Chapter 14
Galen followed Theo and Meg into the house.
It had been years since he was here last. Before Theo’s father got sick.
Before the world came crashing down around them.
They used to make an effort to visit once a quarter, to unplug and spend some time recharging where their every move wasn’t scrutinized.
He stood in the entranceway and let the memories wash over him.
Eating with Theo around the small kitchen island.
Scrolling through the endless selection of movies on the massive television in the living room before they decided they were their own best entertainment.
Spending days wrapped up in each other on the bed situated in the other half of the loft.
Fucking in the shower, the pool, against the windows that stretched the entire length of the back of the house.
Theo moved unerringly to the liquor cabinet tucked in the corner of the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. As he began setting out three glasses, Galen turned to watch Meg.
The open floor plan was really more suited for a loft than a house, but he’d always liked the smallness of it.
Everything in Thalania had been opulent and over-sized, a race to the most ridiculous display of wealth.
Theo participated by virtue of his birth, though his heart wasn’t in it.
Galen just flat out didn’t play. But being surrounded by people with those kind of priorities wore a person down.
This was more home than his various houses in Thalania because it was his in a way that was independent of his role for his country and his future king.
Meg moved around the house as if in a daze, her eyes growing bigger by the second. He tried to see things from her perspective, but there was nothing particularly special about this place, aside from the location. Maybe the pool. It was just a house, albeit one that mattered to him.
“Oh, Galen.” Her soft words washed over him like the morning mist. “This is wonderful.”
“I designed it.” He didn’t mean to say the words.
He just opened his mouth and they emerged fully formed.
“For me and Theo. It’s our place.” He hesitated, and then cursed himself for hesitating.
Galen walked up to stand next to her where she stood looking out over the pool and the Aegean Sea.
From certain angles, the infinity pool looked like it actually merged with the sea itself.
He watched her face in the reflection in the glass. “It could be your place, too.”
A true sanctuary for the three of them.
She gave him a smile weighed down by sadness.
“I think we both know that I’ll never make it back again, but I appreciate the thought.
It feels like magic here.” She wrapped her arms around herself, the movement mostly unhindered despite the bandage still wrapping her arm.
The physical reminder of how badly he’d fucked up.
“This whole experience has been like magic. I keep thinking I’ve stepped through a mirror or climbed into a wardrobe.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to reality after this.
” The last was said so low, he had no doubt she hadn’t meant to voice it.
Stay.
He clenched his jaw to keep the word inside.
It wasn’t his place to offer that. Things between them worked now because they were perfectly equal.
Going back to Thalania—taking Meg back to Thalania—would skew that.
It had to. Even if he somehow convinced Meg to stay, to be with him publicly and with Theo privately…
Theo would still marry someone else. They’d only be borrowing time against a future heartbreak.
It might be worth it.
“I was serious before, Galen.” She kept her voice pitched low. “You didn’t fail. You were working with the parameters of what you knew. Theo lived. I lived. We got out of there because of you.”
“It’s my job to keep him safe—to keep both of you safe.
” A job he’d spent his life doing. Theo might think it was a debt long since paid, but even after all this time he didn’t understand how thoroughly he’d changed Galen’s life.
Theo was loved by his parents, and when his mother died and his father remarried, he was loved by his step-mother as well.
He never wanted for anything, emotional or otherwise.
Galen’s path to his teenage years differed greatly. His family had the money and power, but his home life was… less than ideal. He shook his head. “You’ve done enough. Though I suppose you could offer that sweet pussy up in the way of comfort.”
“Don’t do that.” She turned to face him, her hazel eyes large in her face. “I love the dirty talk and you know it, but don’t throw it between us like some kind of weapon because you’re done with the conversation.”
He sighed. “Look, I don’t do this shit.”
“This shit.” Meg gave a half smile. “Have conversations?”
“Relationship shit.” He ignored her surprise and kept going, well aware that Theo had drifted closer again.
Things were easier between Theo and Meg.
