Alexa smiled. Nasrin had been like a gift when she’d come to work for her after Sol had died, organising her life and making her smile again with her chatty, easy nature. Everything else had felt so oppressive at the time, oppressive and overwhelming, during those dark days.
Not that she begrudged her role as the future Queen of Berenia. She didn’t because she loved her country, and her countrymen, and she wanted to do the best job for them in Sol’s stead. She wanted to make her father proud. And if the Prince went along with her plan she could do that. She could help rebuild relations between Berenia and Santara, and buy herself the necessary time to make a marriage that not only pleased her father but herself as well.
The decider would be whether or not she could implement a plan that had seemed perfectly logical at inception, but now felt desperately naive.
But if the Prince turned her down she’d just have to find someone else. Because the alternative—marrying the man who was on top of her father’s list of eligible suitors—didn’t bear thinking about.
* * *
Rafe gazed around the ballroom of the Santarian Summer Palace, a place he’d spent many formative years, with mixed emotions. As a general rule he tried not to return here very often, not only because it didn’t hold the best memories, but because when he’d left Santara as a disaffected teenager he’d cut all ties with his nation.
And he wasn’t sorry that he had. He didn’t miss the life here. He didn’t miss the sun that was hot enough most of the year to blister paint, and he didn’t miss the endless round of lacklustre royal duties his father had expected him to carry out as the second son of Santara. The less important son. He didn’t miss having his ideas shot down in flames by a man who had never understood his drive and ambition to forge his own path in life.
‘It’s lucky you’re a prince, sibi,’ his father had often snarled. ‘You’d amount to nothing if you weren’t.’
Hard-nosed and narrow-minded, his father had treated opposing opinions as little more than ripples on a quiet pond.
Rafe had learned not to care, disconnecting from his father, and rubbing his nose in it any chance that he got. And despite—or perhaps because of—his father’s convictions that he wouldn’t amount to anything he’d made a success of his life.
He’d broken free of the constraints of royal duty and lived life on his own terms. Not that his father was around to see it. His death when Rafe had been eighteen was the very thing that had set him free. Or rather his brother had set him free when he’d stepped into the role of King at nineteen and given Rafe permission to spread his wings.
Returning from studying in the US at the time, Rafe knew that Jag could have used his insider knowledge and support, and it was only now, looking back, that he understood the sacrifice his brother had made for him, shouldering the burden of a troubled nation on his own and never asking anything of Rafe in return.
Once sharing what he would have said was an unbreakable bond, their relationship had grown strained with distance and Rafe was never sure how to bridge the gulf without losing himself in the process. Still, he owed Jag a debt of gratitude, even if his brother didn’t think so.
Catching the direction of his thoughts before they progressed any further, Rafe shook them off with well-practised ease. This was partly the reason he hated returning home. The memories, the choked feeling of constraint and the heaviness that came over him that wasn’t a part of the life that he lived now. A life based on unsurpassed pleasure, beauty and freedom. A life he lived predominantly in England, where he’d used a stellar investment in technology while attending Cambridge to purchase his first bar and nightclub. He had ‘the touch’ some said, an innate ability to tap into what his clientele wanted and to transform any venue he took over into the hottest place in town.
Which often made him the hottest property in town, pursued again and again by women looking to change his mind about remaining single. Something he had no intention of doing. Ever. In his experience the novelty factor rarely lasted beyond the bedroom and, even if it did, his parents’ tumultuous relationship had cured him of ever thinking marriage was an institution he wanted to be part of.
Much better to have fun while it lasted, and move on before anyone got hurt. And if the tabloids wanted to paint him as a playboy prince to get foot traffic on their websites, that was hardly his problem. Something Jag didn’t understand.
But then Jag was still a little aggrieved about the whole French heiress debacle at this event last year. Having grown bored early on in the night, Rafe had taken her to his hot tub upstairs, only to have her post photos of the two of them to her social media account. If he’d known Jag was in the middle of important negotiations with her father at the time he would have insisted that she leave her phone downstairs.
An oversight that had led him to promise his brother that he would stay out of trouble this evening. Which wasn’t exactly fair because Rafe rarely went looking for trouble any more. More often than not it found him.
As if on cue, he saw his sister making a beeline for him as she wound her way through the throng of impeccably groomed guests at the ball.
‘I take it the ostrich lost?’ he teased, his eyes going to the brightly coloured feathers covering her skirt. ‘Or do you have plans to return the outfit to the poor creature at the end of the night?’
‘Laugh all you want,’ Milena challenged with narrowed eyes. ‘But I love the dress and every feather had already been shed before it was collected. Is that what you were grinning at before? Or was it something else? I swear you had that glint in your eye that said you were up to no good.’
‘Just remembering a certain French heiress I met at about this time last year.’
‘Oh, please.’ Milena rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t let Jag hear you say the words “French” and “heiress” together in a sentence; he’ll blow a gasket.’
‘He needs to loosen up. He got the deal with her father through in the end so it was a win-win for both of us.’
‘No thanks to you,’ she retorted. ‘When are you going to start dating women you respect and want to—’
‘Don’t say it.’ Rafe shuddered. ‘I like to imagine that you’re still innocent of such matters. And anyway, I promised our esteemed brother that I’d be on my best behaviour tonight, so don’t worry.’
He gave his sister his trademark grin, knowing that it wouldn’t work one bit. She might be six years younger than his thirty years but she’d always had his measure.
‘That only makes me worry more.’ She groaned. ‘And, speaking of Jag, you need to cut him some slack. He’s got a lot on his plate right now.’
‘Like?’
‘The Berenian thing.’