“Better that than you stay here and—” He waved, as if he didn’t want to finish the thought but then did, bitterly, “Fuckyour way into the case.” Suddenly, he picked up the mug he’d been about to make Ben’s tea in and threw it against the wall. Ben watched him leave, utterly incredulous. He’d never once seen Nikolas lose his temper. He hadn’t actually thought Nik had a temper. He wasn’t sure what to do. Not only was he not experienced in relationships, he was aware he really didn’t know Nikolas Mikkelsen very well at all—he knew what he was allowed to and no more. So this sudden display of anger left him feeling bewildered. Nikolas was the rock he’d anchored his wayward life to, and he didn’t like the sense of his mooring slipping.
Eventually, he decided he had no choice but to go up to bed as well. He slipped in silently, not putting the light on, only registering the other man on one side of the bed. He undressed and slid naked between the sheets, hoping Nikolas was asleep. It was wishful thinking. Nikolas turned over and propped himself up on one elbow, staring at Ben in the dark. Ben had no idea whose fault the argument was or whether he should apologise himself or demand one from Nikolas. He wasn’t even entirely sure theyhadargued.
Deciding just to go with his heart, something a very wise and cute professor had once told him to do, he said simply, “I only suggested that to annoy you. I would never sleep with anyone else.”
He could sense silent intensity from the figure in the bed next to him but wasn’t sure exactly what the emotion was. He had no experience of Nikolas being anything other than calm, collected, and in control of his emotions. It suddenly seemed the right thing to do to just decide for Nikolas what this emotion would be. Ben stretched out his arm, cupped Nikolas around the back of the head, and drew him down so he was lying on his broad, and very welcoming chest.
He stroked his fingers in Nikolas’s hair, babying him—if that was what this was. Ben didn’t really care. He reckoned Nikolas had experienced less love in his life thanhehad, and that was saying something. Being so much younger and so much less sophisticated than Nikolas, he’d always allowed the older man to run their relationship. Nikolas wanted it that way; Ben selfishly enjoyed it as well. Now, for the first time, however, Ben began to realise if they were to make this work, something had to change between them. He suddenly felt an incredible surge of protectiveness toward this man who had never before appeared vulnerable to him. He wrapped his arms around the silent figure and pressed his lips to the silky blond hair, now greying ever so slightly at the temples. Incredibly, Nikolas allowed all this. He didn’t even attempt to turn it into a joke or sex, his usual two defence mechanisms whenever things got too emotionally out of his control.
After what seemed like hours to Ben, Nikolas said evenly, “I have been made privy to things I wish I had not. Philipa will want a divorce very soon, but until that time, it is essential for her marriage to appear very stable and very happy.”
Ben really didn’t want to discuss Nikolas’s wife just then, but in line with his new protective and mature stance he asked, “Why would she want a divorce if—?”
“Ben. She plans to remarry.Theyplan to marry. He will be the first heir to the throne to divorce. It will be a constitutional crisis—if your archaic country had a constitution, of course. If a hint of his relationship with Philipa were suspected now, he would lose everything. As it is, he can present himself to his subjects as the long-suffering husband of a philandering younger wife, who turns to an old family retainer for comfort.”
“Jesus Christ. She told you all this? I can’t believe she’d—”
“No, of course not. But I told you once I speak many languages—between the lines is one of them. I have lived with this situation for many years now and have observed it first-hand.”
Ben pulled Nikolas’s face up and stared at him in the dark. “Just knowing this puts you in danger, doesn’t it?”
Nik pursed his lips. “Not this, no, but being divorced will—” He stopped abruptly for some reason and continued in a different tone, “No, no danger.”
Ben wasn’t so convinced. “Why don’t we say fuck off to this bloody country and go live somewhere else?”
“Somewhere beyond their reach?” There was a teasing note to Nik’s voice, and he added, “Ben, they employ people like us to extend their reach wherever they wish it to go. No, I think it is better to be in their faces here, keeping the balance of power between us.” He lay back down on Ben’s chest. “I did not want to tell you all this. I do not know why I did.”
“Maybe, so that when I find your murdered body, I’ll be justified in being really, really cross with you and saying I told you so?”
Nik chuckled. “I doubt anyone would find the body, but the sentiment is appreciated.”
“If anything ever happened to you, I would bring the whole lot of them down like a pack of cards. I’d go through them one by one and destroy them all.”
“Let us hope I do not die a simple, natural death anytime soon then.”
Ben glanced at the clock and saw he had to be up again in a few hours. His head was spinning. He desperately wanted to go for a run, his usual outlet for feelings like these, but he didn’t want to disturb Nikolas, who was breathing evenly on his chest and seemed more restful. He began to brush his fingers over the short hair at the back of Nikolas’s neck once more. “Go this weekend, but come back safe, yeah?”
“I doubt they would do me in and bury me in the grounds, Ben.”
“So…?”
“Just ask. I barely have any secrets left from you, irritating child.”
“If you go down this weekend, will you sleep with her?”
Nikolas snorted. “No. Of course not. You know this.”
“But…”
Nik lifted his head. “What?”
“Well, I was just thinking, if you did, then I could say I’d fucked the guy who’d fucked the future queen of England.”
It got the reaction he’d hoped for: Nikolas came up to punish him. Punishment turned into fun, and fun, as ever between them, turned into mind-blowing physical release that left them both exhausted and replete. It wasn’t so amusing, however, when the alarm sounded just as they were both dozing off. Ben swore, because he was the one who had to get up; he needed to be in place outside the house he was watching to monitor the routine for the second day. Nikolas had no real need to get up and clearly didn’t see the requirement to provide any moral support whatsoever, except for a grunt and pulling the covers higher.
Ben ate whatever food he could find in the fridge and wearily climbed onto his bike. He winced as he sat down, then grinned at the provenance of the pain and fired the bike into life. His life was weird and challenging, but it was good. He cast a mental eye up to the bedroom above him and the whole world that it contained, feeling very privileged as he joined the early morning traffic full of people with lives less lived than his.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
