Leo stiffens in response to the man’s words. I’m not sure who this guy is—he seems to be some version of Matthias. But the way he’s speaking to Leo—I don’t like it, and I can tell Leo doesn’t, either.

I have to nearly bite my tongue not to tell the asshole to fuck the hell off—that Leo said he’d see his father at dinner.

And then he glances at me—says I’m about to be deported. Leo is still standing about three feet in front of me, but I can imagine his reaction.

We should have talked about how this was all going to work—the whole thing has taken me so by surprise that I haven’t thought much about it myself. And then after what happened on the plane… I suppose this whole meeting the family thing was about the last thing on my mind. I still wasn’t entirely sure Leo had really had any intention of introducing me to anyone. Maybe to his sister—from what I’ve read about her, she seems like she would be the most welcoming to an outsider. But his father… I don’t know. I suspect Leo doesn’t really know, either.

I walk to him and slide my hand into his without a word. He startles, flinching away from me as though my touch has burned him somehow. But I don’t let go—he hasn’t touched me since the incident in bed last night, and as much as I don’t want to admit it to anyone—particularly myself—I miss him. I miss having him near me. I miss the almost constant physical contact he’s had with me—kissing my hand, touching my arm, pressing his hand to my back. I’m not sure if he feels the same way at all—especially after the things I said to him last night. I know I hurt him with my overreaction. I know I probably shouldn’t expect him to want to touch me at all after the things I said. But I miss it. I miss him.

He looks down at me as my hand clasps his, his eyes wide with something—it almost looks like surprise. He squeezes my hand the slightest bit.

I look up at him, meeting his gaze finally. It almost seems like he’s silently asking my permission for something, and it takes me a moment to realize that maybe he was waiting for me to tell him it was okay to do something as simple as holding my hand. That perhaps he was respecting me by not touching me all this time. I mean—I know he slept on the floor and everything, but I thought that was more because he was pissed off than because he was trying to give me space.

I’ve underestimated him again. I need to stop doing that.

I nod and squeeze his hand in return. I’m not sure if I’m agreeing to the handholding or to meeting his father, but his lips curl up into the smallest of smiles.

“Very well, Stephan. We’ll see my father together.” He looks down at me again, and I can see something else in his eyes, but I can’t seem to recognize what it is.

The man gives Leo a curt nod before he turns on his heel, walking back down the hallway.

My heart starts to race—I’ve never met the parents of anyone I’ve dated. Ever. And the realization that I’m not just about to meet Leo’s father—I’m about to meet the King of Montovia—is making my heart feel like it’s about to take flight in my chest.

The man—Stephan, I guess—is about fifteen paces ahead of us as we walk down a long corridor into the depths of the palace. And it’s beautiful—tapestries and oil-painted portraits of past royalty line the walls. In any other circumstances, I’d ask to slow down—to be able to look at the artistry up close. But I can barely take any of it in, let alone admire the details of anything.

My voice is little more than a ragged whisper. “Do I curtsey? I don’t know how to curtsey, Leo.” I glance up at him.

His focus remains on the man walking ahead of us. “There’s no need to curtsey to him, Elle. This isn’t a formal visit.”

“Do I have to kiss his ring or something? Bow? What the fuck am I supposed to do—?”

He stops walking and turns to me. He pulls my other hand into his and smiles. “Elle, you don’t have to do anything.”

I glance down the hall—Stephan is stopped about fifteen feet ahead but has now turned to watch us.

I look back up at Leo. My voice is shaking now, still barely a whisper. “I don’t think I can do this.”

His lips curl into another smile, but I can see this one isn’t genuine. I think he might be as nervous as I am—though I don’t really understand why. “It’s going to be fine.”

“Are you telling me that? Or are you telling yourself that?”

He laughs—and I can tell that at least that was genuine. “Probably a bit of both, Elle.” He gazes into my eyes for a moment. “It really is going to be all right. And please don’t curtsey.”

I laugh, too, and it makes me feel a little better, at least for the moment.

Stephan clears his throat loudly—obviously trying to interrupt.

I ignore him and look up at Leo again, the smile falling from my lips. “I’m sorry. For getting us into this.”

He frowns. “You got us into nothing, Elle. As I recall, I invited you here.”

I nod. “Yes, but I think my reaction to what happened last night may have caused this particular—”

“It did nothing of the sort,” he interrupts. “I’ve already told you, I’ll not have you apologizing for anything. Including this.” He gives me the smallest of smiles. “But I have missed holding your hand.”

“Me, too,” I whisper.

Stephan tries to interrupt again—it sounds like he has a small animal trapped in his throat. He lifts his brows and frowns at Leo.

Leo turns back to me. “My father hates to be kept waiting.”

