“Maybe I am.”
“Then I’m riding in behind you,” Nate said, voice threaded with amusement, as if the entire edifice of monarchy were a game board he found infinitely entertaining. “Just promise you won’t spook the horse.”
She glanced back at him. A year ago, he’d been trouble wrapped in a borrowed suit, broad shoulders threatening to burst the seams, jaw carved like stubborn granite.
Tonight, he looked… different.
Not domesticated. The universe would collapse before Nate allowed that. But refined. The tux fit like it had been painted on, sharp black lines, bow tie finally straight because he’d letsomeone else tie it. His hair shorter, tattoos still edging out from beneath his cuffs, proof that polishing something didn’t erase it.
For two weeks after the story broke, he’d been the most searched man on the internet. Now he was standing in a seventeenth-century palace, about to walk into a room that had, between them, drafted three polite petitions urging her to reconsider.
He caught her staring and lifted an eyebrow. “What?”
“You look very… respectable.”
Nate winced. “Christ. Don’t say that.”
A laugh bubbled up from her chest, ricocheting off the vaulted ceiling. It steadied her. Because here was the truth no one downstairs fully understood: he had never asked her to choose him over the crown. He’d only asked her to choose herself.
Still, the year had been anything but gentle. There were interviews negotiated like miniature peace treaties. A palace statement acknowledging his past without condemning it. And a charity initiative he’d launched himself, supporting performer advocacy and digital privacy reform, that had even managed to make her most rigid advisors nod, slightly impressed despite themselves.
He hadn’t hidden. Hadn’t sought to hide from his past. He’d simply said:This is who I was. This is who I am. If that disqualifies me, say so to my face.
She loved him savagely for it.
The quartet shifted into a triumphant, Wagnerian flourish. Allegra rolled her shoulders back. Nothing saidintimate engagement celebrationlike music suggesting an impending Viking invasion.
“They’re going to stare,” she murmured, nodding toward the ballroom.
“Let them.”
“They’re going to whisper.”
“They always do.”
She turned fully to him, stepping closer until her gown brushed the sharp line of his jacket. Up close, she saw the tiny crease between his brows, the one that appeared only when he was trying very hard not to look protective.
“You don’t have to be iron for me,” he said quietly, his hand sliding to the small of her back.
“I’m not iron.”
He gave her a look. Half amused, half exasperated.
She sighed. “Okay, maybe a little tempered.”
“Well, you don’t have to be.” His thumb traced a soothing circle against her back. “I’ve got this. We’ve got this. Might even be… fun.” He leaned closer and smirked. “Speaking of fun—my family? They’ve found the champagne.”
Allegra laughed. “Honestly, it’s the least we can do after the chaos we dragged them through.”
“Chaos? Please. My mom? She’s a force. Remember that paparazzo last month?”
She grinned, picturing it vividly. “Oh! The one she accidentally turned the sprinklers on?”
“That’s the one. He sent her a bill for his busted camera. She mailed it back with a box of those little silica gel packets and a note:‘Clearly, you need these.’”
Allegra shook her head, smiling. “I’m glad they could be here. Really. It wouldn’t feel right without them. And—” she hesitated, biting her lip, “my dad is… actually warming to you. Slowly. Like tectonic plates shifting. But still. He asked about your charity the other day. Voluntarily. I almost checked him for a fever.”
Nate’s chest puffed just a little, smirk turning into a full grin. “Who could resist this charm?”
