Damn.
Michel’s gaze honed in on me through the crowd, his pale eyes narrowing as one side of his mouth drew up.
This was my fault. I should’ve texted Konstantin to meet me at the concierge’s desk and removed ourselves to a private room.
Instead, I nudged my way between the two of them, standing between the barstools and leaning an elbow on the bar.
“Michel, you’re here already. How lovely.” I turned my back on him and faced Konstantin. “I’m glad you could get away from classes. How are you doing?”
Konstantin glanced over at me, his teal blue eyes nearly glowing neon in the golden incandescent light around us.
People said we looked as alike as twins, but other than the general familial resemblance of black hair and blue eyes, I didn’t see it. His bone structure was finer than mine and he smiled more, or so I’d been told. My face was a slightly busted version of his, or maybe Konstantin was what I could have looked like if a spectacularly talented plastic surgeon had fine-tuned my features.
Not that it was a competition. I was pragmatic and realistic. My life was not a wishing well. I didn’t engage in fantasies and saw no reason to pretend Kostya wasn’t just slightly prettier than I was.
Just like I found no reason to lament that I was not the tsar of Russia, sitting on a golden throne and wearing a crown, surrounded by obscene wealth while my countrymen toiled and starved as I stole the output of their labor to buy reprehensibly useless baubles, and auditioning German and Prussian princesses to be my Empress.
Those days were gone, and good riddance. I liked my life private and unbothered.
Just as Konstantin was drawing in a breath to reply, Michel butted in from behind me. “You’re both here, the Heir and the Spare!”
Konstantin didn’t even flinch, which was sadder than if he had.
I half-turned just my head so our uncle could hear me over the bar chatter. “Knock it off. Nobody thinks that shit is amusing.”
“Oh, come on now. It’s all in good fun.”
“It’s cruel. I don’t care who the fuck you think you are.”
“But that’s not what I meant. We all know that’s not what I meant, right?” he asked, turning to Magnus and Ryan, who’d taken barstools on the other side of him.
Magnus accepted his usual scotch and water from the bartender, but he didn’t look Michel in the eye. “I know I hate it. Olav nearly beat the shit out of some guy who said that to me last year. He says it’s wishing death on him, and in the old days, he would’ve executed that asshole for treason. But surely that’s not what you were doing, was it, Michel?”
Michel glared at Magnus, and I readied myself to intervene again.
The aged rasps in his voice became petulant. “That’s because Olav will actually inherit a kingdom, unlike Nicolai and Konstantin, here, who have been thoroughly deposed.”
Oh, we were not getting into this in front of other people. It was too dangerous for everyone involved. “I said, knock it off, Michel.”
“At least there are accepted colloquialisms for the Heir and the Spare.” He reached around Magnus and shoved Ryan on his shoulder, jostling Ryan’s beer, which lapped over the rim of his glass onto the bar. “What do you call the third person in line for a throne, the spare to the Spare? The Spare-er? The Spare-est? You know, the third kid, the baby of the family, the oops-baby who will never inherit?”
“So close. You almost got it,” Ryan said, shaking beer off his hand and accepting a napkin from the bartender, who was watching the exchange with a sympathetic grimace on her face.“My aunt calls me the Ne’er, the contraction for never, because I will ne’er, e’er inherit the throne.”
Michel’s laugh sounded like a hearty guffaw, but his tone was mean. “The Ne’er! See, Nico, that’s clever! No one is being demeaning.”
I didn’t even look at him. “Except that he’s talking about his great-aunt Cecilie, who is as snide as she is racist.”
Ryan snorted. “And that’s on a good day.”
Michel signaled the bartender for another drink. “Look, I’ve met Cecilie Zoller. Cecilie Zoller is a dear friend of mine, and she certainly isn’t as bad as all that.”
Yes, trust Michel to make sure that we all knew his acquaintances, even though he was not actually related to them. Connections were everything.
Blood ties were the strongest ties to thrones, but schoolhood chums were second best. “If there’s nothing else you need of us, Michel, I think we have some Le Rosey gossip to catch up on.”
Michel’s smile faltered because I’d absolutely meant the exclusionary dig at him. His wealthy family had not been connected enough for him to attend the exclusive Le Rosey boarding school before his sister had married my father. “Yes, well, I’ll talk to you later, then. We have some importantfamilybusiness to discuss. I’ve invited guests here at eleven.”
I kept my gaze steady and straight ahead, glaring at the rows upon rows of backlit liquor bottles that formed a wall built of vertical amber and crystal bricks. “Guests can’t invite further guests into Billionaire Sanctuary.”
