Page 35 of Fake Dating the Prince

He went back into the bathroom and shaved again and only realized he was in danger of making them late when Flip knocked on the door as he was standing half-naked in front of the wardrobe. “Brayden? Is everything okay?”

Brayden threw open the door. “What do I wear?”

For a heartbeat Flip just blinked at him. Considering their relationship was strictly, maddeningly fake, Brayden was spending a not-insignificant amount of time undressed in Flip’s presence, he realized as Flip carefully kept his eyes above Brayden’s nipples. “Clothes?” he suggested. He indicated Brayden’s boxer briefs and socks. “That’s a good start.”

“Give me a hint, here. I’m not used to being important enough for people to care what I’m wearing if I’m not at work. Well, Grandma doesn’t care for plaid or T-shirts with profanity.”

“What’s wrong with profanity?” Flip approached the closet and sifted through it. “This isn’t an official state visit, just a sort of business one, so the chinos will be fine. The ankle boots—we’ll be out in the countryside, and there’s likely to be snow or mud, so that’s practical as well as fashionable.”

Brayden filed these tidbits of information away as if he’d need them again beyond the next two weeks. “Okay, great,” he said. “And then?”

Flip turned and gave him a once-over that left Brayden feeling like his pants were about to shrink. He shook them out and shoved one leg in immediately, hoping for some camouflage, as Flip reached into the closet and selected a shawl-neck sweater in heathered purple. “This one, I think. You’ll be warm but not uncomfortable.”

“I haven’t worn this much purple since I gave up being a twink,” Brayden half joked as he wiggled into the other pant leg. “But it’s like half the clothes Cedric picked out for me are….”

Flip was blushing, looking away. Because he was embarrassed Brayden had lost all his modesty by age fifteen? Or…?

“I suppose there’s some significance to the color?”

“It’s the traditional color associated with the heir to the throne,” Flip admitted somewhat sheepishly.

So essentially, Brayden had been walking around with a metaphorical “property of” sticker. He couldn’t find it in himself to be upset about it. “Ah. Fortunately I look great in this color.”

“Yes,” Flip agreed simply. “It suits you.”

They managed to make it to their appointment on time. Brayden stared out the window of the car as they approached, expecting an immense ugly hole in the ground to dominate the landscape. He knew the mine had been in operation for almost a hundred years. But though the grounds lacked much in the way of tree cover, the surroundings fell short of his bleak expectations.

“Is the actual mine elsewhere?” he asked, pointing. “This seems… I don’t know, I expected something else.”

“It used to be a lot different.” Flip leaned over so he could see out Brayden’s window and pointed to a spot on the horizon. Brayden suppressed a shiver at his warmth and tried not to be too obvious about breathing in his smell. “That’s where the original pit was. Diamond mining… it’s not glamorous, and it’s bad for the environment in a number of ways. Chemical runoff can get into fields and streams, and we have such a short growing season here that we can’t afford to have that affect soil quality. So we were early investors in lab-grown diamonds.”

“So when you say ‘diamond mine,’ you actually mean ‘diamond lab’?”

“Sort of. The scientists will explain it better than I can.”

Inside, one of the managers absconded with Flip and left Brayden with yet another intern, Sam, a black man in his early twenties. “His Highness said you wanted a tour?” He handed Brayden a hard hat. “Let’s go see the ugly part first.”

They drove through the massive industrial building in an electric golf cart, sticking to pathways marked out on the concrete floor in yellow paint. Finally they came to the end of the factory, where a two-story window looked out on a field of dirt.

Brayden said, “Oh.”

“This is what a diamond mine used to look like.” Sam pointed to an eight-foot poster on the adjacent wall. An enormous dirt snail was scrawled into the bleak and desolate landscape. “For twenty years we have worked with the crown to restore the wildlife to this area. Slowly we can see our efforts have effect.”

It was difficult to tell in the dim light, but Brayden thought he could see some young trees and scrub brush dotting the field. Now that he was looking for it, he could see a few birds overhead too. “Wow.”

Sam clapped his shoulder. “Come. I’ll show you the labs.”

As they toured, Sam explained the principles of “synthetic” diamonds—which had all the same properties as regular diamonds, but without the environmental or social impact. Heat chambers containing raw materials and “seed crystals”—shavings from other diamonds or simply pure carbon—served as incubators.

“And this is the first diamond ever grown in the lab.” Sam gestured to a small display case that seemed to have pride of place.

Brayden peered in. The diamond was a light, clear blue, cut princess style. A fissure marred the middle of the stone, though, presumably destroying its value. “What happened?”

Sam shrugged. “Trial and error. Diamonds have to be perfect, though, or close to. Something with a flaw this big is essentially worthless. But creating it in the first place was still a big deal, and we’re proud of it.”

They both looked up as Flip came through a door across the way, led by the manager of the facility, who spotted them and smiled. “Admiring our first failure?”

Brayden looked back at the diamond. “I like it. It feels like a metaphor, though. Things aren’t worthless just because they’re not perfect.”

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