“Your Highness!” A camera flashed bright white in the darkness, illuminating everything he’d ever wished to hide. “Who’s this? Who is she? Can I get a smile, sweetheart?” The last sentence was in English, the first few, thank God, in Helgmøre’s antiquated Danish.

Ruben turned, using his body to hide Cherry from view, dragging a hand across his jaw—which was probably covered in scarlet lipstick.

“For fuck’s sake,” he snarled, slipping into his mother tongue.

Another flash. “Come on, Your Highness. Where’s the whips and chains?”

Ruben felt a growl rise in his chest, felt his pulse pound and saw the world around him turn red. Rage tinged with panic flooded his throat, the phantom taste of blood and imminent regret. His fists clenched.

But then he felt the lightest touch against his back, like a butterfly coming to rest. And he remembered. How could he forget?

Cherry.

“You can’t take our picture,” he said hoarsely, his sense returning. The screeching alarm in his head fading away. He squinted into the darkness. “Niklaus?”

“Awww, you remember me!”

Of course he fucking did. Paparazzi dogged him often enough, but this particular photographer had been his own personal poltergeist over the past few months.

Until Demetria had forced Ruben’s brother to cut a deal.

“You can’t take our picture,” he said again, louder now. More confident. “Or you’ll lose the privileges my brother promised.”

“Ah, ah. I can’t take your picture.” Flash. “So I’ll blur you out. The king said nothing about your whores—”

“Have some fucking respect,” Ruben snapped, “before I—“

“What, Your Highness? Careful.” White teeth flashed in the shadows. “I’m recording.”

Of course he was.

“So come on, who is she?”

Behind him, Cherry whispered, “What’s going on? Why is he taking pictures?”

“Don’t worry,” Ruben whispered back in English. “It’s nothing. I—“

“Your Highness! Who is she?” Another camera flash, and Ruben was thrown right back into the worst days of his adult life. The days when every aspect of his identity had been thrown to the wolves and torn apart for consumption, for analysis. Judged and found wanting. As always. He felt the visceral pain in his gut.

“She’s my fiancée,” he said. “And if you don’t erase those photographs, you’ll lose all access to the wedding and be in violation of your agreement with the Crown. Is that what you want, Niklaus?”

The flashes stopped. Ruben blinked as if emerging from a dream, phantom brightness still blooming over his vision.

Then came Niklaus’s familiar voice, thready and whining as the buzz of a fly. “Fiancée?”

“That’s right. Which makes her part of the family. You can’t take our picture.”

Before Niklaus could reply, more footsteps came. Faster and more familiar than the first, bringing a smile of relief to Ruben’s lips.

Hans led the pack, cornering Niklaus with a grim smile, more intimidating than ever.

“Woah, woah!” The photographer held up his hands, one still clinging to his camera. “Let’s not get overexcited, gentlemen! I was just speaking with the prince—“

“Hans,” Ruben interrupted. “Niklaus has agreed to delete all photographs of my fiancée. Since they are in violation of his agreement with my brother’s estate. Please see that he does so.”

He waited with baited breath in the darkness, the silence deafening. But then Hans said, his voice monotonous as ever, “Of course, Your Highness.”

Only a man who’d known Hans forever would detect the thread of disbelief hidden in those words. Or the undercurrent of fury.

But he’d deal with that later.

Satisfied, Ruben turned and put his arm around Cherry, switching to English. “I’m sorry. Come; we need to leave.”

She walked quickly, barely hesitating. But her shoulders were stiff, and her jaw was set.

Ruben had the sinking realisation that she didn’t want his touch.

* * *

Cherry paced her open-plan living room in stockinged feet, her mind churning.

Ruben was lounging on her sofa as if he owned the place, watching her with an infuriating smile on his face and an unsettling wariness in his eyes.

Finally, Cherry pulled herself together and turned to face him. “So you’re… some kind of celebrity.” She may not speak Swedish, or whatever language they’d used down there, but that much was obvious. “And you didn’t see fit to tell me that before doing… things. With me. In a public place. Correct?”

He rested one hand casually against the back of the sofa and arched a brow. “I suppose.”

“You suppose? You suppose?” She sounded like somebody’s mother. Reigning in her unease and her anger, Cherry forced herself to relax. She fluffed out her hair—he’d probably squashed the curls at the back against that fucking wall—then remembered her makeup. Crap.

Snatching her bag from the coffee table, she rifled through for a mirror. There weren’t any on the walls of her flat, except for the one in the bathroom. She didn’t need to be beautiful when she was alone.

