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“Bernadette Villiers, please meet Brayden Wood,” Flip answered in English. “Brayden agreed last-minute to attend the Night of a Thousand Lights with me, and he tragically doesn’t have any formal wear in the country.”

“Hi,” Brayden said, pink-cheeked, as he extended his hand to Bernadette. She shook her head at him and kissed his cheeks: left, right, left. “I’m sorry I’m so hopeless. Flip says you might be able to help me?”

Bernadette took a step back and looked him over head to toe, holding his shoulders. Then she looked at Flip. “Are you allowed to bring a twink as your date?” she asked in French.

“I should probably mention he speaks perfect French,” Flip continued as though he hadn’t heard.

“And I’m too muscular to be a twink,” Brayden sighed, put-upon. “I used to rock the look, but then my metabolism slowed down and it was either stop eating everything or start going to the gym.” He looked at Flip and fluttered his eyelashes. “Are you allowed to bring a twunk?”

“I’m the crown prince. I can do whatever I like,” Flip said with forced loftiness. Brayden grinned at him, but Bernadette rolled her eyes. He should have known the two of them would get along.

Clucking, Bernadette plucked at Brayden’s coat. “Well, take this off and let’s get your measurements.”

Normally Bernadette took measurements in a private back room.

But when she suggested that to Brayden, his face fell and he gestured toward the windows.

“Look, I saw you lock the door when we came in. This place is definitely by appointment only, right? We could just close the blinds. This is the coolest store I’ve ever been in. I don’t want to miss a second.”

Flip suspected he simply wanted to parade around an opulent location in his underwear, but he could hardly say so in front of Bernadette, who didn’t offer any objections.

“The lighting is better out here anyway,” she said with a smile. “And if you stand on the podium there, it’ll save my back and my knees. I don’t like to complain, but getting up and down gets harder every day.”

Suddenly Flip worried he’d asked too much of her. “I’m sorry. I should have thought. You shouldn’t be working so hard in your con—”

The look Bernadette shot him shut his mouth. “Your Highness,” she said icily, “as you are well aware, I am pregnant, not ill, and perfectly capable of deciding whether I am fit to work.”

Well, at least there weren’t any cameras to document Flip’s mortification. “Of course. I didn’t mean—” Bollocks, how was he supposed to extricate his foot from his mouth when he’d shoved it in past his tonsils? He sighed. “I apologize.”

“Apology accepted,” Bernadette said primly as she relieved Brayden of his chunky green sweater.

“In any case, as if I’d have let anyone else dress your date.

There’s such a thing as professional pride.

” She gazed up at Brayden, now clad only in his boxer briefs.

That was unfortunate for Flip’s sanity, because twunk about summed it up.

Brayden had a youthful face and a sweet smile and thick, flirty eyelashes but the broad shoulders and defined muscular bulk of someone who wouldn’t be easy to throw around in bed unless he wanted to be.

And Flip needed to focus.

“Actually, while you’re here….”

He’d wondered how long it would be before she directed him to take his clothes off. “The usual dressing room?”

“Please and thank you.”

He wasn’t sure whether he ought to thank her for the distraction or take 10 percent off her bill.

As he expected, the latter idea disappeared from his mind when he saw the jacket hanging on the rack.

Despite his high profile and busy schedule in Lyngria, until recently Flip had lived a fairly regimented life—set hours at the Toronto office, set meals delivered by his meal service, set reps in his home gym, set meditation hours.

And Bernadette was easily the best tailor in the country, if not Europe.

So he wasn’t surprised when the shirt and trousers fit perfectly or when he found the perfect set of cuff links—shaped like bellflowers—already waiting in the sleeves.

The waistcoat was deep blue silk, with lotus flowers embroidered one shade lighter—a subtle, intricate design Flip’s father would love. The cravat was made of the same material. He tied it automatically as he tried to tear his mind away from the barely clothed civilian in the next room.

Easier said than done.

Flip usually favored a traditional-style dinner jacket, but this time Bernadette had done something a little different—a matte jacket in the darkest blue, without lapels, almost Nehru style, with a polished-looking trim.

Wearing it, he looked much like his father.

The blue complemented his dark skin in a way he had often avoided in the past, tired of reading about his divided loyalties in the press, as though he was less Lyngria’s prince because his father was Indian, as though he couldn’t love two countries and cultures at one time.

The Flip in the mirror now seemed to prove he could.

He shot the cuffs enough to show off the national flower and stepped out of the dressing room just in time to hear Bernadette ask, “Left or right?”

Still on the podium in his underwear, Brayden seemed perplexed. “Um? I think that one might be lost in translation.”

Flip fought down a blush. Maybe he could escape back to the dressing room unnoticed?

But no, because Bernadette looked up just then from measuring Brayden’s inseam, looked right at Flip, and switched to English. “Left or right?” she repeated, winking at Flip. “You know, when you dress. Which way do you… tuck?”

Brayden’s mouth dropped open. “I… that matters ?”

Flip wanted to groan. Tailors asked that question so they could measure an inseam without accidentally copping a feel. But Brayden was out there in his underwear—Bernadette knew exactly where his dick was. She just had a sharp sense of humor when it came to her craft.

Bernadette nodded seriously. “Yes, of course. One leg will be sewn slightly wider to accommodate… you.”