I nod and drop one of his hands so we can walk again.

Hand in hand, we follow Stephan through the long corridor before we turn and make our way down another.

Stephan finally stops in front of two massive wooden doors—the only things on that side of the unadorned wall. He turns to Leo and me, and I swear he lifts his nose in the air slightly. “I will alert His Majesty that you have arrived.”

“Fantastic.” I say the word under my breath—too low for Stephan to hear me at that distance.

But Leo nudges me with his elbow.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

Leo shakes his head, but doesn’t look at me.

Stephan’s lip curls into a small sneer—he also refuses to make any eye contact with me. He opens one of the doors and disappears behind it.

Leo turns to me, pulling my other hand into his again. “Elle, I mean this with the utmost respect possible. And please don’t misinterpret what I’m about to say to you.”

I frown in response.

“Please, please let me do the talking when we are summoned inside. My father can be very…” His voice trails off, and he looks down at the floor for a moment. He finally lifts his gaze to mine. “Please don’t speak to him unless he addresses you by name, Elle. I know it sounds harsh, and I mean absolutely no offense by it. But please, please—”

“I get it. I pop off at the mouth. I swear like a sailor. I’m definitely not girlfriend material—”

He closes his eyes for a moment and frowns. He opens his eyes to look back into mine. “That is not what I am saying at all, Elle. I’m merely trying to tell you that my father can be a very cruel man. Even to his own children. And he has very little patience for commoners—”

Leo doesn’t get to finish his sentence. The double doors open and Stephan motions for us to come in.

Commoners. I suppose that’s what I am. I haven’t even given myself a moment to think about that—that Leo has somehow lowered himself to an unimaginable level by even giving me the time of day. It had somehow escaped me that until now—even if I had thought a bit about the fact that Leo is a prince—I had never felt like less of a person than him. I’ve never felt for a second I was somehow more unworthy of him than I am of anyone else. It isn’t his royal status that put me off before—just his status as a member of the male gender. Maybe I should have given this situation more thought after all.

Leo doesn’t let go of my hand as we walk through the doors. If anything, his clasp is tighter now than it was when I first slipped my hand into his. It’s almost like he’s holding onto me for dear life. Maybe we’re holding onto each other.

We enter the room—I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. It’s…an office. It’s a beautiful office, for sure, but there’s a desk where I suppose a secretary might sit. Maybe Stephan sits there—I have no idea. But it’s just an office with filing cabinets and a computer station. Nothing that your run of the mill high rise office building doesn’t have in mass quantity.

Stephan leads us to another door—it’s made of the same dark wood as the two large doors we went through before. He knocks before opening the door just far enough to poke his head through. He says something, but I can’t hear what it is.

He finally stands upright and turns back to us, barely bowing his head to Leo before he speaks. “His Majesty will see you now.”

Leo nods, glancing down at me for a moment. He swallows hard and turns back to the door. His hand is still tightly clasping mine and he almost pulls me to the door with him.

I stumble forward—I’m not particularly graceful on a good day, but combined with my extreme nervousness, I’m pretty awkward.

Leo’s father—King Edmund—stands up behind his desk.

This room—I suppose it must be his father’s office—is similar to the one we were just in. Ordinary. I guess most kings probably don’t sit on thrones all day, but I suppose that is the image I had in my head. This room is a little more ornate than the other—the paneling is a bit richer and there is more artwork on the walls—but it’s still an office.

Leo and his father stare at each other—almost like they are daring the other to speak first.

King Edmund lets out a sigh and rolls his eyes. “Leopold…”

Leo frowns but says nothing.

Silence hangs in the air for another long moment—too long a moment. I almost imagine that if the royal life was the cliché way I had always pictured it, the two men would have already drawn their swords and would be dueling or something.

But they just stare at each other.

“Leopold.” The king folds his arms over his chest. “We’ve already discussed this particular predicament when you brought it up to me a month ago.”

Leo says nothing.

A month ago? Leo has been planning this for a month? I’m finding this all a little hard to believe—I know Leo had said he’d been planning it, but I hadn’t really believed him. I hadn’t believed any of this.

“I told you already, Father. I explained I had feelings for her that were more than I have experienced for any woman before.” He glances down at me before turning his gaze back to his father’s. “And now I know I love her.” He nods a few times. “I’ve decided to do as I said I would. As we discussed when we initially spoke. I now intend—”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Leopold. Don’t be a fool.” He walks around to stand in front of his desk. “You are already aware of my feelings regarding…her.” He doesn’t even glance in my direction when he says the word. And it really seems like it was rather difficult for him to refer to me with that term, anyway—he almost seemed like he wanted to say that or it. As though I’m not human.

