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“What?” his mother echoed, putting aside her tabloid and reaching for a legal pad and pen. “No, nothing, never mind.” She shook her head and uncapped the pen. “Let’s talk about this statement, shall we?”

The drafting itself didn’t take long. The royal publicist—“That’s not a real thing!

” Brayden attempted to protest and was wrong again—revised it in a handful of minutes, but he took one look at Brayden’s outfit and sent him away.

“You can’t appear on national TV dressed like that, not when you’re representing the Royal House of Lyngria. ”

“We’re hardly married. We’ve been dating for five minutes,” Flip protested on Brayden’s behalf. Who cared if Brayden looked like, well, a commoner? He was one. So were most people.

“Is he going to send me back to Bernadette?” Brayden stage-whispered.

“Perhaps I can lend him something appropriate,” Flip suggested. Custom-ordering a new wardrobe seemed extreme.

Cedric blanched. “Good God, no. Do you know what people will say when they realize he’s wearing your clothes? And they will notice.”

Brayden raised his eyebrows. “That I’m sleeping in his bed?” he guessed. “Which I’m also doing.”

Cedric appealed to Flip. “This man is not to speak into the microphone.”

Oh no. Flip valued Cedric’s expertise, but occasionally his snobbiness conflicted with his general good intentions.

Flip didn’t like to pull rank, but the situation called for it.

Narrowing his eyes, he said, “This man has a name, and he will be treated with respect whether or not I am present. That includes the same self-determination accorded to anyone else in this family. Is that understood?”

Cedric flushed guiltily and cut his gaze back to Brayden. “Of course, Your Highness. Mr. Wood, I apologize. That was rude of me.”

Naturally Brayden shrugged it off. “It’s fine, dude, I definitely do not want to speak into a microphone about my relationship with the prince. Like, at all.”

With that settled, Flip let his hackles lie flat again. “That said, perhaps an etiquette lesson or two wouldn’t be amiss. Cedric, if you could arrange that?”

Brayden said, “Hey!”

Cedric allowed the tiniest fraction of a smile.

They left following Cedric’s promise to have a selection of suitable clothing in Brayden’s size sent posthaste to Flip’s apartment in the palace. As they parted, Brayden leaned in, and his shoulder bumped Flip’s. “Guess we better not tell him you lent me your pajamas.”

Flip didn’t bother to stifle his grin.

He made the official announcement just after four, with his parents behind him to one side and Brayden to the other in a smart navy cashmere sweater and wool trousers. But of course the press couldn’t simply leave it at that.

“Your Highness, after your appearance at the Night of a Thousand Lights, many people are drawing parallels between your relationship with Mr. Wood and Queen Constance’s romance with Prince Irfan. Can you comment on that?”

Flip’s parents had gotten engaged three weeks after the ball and married a year later—hardly enough time, he remembered his grandmother complaining fondly, to plan a royal wedding. “As Brayden and I were well acquainted long before the ball, I’m afraid those parallels are rather divergent.”

“Your Highness, you canceled an appearance at the Crown Mining Co. for later today. Can we expect more events to fall by the wayside as you spend more time with Mr. Wood?”

With the ease of years of practice, Flip bit back the oh sod off, I canceled one event that desperately wanted to slip out.

“The mine appearance has been rescheduled to Monday to accommodate a necessary security check after Brayden’s privacy was compromised at his hotel.

I don’t anticipate further emergencies.”

A handful of other members of the press asked questions of varying levels of impertinence, but the whole ordeal was over by four thirty.

They spent a few hours socializing in the palace common area with his whole family—Brayden challenged Clara to a game of Sorry!

—but when Brayden’s eyelids started to droop, they begged off a family dinner to eat at the table in Flip’s rooms.

“Are you going to make it through dinner?” Flip asked, only half joking, the third time Brayden yawned into his water glass.

Brayden made a sheepish face. “Sorry. I’m mostly over the jet lag, but today’s been all over the place, and I’m still not used to the whole ‘gets dark at two thirty’ thing.”

