Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 619(@200wpm)___ 495(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
“A shabby, half-empty castle with most of the wings closed off and unused, no servants except a small staff of housekeepers and Maxwell—and Maxwell’s only here because he refuses to let us fire him or find him better work when no one in the twenty-first century actually needs a valet. The nicest things we own are some antique furniture and old tapestries,” Cillian said dryly. “We don’t even have old crowns as like, museum displays or heirlooms or anything. I wore a tin foil tiara at Christmas once. My oldest brother proclaimed me Prince of the Gays when I came out, and knighted me with a broom handle because we don’t typically keep swords laying about.”
“So you’re ordinary people.”
“Mostly.”
Brendan fell silent for a few moments longer, humming thoughtfully, then said, “I refuse to call you ‘your Highness.’”
“I would punt you in the face if you ever did.”
Cillian gathered his courage, then, and pushed himself to face Brendan—to lift his head, to look at him, to see if anything had changed. But Brendan was still simply Brendan, watching him with deep brown eyes thoughtful and while maybe not quite as calm as usual, still not staring at Cillian as though he’d become an alien in a matter of moments with just one simple word.
“Please,” Cillian said, and twisted himself out of Brendan’s embrace so he could clasp both of those well-worn, firm hands in his own. “I like being just Cillian with you. Ordinary Cillian. No responsibilities other than getting my lines right. No countdown to a life spent holding council votes and drawing up paperwork. Just me. So please don’t treat me any differently.”
A small smile flickered across Brendan’s lips, there and gone. “That sounds like code for ‘please don’t stop fucking me.’”
“It is what we seem to do best.”
It’s everything we are.
Just that, and nothing else.
“Maybe we need to practice a little more.” Brendan smirked. “Just to live up to your royal standard.”
Cillian rolled his eyes, “Oh, get fucked.”
Grumbling, he fell back against Brendan, fitting himself into the curve of his body and waiting for that heavy arm to drape over him again. After a moment Brendan gathered him in once more—and together they settled against the sofa in a silence that wasn’t quite as comfortable as it used to be.
Something had changed.
Cillian could feel it.
The air tasted different, and all the colors were wrong, and damn it all, he’d just wanted to enjoy one thing while he had it…
“Cillian?” Brendan asked into the silence.
“…yeah?”
“What happens if you just…tell your parents no?”
“I don’t know,” Cillian confessed quietly. “I’ve been a little afraid to find out.”
A coward just like I am in everything else.
I’m too afraid to tell you how I’m starting to feel about you.
“Why?”
Cillian smiled bitterly. If only he could answer that why in so many ways, but he could at least be honest about the questions asked aloud, the things that ignored what sat unspoken between them.
“Maybe my parents got under my skin too much,” he said. “But I always think…what if I burn out in a few years? Fast rise, fast fall. But because I’ve turned my back on my family, I wouldn’t have anywhere to go. I wouldn’t even belong here, this foreigner who’s getting less and less work to justify the work visa. I’d just…end up adrift, without a home or country to call my own.”
“I wouldn’t let that happen to you,” Brendan promised, and for a moment Cillian’s heart wrenched at the idea that he could just be imagining some hint of feeling in that drawling voice.
He just squeezed his eyes shut, buried into Brendan, and held.
Tell him.
Tell him you’re in love with him.
But if I tell him I’m in love with him, some other voice countered, cold and hollow, he won’t believe me.
Brendan abruptly stiffened. “…oh. Fuck. So that’s what ‘diplomatic relations’ meant.”
“Hm?” Cillian opened one eye.
“Drake had lunch with your agent after you landed the part. She said something about ‘diplomatic relations.’”
“…I think he misunderstood.” Cillian nearly choked on a tired laugh. “She’s the only other one besides Maxwell who knows, and she, um, did a little fudging with my paperwork to make me look like a British national who waffles around Canada sometimes. No one of note.”
Brendan just looked at him.
“…what?” Cillian blinked. “I didn’t want to start off with people knowing. They’d think I was famous just because I was royal.”
“You were so certain you’d be famous, huh?”
“I wanted to try,” Cillian said. “I wanted to reach as many lonely people as I could.”
Something strange flitted across Brendan’s face, darkening his brows, clouding his eyes; he looked at Cillian oddly for several moments, before looking away, his lips curling.
“I’m sure you will, Cillian,” he murmured. “I’m sure you will.”
l
SO CILLIAN WAS A PRINCE.
Playing a Duke.
In love with the daughter of an Earl.