by Lucy Lennox
“Otto’s avoiding him,” Grandpa explained. “Which is awkward as hell considering Walker is the sheriff and Otto got a job at the firehouse.”
I opened my mouth to ask more about it when Grandpa held up a hand to keep me from speaking.
“Later. Right now we’re still talking about your new man.”
“He’s not my new man, Grandpa. He’s… he’s…” I gave up trying to define what Lio was to me. A dream? A memory? Fuck. Either way it was depressing as hell.
“A nice man in need of a friend?” Grandpa’s words were gentle, as usual, and it made my chest tight. “Because, honestly Felix, I think you’re one too. And I think letting this guy in could be good for you.”
“Why are you two pushing this so much?”
The two of them exchanged looks again before focusing back on me. It was Doc who spoke next.
“Because without your grandfather, I wouldn’t have survived losing my wife and raising our children. That friendship saved me, Felix.”
I noticed Grandpa’s eyes fill as he reached for Doc’s hand and looked away. Doc continued.
“Even if nothing else had happened between us, knowing there was one person, one heart, on this earth who saw and understood the real me, who stood behind me no matter what, made all the difference in the damned world. It sounds like this guy could use someone like that. Someone like you in his corner.”
Grandpa leaned over and kissed Doc’s cheek, causing Doc to turn and bury his face in Grandpa’s neck. I heard them exchange murmured I love you’s and Grandpa’s strong arms came around to squeeze Doc tight.
The lump in my throat grew so big at the sight of the two men who were essentially my parents exchanging a love that had survived so much adversity through the years. These two men inspired me. They modeled the kind of relationship I wanted, and I knew it would be hard settling for anything less than what they’d found with each other.
“I’ll think about it,” I said just before Otto dropped down in the seat next to me again.
“Enough of this feelings bullshit. Felix is coming with me to the far fountain again. I forgot to take some pictures for my parents.”
I’d never expected to be so relieved to leave the warm comfort of the fire to venture out into the cold again.
I’d thought about my grandfather’s words the rest of the afternoon and through dinner at a nice restaurant near the hotel. My three companions seemed to be having a wonderful vacation in Paris while I quietly contemplated my entire fucking life.
So by the time Hen’s call came that night, I was wound up as tightly as a bowstring.
“Henriette,” I said, trying desperately to sound happy and carefree. “So good to hear from you.”
“Cut the shit, Felix. My brother needs you.”
My stomach launched itself into my throat. “What’s wrong? Is he okay? Did something happen?”
“Oh, honey, no. I’m sorry. He’s fine. Well, I mean… clearly he’s not fine. The stress is burying him. He’s become some kind of automaton. It’s like he’s slipped on this fake mask of cordiality and there’s no one beneath it. It’s super creepy.”
“I’m sure he’s just trying to navigate the demands of his new role,” I said, wondering if I was reading from some kind of corporate teleprompter.
“No. He’s freaking the fuck out. And now he’s gone away somewhere in his head, Felix. Which is causing me to freak the fuck out. And that means Jon is—”
“I get it,” I interjected. “But I don’t understand what you think I can do about it.”
“You told me you were in Paris.”
“I am.”
“Well, on your way home I was hoping you’d just stop in for a few days to maybe talk to him. Calm him down. Figure out where his head is with all of this. It’s like he’s being pulled in a million different directions, and I’m afraid he’s going to snap. The coronation is in just a few days, and he could really use a friend right now.”
“Hen—”
Her voice started to tremble, and I didn’t know her well enough to decide whether it was put on or not. “I’m worried, Felix. This is serious. It’s not okay. Can’t you just come for the ceremony? He could use some moral support. Or… hell. Come see me. Come talk me down from the ledge. The stress of this coronation shit is getting to me too. And Jon is trying his hardest to be the perfect royal guard, which means I get to see him approximately never, and then there are the demands of my parents—”
“Fine. I’ll come for you. But I’m not staying longer than it takes for him to go through the ceremonies. And you have to remember Lio and I… we’re just friends. He made his decision, and we’re going to respect that. Don’t think this is more than it is, because we both know it can’t be. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to cause him to feel even more torn in different directions than he already is. Promise me, Hen.”
There was silence on the other end, and I worried that our call had been cut off somehow. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft but sincere.
“Thank you, Felix. From the bottom of my heart. Lio is a good man, and he deserves a… friend… like you.”
This time her raw emotion was definitely real, and I steeled my jaw against it.
“I might be bringing along some family baggage,” I warned her. “Prepare yourself.”
I wasn’t off the phone ten minutes before the phone rang again with another call from Monaco. This time, it was Arthur.
“If you don’t get your scrawny ass down here, I’m quitting the royal service and he can dress himself. I’d be just as happy dressing the rich and famous at Hermès.”
“Arthur?” I bit my upper lip to keep from laughing. “You’d hate all that pretentious bullshit, and you know it. You’d be dressing more than Monaco’s hoi polloi. You’d be dressing their purse dogs with thousand-dollar silk scarves while offering them Evian in a silver bowl and calling them Madame Buttercup.”
