Oh, jeez.Comfortable?
All those disclaimers and thencomfortable?
That meant he wasrich-rich-rich.
That meant that Nico probably hadso much wealththat he hung around the wealthiest kind of wealthy people,like being driven around with Prince Harry,so Nico probablythoughthe wasn’t wealthy because he wasn’t in the top ten wealthiest people in the whole wide world.
Merely number twelve or something. “Okay.”
“My family left Russia with the jewels they could carry in their pockets and sewn into their corsets. We’ve parlayed that into a bit more. Mostly by investments and marriage to heiresses, the traditional methods of improving one’s situation for impoverished royals.”
I leaned my elbows on the table and watched him. “But you could be the king. Or the tsar. If they restored it.”
“But I don’twantto. I havenodesire to claim the throne or crown. If they tried such a thing, I would abdicate immediately.”
“But that’s why that waiter was bowing and scraping all over the place, and how come our breakfast arrived in ten minutes flat. They don’t do that for normal people. You know,peasants.”
Nico shrugged, the gesture rippling down the heavy muscles of his tattooed naked pectorals. “Their reaction was more likely because I usually travel with security and staff, and thus my entourage requires renting out entire floors of hotels. My reward accounts accrue a lot of points.”
Yep,rich.“Oh, so like, you always get bumped up to first class.”
Nico looked down, almost like he was embarrassed. “It’s more secure to fly private.”
“No way.You have a private plane?”
He shrugged again, the creases in his face looking pained. “Private is not environmentally friendly in the slightest, but it’s necessary. And I have two. Just in case one is in the hangar for maintenance. Security is an important consideration in my life.”
“Security? But you didn’t have any bodyguards with you when we met. You still don’t.”
Except that he’d driven up to the Billionaire Sanctuary in a caravan of black SUVs with security goons glaring at the crowd from behind their sunglasses.
Nico grimaced, lifted his phone to look at it, and swiped something off the screen. “I was inside Harry’s security bubble, and I ditched them inside the Sanctuary club. I’m not usually so reckless as to slip away from my detail, but I was truly bladdered last night. I’m still embarrassed.”
“Yeah, okay.” Yet, this all seemed so overblown. “Is being the guy whomightbe the tsar of Russia, if history were different, even important?”
He squinched his eyes up like my question pained him. “Some people think so.”
Maybe an explanation was needed. “Okay, so, look, I’m obviously an American. We’re only somewhat impressed with the British royal family, and some people not even that. All the other royals are kind ofmeh.”
He looked straight at me, a smile tugging a corner of his mouth. “I’ve never been described asmeh.”
Considering how preternaturally attractive and ripped Nico was sitting in that chair across the teeny, tiny breakfast table from me, shirtless so that his whole tattooed chest and shoulder and thick arms were on display, pantsless except for a terrycloth towel, close enough that I could launch myself over the table and jump his bones,yeah,that tracked.
If someone had asked me about how Nico looked, his bare broad shoulders and strong arms relaxed, his muscular torso flexing into ripples every time he twisted even a little, by turns smiling or dropping one eyebrow like a flippin’ movie star, I would have said he was stunning, gorgeous, and astonishingly impressive.
A demigod settled to Earth.
An idealized artistic triumph.
An absolute unit of a smokeshow.
But definitely notmeh.
But he was telling me how royal and important he was, so I started listening again.
“—and that’s the history of it.”
What was I supposed to do with that? “I’m not going to bow to you or anything.”
