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He had called her that.

But once again, she was reading the situation entirely the wrong way. He looked at her, this girl that he’d known for most of her life. And he could remember the precise moment she had stopped simply being Vesuvius’s sister to him, and had become…something else. Something highly problematic.

It wasn’t that summer before she’d gone off to the Sorbonne, which everyone who knew her knew was simply the most expedient way for her to get to live in Paris and do as she liked, away from the kingdom. She had gone through her schooling, plus an extra year of what her mother had called polishing, before she’d died. Saviero remembered that Vesuvius had been discussing some other issue, walking out in the gardens. They had come upon Cesca sunning herself in the summer sun. Entirely in the nude.

My God, Vesuvius had said, rolling his eyes. You do realize that anyone could happen upon you and see you, Cesca? You do know that, yes?

Cesca had been, mercifully, lying on her stomach at the time. She had lifted her head and glanced back over her shoulder at her brother and Saviero, looking completely unrepentant.

Being looked at is the point, Vesuvius, she had replied, with a certain amusement that made it clear that the Princess considered herself a grown woman.

Saviero had thought she was a bratty girl, acting out for attention.

Years later, she had finished with her education and had been there to help her brother open a new Royal Gallery in honor of their mother. There were big plans for the gallery, but the initial opening featured only the art that had hung in the palace—their mother’s personal collection.

Saviero had accidentally walked in on Cesca alone in one of the rooms, gazing not at the many great and famous works of art, but a series of pen-and-ink sketches that were tucked away in a corner.

She had looked up and seen him there, and her gaze had looked something like haunted. She’d been dressed for the event later, wearing a dress that showed off the whole of her back, a sweep of smooth flesh that he could still see behind his eyes without trying, like it was tattooed there. Her mouth had curved. My mother loved to draw, she had said. She was not particularly good at it, I suppose, but all I can see is the love in every line.

It was like a sucker punch. The look on her face. The shape of her. The astonishing notion that she was far more than the tabloid articles said she was.

He had never quite recovered.

Luckily enough, Cesca had provided him with more than enough to consider that had nothing to do with that moment or its effect on him. She was forever falling in and out of parties. She ran with a pack of extraordinarily well-moneyed aristocrats and assorted other bluebloods, who were expected to be exquisitely educated, but whose generally outrageous leisure activities were hand waved away.

Many of the people she’d run with had been corralled by their wealthy families or royal relatives and forced to go on sheepish goodwill tours in the hopes of rehabbing their reputations. But Cesca had never had to do the same, because one thing that Cesca had always been absurdly good at was giving a good interview to the press—or anyone else who approached her. She was wry and self-deprecating and always seemed in on the joke, even if the joke in question was meant to be her.

Saviero and Vesuvius had actually studied her, over the years. The Princess had staff, and her own PR team, but she was forever going off script. She had somehow managed to do what every other Royal they knew of paid staff handsomely to make happen on their behalf—she connected with the kingdom. She was consistently rated the most popular Royal not only in Liandero, but usually in Europe in general as well.

Not that she ever seemed to care about such things, which only made her more darling in the eyes of the public. They liked that she was cheeky and irreverent. They adored her when she was brazenly honest and never afraid to shake her head at her own antics.

Vesuvius seemed certain that she would make a good Queen for his country despite or possibly because of all this. And Saviero knew that he meant it, because there was no possible way that Vesuvius would have left if he didn’t feel that his beloved kingdom was in good hands.

So it was easy enough to answer her, now, standing here in her bedchamber. It was a quarter past seven in the morning, and the sun was not due to rise until after eight. Outside her windows, he could see that it was starting to consider lightening to the east more than before, but he would still describe the world as dark. A darkness he could feel inside him, today.

But she had asked him a question.

“The only thing that has ever concerned me is the kingdom,” he told her, holding her gaze with his. “And therefore I am happy to do my part to make certain that you can rule it well. I knew before your brother officially abdicated his throne what he wished for me to do after he left, because it would best serve Liandero, and I see the wisdom in it. That’s what’s in it for me.”

Because the one constant in his life was the kingdom. And devotion to the crown was rational, he had always believed, because it did not come with the risk of loss. His parents. His grandfather. His friend.

The kingdom endured.

Now that he was even more intricately tied up in it, he would see to it personally.

And he would not acknowledge the grief that threatened then, like a tidal wave he could not acknowledge. Not ever.

As he watched, her shoulders drooped. She tilted her head backward and then she rolled her eyes so wildly that he was somewhat surprised they didn’t fall out of the side of her head and cascade across the floor.

“I cannot think of anything more boring you could possibly have said,” she said, and let out a long sigh that was more like a groan. “Of course this was a directive from my brother. Of course you dutifully agreed to do what was best for the kingdom.” She was frowning a bit as she said that last part, and clearly intended to give the impression she was mimicking his own voice. He could only blink in astonishment. “It’s like talking to a robot.”

And then she turned away, still rolling her eyes as far as he could tell, and stalked across the room. Heading in the direction of what he knew were the rest of her apartments. Beyond this foyer, she had a set of rooms, her wardrobe—which required its own set of rooms—and entertainment center, an office he assumed was unused, and several sitting rooms that she used for various different purposes, according to staff.

She headed down the hall away from him, toward the bedroom he knew was at the back. Saviero was still blinking in astonishment as she sauntered off, stripping that tunic from her body as she went. And then, as he stood stock-still—unable, somehow, to make himself look away—she pulled off that strapless top she was wearing and tossed it aside, so that all he could see was her hair in all those braids and then nothing but the expanse of her back once again, the sinuous wave of her spine, the sway of her hips—

Saviero gritted his teeth. There was no time for this. Not today.

What was also in it for him, he could have told her, was the fact that he had no intention of having a bloodless marriage. Not with her. She knew as well as he did that heirs would be expected, and he could not wait to start working on that particular project.