NICHOLAS
TONIGHT WAS THE night. It was mere hours before Prince Alejandro de la Vega arrived and the welcome ball began, and I was in turmoil.
I paced the entirety of my quarters, from the sitting room to my bedchambers to the dressing room and back again, unable to keep still.
I should’ve been focusing on details of the man who’d be at my side tonight, ensuring I asked the right questions and remembered important facts about his family, his country.
Instead, I couldn’t stop thinking of how I’d left Noah in the ballroom.
How we’d danced and he’d picked it up so effortlessly, letting me guide him and holding tight to me.
The way he’d felt in my arms, like he belonged there, with me, not serving me.
I’d dreamed about his soft little laughs all night, maybe the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard because it felt so private.
He wasn’t free to express himself in that way, not when he was attending to me or anywhere outside of staff quarters, and I realized now what a shame that was.
He was so beautiful when he smiled.
Beautiful…but forbidden.
Noah Bennett was not mine, could never be mine, and the fact that I’d even entertained letting things go as far as they had was a mistake I couldn’t make again.
I’d never been this foolish before, and here I was, the king now, thinking tempting thoughts about my footman? My father was rolling in his grave.
“You can do this,” I muttered to myself, stretching my neck from side to side and then shaking out my arms. It felt like there was so much pent-up energy in my body that had no place to go.
It was all bottled up inside along with every feeling and thought I’d ever had, stifled to make room for duty.
That was my purpose, the reason I’d been put on this earth, and I couldn’t fail now.
“You look like you’re heading to your own execution.”
I looked up at Gabriel, who leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed, an amused expression on his face.
“Aren’t I?” I said, tugging at the collar of the shirt that felt too tight all of a sudden.
Gabriel pushed off the door and walked over, shaking his head. When he stopped in front of me, he slapped my hand away and then unfastened the top two buttons.
“You don’t have to be so buttoned up in your own goddamn bedroom,” he said.
The second the buttons were undone, I could breathe again, and I closed my eyes, nodding.
His hands gripped my shoulders, and I felt like they were all that was holding me up right then. “You okay? Gonna pass out on me, big brother?”
I shook my head. “Five minutes.” It was what I always said when I felt resentful of the fact that it was me in this position and not Gabriel. If only he’d been the first twin.
Though that didn’t help the situation with Noah, because a prince couldn’t be with a footman either. We were from two different worlds, and no matter how much things had changed with modern times, class distinctions, and all the rules and stipulations that came with them, had not.
“You have seen this guy, right?” Gabriel said, giving my shoulders a little shake before dropping his hands. “He’s not exactly hard on the eyes. Maybe relax a little and you can enjoy him.” He waggled his brows at me, and where I would’ve normally laughed, I could only groan.
“Gabriel.”
“What? I know you’ve heard it too.”
“What, that he gets around?”
“Uh, translation: fucking good in bed. What’s the problem?”
I couldn’t exactly tell him why Alejandro held no appeal for me. I loved my brother, but he was far too friendly with the staff, and what if he let it slip about Noah, or treated him differently—or worse, joked about it when Baxter or Noah were around?
No, I couldn’t tell him. Nothing could happen there anyway, so what was the point?
“If you’re interested, I could make an introduction,” I said.
“Oh no you don’t. First of all, I’m not the king, and second, I don’t need help getting laid.”
“And I do?”
Gabriel quirked a brow, and I didn’t need to hear him say it.
I wasn’t as social as my brother. Not that I hadn’t indulged in relationships, because I had, but none of them had been considered serious or long term because the guys I’d been with didn’t provide enough advantages for my future position.
I hadn’t been thinking about marriage yet anyway, and truth be told, I was more grateful that it wasn’t a requirement to marry a woman to produce an heir or five, not when there were ways to still have a biological child using a vetted royal surrogate.
That, at least, was one way the monarchy had changed for the better, but the match for a king still had to be a politically advantageous one.
“When was the last time you had sex?”
“Unlike you, I don’t keep a little black book.”
Gabriel shrugged, completely unbothered by my barb. “Maybe you should. Keep a black book. That way you could’ve called someone last night to relieve this little…itch you seem to be having.”
“I don’t have an itch.”
“You sure? Seems to me you could definitely use a good scratch.”
“Are you quite done?”
Gabriel walked over to the chaise and sprawled out on it, kicking his legs out. “Yes, but we still haven’t worked out a solution to your little conundrum.”