Their personalities complimented each other.
Theo might drive her up the wall, but he’d pull her out of her shell the same way he coaxed Galen out of his.
There was no resisting Theo when he set his mind to something.
And Meg gave Theo a piece of something he’d never had access to before—normalcy.
A woman who cared about him first, and his power and rank and country second.
For Galen and Meg, it was different. Fucking her was as easy as breathing. They fit. They fit even better with Theo in the mix. Conversations? Emotions? The rest of that shit? Not so easy.
But he hated the wounded look in her eyes when he shut her down, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself from trying to fix it, even knowing he’d likely make it worse.
“Theo and I have been friends for so long, sometimes it feels like we’re two halves to a whole.
We don’t have misunderstandings. We know each other as well as we know ourselves.
Fuck yeah, we fight. We’re both stubborn bastards and that throws wrenches into the gears sometimes.
It’s not effortless, but I know what Theo needs from me and vice-versa. This is different.”
“This is temporary.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that. Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
She didn’t seem to have an answer for that, so he kept going. “I won’t use sex as a weapon again.” He allowed himself a slow smile. “Though I meant what I said. I am going to take my frustrations out on your sweet pussy.”
She blushed a cute pink. “Yeah, I got the memo.” Meg turned to face Theo. “Are those shots?”
“Indeed.” He passed out one to each of them and raised his own. “We’re alive. A celebration is in order. Bourbon, good food, and fucking until dawn.”
Meg laughed. “That’s a toast I can support.”
They took their shots as one. Theo met Galen’s gaze and raised his eyebrows, and then turned to Meg. “Why don’t you grab that shower while I get food started?”
She looked between them and sighed. “If you needed time to talk, you could just say so.”
“We could,” Galen agreed. “But you have a nasty tendency to eavesdrop. It’s a terrible habit.”
This time, her smile was bright enough to light up the room. “You love it. What’s the point in devising all those ways to punish me if I never do anything to deserve said punishment?”
Theo chuckled. “She’s got you there.”
“Shower. Now.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.” She blew them both a kiss and strode to the only door in the interior.
There was a spare bedroom and second bathroom downstairs, but no one had ever used them.
They were an eventuality that Galen had planned for without ever following through on.
He’d had Theo here. Why would he want to bring someone else?
Meg sure as fuck wouldn’t be using the spare bed.
They waited for the shower to start going before moving to the kitchen. Theo poured another set of shots and slid on toward him. “What if this wasn’t temporary?”
“Don’t.”
“I’m just saying—”
Galen downed his shot. “This has to be temporary, Theo. You have to marry one of the nobles to keep everyone in line. Your mother was a foreigner, and if your father had married another outsider for his second wife, the Families would have revolted.”
“Fuck the Families.”
“You can say that and get away with it. No one else can.” He couldn’t let Theo do this, couldn’t let him offer hope where there was none.
“With most things in life, you can power through them and bulldoze people into doing what you want. This isn’t one of those things.
We’re taking back our country, Theo. That comes with responsibilities for you.
A marriage. Being king. You don’t have the luxury of choosing. ”
Theo looked at him a moment too long. “This isn’t only about Meg, is it? You’re already working on the wall you’re going to build between us. How does that look in your head, Galen? This future you’re planning without talking to anyone.”
Of all the variations of Theo, Galen hated the reasonable one the most. His friend was so much easier to deal with when he was being sardonic or driven or fanciful.
He clenched his jaw. “Like I said—you marry one of those noble girls. She has your babies. Your children inherit. There is no place for me in that picture, not outside of being your head of security.”
When they were young and dumb, they’d gotten blindingly drunk one night and talked about what it would be like if they got married.
It was a pretty thought, but it couldn’t happen.
The succession had to be cemented, and it had to be cemented without anything too complicated fucking it up.
Theo and Galen getting married had complicated written all over it.
An impossible dream, just like a future with them and Meg together. Emphasis on impossible.
“What if we just walked?”
“That’s not funny.”