by Madeline Ash
He’d blamed himself for not trying harder. Cursed himself as every kind of idiot for ruining the best relationship he’d ever had.
She’d had no time to talk because she’d been running late for a new job.
This job.
He growled as the pain ripped down his sternum—as if she’d dug her hands into his chest, grabbed hold of all the parts that mattered, and thrown them onto an open flame.
“I’ve blamed myself for not telling you, but you didn’t let me.” He hauled his palm from the door and faced her properly. His lips curled in a sneer. “Now I blame you.”
Her expression didn’t change. It was surreal, the things Frankie could process without an external reaction. The only movement was in her throat as she swallowed.
“I understand,” she said eventually.
“Understand?” She’d known who and what he was all along. He was discovering her all at once—and it was like waking with a knife in his side. Forewarning gave her the upper hand, revealed precisely when she’d intended, and her steady stare seemed to push the blade deeper. His pride arched against it. How dare she get to watch him struggle? The unfairness of it erupted inside him. “You don’t understand anything! What the hell were you even doing in Sage Haven?”
Her stance shifted very slightly. “Monitoring your safety.”
“Fat load of good you were,” he spat, and she recoiled as if he’d struck her. Somewhere, the confused friend in him ached in apology, because despite everything, he didn’t want to hurt her. “You didn’t protect Tommy.” The night of his brother’s brutal bashing. “And now you’re head of security? What a joke.”
She’d gone white.
“You should have been there to stop it from happening.” He was practically snarling. He forced himself to back away, put space between them. His voice rose again. “You should have known those men were on their way!”
It wasn’t fair on her—shame gummed his veins as the accusation left his mouth.
That attack had been no one’s fault but Kris’s.
Frankie’s breathing was uneven. She broke position to tug agitatedly at the top button of her uniform—and his attention caught on her fingers. Bone white from nails to wrist. So she wasn’t as calm as she’d seemed, clenching her hands to death behind her back.
“You failed Tommy.” This protectiveness was familiar. He let it fill him. “And you’ve lied to him about it this whole time. He trusted you. Mark did, too, and you’ve hidden from us all.”
If he hadn’t been glaring right at her, he’d have missed it—the minor shift in her stance, the dart of her attention to the floor. Guilt, but not at his accusation.
Dread chilled him.
“Frankie,” he said, taking a step toward her. “Tell me Mark doesn’t know about you.”
The first crease of distress lined her forehead.
“Frankie,” he growled, stepping closer.
She swayed slightly as she refused to give ground. Her attention darted from his chin to his chest, and then stayed there. “I requested that he not tell you.”
“You—” His lungs drained of air. “You asked my own brother to lie to me?”
“I asked him not to tell my secret. There’s a difference.”
“Not between brothers.” He fisted his hair in his hands. His head pounded.
“It’s not his fault.”
“Don’t pretend to care about him now.” His hands came away shaking. “If you wanted to protect him, you should have come clean. I gave you every opportunity.” He hadn’t stopped trying to reach her. Like a fool, he’d hoped to draw his best friend back to his side. “I’ve begged you to contact me and you’ve been hiding under this roof from day one.”
Her pulse was racing in her neck, her tendons straining. She was still staring at his chest, and he rolled a shoulder, instinctively flexing beneath her attention. She blinked, and her gaze seemed to tighten, focusing more firmly on him.
She grew perfectly still.
Desire unfolded inside him, soft and forgiving and reaching. His body had reacted to everything Frankie had revealed—and still craved her. She’d grazed her fingers against his bare shoulders earlier. He yearned for that impossible touch again—yearned to kiss her and see if it brought his friend back in a world that made sense.
See if she tasted the way he’d always imagined. The way of wildflowers and flame and the open sky.
Sweet, hot and endless.
“What the fuck, Frankie?” he breathed, because after all this, he might never find out.
Her teeth set. She returned her hands behind her back, and a second later, shot a razor-edged glare up at him. “You just said it. You’re under this roof now. Nothing else matters.” She paused, keeping her chin high. “Since you want me to come clean, I should tell you that nothing else has ever mattered.”
He stilled. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Why do you think I’ve never touched you? Why you couldn’t seem to budge our friendship into something more?” The light from the wall sconce by the door gleamed on her forehead. She was sweating. “I know what you’ve always wanted from me. But you were my job. I did what I needed to do to stay close. Nothing about you could have ever convinced me to do more than that.”
Her words were like a blunt trauma to his solar plexus.
He didn’t know where to look; how to hold his body upright.
“You asked to kiss me.” Her breath was shallow. Her gaze was fixed on his chin. “My answer is no. You once said you wanted to touch me. But I don’t want your hands near me.”
Breathe. He needed to breathe.
“Get out,” he said, because he couldn’t fill his lungs with her here.
“It’s easy enough to convince someone of what they want to believe,” she said. “But there was nothing mutual between us.”
“I said get out,” he rasped, pain and fury clotting inside him. This was too real. “Go show yourself to Tommy. Don’t make me tell him. I never want to see you again.”