I could hear his wince across the miles. “You might have a point. But it just goes to show how dire things have become here that I’m even voicing the thought. Our young prince has lost his marbles and become some kind of robot prince. Fix it, Felix. Fix it now.”
“I can’t fix it, Arthur,” I said on a sigh. “I wish I could.”
“Please,” he begged. “Come to Monaco, Felix. We need you here.”
“I’m on my way,” I promised.
Silence.
“Well,” he muttered. “That was easier than I expected.”
Chapter 31
Lio
I was in a late-night meeting with my father and his closest council members when I spotted Felix Wilde in the palace. The day had been interminable, and I was at my wits’ end with some of the nonsense my father was pulling in an effort to be done with his responsibilities as soon as possible.
When I saw him wander past the open door of the conference room, looking lost, I blinked. Had my daydreams become hallucinations? Was I seeing things?
I excused myself and bolted out of the room. I had to determine if it was really him. As soon as my steps thundered onto the hardwood floor of the corridor, Felix spun around to face me.
It really was him: my Felix, there in the royal palace.
The sound I made was a cross between a garbled shout of surprise and a strange kind of relieved sob. Felix’s eyes shot wide when he realized it was me, and I immediately noticed how intimidated he looked. I wanted to engulf him in my arms—more than that, I wanted to absorb the man into my body.
“Felix,” I whispered. “Felix.”
His eyes immediately filled and threatened to spill over. Just the sight of him, scared and emotional, made me want to burst into angry tears. Why was he here? Clearly he wasn’t happy about it.
“Lio.” His voice sounded shaky and small. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Hen told me to come find her when I got here.”
My hands still held his upper arms, and I squeezed them to keep from hauling him into my chest there
in the public hallways of the royal palace.
“Hen? I don’t understand. Why are you here? What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
Felix looked around as if expecting to be caught doing something wrong.
“I should let you go back to your meeting. I need to find Hen,” he said. He sounded tired and looked as exhausted as I felt.
I couldn’t help but cup his cheek with one hand. “Please tell me what’s going on,” I said in a more gentle voice. My thumb smoothed across the pink apple of his cheek, and his eyelashes fluttered closed at the touch. “Felix, sweetheart, you have no idea how good it is to see your beautiful face,” I whispered.
His eyes opened wide again, as if searching to see if I’d meant what I said. My body ached to hold him, to comfort him, to curl around him and finally sleep the deep sleep that had eluded me since returning to Monaco. But I needed to know why he was here.
A throat cleared behind me, and I jumped apart from Felix. Thank god, it was only Jon, but his presence reminded me I couldn’t touch Felix like that in view of anyone in the palace.
“Come here,” I said, guiding him to my office which was back the way I’d come, past the conference room where my father and his group still convened. Jon followed quietly and remained outside in the hallway while I steered Felix toward my inner office. I was surprised to see Lucas still at his desk.
“Is the meeting over?” he asked, flicking his eyes to Felix and back to me. “I was just leaving you a note about tomorrow. You have an eight-o’clock breakfast with Milane, several phone calls throughout the morning, lunch with your mother and Sabine, a press briefing midafternoon to discuss the additions to the foundation’s new charity distributions, and of course coronation dress rehearsal tomorrow evening—”
I held up my hand to stop him.
“Please cancel or move everything through lunchtime. I’ll be back by the press briefing.” I made sure to say it in such a way that he knew not to argue with me, but he certainly knew something was up. Another glance toward Felix before he gathered his belongings and shut down his computer.
“Yes, sir. Good night.”
“Good night, Lucas,” I said before gesturing Felix through the door to my private office and closing the door behind us. I made sure to flick the lock closed as silently as I could before turning to face him.
Before I could open my mouth to ask him yet again why he was there, he launched himself at me, wrapping his arms so tightly around my neck, I could hardly breathe. It took me all of a microsecond before my arms came just as tightly around his waist, and I pulled him against me with everything I had.
“Oh my fucking god, you feel so good,” I moaned into his neck. I breathed him in as deeply as I could, reacquainting my senses with his smell and feel. It was at once familiar and foreign, comforting and exciting.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he mumbled against my shoulder. “I tried not to come, but Hen told me I had to. I didn’t want to. I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry, Lio. I should have stayed away. This is awful. It’s just so wron—”
I couldn’t let him continue berating himself for coming, especially if he’d been expertly played by my sister. And I sure as hell didn’t want him calling something that felt so perfect, wrong.
“Shhh, it’s okay. I can’t even tell you how good it is to see you,” I assured him. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Just don’t let go for a minute, please,” Felix said into the damp fabric of my shirt. “Please.”
I cupped the back of his head and pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes. They were wet and worried, and I wanted to see them sparkling and happy again, the way they’d been with me at Gadleigh.
When I leaned in to kiss him, it seemed to happen in slow motion. Perhaps part of me was trying to give him a chance to stop me. Or maybe my conscience was at war with my heart and wanted to stop my body before I took advantage of the sweet, sweet man in my arms.
But I couldn’t stop. There was no way in hell I was going to keep myself from kissing him when his delicious mouth was this close.