I turned back to the mirror and began to refasten my buttons. “I didn’t realize that’s what we were doing. Also, since when has tying one’s life to another ever been considered a little issue?”
“Conundrum is the actual word I used, because that’s what it is.” Gabriel pursed his lips. “A confusing little problem we need an answer to.”
“This isn’t a mathematical equation, brother.”
“No, it’s a meeting between two men to see if they’re compatible, and all you have to be is agreeable.” Gabriel turned his head in my direction and winced. “Yes, I see where the problem is now.”
I turned to face him, hands on hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re so…” He gestured up my body to my rebuttoned shirt.
“What?” I snapped, my patience waning thin.
“Uptight.” Gabriel swung his legs down and sat up on the chaise. “You look like you’re going to negotiate a trade agreement.”
“That is what I’m doing. Trading my life for the good of the kingdom.”
“Yes, but you don’t have to go into it that way. Just change your perspective.”
“Because it’s that easy.” I let out a sigh and looked back to the mirror. If only it was Gabriel going into tonight’s meeting. He’d charm the prince, seduce him, and Valoria would be set for the rest of its days.
Instead, the prince was going to meet me, and seduction was the last thing on my mind.
“I have an idea.”
Oh God. There were a lot of words I didn’t want to hear come out of Gabriel’s mouth, but those four might be top of the list.
“I don’t think—”
“What if I take your place?”
I was right—that was the very last thing I wanted to hear out of his mouth. “Do you have any other ideas?”
Gabriel smirked as he stepped in behind me. “What, you don’t think I can do it?”
“Be me for a night?” My eyes found his in the mirror, the idea worming its way inside my mind. “No, you’ve done it before.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
The problem was that tonight was one of the most important nights Valoria had seen in decades. Tonight I would be presented to my betrothed. Everything had to be perfect, right down to the way I parted my damn hair.
“The problem is you’re too…friendly.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes, straightened his shoulders, then drew his lips into a thin line.
“I think what you mean to say, dear brother,” he said, his eyes losing their warmth and frosting over with cool disdain as they assessed my reflection, “is that, unlike you, I’m far too personable to pull off your boorish attitude. I beg to disagree.”
“I don’t act like that.”
“You don’t think?” Gabriel grinned, and his entire demeanor changed.
I spun around on him, my annoyance reaching its boiling point. “This isn’t funny, Gabriel.”
“No, it isn’t, it’s very serious, and you clearly aren’t in the right headspace to do what you need to tonight. Let me help.”
“By being me?”
“Yes. It’s one night. One dinner.”
“And what am I going to do while you’re being me?”
Gabriel smirked. “Chase the footmen around the kitchen?”
I almost choked on his off-hand comment, but quickly covered my tracks with disapproval. “You better not be chasing anyone around the kitchen.”
Gabriel swiped his hand through the air and spun away from me. “Don’t start worrying about that. You have enough rattling around in that brain of yours to lose sleep over where I’m scratching my itch. But for tonight, I’m offering you a chance to choose you. It might be the last chance you get.”
He wasn’t wrong. After tonight, engagement announcements would be made to the public, wedding plans would be put in place, and soon enough I would be bound to another—not of my choosing—for the rest of my life.
God, what a depressing thought.
Gabriel leaned back against my desk and crossed his arms. “So, what do you think? Are you going to let me distract the prince so you can scope him out from across the room?”
Was I? It was an insane plan, one I knew I should veto, but the offer was too tempting, and Gabriel was right—I wasn’t in the right headspace to do this.
“Okay. We’ll do it.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“I swear to God, Gabriel, if you were just kidding about—”
“No, no, I’m dead serious.” He pushed off the desk and crossed back to me. “I just never thought you’d agree.”
“You have to play this so carefully.”
“I know.”
“More so than ever before. No one can know it’s not—”
“You. I know. I’ve got this. The question is, do you? You’re going to have to smile at people.”
I gave him a droll look that made a wide grin appear on his mouth, and I shook my head.
Jesus, I wasn’t sure how we were going to pull this off, but somehow, by tonight, not only did we have to fill each others’ shoes, but we’d also have to swap body language and expressions too.
It had been a long time since I’d swapped places with Gabriel, but when I thought about the alternative, I realized I’d do just about anything. I could do this. One last selfish act before I dove into my new life headfirst.
What could possibly go wrong?