“Bad luck.” She grabbed the door handle, preparing to leave. “You can’t be trusted to keep yourself safe, so you’ve forced me to take matters into my own hands. As is my duty.”
Shattered, he stared at her.
“Starting tomorrow, every time you set foot off palace grounds,” she said, hauling the door open. “I’ll be your bodyguard.”
3
Adrenaline kept Frankie going as she knocked on Tommy’s door. Her body was buzzing, humming, like she’d clung to an electric fence the entire time Kris had spoken. Her thoughts were fragmented. Jumpy and unfocused. And the lies she’d told . . . it had been agony to watch her blows land while hiding behind detachment. But she’d had no choice.
Kris had to let her go.
And she needed to get out of here—had to hold herself together a little longer.
Just a little longer.
After a time, the door opened. Tommy stood in the threshold in nothing but loose pants, his expression as rumpled as his soil-brown hair—until his curious gaze locked on her and his features tightened in shock.
There was a long, crushing silence as he processed her presence.
His attention moved from her uniform to his guards on either side of the door. They had allowed her to rouse their prince well after midnight. It betrayed her rank—few had the authority to do so. By the time his arms slid slowly across his bare chest, he was radiating a contained kind of fury.
“Why you little rat,” he finally murmured.
Only Tommy could piece everything together without asking a single question.
“How nice of you to finally turn up.” He spoke with all the composure Kris lacked. His quiet voice was level, his stare unwavering—she’d never been a source of his anxiety and that clearly wasn’t about to change. “We’ve wondered about you.”
“Then stop wondering,” she made herself say. “I first moved to Sage Haven to monitor your safety and report back to Philip. Now I’m head of person
al security and have been since you arrived.”
Another silence stretched out and it all started to sink in. She felt shivery; sick.
“You’ve lied to my brother.” His expression was hard with insult, but his eyes betrayed his pained confusion. “To us all.”
She clamped her hands together behind her back. Tight, so tight, the pain kept her in line. “I did what I had to do.”
“Well, in that case,” he said, tone mocking. Then his gaze turned critical. “You should go. You look like you’re about to pass out and I don’t want to have to deal with it.”
An order. Her first from this quiet, contained prince, and it clamped a band of shame around her throat. It wouldn’t be the last.
She left him, needing to get out. Away from these royals and the eyes of her team. Out of the palace, off the grounds. Somewhere safe where she could wrap her arms around herself and try to keep the crumbling pieces together.
Just a little longer.
Kris hardly noticed when Tommy arrived. One moment he was pressing his forehead against the window, willing the world to stop tilting, and the next he was being led by the elbow through the palace and out into the night. Tommy didn’t speak until they’d reached a white stone bench surrounded by sweet-scented shrubs and a stretch of trimmed grass.
Tommy’s voice rumbled. “Sit here. I’ll be back.”
Kris ended up on his back in the grass, staring sightlessly at the stars.
Then there were footsteps and the sound of heavy breathing, and their old ranch dogs Buck and Bull were shoving their noses against his neck, licking his face, clambering over his chest to get to his other side. Groaning and close to smiling, he wrapped an arm around their backs, muttered, “Come here, you two,” and drew them to the ground beside him. Panting, the border collies settled against him.
Tommy sat on the bench, leaning forward, watching him.
“Mark knew,” Kris said numbly.
After a moment, his brother muttered, “Shit.”
Throwing an arm over his face, Kris asked, “What did she tell you?”
“Not much.” He paused. “I didn’t exactly give her a warm welcome.”
Rolling onto his side with another groan, Kris pressed his face against Buck. Why did the thought of Tommy giving Frankie the cold shoulder hurt so much?
“We’ll visit Mark tomorrow.” Tommy sounded wide awake. “Sort this out.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled, sliding a fist up between his forehead and the dog’s side.
Just that morning, Tommy had been cool-mannered and brittle over Kris’s ascension—but now he was backing him. He wasn’t any less upset about the way Kris had treated him, but their bond could stretch and bend, not having to relinquish one fight just to offer support in another. That was the wonder of family.
He’d thought it was the same with Frankie. But as it turned out, she’d never been family.
She’d never been anything.
Later, much later, the word bodyguard rose in his mind like a dark shape from deep water. It loomed beneath the surface, just shy of comprehension, until the thought of her in such a high-risk position surged up and devoured him in a memory of their first argument.
Just months after moving to Sage Haven, Frankie had picked up extra work as a bouncer at the local bar. Kris hadn’t handled it well. Her build was too slight; the danger to her safety too real. How did she expect to dominate an aggressive male or best a group of destructive morons? A firecracker couldn’t blaze if someone snuffed out her fuse. Say, with a meaty fist.
Not that he’d protested. Instead, he’d lounged at the bar during her shifts, watching her, watching the room, ready to back her up.
One night, a group fight had broken out. Panic had jackhammered in his chest as she’d darted into the fray, and he’d been on her tail, terrified someone might break a bottle or pull a knife and mark her as their target. The fight had opened its savage arms and hauled him inside.
