Page 55 of His Royal Matchmaker

“Kiss the woman I’m genuinely attracted to?” I finish for her.

She flinches slightly. “Compromise the professional boundaries of someone trying to do their job,” she corrects. “I can’t help you if you won’t be honest about what you really want. And I certainly can’t help you if you… ifwe…” She shakes her head. “This is precisely why I’m leaving.”

Each phrase lands like a small knife. Beyond help. Not serious. Still a playboy. Is that really how she sees me? After all our conversations, after everything I’ve shared about my commitment to Marzieu?

“I see,” I say, my voice hollow.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she does sound genuinely regretful. “I’ll still attend breakfast with Her Majesty to explain the transition process. David will arrive tomorrow to take over.”

I want to argue. I want to tell her she’s wrong about me. I want to explain that I kissed her because after days of talking, of her actually seeing me as a person and challenging me, I felt something real. But the certainty in her eyes stops me. She’s made up her mind.

“Will you at least consider?—”

“No,” she says firmly. “This is for the best. For both of us. For your future and mine.” She glances at her watch. “I should goprepare for breakfast. I’ll see you in the Blue Dining Room at eight.”

With that, she turns and walks to the door, her steps quick and decisive. She pauses with her hand on the doorknob, and for one wild moment, I think she might turn back, might say she’s reconsidered.

“Good luck, Your Highness,” she says instead, not looking back. “I truly hope you find what you’re looking for.”

The door closes behind her with a soft click that somehow sounds louder than a slam would have.

I stand frozen in the middle of my office, my carefully planned speech unspoken, my hopes deflated. The silence rings in my ears.Beyond help,she said.

Was it pointless to even hope that something could happen between the two of us? To imagine we could be more than a passing fantasy?

Is there a way to turn things around? To convince Emily that she’s wrong about me, and Icanbe the man that she wants and needs? Sitting at my desk, I drop my head in my hands and wait, but I sit and sit, and an answer does not come.

CHAPTER 23

HUGO

My schedule sits on my desk like a shield, each hour blocked in perfect rectangles of duty and obligation. It’s been three days since Emily left, but I don’t count days anymore. I count meetings attended, documents signed.

My hands hover over my keyboard, numb from typing since dawn, but I feel a warmth in my chest, an uncomfortable heat that I recognize not as heartburn from the coffee I’ve been drinking like water, but as something worse — regret.

“Your Highness?” Maurice knocks at the door to my office, his voice hesitant. “The minister of finance is waiting in the conference room.”

“Tell him I’ll be there in five minutes,” I say without looking up from my computer screen, where budget figures swim before my tired eyes.

When the door clicks shut, I lean back in my chair and rub my face. The stubble on my jaw feels like sandpaper. I’ve forgotten to shave again, and I don’t give a damn.

Emily would notice the stubble. She’d probably make some joke about me trying to look rugged for the cameras, her eyes catching the light as she laughed. But Emily isn’t here to notice anything about me anymore, and that is the bed I made for myself, isn’t it?

I push back from my desk, straighten my tie, and head to the meeting. One foot in front of the other. One meeting after another. This is what I’m good at now.

By evening, I’ve sat through six meetings, approved a trade agreement, and reviewed plans for next month’s diplomatic visit to London. My eyes burn from staring at screens and documents all day. My back aches from sitting too long in uncomfortable chairs, pretending to care about grain tariffs and tourism statistics.

“Your schedule for tomorrow, sir,” Maurice says, placing a freshly printed agenda on my desk. “And Matilde called to confirm your dinner tomorrow evening.”

Matilde. The name takes a moment to register in my exhausted brain. One of Emily’s matches. From the speed-date event, where she laughed too loud at jokes that weren’t funny. Emily said we’d be perfect together because we both loved modern art. I don’t evenlikemodern art; I only told Emily that because I thought Emily liked it.

“Cancel it,” I say, the words coming out sharper than I intended.

“Sir?” Maurice’s eyebrows rise slightly.

“The dinner with Matilde. Cancel it. Tell her I apologize, but state business has come up.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” He hesitates, pen hovering over his notepad. “Should I reschedule?”

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