Chapter 3

I discovered very quickly that there were two versions of Lucien.

There was the Lucien everyone else knew, the perfectly controlled royal bodyguard who followed me through meetings, stood behind my chair during dinners, corrected my terrible decisions with that irritating calmness of his, and somehow managed to make even my father believe that I was easier to handle than I actually was.

Then there was the Lucien I had known before he decided I was no longer allowed to have him.

Unfortunately, everyone else still had the first one.

I only had the first one too.

That was the problem.

At breakfast, he stood behind my chair while I argued with the royal secretary about a schedule I had no intention of following.

“I have already told you that I am not spending three hours listening to merchants argue over grain tariffs when I have a meeting with the military council immediately afterward,” I complained, pushing the schedule across the table. “If the merchants want to complain about grain, they can complain to someone who actually enjoys being bored to death.”

Lucien calmly picked up the schedule and placed it back in front of me.

“You agreed to attend this meeting yesterday.”

“I was clearly suffering from temporary insanity yesterday.”

“You were also sober.”

The secretary looked down very quickly, probably to hide a smile.

I pointed at Lucien without turning around. “You see what he does to me? He humiliates the Crown Prince in front of government officials and expects to survive the afternoon.”

Lucien's expression remained completely serious. “The Crown Prince survives considerably worse things every day, including his own decisions.”

The secretary laughed.

I looked at Lucien, and for half a second, I almost forgot. That was how it kept happening. A stupid comment. A familiar expression.

The exact tone he had used hundreds of times before.

Something inside me would reach for the old version of us automatically, and then I would remember that I was no longer allowed to follow that feeling anywhere.

So I smiled, because everyone was watching.

“You are becoming remarkably insolent for a man who spends most of his day following me around.”

“I spend most of my day preventing you from requiring medical attention.”

“You say that as though my continued survival is personally important to you.”

“It is literally my responsibility.”

The answer came too quickly.

My smile stayed where it was. Something inside me did not. I turned back to the schedule and forced myself to read it.

Nobody noticed. That became the most infuriating part.

Nobody noticed that Lucien no longer leaned against the door of my study while I worked late, listening to me complain about ministers and council members until I eventually started talking about things that had nothing to do with politics.

Nobody noticed that when I woke from a nightmare, I now stared at my bedroom ceiling until morning instead of walking barefoot across the corridor to his quarters.

Nobody noticed that I had stopped touching him whenever I passed him, stopped stealing his gloves, stopped sitting too close to him during long journeys, stopped finding ridiculous reasons to keep him talking after everyone else had left.

Nobody noticed because Lucien had become very good at behaving as though none of those things had ever existed.

And apparently, so had I.

By the time the first prospective bride arrived, I was exhausted from pretending.

She was beautiful, which was probably the first thing everyone expected me to notice.

Lady Celia had dark hair, elegant manners, a pleasant smile, and the sort of family name that made half the council suddenly become interested in her existence. She sat opposite me in the private reception room while servants brought tea, and I listened to her speak about the capital, her education, her travels, and the charitable work she had done with her mother.

I responded when I was supposed to.

I smiled when appropriate. I even made her laugh twice.

Unfortunately, I also spent most of the conversation staring at the man standing behind me. I noticed everything. The way Lucien's hand rested near the hilt of his sword. The way his attention moved around the room whenever someone entered.

The way he never once looked directly at me for longer than necessary.

Lady Celia noticed my distraction eventually.

She glanced toward him with an amused smile.

“Your Highness seems remarkably accustomed to having him nearby.”

I looked at Lucien before answering.

“He has been following me around since I was twelve. At this point, I suspect removing him would cause more problems than keeping him.”

Lady Celia laughed softly and turned toward Lucien.

“Has the prince always been this difficult?”

Lucien looked at me.

For one tiny, stupid second, the room disappeared.

His mouth shifted slightly, and he said, “Worse.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. It was so familiar that it almost hurt.

I looked at him, grinning despite myself, and he looked back at me with that faint amusement I had spent the entire morning pretending I didn't miss.

Then he straightened.

His face became unreadable again.

“Your Highness,” he said formally, “Lady Celia was asking about your charitable work.”

Just like that, he was gone again.

The smile disappeared from my face before I could stop it.

Lady Celia continued talking, completely unaware that anything had happened.

I listened. I answered. I played the charming prince.

And when she finally left, I waited until the doors closed before turning toward him.

“Why are you doing this?”

Lucien glanced at me. “Doing what?”

“You know exactly what I mean, so please don't insult both of us by pretending you don't.”

His expression hardened slightly.

“You have been treating me like a stranger all day, and then you suddenly make one joke with me and behave as though nothing happened. I don't understand what you want from me.”

“I want you to behave appropriately.”

“That is not what I asked.”

He looked away then I stepped closer.

“Yesterday you were standing in my room telling me to leave, and today you are following me around like nothing happened. You cannot keep changing the rules and expect me to understand them.”

His voice was quiet when he finally answered.

“Because I remembered what I am.”

I swallowed.

“And what am I?”

“The man I am sworn to protect.”

I stared at him.

“That is not what I asked.”

Lucien's eyes met mine, and for a second I thought he might finally say something real, something that would explain why he had suddenly taken sixteen years of closeness and shoved them behind a wall.

Instead, he stepped around me and walked away.

That night, I stayed in my room.

I actually tried to obey him. It was pathetic how difficult it was.

I sat on my bed for nearly an hour with a book open in my lap, reading the same page repeatedly because every few minutes I caught myself listening for footsteps in the corridor.

Nobody came. Eventually I put the book aside and lay down. That was when my mind decided to become cruel.

I remembered being twelve.

My mother had been dead for only a few weeks, and I had been sitting on the palace corridor floor in the middle of the night because I could not stand being inside my own bedroom.

Everyone kept telling me that I had to be strong.

The King had responsibilities. The court had expectations. The heir could not be seen falling apart.

Lucien had found me there anyway.

He had been fifteen then, still young enough that nobody should have expected him to know what to do with a grieving prince, but he had sat beside me without asking permission and stayed there while I cried until my throat hurt.

I remembered asking him whether the pain would ever stop.

He had looked at me for a long time before answering.

He told me grief did not disappear just because people became tired of seeing it, and that I did not have to pretend I was fine simply because everyone else wanted me to be.

I remembered leaning against his shoulder. I remembered falling asleep there.

I remembered waking up with his cloak around me.

Sixteen years.

That was how long Lucien had been quietly teaching me that I did not have to carry everything alone.

And now he was deliberately becoming the one thing I could not reach when I needed him.

I turned onto my side and pulled the blanket tighter around myself, angry at him, angry at my father, angry at myself for still wanting to walk across the palace and knock on Lucien's door even after being told not to.

Eventually exhaustion dragged me under.

I did not know how long I had been asleep when my bedroom door opened.

The movement woke me instantly.

For one disoriented second, I thought Lucien had finally come back.

I pushed myself upright, already reaching toward the figure near my bed, but the room was empty.

The door was slowly closing.

Nobody stood there. My gaze dropped to the pillow beside me.

Something white had been placed on it. I picked it up and unfolded the paper.

I knew the handwriting before I finished reading the first line.

Don't come looking for me.