Guilt requires uncertainty. I have none left where Nikolaj is concerned.
My King.
He used to call me Prince when we were younger, always with that little curl of mockery that never fully hid the affection under it.
Easy, Prince.
You sleep like one, too.
Say my fucking name, Prince.
There was always an edge to it, a challenge, a tease, something that made me want to bare my teeth and kiss him in the same breath.
Tonight, he saidMy King, and something inside me gave way.
My hand strays once, involuntarily, to the inside pocket of my jacket where the white-and-gold keycard sits. I can still feel its shape against the fabric. I can still feel the press of his knuckles grazing my heart when he slid it there.
Suite 2103.
Hotel Aurelia.
I go to my dressing room first, close the door, and just stand there for a second with my palms braced on the edge of the longwalnut dresser while I breathe like a man trying not to start running before he’s sure he’s meant to.
There’s a mirror in front of me. I look like the same controlled, polished king who left this house earlier tonight to smile for cameras, donors, and rival powers.
My eyes give me away.
There’s too much in them—too much life, too much panic, hope, and the kind of stupid, impossible anticipation I haven’t felt since I was twenty-two and learning the timing of patrol routes in the North Wing so I could slip through the corridors unnoticed.
The comparison hits hard enough to make me smile at my own reflection.
That is what this feels like.
Young. Dangerous. Absolutely not permitted.
My heart is beating the same way it used to back then, all hard knocks and reckless momentum. As if it knows I’m about to go somewhere I shouldn’t. Like it knows the risk and wants the reward anyway.
I change quickly. Dark trousers, black shirt, softer than the starched one from the gala, sleeves that can be rolled if needed. No jacket and no cufflinks. I leave the first two buttons open because I know he likes it when I stop pretending to armor myself completely. The thought makes heat flash through me so hard it’s almost humiliating.
“Get a grip,” I mutter to myself, and then laugh under my breath because if I had any grip where Nikolaj is concerned, none of this would exist.
The driver doesn’t ask where I’m going when I hand him the address; he just nods. Good man. Good enough not to comment when I tell him to wait in the underground garage unless I text otherwise. Better enough not to look at me too closely when I getout two blocks east of the Aurelia instead and choose to walk the rest of the way alone.
The night air cuts coolly across my face and throat. I’m grateful for it. It gives me something external to blame for the tightness in my skin.
Hotel Aurelia rises ahead of me in pale stone and gold-lit windows, the kind of discreet luxury that pretends not to know exactly what kind of secrets its rented rooms have held over the years. The lobby staff barely look up when I pass through. Men like me move in and out of places like this every day, anonymous in the way only wealth and power can afford.
The keycard works after midnight exactly as promised.
Suite 2103 sits at the end of a private corridor thick with carpet and silence. I stand outside the door for half a second longer than necessary, staring at the polished brass numbers while my pulse climbs into my throat.
It’s been too long since the man I love looked at me and saw me whole.
I’ve imagined this a thousand times in worse ways. Not the room, not the hotel, but this feeling. The moment before him. The moment where I’m one knock away from either getting back the love of my life or finding out that memory returning and love surviving are not the same thing at all.
For the first time since I was twenty-two, I think with complete, irrational clarity: I have my heart back.
I raise my hand and knock.