Now Brayden threw his arms wide in exasperation, showing off excellent muscle definition across his back, shoulders, and chest. Flip swallowed.

“What kind of guys have you been dressing, if you have to put extra dick room in their pants?” He gestured down at his boxer briefs, which hid nothing—not that Brayden had anything to be ashamed of.

“I mean, you can basically see it. It doesn’t need its own trouser leg. ”

Flip raised a hand to his mouth to smother a laugh. He didn’t want Brayden to think he was laughing at him—or at his dick, which Flip was trying very hard not to look at.

Bernadette similarly restrained herself, though she did betray the sliver of a smile. “They’re very closely tailored trousers, Mr. Wood.” She indicated his underwear with a tilt of her head. “These will be quite unsuitable. I’m sure Antoine-Philippe can vouch for that.”

Damn her. Now Brayden turned to find Flip watching him, only Brayden didn’t seem at all concerned about it. In fact, though his eyes widened and his cheeks went even rosier, the slack set of his mouth and the way he licked his lips suggested an entirely different emotion from embarrassment.

“Oh my God. I cannot believe I didn’t know you were a fucking prince. It’s basically tattooed on your forehead. I am an idiot.”

Flip had to clear his throat. An answering heat rose in his own cheeks. “I take it you like the suit.”

“Let’s just say I am regretting my choice to stand here in my underwear.” Brayden put his palm over his face, but a second later he put it down again and grinned. “Bernadette, can you make me look that good?”

“I’m a tailor, not a miracle worker.” She rose from her crouch with more grace than Flip expected and smiled at Brayden. “But I think I can work with these materials.” She gestured to indicate—well, Flip assumed she meant Brayden’s hair, his smile, his physique, his general unassuming charm.

Brayden fist-pumped. “I am gonna look bangin’.” Then he glanced sideways at Flip. “I mean, I will look totally appropriate for a prince’s escort .”

Flip would probably be lucky if he didn’t show up in a leopard print, from Bernadette’s gleeful expression. She loved crafting suits for him, but as a member of the royal family, Flip couldn’t wear anything too flashy. She’d have more fun with Brayden. He looked forward to the results.

Having finished with her measurements, Bernadette let Brayden down and sent him to the fitting room with a few more-or-less stock garments to double-check the accuracy.

Bernadette opened the blinds, and Flip unlocked the door, only to find his driver and bodyguard, Celine, wearing an apologetic expression.

Resigned to his fate, Flip opened the door. “Your demeanor suggests my free morning has been rescheduled.”

“Apologies, Your Highness.” She sounded as contrite as she looked. “Only your aunt called. Apparently Princess Clara is having a difficult time, and she wondered if you might stop by, seeing as you have a special bond.”

A special bond. Flip supposed that was what developed between members of the aristocracy who were deemed unsuitable for rule by right-leaning media.

Flip failed to impress them, being gay and having the wrong color skin for European royalty.

Clara, on the other hand, had been born with a congenital limb defect, and was—or would be, one day—a woman, to boot.

Hardly an improvement over the current monarch and her prince consort, from a Neanderthal’s point of view.

Flip would have liked to spend the morning with Brayden as he’d planned, maybe even have lunch with him somewhere and go over what he could expect on Friday night. But Clara was, and might remain, his heir, and he knew a little about being a royal brat. She had to come first.

“I’ll go, of course,” he said, holding in a sigh. “Let me finish here and I’ll be ready.”

Bernadette gave him a knowing look as he walked away from the door, and quickly picked her pincushion off the desk as he made his way to the platform. “Bad news?” she asked as she briskly checked the fit across his shoulders and chest.

“Clara wants my help bullying her mother over something. Or vice versa.”

Bernadette nodded and gestured for him to remove the jacket. She took it and set it aside to check the waistcoat. “Duty calls.”

“Yes.”

She was perfecting the hem of his trousers when Brayden sashayed out of the dressing room, halfway between rakish and resplendent in a very traditional American-style tuxedo that Flip never expected to see again, at least not on Brayden.

“Haven’t worn one of these since my high school prom.” He tugged at his cuffs and grimaced a bit, whether in discomfort at the formalwear or some distant memory.

He would have made an awkward teenager, Flip thought, before he grew into his body.

“You’re probably going to have to tie the tie for me. I’ve only ever done a clip-on.”

Bernadette shuddered. “Not on my watch.” She finished fussing with Flip’s trousers and stood to take in Brayden.

Flip stepped off the platform so Brayden could take his place. “As much as I was looking forward to our lunch, Brayden, I’m afraid I’m needed elsewhere. I apologize.”

Brayden shrugged eloquently. “Hey, you’re an important guy. I get it. Bernadette can help me pick out the right color and pattern for this thing without you, I bet.”

“Count on it, Mr. Wood,” Bernadette answered in a voice that certainly meant she would be doing the choosing.

“I’ll send Celine back to get you once she’s dropped me off, and she can take you to lunch wherever you want to go.

Are you available Thursday? I’d like to make it up to you.

” Even a single, simple date with no romantic intentions was impossible to accomplish uninterrupted.

Perhaps Adrian had been right to break up with him.

“I think I can work you into my busy sightseeing schedule,” Brayden said with a shake of his head. “Go on, get on your white horse and get out of here.”

“Put your regular clothes back on first,” Bernadette said. “If you get horsehair on those trousers, I’ll make sure Clara’s your only option for the line of succession.”