity, because twunk about summed it up. Brayden had a youthful face and a sweet smile and thick, flirty eyelashes but the broad shoulders and defined muscular bulk of someone who wouldn’t be easy to throw around in bed unless he wanted to be.
And Flip needed to focus.
“Actually, while you’re here….”
He’d wondered how long it would be before she directed him to take his clothes off. “The usual dressing room?”
“Please and thank you.”
He wasn’t sure whether he ought to thank her for the distraction or take 10 percent off her bill.
As he expected, the latter idea disappeared from his mind when he saw the jacket hanging on the rack.
Despite his high profile and busy schedule in Lyngria, until recently Flip had lived a fairly regimented life—set hours at the Toronto office, set meals delivered by his meal service, set reps in his home gym, set meditation hours. And Bernadette was easily the best tailor in the country, if not Europe. So he wasn’t surprised when the shirt and trousers fit perfectly or when he found the perfect set of cuff links—shaped like bellflowers—already waiting in the sleeves.
The waistcoat was deep blue silk, with lotus flowers embroidered one shade lighter—a subtle, intricate design Flip’s father would love. The cravat was made of the same material. He tied it automatically as he tried to tear his mind away from the barely clothed civilian in the next room.
Easier said than done.
Flip usually favored a traditional-style dinner jacket, but this time Bernadette had done something a little different—a matte jacket in the darkest blue, without lapels, almost Nehru style, with a polished-looking trim. Wearing it, he looked much like his father. The blue complemented his dark skin in a way he had often avoided in the past, tired of reading about his divided loyalties in the press, as though he was less Lyngria’s prince because his father was Indian, as though he couldn’t love two countries and cultures at one time.