Oliver pulled the Range Rover up to Fifteen Gryphon Drive, and we both stared.

“This is the place, right?” I asked, my eyes caught on a bunch of pink balloons.

“Uhhh,” he leaned forward. “This would be the house where Prime Ministers have lived for the last three hundred years, yes. But right now, it might double as a theme park.”

“And it’s Damian’s, right?” Wait. Was that a Disney Princess?

“Last time I checked he is still our Prime Minister.”

“Right. Let’s go.”

Oliver came around the side of the car as I let myself out. The front of the traditional, white-pillared house was draped in pink balloons and streamers, and the noise coming from the back of the house definitely fit with the decorations.

It was a kid’s birthday party.

At the Prime Minister’s house.

There was apparently something I was missing here.

Oliver knocked on the door, and it was promptly answered by an older woman wearing a staff uniform. Her mouth dropped momentarily before she sank into a quick curtsy. “Your Royal Highness.”

“Good morning,” I said, looking her in the eye as hers widened.

“The Prime Minister is expecting us,” Oliver said, his eyes already sweeping past the woman.

“Of course. Right this way.”

She led us through the massive entry over marble floors, and past the entrance to the administrative wing, to the massive floor-to-ceiling windows that looked over the backyard.

“I’ll tell him you’re here,” she said.

“No need, Harriet, I’m here,” Damian told the woman with a smile as he walked in from the east door. “Your Royal Highness.”

“Damian,” I said, stepping forward to shake his hand.

“Jameson. Thank you for meeting me here. I know it’s anything but appropriate.”

I looked out to the yard, where a birthday party was in full swing. “No problem. When you said you had a family matter you couldn’t pull yourself away from, I didn’t realize it was a birthday party. I would have brought a present.”

“Not at all. My daughter has more than enough presents,” he said with a soft smile, his eyes on the party.

“Your daughter?” I scanned the troop of little girls in miniature ballgowns, looking for one that looked anything like him.

“Yes. My daughter. You know, a female child whom I fathered. She carries my DNA and everything.”

“You have a child.”

He laughed.

“Don’t you do any research on your Prime Ministers during the election, or at least right after?”

I opened and shut my mouth a couple of times.

“Yeah, I’m new to all this King stuff, so I guess I missed the memo that you were married with a daughter. What’s her name?”

He pointed to the blonde skipping around in a pink Princess Aurora gown. Any girl who liked the classics was my kind of gal.

“Delaney’s right there, and today is her sixth birthday. As for my wife…” he sighed. “We lost her five years ago to breast cancer.”

You’re an asshole.

“God, I’m so sorry, Damian.” I couldn’t imagine losing Charlotte so young, let alone with a one-year-old daughter to raise. Damian might be an asshole, but he was quickly becoming an asshole that I admired.

A sad smile crossed his face when he looked down at his daughter. “Thank you. She looks just like her mother.”

“She’s beautiful.”

He nodded and then turned to me, suddenly all business. “Now what was so important that you had to rush over here on a Holiday weekend instead of waiting for me to come to you like say...hundreds of years of tradition dictates?”

“I need to meet with Parliament.”

His eyebrows rose, but he didn’t ask. He simply waited for me to explain, which was yet another trait I found myself admiring. Damn. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to actually like this asshole.

“That bill, the one we talked about removing marriage as a prerequisite for taking the throne?”

“Yes, it’s done. Drafted and actually was sent over with your daily update yesterday.”

Fucking daily update. Mental note: not only find out where that thing was delivered but maybe read it.

“Great. I need to meet with them today.”

“Sir, it’s a holiday. Most of Parliament has gone home. They’re scattered all over Elleston.”

“Holiday. Right. Funny thing about having your entire life determined in the course of just a few weeks, you forget that for everyone else, it’s just business as usual.”

Except, of course, Xander, who had his freedom now.

“I can get everyone back and in session by noon tomorrow. Will that work?”

I nodded, watching the girls dance and spin on the lawn. In a few years, that could be one of my daughters, a brown-haired, green-eyed darling with her mama’s brain and her daddy’s temper. A princess in reality, not just for a birthday party. God, I wanted that. A child with Charlotte, a piece of us both who would become the future of Elleston.

The future of us.

“Jameson?”

I blinked as if needing to clear my fantasy—my potential future. “Yes, that will work. It has to.”

