Page 142 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

His smile was tight-lipped. ‘We were talking about you.’ He lifted a hand and curved her hair behind her ear. ‘Why so long between holidays?’

She let him get away with the change of subject. ‘For a long time, I was studying,’ she said. ‘And in the term breaks, I’d work. I was lucky enough to get an internship at the palace—’

‘Working for the king?’ he interrupted.

‘No, initially I was working for an advisor to Fabrizio,’ she corrected. ‘But someone recognised my interest in policy and shuffled me into the king’s department, as a government liaison at first.’

‘You must have been very young to have such a position?’

‘Yes, I was. I felt it. But at the same time, I had good instincts for it. That probably sounds incredibly immodest—’

‘I don’t have time nor interest in false modesty. I don’t find it hard to believe you were excellent in this role.’

‘Really?’ This kind of pleasure—a reaction to his instant praise—was hard to ignore. ‘Why?’

‘Now who’s fishing for compliments?’

She flushed to the roots of her hair.

‘You’re naturally diplomatic, thoughtful, measured, intelligent and well-informed. But stubborn too. I think you’d have whatever conversation you needed to have, for as long as it took to get your opponent to see things your way.’

She laughed softly at his characterisation. ‘I am stubborn,’ she agreed, ‘but only with things I care about.’

‘And you felt your agenda was in sync with the king’s?’

‘It was never my agenda,’ she corrected gently. ‘But always his.’

‘You haven’t shaped his choices in recent years? I read an article the other day about an uptick in palace-driven philanthropy. Tell me your fingerprints aren’t on those initiatives?’

She bit into her lip. ‘Everything is his decision.’

‘But you influence him.’

‘We talk a lot. Most of the time, he sees my perspective on things.’

‘Or you make him see it,’ Sebastian said, and she wondered at the tone in his voice. Jealousy? Irritation? She didn’t know, but she didn’t like the direction their conversation had taken.

‘Did you know my uncle well?’

Sadness washed over her. ‘I knew him,’ she said, cautious for a reason she couldn’t fathom.

‘What was he like?’

She tilted her face towards Sebastian. ‘When I first started working for the king, he was simply...carefree. Your grandfather has an incredible work ethic. He wakes with the sun, reads briefs, reports, writes his own letters, takes meetings all day, opens his doors to the public every week to hear their matters of concern, and then works into the evening, usually on the phone to foreign diplomats, securing relationships. He’s always working. I know he’d hoped your uncle would start taking some of the load. Fabrizio was thirty-six when he died, and thirty-two when I first met him.’

‘Old enough to take an active role,’ Sebastian agreed.

‘He wasn’t interested in much, beyond the ceremonial events.’

‘He liked to dress up,’ Sebastian responded with disapproval, and Rosie couldn’t entirely disagree.

‘He liked the pomp of his position,’ she said, nodding.

‘But left the real work to others.’

‘I’ve often wondered—’ she said, and then broke off, because she’d been about to admit to this man something she’d never said to another soul, something that smacked of disloyalty to the king. And Sebastian was no fan of the older man. Far be it from Rosie to give him more grist for the mill.

‘What have you wondered,cara?’

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