Less than a minute later, she’d kicked him out with the brawlers.
Confused, he’d stayed until close—when she’d burst out of the bar like a feral animal.
“How dare you?” she’d said, moving in so close, so fast, he’d thought she was going to shove him. Her eyes had glinted; her mouth had pinched tight with fury. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Too shocked at how close to him she’d stopped, he hadn’t responded.
“I’m furious with you right now,” she’d spat, words echoing across the empty parking lot. “I’m still shaking. That’s how badly I want to throttle you!”
“Hey.” He’d raised his hands, his own anger spiking. “This is a bit much.”
“You’re not my protector!” Her seething temper had sought to repel him, but he held his ground as her gaze had darted to his throbbing cheekbone, the torn seam at his shoulder. “Back the hell down.”
“Frankie,” he’d said. “You need to—”
“I can handle myself,” she’d cut him off, and only then had he noticed her lips were pale, her eyes too wide. “How dare you wade into my fight!”
“I was worried—”
“Quit worrying.” Her breath had been hot on his chin. “If you show up here when I’m on the door again, it’ll be the last night you ever see me.”
He’d frowned at the unfair threat. “They could have hurt you.”
She’d turned away, frustration a half-roar low in her throat. “They could have hurt you!”
“That’s enough.” He’d run the back of his hand along his jaw, still stinging from a punch. “You’re reacting like no one’s ever cared about you before.”
She’d fallen still.
“Frankie,” he’d said, in a weird form of angry begging. “You can’t settle five full-grown men on your own.”
“The manager said something like that when I applied.” She’d rounded on him, fists clenched by her sides. Her eyes had blazed. “Said my presence is intimidating, but that I don’t possess a physique that demands respect.”
“So why did he hire you?”
“I told him to come at me like he meant it. He did.”
“And?”
She’d held his stare. “And I got the job.”
Kris had taken a step back. “Show me.”
She’d scoffed. “Get serious.”
“Show me.”
Scowling, she’d said, “You’re ordering me around now?”
“Yes.”
She’d paused, almost seeming confused. “Fine.”
Kris had doubled over before he knew she’d moved. His triceps throbbed and a second later, he’d been stomach-down on the concrete, his arm twisted behind him, her knee pressed against his spine.
“Again,” he’d said, standing, attention raking over her body as if—now that he knew to look for it—he’d be able to see the strength and skill concealed like a blade in her lean form.
“That was the gentle version.” She’d stood back without looking at him. “I refuse to hurt you to prove a point.”
“I don’t want you to do this,” he’d said. She was still new to him, but every part of him rioted against a job that put her in danger. “Can’t I prove that point?”
“No.” She’d turned her back completely. “I need the money—not you doubting my ability to earn it. Don’t turn up when I’m on the door. Don’t join my fights. Let me do my job, because if you put yourself at risk like that again, I’m out of here. I’m not kidding.”
It had driven him mad, but he’d done as she’d asked, and she’d carved herself a reputation in their town for taking down threats hard and fast. A bouncer to be reckoned with, respected.
Made sense, didn’t it?
That she’d be a good fit as his bodyguard.
He’d never been more than a job to her anyway.
The city lights blurred as Frankie sniffled and ran the back of her wrist under her nose. She was all decorum, hunched on the top step of one of Kira City’s landmarks, falling apart at two in the morn
ing. It was her adolescence all over again. This had been her secret spot in her younger years, mainly because her dad had never managed to find her here.
Wryly known as The Scepter, the cobbled steps ran half a dozen blocks upward from the city center toward the palace. An unforgiving climb that struck straight and true, the angle of the hill concealing an entire stretch of civilization and creating the illusion that it led right to the palace gates.
It didn’t, obviously. Any straight stretch of steps that long and steep would be a public health hazard. Tourist slips on step, falls two and a half miles. Dropping her head between her knees, Frankie considered tipping forward and seeing how far she rolled. The pain might finally stop her from replaying everything Kris had said to her.
I haven’t known you at all.
You lied to me. You used me.
I blame you.
What the fuck, Frankie?
I never want to see you again.
She tried to get a hold of herself, shoving the heels of her palms against her closed eyes.
He’d reacted so visibly. Skin pale, features torn. Pulling at his hair as if he could pull her lies out of his life. It had taken every reserve of control not to buckle and admit the truth.
He was training to be the king. Royalty had standards and she couldn’t even be scraped off the bottom of the barrel.
Kris might refuse to acknowledge the expectations that came with his position, but she didn’t have that luxury. Her job was to stay focused on the man he would become. Royal life would apply pressure and demand he endure it. He’d shift his weight, stance widening, and take it on until he’d reformed beneath it. Give it a year, maybe two, and the cowboy inside him would hardly exist.
He’d be shaped into a king.
With duties.
Only after Mark’s official abdication and Kris’s coronation would Philip raise a critical matter of business. The thought alone dampened Frankie’s pillow at night, but she knew by the time that conversation took place, she couldn’t be on Kris’s radar. He’d need to set his sights higher and use his God-given charm and sexual appetite to replenish the royal line.