His lips were as soft and sweet as I remembered. It had been at least ten days since I’d tasted him, since I’d left him there, asleep in my bed in the castle. Ten days that seemed like a lifetime. Ten days that had shot me out of that dreamscape with the rocket fuel of reality here at home.
Our mouths danced lightly together and apart, the slightest brushing against each other until Felix pressed in and took what he wanted from me. His kiss was insistent and frantic, growing in aggression as his body remembered mine and he realized I wasn’t going to stop him.
My hands lowered into the back of his pants to cup his ass over the smooth fabric of his boxer briefs, and I lifted him up so he could wrap his legs around my waist. I turned until I could press his back against the wall before I moved my mouth to trail eager kisses along his jaw and down his neck.
Felix was panting hot breaths by then, and his hips tilted to thrust his erection into my lower belly. With his upper back against the wall and his hips pushing forward into me, I was free to fondle his perfect, rounded ass cheeks. I squeezed before running greedy fingers down his crease. I felt the heat rolling off his body, and I wanted inside of him so badly, I thought I would come just from touching the warm sensitive skin of his rim. The small sounds he made drove me wild, and I couldn’t help but push my own cock up against his ass in desperation.
This was getting out of control, but it was a freight train with broken brakes.
There was no way in hell I was letting him go until I wiped the fear from his face and replaced it with the blissed-out splendor of his climax.
Suddenly his wiggling turned to thrashing until he wrenched himself off me and stumbled to the nearby sofa and collapsed onto it, burying his face in his hands and mumbling something I couldn’t catch.
I slowly approached him and knelt down on the floor in front of him, reaching out to grab his wrists and pull his hands into mine.
“Talk to me,” I said softly. “Whatever it is, it’s okay. Take a deep breath. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m sorry if I did something wrong. I just… I was so happy to see you. I wasn’t expecting you. I didn’t stop and think; I shouldn’t have assumed it was okay to kiss you like that.”
Felix’s sudden laugh shocked me.
“Are you kidding? It is more than okay for you to kiss me like that. Lio, if it was up to me, you’d kiss me like that every day, all day. It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s you.”
I was the reason he was so upset. Well, fuck.
“Why don’t you let me worry about me?”
“You didn’t ask for me to come here. I was foisted upon you by a wicked witch,” he muttered, pulling his hands out of my grasp to wipe his face with his palms. Felix sighed before continuing. “Believe it or not, I didn’t come here to attach myself to your face, Lio. I came to be your friend. That’s all. Just friends, okay? We’ve already agreed that’s all it is. Let me be your friend.”
I realized I was in the midst of a bad dream. A nightmare of my own making.
Chapter 32
Felix
I actually felt sorry for Lio then. In addition to the responsibilities being handed to him each day, he had to deal with this shit. Why the hell had I agreed to come here?
Lio sat down next to me and reached for my hand.
“Okay. Let’s just take a breath. Why don’t you tell me how you ended up here?”
So I told him. I explained about giving the presentation in Paris and deciding to stay after that. About my family showing up because they were worried about me. I told him about Hen’s call asking for me to come as a friend.
“She really shouldn’t have done that,” Lio said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to impose. I know you’re busy.”
He pulled my face into the crook of his neck and wrapped his arms around my back.
“Dammit, Fee. I’m the one who’s sorry. I�
�m so sorry about all of this. My life is just… fucked-up. Hen shouldn’t have brought you into this mess.”
As hard as it was to pull away from his touch, I forced myself to do it. I was keenly aware of the fact that just down the hall were all sorts of governmental officials and most likely even the king himself.
“It’s been a long day, and I know my grandfathers are probably wondering what the hell happened to me. So I’m going to go back to my room.” I stood up, intending to make my way back to the guest suite Hen had so graciously arranged for my family.
Lio let out a choking sound. “No, wait. Wait. Just… just wait, okay? Will you please stay for the coronation and the ball?”
“Well, I told Hen I would but… I don’t think it’s a good—”
“Please. I need you there, Felix. Please.”
There was silence in the room while his panicked plea echoed around us.
How could I say no to him when he asked me with so much emotion in his voice and looked into my fucking soul with those cobalt eyes?
“If Hen can still hook me up with a tux, I will come as a friend,” I said reluctantly.
Lio cleared his throat and seemed to gather his composure.
“Friends. Yes,” he murmured, and then his eyes brightened with an idea. “Doc and Grandpa are here? I’d love to meet them. Can we go grab them for a beer or something? I have some in my apartment. Arthur can help us if not.”
I was tempted to introduce him to my beloved grandfathers. I wanted them to know what a good man Lio was, and I wanted Lio to see what wonderful parents I had. But I knew I’d make an idiot out of myself and accidentally touch him or gush over him or look at him like a lovesick fool in front of my grandfathers. That was not the action of a friend.
“Ah, no. No, thank you. I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lio. They don’t know who you are to me, and if they see us together, they’ll figure out the truth. Plus, you have a big day coming up, and apparently your sister has signed me up for some kind of comportment lessons tomorrow. If I want to be at the coronation events, I must know how to properly address royalty, dance a waltz, and…anyway. Goodnight.” I clenched my teeth to stop myself from babbling even more and stood up, carefully avoiding touching Lio before making my way toward the exit of his office suite.