But I know it has nothing to do with my humanity. It has everything to do with my lack of royalty. With my lack of a proper title or whatever.

Leo’s hand never leaves mine and his gaze never leaves his father’s. He just stands there—stiff and still and trying to cover what is very clearly his fear of his father’s wrath.

And for what? For me? I have to shake my head—I can hardly believe what I’m seeing. That everything Leo has said to me is the truth. That he does love me—that he is willing to stand up for my honor, even though I’m not sure anything he’ll ever do will be good enough for his father based on what I see.

“You have responsibilities, Leopold. And this family’s reputation has already been stained by your antics—I’ll not have it destroyed because you’ve decided to defy me like this. When you were younger, your actions were forgivable because of your age. But you’re no longer a young man. Whether you like it or not, you are second in line for the throne. If anything were to happen to Andrew—”

“Nothing is going to happen to your precious Andrew, Father. We all see to that, don’t we?” Leo’s lip curls into something of a sneer. “And if you’re so concerned about the stain I’m leaving on our family’s reputation, I’ll abdicate my position in line as I told you I was willing to do when we first discussed my feelings for Elle.”

I’m pretty sure my eyes widen as much as King Edmund’s do at his words.

“Leopold, we’ve already discussed what would happen if you were to do that—”

He shrugs. “You’ll cut me off? Take away my plane—my credit cards? Yes, you’ve been quite clear. So be it, Father. I choose Elle.”

My mouth falls open for a moment when I hear his words. And I wish I could keep my mouth shut—I really do. But I can’t let him give up his life like this. Not for me. And it has nothing to do with me not being worthy of him—it has only to do with his worth. There’s something in his tone that mirrors the way I feel—that he isn’t as valuable a member of his family as Andrew because he was born second. In any other family, that wouldn’t matter at all. But here… It somehow devalues him. And I know all too well what it feels like to be devalued. And I can’t believe I didn’t recognize the similarities between us before.

My voice is quiet—not the brash voice I have when I’m cussing Leo out, anyway. “I don’t think you know your son very well, King Edmund.”

“Elle.” Leo doesn’t look at me—he’s still staring at his father, but his tone has a definite warning in it. And his hand is almost painfully squeezing mine.

King Edmund also doesn’t look at me, but he tilts his head slightly at the sound of my voice, and I’ll take any sort of encouragement I can get at this point.

“Leo is a good man. A kind man. He’s promised to see that the clinic in Rio de Campo will be funded the way it should have been in the first place—the way you should have funded it.” I pause, looking up at Leo, but he still won’t turn his gaze to mine, so I continue. “And he’s treated me better than any man I’ve ever known. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like this—not because of me. I take full responsibility for what happened when we were together in California. It was impulsive, I know. But it was all my doing—”

“This is nonsense.” Leo interrupts. His eyes are still fixed on his father. “Everything that happened in California was my doing. Every last bit of it. As I’ve already told you, Father, Elle is an upstanding physician. An upstanding woman. And I’ll not have her taking the blame for a single thing I’ve done. I was impulsive when I followed her to Los Angeles—I’ll fully admit that. But I’ve changed. And she’s helped me to do that. I’ve tried to show you, Father. I’ve tried repeatedly to tell you that.”

His father glares at him for a moment. “I’ll have you both barred from this country. I’ve already told you this, Leopold. If you follow through on your threats, you’ll never be allowed to return here for as long as I’m living.”

Leo’s jaw tightens. “Fine.”

My eyes widen again, darting between the two men. “Not fine. You can’t do that to him, Your…” I gulp—I can’t even finish King Edmund’s title. “Your Majesty. Leo doesn’t deserve that kind of treatment… Not because of me—”

Leo shakes his head to interrupt, but his gaze is still only on his father. “It doesn’t matter, Elle. He won’t listen to reason. He never has. And besides, if he refuses to accept you being a part of my life, I’ll never want to return here again.”

And that’s when it hits me—why he’s done everything he’s done in the past twenty-four hours. Why he took me on a private jet to his favorite restaurant. Why he brought me here at all. It’s because it might be the last time he ever gets to see his home. It was his last meal—the one he would have before he’s sent to his death. And it is like a death—the end of everything he’s ever known.

“I can’t let you do this, Leo.” I look up at him, but he still refuses to meet my gaze.

“It’s not your choice to make, Elle. It is only mine. And as I’ve told you both, I’ve made up my mind.” He finally turns to me, looking deeply into my eyes. “I choose you.”

King Edmund’s gaze narrows and his voice lowers to almost a growl. “Then consider yourself no longer a member of this family or a citizen of this country, Leopold. You’ll relinquish your title and your claim to the throne. And both of you will leave Montovia immediately.”

* * *