“I’ll make the arrangements. Do you want to stay for cake?”

In that moment, I saw Damian not just as our Prime Minister, but just a guy—a dad.

“I would love to, but I feel like that might draw the attention from your Princess. Where it absolutely belongs today.”

He nodded with an appreciative smile. “You continue to surprise me, Damian.”

“I’ll leave you to it.”

We shook hands, and as Damian turned to head back to his daughter’s party, I stopped him.

“Damian.”

“Jameson.” He turned around.

“You ran on a fiscally conservative platform, with a liberal social agenda, and it was the debate against Prime Minister Archibald that won you the election in my opinion. You want more social programs, but a more responsible budget. A less intrusive government that gives more back to her people, while taking the steps to modernize what you called an ‘archaic institution.’”

“Okay?” He tilted his head.

“Just letting you know that just because I don’t dig into your personal life or the tabloids doesn’t mean that I’m not well-versed in who you are in the ways that matter politically. I may not have known about your daughter, but I know your voting record.”

“Noted.” He looked at me with an expression that told me he wasn’t seeing the playboy who’d had a crown thrown on his head, but an equal.

Mission accomplished, I got the hell out of there and went to find Charlotte.

* * *

Twenty-six hours later, I still hadn’t found her. She hadn’t been to dinner, answered her cell phone, or breakfast this morning. Her bed wasn’t slept in, but her security detail was short one, so at least I knew she was safe.

My only consolation was that her things were still in her closet. Yeah, I was pathetic enough to look.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think I’d been terrible when I took her to bed, or that she wasn’t ready, or that I’d done something horribly wrong.

But she’d said yes. Multiple times. Consent wasn’t an issue.

She’d come three...wait...four times. Or had it been five? However many it was, I knew she’d been satisfied. Hell, I’d put her to bed with a smile on her face.

But I hadn’t been there when she woke up.

Fuck.

I paused mid-button on my vest. I’d left so that the gossips wouldn’t get ahold of our relationship, or rather so that she wouldn’t be forced into one with me. Didn’t she realize that? Did she think that I’d just fucked her brains out and left?

When would she start to trust me? When would she realize that I was in this for the long-haul and she was the one constantly throwing up barriers?

I tossed on my coat, completing my three-piece suit, and adjusted the emerald green tie before walking out of my bedroom.

“We have fifteen minutes before we need to leave for Parliament,” Oliver told me.

“Your speech is already programmed on the prompter, and members of Parliament are being checked in as we speak,” my new secretary said. He was efficient; I’d give him that.

My nerves were tense, more than aware of the magnitude of this day. I had one chance to address Parliament, to plead my case. One. Xander didn’t convince them when he tried, but I was more charming, more persuasive. I could do thi—

“What the fuck?”

Emma, Charlotte’s Lady’s Maid, curtsied and then hurried down the hall with three men who were all pushing luggage carts.

I spun on my heel, damn-near knocking over my secretary.

“Shit, you’d better meet us at the car,” Oliver told the new guy.

Holy shit, they wheeled all of those luggage carts into Charlotte’s room.

I followed them in and swore.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked Charlotte, who was currently bent over a trunk on the floor, her ass in the air. It didn’t matter how delicious that perfectly-curved ass looked in those black pants; I was pissed.

Maybe pissed wasn’t the right word.

Charlotte froze, then stood and turned slowly. “Packing.”

Yeah, more like furious.

“I’m sorry?” I snapped.

“My job here is done, your Queen is selected, and I’m going home.”

“You fucking what?”

Irate. Yeah. That was the word.

Charlotte plastered her Duchess smile on and addressed the staff. “If you all wouldn’t mind giving us the room for a moment?”

Everyone filed out, leaving us alone.

“Jameson.” Her voice was level like she wasn’t currently fucking me over, ripping away every chance of the dream I’d foolishly let play out in my head.

“Explain. Now.” I leaned back against her desk, gripping the edges to keep from going to her.

“You don’t get to order me around.” She took an identical pose against her dresser.

Fifteen, maybe twenty feet separated us, but she felt so far away that it could have been miles.

“Normally, I would find your obstinance sexy as hell, but right now is not one of those times. Could you please explain what the hell is going on?” I kept my voice as level as possible, careful to keep down the panic rolling around in my stomach.

