Page 90 of Royal Crush

It never did reach much popularity outside the borders of Caverna. It meant I didn’t make it big, but I was okay with that. I had work. I had a steady paycheck and the love of my life, and I was happy.

That was the most wild part of it all: being happy.

“Come here,” Camillo said. He pushed away from the table where he’d been sitting at his laptop. His wheels made a soft squeaking sound against the wood flooring—something he’d chosen specifically so he could roll around without trouble but also wouldn’t kill my knees the way tile did.

Because kneeling was still a thing.

I obeyed. I dropped my bag and closed the five steps between us. Our gazes met, and I ignored the soft popping noises in my joints as I went down. He used his hand to spread his knees so I could fit between them, and I leaned in.

He pinched my chin just the way I liked and drew me close, nearly kissing but not quite. “You are not going to die. You’re home now. With me.”

I was. Closing my eyes, I breathed in deeply—the scent of him, of our house, of our life. It was cinnamon and vanilla. It was earth and rain. He ran his fingers through my hair, then down the back of my neck before massaging my tense muscles.

“It was a long flight, I know,” he murmured.

“Mm.” My forehead hit his shoulder, and I braced myself on his thighs.

“And going back there is never easy.”

I shook my head. Going back there meant talking to the press and avoiding questions about Camillo that should have never been asked. Like if his dick worked, like how we had sex, if he topped, if he bottomed, if I was doing it just because he was a prince.

Too many times, I had to restrain my temper and remind myself they were miserable little fucks who would never understand the way this felt. They would never experience this contentment. This joy.

“I love you,” I told him.

He laughed softly and urged me back so he could look at me. “Did you see Carlo?”

Rolling my eyes, I groaned and collapsed into him, and his arms came around me, holding me tight. “He’s such a shit.”

Camillo laughed again. “I tried to warn you. But he likes you.”

His whole family did. Well, his parents were indifferent, but that was as close to like as I was ever going to get from them. It was hard to wrap my mind around it, but it was what it was. They were rarely ever present.

They hadn’t even come to see Camillo off when he was done packing his apartment. His mother had called to wish him a safe flight, and she’d sent one of her aides to say goodbye to him at the airport.

I knew it gutted him. I knew he’d wanted a relationship with his parents that he would never get. But his brother was better—or, well, he was getting better. He’d visited a few times now, calling it a royal tour, but he spent most of the time with us.

His wife and daughters tagged along, and we managed to secure a private bit of beach where the girls could play in theocean and Camillo and I could lounge in the sun. He had a beach chair with huge wheels that allowed me to push him in the ocean, and the girls thought it was the most amazing thing they’d ever seen.

It was maybe the best summer of my life. It had started healing me in ways I didn’t think I could be healed.

Camillo’s wandering hands brought me back to earth, and I looked up at him, smiling, unable to help myself.

“How was Christoph on the last day of filming?”

I shuddered. “His usual bullshit. He made me piss for him again. I think he was hoping to finally catch me out and sue me for breach of contract.”

Camillo grimaced. “I could always have Cillian?—”

“No,” I said. Cillian had been reassigned to Carlo’s girls, and although I never did get to know him well, he looked happier than I’d ever seen him. There was a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. But he was still loyal to Camillo. He would have burnt down a country if Camillo asked. “It’s over now, and after talking with Jared”—he was the director of the show I was now working on—“I found out he’s got one of the worst reputations in the business. He tried to make it in Hollywood a few years ago and became a laughingstock.”

Camillo smiled, the expression sharp and spiteful, and I loved him a little more for it. “Good.”

I sighed and turned my face in to nuzzle against his neck. “This is horribly uncomfortable. Can we move to the couch?”

Not justacouch.Thecouch. It was the perfectly designed piece of furniture from Camillo’s little safe house above the café back home. It was the one thing we’d shipped over besides his medical equipment and our suitcases.

That last little bit of what was, now connecting us both to what would be.

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