“To be honest, I’m tempted to retire early myself.”

Brayden raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? You don’t seem that tired.”

“I was raised not to show weakness,” Flip said with no small amount of sarcasm. It worked—Brayden flashed a tired grin.

“I don’t know, I think I’ve seen you fall asleep with your mouth open on the flight.”

Brat , Flip thought fondly. He could have been embarrassed, but if they were going to pretend to be a couple for the next two and a half weeks, it seemed prudent to get over that embarrassment now.

Likely it wouldn’t be the last time Brayden found him catching flies.

“Do I snore? I can send someone out for earplugs.”

“You’re good.” Brayden finished his water and set the empty glass on the cart that the palace staff would remove later on. “I don’t know about me, though. You might need them for yourself.”

“I’m sure I can make it through one night.” Most of the country’s shops would be closed tomorrow, but Flip would be able to find earplugs if absolutely necessary.

They returned their dishes to the wheeled cart, and Flip called for housekeeping to come fetch it while Brayden took his turn in the bathroom.

Housekeeping came and went. Flip sat on the couch, but he was restless and jumped up again a second later. It had been only a few months since he’d shared a bed with Adrian, but that was different. They had dated for a year, and they were comfortable with each other physically.

Of course, physicality aside, Flip felt more comfortable with Brayden than he had with anyone since secondary school, so that excuse didn’t hold water.

He might as well admit to himself that he was attracted to Brayden—that he wanted their arrangement to grow beyond the charade they’d begun.

He wanted to kiss Brayden, make him laugh, make him gasp, make him moan—

“Bollocks,” Flip muttered aloud. He’d chosen a poor time to consider that train of thought.

A second later he heard the water shut off in the bathroom, and then Brayden poked his head into the living room. “You’re up,” he said, voice a little softer than Flip was used to—an intimate voice, part of him noted, for an intimate time.

Damn it.

It turned out that left to his own devices, Brayden slept in boxer briefs and a long-sleeved T-shirt, faded with years of use, that read Maplewood High School Baseball Team .

Flip tore his gaze away from the name emblazoned across those broad shoulders and removed his own favorite pajamas from the wardrobe.

Then he closed the bathroom door behind him to have a private, if very brief, crisis.

What was he doing? He was about to get in bed with a man he barely knew because, at the end of the day, he was too much of a coward to tell his parents the truth—that Brayden had agreed to attend the ball as a favor and nothing more.

Because it had been so long since his parents had been so full of anticipation, as though they’d known Brayden was special even before they met him.

Because they were right, Brayden was special, only now Flip had gotten tangled up in the lie and—

Brush your teeth , he told himself firmly.

His brain was still spinning when he left the bathroom. Brayden looked up from his cell phone and cracked a tired smile when Flip opened the door. “What happened to the fancy pj’s?”

Self-consciously, Flip glanced down at himself. These were his favorites, a decades-old set of flannel bottoms with holes in the hems and a college T-shirt. “They’re in pristine condition because I never wear them except on Christmas morning. Don’t tell my aunt. She gets me a new set every year.”

Brayden crossed his heart. “Scout’s honor.” He set his phone on the bedside table. “I never thought—is this side okay? I’m a left-side-of-the-bed guy, but it’s your bed, your rules.”

Flip’s brain took an abrupt turn into pornography, and it took him a split second too long to find his voice. “It’s fine. I don’t have a side preference, but I find it too drafty close to the windows.”

Brayden grinned. “Good thing you found a nice Canadian boy to take the cold side of the bed, then.”

“Nice? Is that what you are?” Flip slid between the sheets and automatically turned to face Brayden. He was right—there was plenty of room for two and little chance they would brush against each other by accident, never mind initiate anything inappropriate.

“Hey, I’m good enough to fake date you. What, Prince Antoine-Philippe doesn’t date nice boys?”

Flip honestly thought about it and had to wince. “Not historically.” He paused. “Actually, as a family, our track record for nonscandalous relationships is fairly terrible.”

Brayden snuggled down across from him and faced Flip. “Oh?”

