Page 52 of Fake Dating the Prince

Flip could do this. His palms were sweating, but how many times had he made a public address? Hundreds since he was a teenager. He’d even insisted on speaking at the press conference after Miles’s account of their relationship was published. “When we first began our arrangement, I needed your help, and you rose admirably to the task.”

Brayden said nothing, only tilted his head as though he were confused where this was going.

Flip pushed on. What was the saying? You couldn’t make a cake without breaking a few eggs, right? “But very soon it wasn’t only my parents whose scrutiny we had to endure. Once the media became interested in our story, everything became… regretfully more complicated.” He wished for Brayden’s sake that they’d had more privacy to get to know one another, though in truth, he couldn’t find it in himself to be upset at the outcome.

“If this is about my Instagram account being discovered,” Brayden ventured cautiously, “I just want you to know I deleted it. If I’d thought anyone would find it, I never would’ve….”

Damn it, Flip should have talked with him about that. Now his train of thought had been derailed. “This isn’t about that,” Flip said in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. The whole conversation had gotten away from him. He put his hand in his jacket pocket, closed it around the ring box, and clutched it like a talisman. Just a few more sentences and they could celebrate. He hoped. “Some more critical members of the press might have dubbed you unsuitable a match for me. But while you have conducted yourself well—”

Frantic knocking on the door at his back interrupted. Bollocks. Flip closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to let his agitation infect his voice. “Yes?”

“Sir, I’m afraid it’s an emergency.” Cedric’s voice put Flip instantly on alert, and he spun around and opened the door. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but we’ve just gotten word—your uncle has been arrested. Your mother has requested your presence right away.”

Sod everything. Flip looked beseechingly at Brayden. “Brayden, I’m so sorry. I really do have to go.”

Brayden nodded, pale-faced. “Sure. I understand.”

“Thank you,” Flip said fervently. And with that, he hurried into the hall after Cedric.

WHENthe door closed behind Flip, Brayden inhaled deeply. Or he tried, at least. The breath got stuck halfway and hitched, and he had to swallow down a wave of emotion.

He hadn’t expected their relationship to end like this. Though maybe he should have.

The press have dubbed you an unsuitable match for me, Flip had said. Well, he wasn’t wrong. Brayden wasn’t exactly bred to be a royal. He’d thought maybe that didn’t matter to Flip, but obviously he was wrong. Brayden couldn’t even blame him, considering Flip’s history with the press. Brayden wouldn’t want to be reminded of his past indiscretions every time his current relationship was mentioned either.

Everything became regretfully more complicated.Yeah. Brayden agreed with that too, but he couldn’t fully bring himself to regret the past few weeks. Even if it wasn’t going to work out between them, at least he knew now, and he could move on with his life. He could fall in love. He could be brave.

It would take him some time to work up the nerve to try it all again, though.

In the meantime, he should pack. He didn’t really want to wait around for Flip to come home and finish breaking up with him. Brayden could spare them both that. Flip had obviously been uncomfortable. He’d reverted to the stilted, formal language he used whenever something had him wrong-footed.

Brayden left his pencil on the table. Quietly, he packed up his things and tried not to look at the bed they had shared. But he couldn’t just stopbreathing, and the room smelled a little like Flip—warm and woodsy from the fire, crisp and clean under that. It smelled comforting and welcoming and familiar. Maybe one day it might have smelled like home.

Goddammit.

Brayden put on his boots and coat and slipped out of Flip’s rooms and into the palace corridors.

Louisa’s tour had been informative. He’d learned that a driver was always on duty to take the royal family and their guests anywhere they wanted to go. And since a taxi would certainly not drive through the gates without attracting undue attention, he trudged across the frozen crushed gravel to the drivers’ lounge next to the garage.

Brayden knocked, and when someone called out in French for him to enter, he pushed open the door to a well-appointed area filled with comfortable overstuffed couches, a desk and computer, a TV showing soccer highlights, and Flip’s driver, Celine, looking up from a tablet with a dumbstruck expression as Brayden came in.

“Uh,” Brayden said. “Hi.”

Damn it. He hadn’t expectedher. He’d been sure she had the seniority to merit the day after Christmas off. Not that a driver he didn’t know would have been much better.

Celine scrambled to her feet and dropped the tablet onto the couch. “Sir. Does His Highness need something?”

If Flip had needed something, they could have called the lounge extension to ask. Brayden shook his head. “No.” And then he lied, and the words fell as smoothly from his tongue as anything he’d ever said. “There’s been a family emergency at home. I was hoping you could drive me to the airport.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Of course. We’ll leave right away.”

If she thought it was odd that Brayden was leaving alone, without Flip for moral support, she didn’t mention it. Perhaps she knew Flip was dealing with a family emergency of his own or thought Flip too important to be whisked away from his country at a moment’s notice to comfort a man he’d been seeing just a few weeks.

Brayden sat in the back seat and traced his fingers over Flip’s monogram. It was for the best. Sooner or later things would have ended. Brayden couldn’t play house with a prince forever.

He wondered where his family was. Would they be in Aruba by now? Or maybe they were still in Kingston. He couldn’t remember. But maybe if the flights worked out, he really could meet them in port somewhere.

Then he thought about their questions, their pity, the inevitable whispers and walking on eggshells they’d do if he showed up now. Yeah… maybe not.

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