Wow,” Presti murmured as I dragged my lips from his to press soft, open-mouthed kisses along the column of his neck.

“Wow, indeed.” I wanted to taste every inch of him. I wanted to spend hours with him, trying to drag out more of those soft moans I doubted he even realised he let escape. “I think it is you who has bewitched me.”

“Must have been all that talk about your grandmother’s kinks,” Presti said. He stiffened in my arms. “Oh, sorry. That was awfully unflirtatious. Let me try again.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t contain a chuckle. “How do you do it?” I asked, pulling him closer, refusing to yield him from my hold even a little.

“Do what?” he squeaked as I nibbled on his ear lobe.

“Just be yourself,” I mumbled.

“I don’t know how to be anything else.”

My lips found his again, his taste exploding on my tongue. Lust and longing boiled in my veins, but there was no way I would go any further with Presti in my gran’s clock room, much as I wanted to.

“Ahem,” a booming voice ripped me from the best kiss I’d ever shared. It was a voice I knew well. And the very last one I wanted to hear when I was in the arms of a man.

“Father,” I muttered. Presti and I stood together, shoulders brushing as we faced the next King of England, my father.

“So, it’s true then,” my father replied, glaring at me as he studiously avoided shifting his gaze to Presti.

My father wasn’t homophobic; in fact, he did a great deal in support of the LGBT community. It was just there’d never been a queer senior royal before. It was one of the many reasons I’d never come out or had a boyfriend. I barely had a sex life. Who could I

trust to keep my great secret? How could I be sure they wouldn’t go running to the tabloids to tell—sell—my story?

Fear had kept me from forming any meaningful relationship with anybody. However, that wasn’t entirely true. The truth was I’d never met anybody I’d been willing to risk exposure for—until now.

“Father—”

“Good evening, Your Highness,” Presti cut in. “Please forgive me for kissing your son. Entirely my fault. A great misunderstanding, I think. Quite accidental.”

“Accidental?” My father smirked. “One of those ‘I tripped and fell onto his lips’ type of situations, then?”

“Quite. You see, James, ah rather, His Royal Highness, was showing me his grandmother’s clocks—actually, you may be fascinated to know that the world’s oldest working clock is right here in England. Salisbury Cathedral, to be exact.” Presti stilled and tilted his head a little as he looked at my father. “Though I expect you likely know that being the future king and all. Probably not much you don’t know about your realm. Anyhoo, I should best be re-joining my friend, Astrid. She’s positively wonderful, but she does tend to talk a person’s ear off once she gets riled up about a topic. I’d hate to think she was assaulting a royal ear right now. So, bye-bye now. So delightful to meet you both. Bye-bye.”

And with that, Presti dashed out of the room.

My father watched him flee before turning back to me with a grin. “Well, he was…certainly interesting.”

“Father, I—”

“James.” My father held his hand up to silence me. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow. Make a plan. For now, we both need to return to the party.”

I silently followed my father back down the hall, glaring at my security man, though I was not sure what I expected him to do. Stop my father from barging in and ruining

the best kiss of my life? How could he even have known there was a chance I’d be kissing a man behind that door? Nobody knew.

But they did now. My father knew my big secret. And apparently, we were going to make a plan on how to handle it. Great. I couldn’t wait.