Page 37 of Royal Crush

His smile was a little softer and a little sadder. God, I hoped I wasn’t going to break him. He didn’t need to be like me. He could make this work if he wanted it badly enough.

“Anyway, I was sent out here to get you,” he said, slapping his palms on his thighs. “The prince wanted to go over a couple of things before we start.”

Fuck. Fuck. He was here, and he was looking for me. I took a deep breath. “One more for the road?” When Otis looked hesitant, I leaned over and elbowed him. “Indulge me. No one else does anymore.”

He rolled his eyes and laughed. “Yeah, alright. Just don’t tell.”

I made a zipper motion across my lips. “Not a word. And I think you might be my new best friend.”

He brightened and leaned in toward me too. “I think I might like that.”

It was odd, but hell, I did too.

Even absorbed as I was in the scene, I could feel Camillo hovering behind the set. His presence was heavy, dark, and looming. He was shadowed behind a wall of prop boxes and the B-roll camera, but as I came around the desk, I caught a glimpse of him, and we were forced to cut when I lost all semblance of the character.

We reset and began to shoot again, and this time, I allowed myself to acknowledge the presence of him as I was becoming him. I couldn’t help but wonder how much of this scene was rooted in reality. I knew there had been a Raul—though the book acknowledged that wasn’t his real name.

In the show, he was a bicycle messenger. In Camillo’s version, he was the personal assistant to thePrep and Popmagazine’s editor in chief, and he’d only mentioned that the guy was his first after his accident.

There had been no details—not even a hint of how it had gone apart from they’d met, slept together, and then never spoke again. There was a story there, but I was too afraid to ask.

I could only assume the writers had gotten some of it right because so far, Camillo didn’t seem to have any real objections. So I went through the scene, and I wondered: Was this at all real?

Had there been the longing looks across the room? Was there a moment where Camillo rolled away from the desk and watched Raul stumble back, realizing who he was talking to? Was there the awkward moment of silence where Camillo was doubting himself and Raul was plotting to be the first man to fuck the disabled prince?

Otis was amazing, which gave the scene so much weight. I could feel our chemistry, and we finished twenty minutes earlier than expected. I assumed we’d be moved on to something else, but we were released for the day instead, and that was the moment I began scanning the room for sight of Camillo…but he was gone without giving me the notes Otis said he’d wanted to deliver.

I was almost desperate to know if this was going to be the new normal. If it was so fucked-up that no matter how many times we vowed to pretend like it never happened, he would avoid my presence unless he absolutely had to speak with me.

And fuck, would that even happen, or would I just get a pile of handwritten Post-its with all my faults in a neat, bullet-point list?

I needed to be on set for the next two hours in case they needed me for reshoots, so I swung by craft services because the last thing in the world I could handle right then was a blood sugar crash. The sight of food made my stomach roll, but I grabbed a couple of croissants, then headed for the corridor, hoping to duck into my trailer before anyone noticed me.

I spied Otis heading out at the same time as me, and I ducked behind a pile of shipping boxes that had been haphazardly left next to the exit door. I felt like shit about avoiding him—my mood wasn’t his fault—but he was the first person who’d been kind to me on set.

I didn’t want him to think I was the spoiled monster the press liked to make me out to be, and my spiral wasn’t doing me any favors right then.

The moment the path to my trailer was cleared, I made a run for it. In the distance, I saw Camillo’s guard, so I knew he was nearby, but the ramp wasn’t in front of my door anymore, so I hiked the four stairs in one and a half steps, then slammed the door behind me.

And as I attempted to take in a heaving breath, I realized there was someone on my couch, and I proceeded to choke on a scream. It came out some sort of weird dying rhino noise, which sent the man himself—the second-born royal fucking prince who seemed to have manifested into my goddamn space—into a laughing fit.

“Shit,” he gasped, holding himself upright by the arm of the couch. “Shit.” His face was pink.

“Please don’t pass out,” I begged, taking three frantic steps toward him.

He had both hands up in surrender. “I won’t. I’m not—God,” he said through giggles, “what iswrongwith you?”

“What’s wrong withme? You snuck in here—and how, by the way? What were you trying to do? Scare the shit out of me?”

His smile turned a little sharp as his laughter faded. “No, but I don’t get to sneak up on people very often, so that kind of felt good.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

His smile brightened, likely because very few people were bold enough to say fuck you to a prince.

“Seriously, why are you here?”

At that, he sobered, and his brows flew up. “To do my job?”

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