“Cherry,” he sighed. “You look fine.”

“Fuck off.” Wait—she was supposed to be charming him. She flashed a smile to soften the words, then studied her reflection. Her hair was frizzy and her lipstick smudged beyond belief. Fine. She’d go with the ‘just fucked’ look and hope he liked it.

Snapping her mirror shut, Cherry sauntered over to the sofa and sank down beside him. She swung her legs onto his lap and took his hand in hers, toying with his long, thick fingers. But now was not the time to focus on that sort of thing. Beneath his usual confidence he seemed unsettled, almost panicked. And downstairs he’d been absolutely frantic.

Looking up from under her lashes, she studied his face. His features were drawn, his jaw hard. “Are you married?” She asked. “You can tell me, you know.”

He smiled slightly. “Can I?”

Fuck. She nodded beguilingly.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m married.”

Shooting up out of his lap, Cherry grabbed the nearest cushion and threw it at his head. “You piece of shit! You—“

Too late, she realised that he was laughing. Hysterically.

Cherry threw another pillow. “You’re not married at all, are you?”

“Of course not,” he choked out. He was still laughing. Smug fucking dick.

“It’s not funny!”

“Yes it is,” he wheezed. “‘You can tell me,’ she says. Christ, does anyone fall for that?”

“Yes, actually.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “Plenty of people.”

“Plenty, hm?” He caught his breath, still smiling. Then he held out a hand and said, “Come here.”

She ignored the way her pulse leapt at his command. “No. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I will. If you come here.”

“Tell me, or the next thing I throw at your head won’t be a pillow.”

He arched a brow, but let his hand drop. “Fine. You should sit down, though.”

Oh dear. That sounded ominous.

Before she could really start panicking, a knock came at the door. An inappropriately loud knock, the kind made by men with large fists and underdeveloped common sense. She let out a huff. “Would that be your mysterious bodyguards?”

“Yes,” Ruben said, without a hint of apology. Had she really been ready to sleep with this man? He was bloody irritating.

Cherry stomped out into the hall and yanked open her front door. A huge man stood in the doorway, dressed entirely in black. The man who’d been in Chris’s office with Ruben just that morning. The man who’d stormed into the alleyway after that photographer.

She eyed him warily. “Do you speak English? Because I don’t speak Swedish.”

His thin lips twitched into something that might have been a smile. “Danish,” he said.

“Oh, sorry. I’m not big on languages.”

“It is no problem. I am Hans. May I come in?”

Cherry, who had given up on all pretence of charm—surprise photographs and denied orgasms would do that to a girl—stepped aside with an ill-mannered sigh and said, “If you must.”

The huge man dwarfed her tiny flat’s narrow hallway. He headed towards the living room as if he’d been here a thousand times before, not bothering to take off his shoes.

Bloody men.

Cherry slammed the door shut.

When she returned to the living room, she found Hans standing by the window, peering out into the night, and Ruben on the sofa with… her cat, Whiskey.

The fat little tabby was stretched out on Ruben’s lap, purring. Getting fur all over his £3,000 suit. He didn’t appear to mind. He rubbed her belly, and didn’t even flinch when she dug all of her claws into his hand.

Cherry tried not to be impressed.

“So,” she said, clapping her hands together. “This is cozy.”

Hans turned away from the window to look at her dispassionately. Ruben continued playing with Whiskey, who hadn’t even acknowledge Cherry’s presence. Bloody traitor.

Scrabbling for the remnants of her poise, Cherry picked up the pillows she’d thrown. “I’d offer you both a cuppa,” she said, “only I don’t really want to.”

Hans inclined his head. “That’s quite alright, Madam.”

How irritating.

But Ruben turned wide, hurt eyes on her. “Really, Cherry? Denying us tea? Is that necessary?”

It took her a second to realise that he was taking the piss. She shot him a glare. He responded with a lazy smile that had her treacherous heart leaping even as her temper rose.

“Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” She snapped.

Hans blinked. Then he frowned at Ruben. “You didn’t tell her?”

“I was easing into it.”

“No you bloody weren’t,” Cherry spluttered. “You haven’t told me shit!”

With a sigh, Ruben plucked Whiskey off of his lap and set the cat down on the floor. She, mortally offended, stuck both nose and whiskers in the air before sauntering off.

“Okay,” Ruben said. “I’ll get on with it, if you like.”

“Yes, please.”

“I’m a prince,” he said.