“Is everything all right down there?”Bryce asked, and if there was a thread of amusement in his voice, he was gentleman enough to hide it.
“Perfectly fine,” I lied, my voice an octave higher than nature intended.I scrawled a number on the clipboard—I had no idea if it was correct; I would check it later, or never, or possibly throw the clipboard into the Thames.I rose to my feet so fast my head spun.
For the love of God, Arthur, you are a prince of the United Kingdom.You have shaken hands with heads of state.You have weathered tabloid storms.You will not be undone by an inseam.
But my cheeks were blazing and my pulse was a riot, and in the mirrors I could see myself from every conceivable angle: flushed, rattled, and looking exactly like a man who’d just had a very inappropriate thought while kneeling at the feet of the American ambassador.
Pins.Yes.Pins next.Something to do with my hands that did not involve touching him.
I drew a few from their cushion, mouth tight, and set about tucking the fabric of the jacket he was meant to try.My hands betrayed me still, trembling just enough to show my nerves.One sharp jab later, the inevitable happened.
“Ouch.”Bryce winced, looking down at his arm.
Mortification flooded me.“I’m so sorry!Did I—oh Lord, I did prick you.”I dropped the pin, hands lifting helplessly.“Forgive me, I swear this isn’t my usual practice.”
His smile softened, gentle, almost conspiratorial.“It’s only a pinprick, Your Highness.Nothing worth apologising over.”
My face was aflame.My hands twitched with the urge to steady themselves on him, but I tucked them firmly against my sides.
Bryce tilted his head, studying me in the mirror.His gaze was direct, disconcertingly so, and when he spoke his tone was mild but probing.“Tell me—are you nervous for some reason?”
I froze.My inner reserve, that iron mask I wore so well, abandoned me in an instant.I heard myself laugh, quick and brittle, then blurted out before I could stop it:
“Would you like a glass of wine, Bryce?God knows I need one.”
ChapterSeven
Bryce
“Yes,” I heard myself say, my voice softer than usual.“I’d love a glass of wine.”
Arthur’s lips quirked into something that wasn’t quite a smile, wasn’t quite a smirk.He reached for the phone on the wall, fingers hovering above the receiver, then mumbled, “I think everyone else has left.I’ll be right back.”
And before I could reply, he slipped out the mirrored door.
The silence he left behind was loud.I exhaled, realising I’d been holding my breath the whole time he was in here with me.
God.When was the last time I’d been fitted for anything bespoke?Years.Not since my father had dragged me to his tailor in Richmond before my first ambassadorial posting—stiff wool, chalk marks, my old man hovering, reminding me that a Lewis always dressed the part.That had been perfunctory, clinical.And now here I was, having ten suits made at Clarence Atelier, like some film star instead of a civil servant.
And of course, it had to be Prince Arthur Phillip himself doing the fitting.Totally unexpected.I’d assumed I’d get one of the assistants, or perhaps Chris Tennant, who I’d been told was the mastermind of the atelier’s formalwear.Instead, the prince himself—royal, polished, magnetic—was looping tape measures around me and dropping pins at my feet.
Nerve-wracking, yes.But if I was nervous, he was downright rattled.The man had dropped his clipboard, his tape, and then—Lord help him—he’d stuck me with a pin.
I chuckled at the memory, then immediately stopped.Chuckling wasn’t very ambassadorial.But the image of his flushed cheeks, his mortified little gasp—it was endearing.Adorable, even.Not the word I should be attaching to a prince, but there it was.
My eyes caught on my reflection, multiplied a dozen times around the mirrored room.I stopped short.Jesus.I looked tired—shadows under my eyes, jaw tight with tension, the kind of man who’d spent the last year running on caffeine and duty.Why hadn’t I taken more care before coming here?Not that I was the primping type—never had been.My job didn’t allow for vanity.But standing in this glittering palace of a fitting room, with Arthur’s reflection everywhere, I felt… exposed.
The door opened again.Arthur returned, not with a dainty glass of wine, but with an entire bottle clutched in one hand and two glasses dangling from the other.
I laughed.“Well now.That’s what I call service, Your Royal Highness.”
He rolled his eyes as he set the glasses down and twisted open the bottle with surprising efficiency.“I’ve already told you,” he said, pouring deep crimson into one of the glasses, “when we’re in private, it’s Arthur.And God, I hate all the royal highness bullshit.It’s exhausting.It puts people at a distance.”
I took the glass he handed me, careful not to let our fingers brush.“That could be an advantage,” I said lightly after a sip.“Keeping people at arm’s length.”
He tilted his head, considering.“You’re not wrong.But still—it’s stifling.”
And just like that, I was floored.An actual prince, confiding in me as if we were old friends.My job trained me to read people, to find the cracks in their armour.But I hadn’t expected him to hand me the chisel himself.
