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The press have dubbed you an unsuitable match for me , Flip had said.

Well, he wasn’t wrong. Brayden wasn’t exactly bred to be a royal.

He’d thought maybe that didn’t matter to Flip, but obviously he was wrong.

Brayden couldn’t even blame him, considering Flip’s history with the press.

Brayden wouldn’t want to be reminded of his past indiscretions every time his current relationship was mentioned either.

Everything became regretfully more complicated. Yeah. Brayden agreed with that too, but he couldn’t fully bring himself to regret the past few weeks. Even if it wasn’t going to work out between them, at least he knew now, and he could move on with his life. He could fall in love. He could be brave.

It would take him some time to work up the nerve to try it all again, though.

In the meantime, he should pack. He didn’t really want to wait around for Flip to come home and finish breaking up with him. Brayden could spare them both that. Flip had obviously been uncomfortable. He’d reverted to the stilted, formal language he used whenever something had him wrong-footed.

Brayden left his pencil on the table. Quietly, he packed up his things and tried not to look at the bed they had shared.

But he couldn’t just stop breathing , and the room smelled a little like Flip—warm and woodsy from the fire, crisp and clean under that.

It smelled comforting and welcoming and familiar.

Maybe one day it might have smelled like home.

Goddammit.

Brayden put on his boots and coat and slipped out of Flip’s rooms and into the palace corridors.

Louisa’s tour had been informative. He’d learned that a driver was always on duty to take the royal family and their guests anywhere they wanted to go.

And since a taxi would certainly not drive through the gates without attracting undue attention, he trudged across the frozen crushed gravel to the drivers’ lounge next to the garage.

Brayden knocked, and when someone called out in French for him to enter, he pushed open the door to a well-appointed area filled with comfortable overstuffed couches, a desk and computer, a TV showing soccer highlights, and Flip’s driver, Celine, looking up from a tablet with a dumbstruck expression as Brayden came in.

“Uh,” Brayden said. “Hi.”

Damn it. He hadn’t expected her . He’d been sure she had the seniority to merit the day after Christmas off. Not that a driver he didn’t know would have been much better.

Celine scrambled to her feet and dropped the tablet onto the couch. “Sir. Does His Highness need something?”

If Flip had needed something, they could have called the lounge extension to ask. Brayden shook his head. “No.” And then he lied, and the words fell as smoothly from his tongue as anything he’d ever said. “There’s been a family emergency at home. I was hoping you could drive me to the airport.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Of course. We’ll leave right away.”

If she thought it was odd that Brayden was leaving alone, without Flip for moral support, she didn’t mention it.

Perhaps she knew Flip was dealing with a family emergency of his own or thought Flip too important to be whisked away from his country at a moment’s notice to comfort a man he’d been seeing just a few weeks.

Brayden sat in the back seat and traced his fingers over Flip’s monogram. It was for the best. Sooner or later things would have ended. Brayden couldn’t play house with a prince forever.

He wondered where his family was. Would they be in Aruba by now? Or maybe they were still in Kingston. He couldn’t remember. But maybe if the flights worked out, he really could meet them in port somewhere.

Then he thought about their questions, their pity, the inevitable whispers and walking on eggshells they’d do if he showed up now. Yeah… maybe not.

Brayden closed his eyes and imagined he was curled up next to Flip. His eyes burned.

At least he could tell Lina the truth. He settled back against the seat and counted the miles to the airport.

Flip returned from police headquarters exhausted, with a splitting headache and a heavy heart. He hated seeing the toll dealing with her brother took on his mother, and he was glad he didn’t have to explain the man’s sudden reappearance to Clara. It would be up to Ines to decide what to tell her.

All he wanted was to relax by the fire with Brayden and maybe a stiff drink. Never mind the proposal for now—after the day he’d had, the mood hadn’t just been killed, it had been hanged, drawn, and quartered. He could try again tomorrow.

But when he pushed open the door to his apartment, something felt off. “Brayden?”

No Brayden on the couch, by the fire, or at the table. Flip left his shoes on and ventured into the bedroom to change—no Brayden there either. His parents had both been with him deciding what to do about his uncle. Ines and Clara wouldn’t want company.

Maybe he’d decided to try out sightseeing on his own?

