The blush burned my cheeks before I could stop it.I opened my mouth to deny it, then realized I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d set foot in the bathroom for anything beyond splashing water on my face.
“I… may have forgotten.”
Eddie gave me a look that could melt steel.“Forgotten?Artie, you look like you’re auditioning for the lead in a gritty reboot ofLes Mis.The barricade’s missing, but otherwise—spot on.”
A strangled laugh escaped me—half humiliation, half relief at hearing someone finally puncture the fog.Eddie’s eyes softened as he brushed a strand of hair off my forehead.
“You’re in love with Bryce,” he said, his voice quiet but certain.“And you don't know what to do about it.”
I bit my lip hard and nodded.
“The Palace is giving you hell?”
Another nod.
“And Bryce is copping it from that pig in the White House?”
I nodded again, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes.
Eddie sighed, his expression hardening into resolve.“Then this has to stop.Go to him.Ask him for one more chance.If you don’t, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life, and I’ll have to listen to you moan about it for the next forty years.I won't have it.”
His words sliced cleanly through my defenses.The truth was too sharp to ignore.But I curled tighter into the sheets.“Bryce told me we should cool things off,” I whispered.“Until things settle.What am I supposed to do?March up to Winfield House and demand an audience with the Ambassador?It would be a scandal.”
Eddie grinned wickedly.“Prince Arthur Storms Embassy in Fit of Passion.Honestly, it would sell papers.And perhaps a few more of your waistcoats.”
“Eddie!”I groaned, but he only laughed.
And then—three sharp, authoritative knocks rattled the front door.
We both froze.
Eddie’s brows shot up.“Expecting someone?”
I shook my head, mute.
“Stay here,” he ordered, rising gracefully.“You still stink.”
I threw a pillow at his retreating back, but he was already gone.From the bedroom, I heard the front door creak open.Eddie’s voice, low and questioning, mingled with another I couldn’t quite make out.My pulse thundered in my ears, a frantic drumbeat.
Footsteps again.Two sets this time.Drawing closer.
And then—there he was.
Bryce.Standing in the doorway.
He looked exhausted, beautiful, and utterly devastating.
Eddie stood right beside him, looking as smug as a cat that had just delivered a particularly prized mouse.He gave me a look—arched brow, the faintest smirk—that screameddon’t screw this upbefore he stepped back.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” he said in a sing-song voice and swept out as if he’d staged the whole encounter.
Looking at the state of Bryce’s tie, he probably had.
Bryce lingered in the doorway, his fingers clenched tight around the strap of his leather briefcase.He looked terrified.Not the Ambassador Lewis who could spar with heads of state, whose voice could slice through a conference room full of politicians with Virginia precision.No—this was Bryce stripped bare.His eyes were rimmed with red, his hair was uncharacteristically unkempt, and his shoulders were curved inward as if he’d been trying to fold himself small.
My heart, that traitorous thing, leapt anyway.
“Bryce,” I whispered.
