Page 45 of Royal Resistance

Duncan and I are close, but that doesn’t mean I poke around in his romantic life. I leave that to his sister.

“Her name is Signe. I met her in town.” He shrugs like meeting a woman is nothing. And to him it isn’t. “We’ll see what happens.”

“Well, yeah. It’s new and… Did you kiss her?”

“Do you really want to know that?”

“I really don’t… but, yeah.”

“Yes.”

“You kissed her.”

“That’s what I said.”

“How long have you known her?”

“Maybe a week.”

Ah. So I’m… I don’t know what I am, but I don’t think it’s a good thing. “I’m not you, my friend,” I tell Duncan, turning back to the window. “I’m not the one with women lined up around the block.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I point to his briefcase. “The proof for your latest cover looks pretty good. You look even better with the silver starting in your hair.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. I’m a part-time model. You’re a king.”

“I get that. But I’m not dating Selene. It’s different. And you helped arrange my marriage. Literally.”

“Maybe that’s how it started, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. I’ve seen the way Selene looks at you at dinner.”

“After a half bottle of wine,” I scoff.

An expression of amazement crosses his handsome face. “Are you scared she won’t like you like that?”

“Neither of us signed up to like each other like that.”

“That doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”

“Well, it hasn’t.”

Duncan looks at me like I’ve told him the sky is pink. “Really, Mag? You don’t know that. You don’t know how she feels because I think… from the sounds of it… King Magnus of Laandia is afraid of telling his wife that he likes her. In that way.”

I bend over the paperwork on my desk. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“It doesn’t have to be that different. You want a real marriage with her, don’t you?”

I don’t look at him, because then he’ll know that’s what I want. What I really want. “Hopefully.”

My feelings for Selene are new and uncertain. I like her as a person, and I find her undeniably attractive, but…

It’s more than that. It’s so much more, but I don’t exactly understand it.

And I definitely don’t know if she feels the same way. If she ever could.

Because what if she can’t? What if this marriage means something different for Selene? What if she might not ever want to close the gap between us in bed?

I hate the gap between us in bed, and I’m too mortified about my inability to do anything about it.