“You’re going to marry Ophelia.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, you can’t marry Katherine, can you? After all, she doesn’t want to marry you.”

There was an alarm blaring in my head. Danger, Will Robinson.

“She doesn’t. And if she tells me that again, now that we know each other better, I certainly won’t make her. I’m not in the business of forcing women into marrying me.”

She looked away, a flush coming to her cheeks.

“In truth, I only kept her in the running so it wouldn’t be narrowed down. So Ophelia wouldn’t think I was going to marry her. That seemed cruel.”

Her gaze shot back to mine. “You...what?”

“Did I stutter?”

“What do you mean that you aren’t going to marry Ophelia? She’s the only candidate left, and therefore, you most certainly are going to marry her!”

“When we began, you knew there was only woman I wanted to marry.” I lifted an eyebrow and waited for it to hit her.

She blinked for a few seconds and then her mouth dropped open.

Right there.

“What we want and what we get are always two different things.” Her chin rose, those walls of hers going up at the same time.

“They don’t have to be.” I looked pointedly at the packed trunks. “But it seems like you’ve already made that decision for us.”

“It’s time. You have Ophelia—”

“I don’t want Ophelia!” I yelled.

“Well...she’s…” her composure broke, her shoulders drooping. “She’s your only option.”

“Fuck that.” I was across the room in a few strides. Then her face was in my hands, her lips on mine, my tongue in her mouth. There was no quarter given, no gentle preamble.

This was hard, hot. Primal.

I bit her lip gently, and she finally responded, giving just as good as I was. Her hands were under my suit coat, her gasps against my lips, her mouth as soft and wet as I knew she was between her thighs. When she whimpered, sagging against me, I pulled back, gripping her chocolate brown hair in a light fist.

“How does that not feel like an option to you?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

I grabbed her ass with my free hand, pulling her up against me. “Funny, because a couple of nights ago it felt like the only thing that mattered. You and me. Do you think this comes around every day? That people just ignite like we do around each other? What we have is explosive, and rare, and I can’t for the life of me figure out when the hell you turned into such a coward.”

She ripped herself out of my arms.

“I’m not a coward.”

“Are you sure? Because this looks a hell of a lot like running away to me.”

“I don’t want this!” she snapped.

I froze.

“Don’t want this? Or don’t want me?”

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Give me a minute!” I yelled toward the door.

“Sir, just a reminder that Parliament is waiting,” Oliver said through the massive door.

“Answer me, Charlotte.”

She slowly brought those emerald green eyes up to meet mine. “You can’t make this about us, Jameson. We haven’t even had a chance to explore what we are. It’s not fair for you to ask me questions like that.”

“You’re not giving us a chance if you’re running back to Corbin.”

“Jameson, what kind of chance is there? You have to get married in two weeks.”

“So why can’t you m—”

“Don’t!” Her shout cut me off. “I don’t want to be Queen. My entire life has been spent being told what I would do. When I would do it, and whom I would do it with. For the first time since I was thirteen, I have a choice. I have the ability to look at my life and decide what to do with it. I can go to law school, or nursing school, or run a corporation, or be a stay-at-home mom. And as much as I want you...want whatever this might become, I can’t give that up.”

Crushing pain smacked me right in the chest.

“But you would for Xander.”

“Jaime, no…” she reached for me, but I moved out of her reach.

“No, it’s true. You were willing to sign your life over for a man you didn’t love because it was what our parents had arranged. You sat waiting for years, untouched, never knowing what it felt like to be wanted, desired, until he found Willa. You were willing to give it all up to be his Queen. His wife. But not me? Jesus, do I mean that little to you?”

“You can’t compare the two situations. You knew this wasn’t a long-term arrangement. You knew I didn’t want this life.”

“God, Charlotte. I’ve loved you for half my life. You are the only woman on the planet I would give everything up for. I would go to war for you. Bleed for you. Endure the pain of a million tortures for you. And you...you won’t even consider being my Queen? You won’t even stay for two weeks and figure this out with me?”

Her hands shook where she wrung them together, and tears welled in her eyes.

“I just...I can’t, Jameson. I have to go home and figure out what my life is going to look like now that…”

“Now that Xander isn’t in it.” The pain in my heart was physical, nauseating as if I was being ripped apart into tiny shreds. “Fuck, I was so stupid to believe that maybe you’d felt the same way about me all these years. That this was our chance.”