“Well, I told you about my parents. And my mother’s younger brother—Clara’s father—he’s worse.”

Now Brayden raised his eyebrows. “Present tense? I sort of assumed he was dead.”

“No, just removed from the line of succession and banned from the country.” Off Brayden’s look of surprise, he elaborated.

“He never approved of my father, but he didn’t try to do anything about it until he had an heir of his own.

His failed power grab coincided with the discovery of his affair with Clara’s nanny. ”

“Jesus. Your family doesn’t do anything by halves.” His expression turned soft but still shrewd. “Clara said your exes were boring. She didn’t mention any inherent evil…?”

He was fishing, but somehow Flip didn’t mind.

“The ones she’s met weren’t evil. She maybe had a point about the boring thing, though.

” He sucked in a breath and debated how much of the truth to give away.

But then he decided that Brayden could find out nearly anything he withheld on the internet anyway.

“Before Clara was born, though, when I was still at boarding school in the UK, my first boyfriend, he was a piece of work.”

Brayden tucked his hands under his pillow. “Yeah?”

“I mean, we were children. I suppose it’s possible he didn’t grow up to be the Antichrist.” That got a soft smile, but not the laugh he’d been angling for.

Brayden could already read him too well for that.

“I was a shy teenager. Miles was one of the ‘in’ group. Everyone liked him. Everyone wanted to be like him.”

Somehow Flip half expected Brayden to say but you’re a prince . But he didn’t. He just shifted his body some and drew his legs closer to his chest. “And you?”

Flip shook his head slightly and tried to play it off, though he had a feeling Brayden would see right through him. “I fancied myself in love with him, of course. When he started wanting to spend time with me, I felt….”

Brayden waited.

“Included,” Flip decided. Until then he’d felt so conspicuous—few boys at his prestigious school came from any parentage other than white—and his innate shyness made it difficult enough to make friends.

Add his sexuality on top of that…. “Miles was out and proud, defiantly so. When he wanted to be my boyfriend….”

“You were pretty pumped, huh?”

“I’m surprised my teachers didn’t have to scrape me off the ceiling.”

“So what happened?”

Flip shrugged. This part of the story hurt the worst. “Oh, we dated for a little while, and then he got tired of me and sold his story to a tabloid.”

Brayden inhaled a sharp breath. “Oh, Flip.”

He suddenly felt the urge to turn away. “It’s nothing near as awful as what happened to you—”

“What, because nobody died means it didn’t hurt to be betrayed like that?” His voice was as soft as the pillowcase beneath Flip’s head. “Come on. It’s not a contest.”

Flip inhaled through his nose, held it for a moment, and then let it out slowly. “I know that. In theory.”

Brayden gave him a wry twist of a smile. “It’s always the application that’s the trick.”

“Did you study psychology?” Flip asked a bit accusatorily, smiling a bit in spite of himself.

“Just the freshman 100 course. I majored in modern languages.”

Of course he did. Of course Flip had been too blind to see how perfect Brayden was for him until he’d committed to pretend to date him, and trying to change the rules now would be not only awkward but inexcusable. “How many do you speak?”

“Six.” He yawned and snuggled into his pillow. “Why, how many do you speak?”

“Five.” Now he felt like he should be picking up Spanish in his spare time.

Brayden had closed his eyes, but he opened them again and smiled sleepily. “Hey. Something I beat you at. Imagine that.”

Flip made a face at him, prompting a sleepy snort. “It’s not a contest,” he said, mimicking Brayden’s line from earlier.

“Yeah, yeah.” He yawned again, and it struck Flip how young he looked like that, wearing a T-shirt from his youth, curled up in bed and almost hugging his pillow. He was obviously exhausted.

“Go to sleep,” Flip murmured, feeling suddenly protective.

“Mmm,” Brayden agreed. “Turn off the lights, then.”

With a quiet laugh, Flip turned to do just that. The room plunged into darkness. If not for Brayden’s quiet breathing, he might have been alone.

“Good night, Brayden.”

That steady breathing was his only reply.