Page 57 of The Royal in Room 3

“Daddy?”

“Yes, little prince?”

“Thank you for checking up on me at the club tonight.”

I groaned. “I told Phoenix not to tell you about that.”

“He didn’t. I saw you when you walked away. But why didn’t you come over?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt your work.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” he said with a sigh. “After all the mistakes I made, it might not have been a good idea to have my Daddy at work.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and bit the inside of my cheek to keep it at that, but I didn’t want a relationship built on lies and half-truths.

“Actually, the truth is that when I saw you sitting beside that man, I was so jealous that I couldn’t bear seeing you with him.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” I patted his bare bottom. “Turns out seeing you with another man makes me jealous. I don’t want you to find a better Daddy than me.”

“But there is no better Daddy than you.” Soren wriggled down my body and took my cock in his hand.

“Soren, I thought you were tired?”

“I made Daddy sad earlier, so I have to make him happy now.” He grinned sleepily at me and rubbed his cheek over my groin like a cat. “If I fall asleep sucking you off, you have my permission to use your little toy just the same. And I might let you do it again if you can do it and not wake me.”

19

SOREN

Despite going to bed late, I woke up before the sun was out. My eyes burned from too little sleep, and my ass had the sticky reminder of Jude rocking into me ever so slowly last night. I must have fallen asleep somewhere in the middle because I didn’t recall how it’d ended, though I didn’t need much of an imagination to figure it out.

I snuggled closer to Jude, and he shifted in his sleep, anchoring one big arm around me. Usually, his presence made me feel so safe that I’d never had a problem falling asleep, but my mind kept returning to Martin and how, after his date left, we’d talked for the rest of the night—mostly about our love for Belvaria.

At the time, I’d loved every minute of our conversation, but in that pre-dawn moment, when I should have felt at peace knowing people cared about me, I felt a profound sense of despair and melancholy.

Belvaria might have turned its back on me, but it was home, and I missed it. I’d been so upset with my father for watching from the sidelines while I was stripped not only of my royal title but also of the life I had always known that I had refused to keep in touch with him. Now I regretted it because I’d already lost so much. My father and half brother were the only close family I had left, and I wasn’t even that close to my half brother.

After frustratingly lying in the dark for a while, I picked up Jude’s arm and carefully got out of bed. He was up late last night waiting for me to come home, and he worked long hours during the day. He deserved not to be disturbed by me because I was preoccupied with a past I didn’t even know if I should share with him.

Things were good between Jude and me right now, but would this change when he found out I was royally incompetent?

Frustrated, I put on Jude’s robe and slipped out of the house. The morning air was cold, so I pulled the robe tighter around myself, but I didn’t bother going back for shoes. I crossed the yard and made my way toward the beach, the sand cool beneath my bare feet. Dawn hadn’t broken yet, though the darkness was beginning to thin along the horizon, turning the sky from black to a deep, cloudy blue.

The ocean was louder at that hour without the usual sounds of people and traffic. There was only the steady crash of waves and the wind moving across the water. I walked slowly, letting the damp sand sink beneath my feet, but the heaviness inside me followed.

My thoughts drifted to my mother.

I missed her so badly sometimes and it made no sense because I could barely remember her. I was only five when she died, yet I could swear that sometimes I remembered her singing to me while putting me to bed. If not for the photos my father kept of her, I would have forgotten what she looked like, but I didn’t even have that anymore since the portrait I’d carried of her was stolen among the things Daphne had taken.

The suffocating feeling came with the memories of my two older brothers, whom I’d been close to. They’d taken extra special care to look after me after our mother died, and I’d always tagged along with them wherever they went. For the first time, Marcel had turned me down when I’d asked to join their ski trip. Thad had backed him, though he’d tried to soften the blow by promising they would take me the following year.

I had refused to speak to either of them before they left. Didn’t even see them off. For days afterward, I had been angry. Then the accident happened.

Their refusal had saved my life. Had they agreed to take me, I would have been with them. I would have been in the same vehicle, on the same mountain road, and there would have been three empty rooms in the palace instead of two.

The thought pressed painfully against my chest as I walked closer to the edge of the water until the waves washed soothingly over my ankles.