“The chance to what? Get married with Parliament’s shotgun at our backs?”

“Sir, we really have to go,” Oliver called out.

“You know, while we were growing up, I never wanted to be Xander. Even knowing that he was the heir, the one destined to rule, to have the power, the wealth. I never envied him. I never wanted it. Not until that day at the beach house when they told me that you were his. Remember that day?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I remember thinking that I would take it all, the crown, the responsibility if it meant I got to have you. And now here I am, holding up everything Xander threw on me when he walked away...and I still don’t get to have you. I’m one of the most powerful men in the world, and yet I can’t do something as simple as make you stay.” That ache screamed in my chest, my throat tightening. “There’s got to be a term for it—this pain, this utter devastation at the realization that I’ve laid everything I can at your feet—my heart, my kingdom, my bank account, my heart and fucking soul, and it’s still not good enough for you. I’m good enough to fuck, to take to your bed, but not good enough to marry, to love.”

Tears slipped down her face. “It’s not that. Jaime, if we just had more time…”

The knocking resumed, louder and more persistent.

“Yeah, but we don’t. Funny, as many women as I’ve been with, I’ve never…” I rubbed my chest like the massage could take away the ache.

“Jaime…” she whispered, but I was already headed for the door.

God, it hurt. My eyes widened in realization, and I turned to see Charlotte standing in the middle of her room, dressed in black from head to toe like she was in mourning from something she’d killed herself. I finally understood what the ache was.

“I get it,” I said softly, my hand behind me on the door nob. “So, that’s what it feels like…”

“What?” she asked.

“Heartbreak.”

I shook my head, mocking the irony of my life and walked out of her room, shutting the door behind me.

* * *

“His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Jameson Edward Harrison Wyndham.”

Parliament was on its feet as I strode down the long, marbled aisle toward the podium. Damian waited for me on the Dais.

All the members of Parliament were here, but not a sound was heard except my shoes against the marble.

I climbed the steps and took the podium that Damian led me to, shaking his hand before he backed away.

“Please, be seated,” I said, bracing my hands on the side of the podium.

My speech showed on the teleprompter in front of me, but it wasn’t the words I saw in my head. It was Xander at the podium the night of the engagement ball, stepping away from his throne for Willa. For love.

But I didn’t have that luxury. If I stepped away, this would fall to Sophie, and I’d never put her through this. She’d be allowed to marry for love. And besides, even if I did abdicate, Charlotte had made it clear that she valued her new-found freedom, not my love. God, I’d only done this for her, and now without her, what was the purpose?

“Jameson,” Damian whispered under his breath so only I could hear.

Parliament. Speech. Right.

I cleared my throat and looked at the teleprompter, then the members of parliament who held my future in their hands.

Do it for every Wyndham who comes after you.

“I was just thinking of the last speech made by a member of the royal family. It was Alexander, abdicating his throne.”

A murmur ran through the members.

“I have this whole speech to give, and it’s really great, I promise. But I’m not going to give it. I’m not an orator. Not like my brother is. I’m not as personable, not as righteous, not as squeaky clean. I’m not Xander. But what I am is determined. I was educated in the same schools, with the same tutors as Xander. I did the same two years of service, where I saw actual combat, and I was raised by the same wonderful King.” I swallowed at the memory of my father but didn’t let it take hold of me. That grief was still raw in so many ways. “More importantly, I’m what you have. I’ve heard the rumblings and your disappointment that Xander abdicated. But the truth is that you wanted him to.”

A wave of dissent echoed around the chambers.

“Did you not? Because he told you the clear-cut path to keeping him, and you denied him. Let me assure you; I am not Alexander. I had all of these eloquent pleas to make, to persuade you to reason, but I simply can’t do it. I can’t lower myself to beg you to be humane.

“Would any of you care to wed a stranger in the next two weeks? It’s not so pleasant when you have to put yourself in those shoes, is it? I am more than ready to lead this nation into a more modern era, but I will not be forced to marry someone I do not love, or even know.  There is a bill put before you, sponsored by Prime Minister McAllister himself, that removes the asinine requirement for a King to be married before he is crowned. You will pass it. You will pass it today, or you will find yourself down another Wyndham to rule.”