Page 5 of Royally Arranged

We were as alone as possible in first class. The white noise of the engines and air filling the cabin ensured us privacy. Shifting, I stretched a bit, doing my best with my body language to tell him,If you want to talk, now is the time. I yawned once—twice. He didn’t bite.

Drumming my fingers on my thighs, I took a long breath to steady myself.Just ask him!I glanced askew; he met my gaze. “Uh, hey,” I said. “I’ll just come right out and say it. Are you all right?”

His thick eyebrows inched lower. “I’m fine.”

“Sure. But, well, come on.” Laughing uneasily, I sat deeper in my chair. The ceiling was suddenly very interesting. “Don’t make this hard for me.”

“You think this is hardfor you?” he whispered.

Cold, then heat, slid up my spine. I knew that tone the way I knew the fit of an old pair of jeans. He’d done a spectacular job searing fear into my neurons since before I could walk. As much as I didn’t want to feel nervous, as much as I mentally knew I was a full-grown man and not a child he could bully, there was an automatic response in my psyche I could never shake.

“Listen,” I said warily.

Maverick hesitated, purple tinting around his eyes, like the blood vessels there were doing all they could to keep his anger at bay. Amazingly, he deflated back into his seat. It was so fast I felt whiplash. “This isn’t easy. I’m still trying to figure out how to handle this. But you sitting there, pretending you want to help, isn’t going to fix my mood. All right?”

My nod was curt. “Loud and clear.”

We sat in a long, suffocating quiet. The pressure in my skull was immense; I knew it wasn’t just from being thousands of feet in the air. This thick, suffering silence was familiar for us both. I’d been ridiculous to think I could talk to him about his feelings.

I heard his seat belt’s buckle clink. He was turning toward me, and with the window outside showing an endless blue world, his irises leached the color from the sky. “I do have something I want to talk about.”

My pulse climbed. “Okay. I’m all ears.”

“Hester and I didn’t part on good terms.”

The laughter that exploded from me was born from startled relief. I’d predicted something worse; it was good to be wrong. “I could have guessed that. You’ve never mentioned his name before.”

He faltered, like he was checking his own memory. “No. I guess I never told you.”

Never told YOU.As in he’d told someone else, and forgotten it wasn’t me.Probably Costello, then.He’d been our father’s perfect pet for a very long time. After their relationship had soured, Maverick hadn’t played favorites any longer. We were all equal fuckups.

“You’ve never explainedwhyyou left Torino. Just that it wasn’t safe there for you any longer.”

Sinking deeper into the airline seat, my father shut his eyes. I noticed all the fine lines that crept toward his temples. “I was twenty when the king—when my father fell ill. As the oldest, everyone expected me to be crowned once he passed. It was how it was done.”

How it would be done if we all lived there,I thought. I imagined my older brother; he was stiff, humorless, and often frightening. He’d have made a perfect king. Even Kain, my younger brother, had a sort of air to him that felt regal. Either of them would have been fit to rule. Far better than I could have hoped to be—not that I’d have ever wanted such a job on my shoulders.

Maverick sighed through tight lips. “Hester came to me in private. He’d always had a jealous streak, but I didn’t expect him to bluntly lay out his threat. The boy I’d taught marksmanship, or slipped away with to hunt deer in the forest ... That same boy told me what he would do if I dared to accept my rightful claim to the throne. Can you guess?”

I’d been holding my breath; I let it out, clearing my throat. “Let him have the crown, or he’d kill you.”

My father’s chuckle held no joy. “That’s right.”

“I know this story ends with you running off to cozy little Rhode Island, meeting Mom, making a bunch of babies, and all that jazz ... but I have to know. Why didn’t you stand up to your brother?” I’d never known my father to back down from a bully.

He looked at me with such disdain that I leaned backward. “His threat was treason, Thorne. If I’d told anyone, they’d have killed him. How could I choose the crown over my own kin?”

Greed makes people do all sorts of awful things.But I didn’t say it.

“What happened between my brother and me,” he said, “it’s not something siblings should ever suffer. Family is worth more than wealth or power.” After a moment he said very softly, “I never wanted him to die. But now it’s happened anyway, and I don’t have a damn idea how.”

“Your inside man, he has no details?”

He shook his head. “None.” Hesitating, he fixed me with a hard look. “Thorne, I have no clue what we’re about to walk into. It’s been almost forty years since I was last in Torino. My country and its people will be different. I don’t know who will remember me—or if I should want them to. You have to be cautious.”

My smile tugged upward at an angle. “Come on, I’m always careful.”

He looked out the small window at the empty sky and didn’t reply.

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