In his socks and underwear, Flip dug his phone out of his jacket pocket and turned it on for the first time in several hours. Nothing from Brayden… but he did have a message from Celine.

Taking Brayden to airport. He says family emergency. Everything okay?

Oh God. That didn’t sound good. Why hadn’t Brayden called him?

He had wandered back out to the living room to check if he’d left a note when the next message, timestamped a few minutes later, pinged on his phone— Something seems off, though. Too quiet. Why aren’t you with him?

And finally— Did you break up?

Flip’s heart hit the floor. He could feel the blood rushing from his face, and he dropped onto the couch before he could get lightheaded. Had Brayden guessed that Flip was going to propose and decided to spare him the indignity of refusing to his face? But that seemed unlike him.

Perhaps he really had an emergency and had to leave. But if so, why no message? He must know how important he was to Flip. Flip had been in the middle of telling him as much when he had to leave.

Ignoring the pit opening in his stomach, he started a new text message to Brayden. Where are you? He should get all the facts before he started to panic. That seemed like the rational thing to do.

So, of course, that was when his father dashed into the room without knocking, breathing hard, the suit he’d worn to the police station in disarray—jacket open, tie flung over his shoulder. “Flip! I made a— What are you doing? You have to get dressed.”

Flip stood, knowing he needed to act, but something in his father’s tone made him suspicious. “You made a what?”

Irfan waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter right now. Brayden’s gone and you have to go after him.”

“Yes, I know. Celine messaged me. But I don’t know where, or why, or what any of it means—”

His father pushed him into the bedroom. “He asked Celine to take him to the airport. He said he had a family emergency.” Irfan made a scoffing noise. “An obvious lie. If he’d had an emergency, you’d have gone with him.”

“Yes, I know ,” Flip repeated, automatically putting on the sweater his father thrust at him. “How do you know? And what else do you know that I don’t?”

I should have talked to him. Something must have spooked him.

Flip had been so sure Brayden felt the same way he did.

He didn’t think that had changed, not judging from how sweet Brayden had been since they returned from their trip, how tender.

“Why would he…,” he mumbled, half to himself, as he put on the trousers Irfan held out.

He couldn’t have said exactly how he knew. His father was an excellent actor. But something gave him away, and Flip whirled. “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Irfan protested, taking half a step back with his hands raised.

Flip wasn’t convinced.

“Okay, maybe I tried to nudge him a little bit while we were out shopping,” Irfan admitted.

“I thought maybe if I hinted that I knew your relationship was fake from the beginning, he’d sac up and tell you he’s in love with you and you would make the whole thing real before he went home and left you with a broken heart! ”

Flip froze with his hand on his fly. “I’m sorry, you did what ?”

“It works in the movies!”

“Dad!” Flip finished zipping and ran his hands through his hair. What a disaster. “You’re going to tell me everything on the way to the airport,” he said darkly. Then another horrifying thought occurred to him. “Oh no, did you tell Mom?”

“What do you take me for? Of course I didn’t tell your mother. I love you and I don’t want you to die.” Irfan pushed him toward the door. “That doesn’t mean she didn’t find out on her own, so for both our sakes, let’s hope you can fix this before she stops pretending she doesn’t know.”

Shit. “All right, good point, let’s—” Flip stopped abruptly. “Okay, but that was days ago. Why would he leave now?”

His father paused and stood up straight, his hands dropping to his sides. “Hm. Good question. What were you doing when you last saw him?”

Panic clawed at Flip’s throat. If he said it out loud, it became a real possibility—that Brayden had left to avoid having to say no.

If he didn’t say it out loud, though, he would have to try to puzzle out the meaning behind Brayden’s disappearance alone, and he didn’t think his head was clear enough for that.

“I was about to ask him to marry me.”

The words seemed to suck all the sound out of the rest of the world. For several long seconds, silence reigned. Finally his father said, “I think you’d better think about your exact words. What did you say? How did you say it?”

Flip swallowed and thought back. He’d been nervous, and not just nervous but thrown off from his interactions with Minister Bechard, and he’d started setting up his proposal like he would an argument—points against first, so he could refute them.

Everything became… regretfully more complicated.

That sounded bad.