The next day, Simon asked Penelope to stick around the castle and work on the treehouse prototype with him. Since the sports bar date had been a bust, they were still in need of some R&R, plus successfully finishing these designs might lend Pen more confidence in her ability to follow through. He still hadn’t quite been able to get her words about her rule being a “test run” out of his head.

“No, the rafters should be aligned north to south,” Pen was insisting a few hours into the project, narrowing her eyes at him.

“East to west,” he said stubbornly, “or the roof won’t sit right.”

They were at the far end of the castle grounds, its turrets stabbing into the sky above a row of tall hedges a few hundred yards away. Curious guards had been checking in on them all morning, but so far no one had tried to stop them. Simon was glad. This project had given him the chance to see what an excellent building team he and Pen made—she was creative at problem-solving, and he was good at keeping them realistic and on track.

Except when she was being stubborn. Like now. “East to west,” he said again, standing his ground.

She threw her hands up with a huff. “Fine! We’ll do it your way, and when it all collapses like a Jenga tower, we’ll know who’s to blame.”

An hour later, the rafters were in place. Simon crossed his arms to look at them, pleased with the clean lines of the roof. “Were I the smug sort, I’d say something along the lines of I told you so. Because I told you so.”

She rolled her eyes and twisted her rings around on her finger. “Whatever,” she muttered, but good-naturedly.

He glanced at her hands. If she kept twisting her wedding ring like that, she would lose it, and the thing had been in his family for generations. With exaggerated motions, he carefully took his own wedding band and signet ring off and put them securely in his pocket, hoping she would follow suit. Instead, she narrowed her eyes again, rammed her rings down on her fingers nice and tight, and then picked up a hammer to start working on the ladder.

“That’s not the best placement,” he called when she wedged it up into the middle of the treehouse’s unfinished floor.

“Where would you suggest?”

“The far side would be more practical.”

“Oh yes, that’s why people build treehouses—because they love practicality, not fun.” She started nailing the ladder in place with a toothy smile aimed at him.

He shook his head, amused, but by the time they’d finished the treehouse that evening he had to admit she was right. The prototype did look more unique and fun with the ladder coming up through the middle of the floor like that. A guard with good timing brought them a cooler full of beer and Simon waved Penelope over to a bench so they could sit back and take in their day’s work.

“You were right about the roof,” she said grudgingly after a few sips.

“And you were right about the ladder,” he replied. They tapped their cans together in acknowledgement of a job well done as they admired the treehouse.

“That looks damn good, if I say so myself,” Penelope told him. “And I wouldn’t have been able to do nearly as good a job on my own. How did you get to know so much about treehouse construction anyway?”

He considered how much to tell her. The topic had always been a bittersweet one for him, wrapped up as it was in his father’s death. But he’d seen today how good a team he and Pen made and he decided to trust her with the whole truth even though it made him feel vulnerable as hell. “My dad and I built one when I was seven,” he said, his tone both wistful and heavy. “We spent the whole summer, hammered each and every nail ourselves. We were going to celebrate by spending the night in it right after he got back from a big trip to the Middle East. But he was killed there, and my mother and I were asked to move back to our ancestral lands, as our house had been part of Dad’s allotment for his ambassadorial position. Just like that, the treehouse we’d spent all summer building was gone, just like he was. That was the first time I realized how precarious a home truly is when you’re in our line of work.” He took a sip of his beer, waited a moment for the emotions to fade. It had been decades since his father’s death but every time he told the story a little piece of him felt like he was still standing there, bags packed at his feet, staring up at the treehouse that neither he nor his father would ever see again. “My signet ring is actually made from one of that treehouse’s nails,” he said. “I found a way to keep at least a little bit of my father, a little bit of my home, with me forever.”

Penelope laid a hand on his arm and they sat in companionable silence for a moment, crickets chirping gently around them. “Well, you’re certainly great at building treehouses, and I love how passionate you were about this one,” she said after a moment. “I have to wonder though—since you obviously love building so much, why didn’t you become an architect or an engineer or contractor or something? Not that I’m ungrateful you chose to be my king instead, of course.”

He shrugged. “I chose law because I thought it would help me better serve the Crown. Plus my father was devoted to the same profession and I always wanted to make him proud.” He reached in his pocket for his signet ring, needing to feel it on his finger again, missing that piece of his father and his old home.

It wasn’t there.

Frowning, he checked the other pocket, then his shirt pocket. He found his wedding ring but his signet ring wasn’t anywhere on him. Trying to tamp down his panic, he set his beer on the sidewalk and walked back toward the treehouse, kneeling down to sweep his hands across the grass in the failing light.

“What’s wrong?” Pen asked, standing up behind him.

“My signet ring. It must’ve fallen out of my pocket.” It had to be around here somewhere. He’d get a metal detector, outfit a whole squad of guards with them to sweep the area. He’d find it. He had to.

“Oh no,” Pen murmured, and knelt beside him to help search. But the orange glow of sunset was almost gone, and there was nothing but dirt under his fingers.

“Your Majesties,” said a voice from behind them.

“Not now,” he snapped, unable to keep the growing panic out of his voice.

“My apologies, but this can’t wait.”

Something about the guard’s tone made Simon stop searching and sit up. At his side, Pen did the same. “What is it?” she asked cautiously.

“It’s all over the evening news,” he told them, obviously uncomfortable with the information he was imparting. “A woman is claiming her baby is Nathaniel’s. The Castle is looking into it now, but if it checks out…”

The meaning hit Simon like a load of bricks. He stared at the guard for a long moment before he could manage to voice the words. “Then the baby is the rightful heir to the throne.”

Penelope would be unseated. The role he’d chosen, the life he’d given up everything for, would be gone. He and Pen would have to divorce and he’d return to Danovar empty-handed, or they’d stay married and he’d have to find the same sort of unfulfilling work serving the new King as he’d faced in his old homeland.

In the space of a single moment his world crumbled around him yet again, and he was a little boy again staring up at a treehouse that would never truly be his.