Page 39 of Fit for a King

“What?” I snapped, my patience waning thin.

“Uptight.” Gabriel swung his legs down and sat up on the chaise. “You look like you’re going to negotiate a trade agreement.”

“That is what I’m doing. Trading my life for the good of the kingdom.”

“Yes, but you don’t have to go into it that way. Just change your perspective.”

“Because it’s that easy.” I let out a sigh and looked back to the mirror. If only it was Gabriel going into tonight’s meeting. He’d charm the prince, seduce him, and Valoria would be set for the rest of its days.

Instead, the prince was going to meet me, and seduction was the last thing on my mind.

“I have an idea.”

Oh God. There were a lot of words I didn’t want to hear come out of Gabriel’s mouth, but those four might be top of the list.

“I don’t think⁠—”

“What if I take your place?”

I was right—that was the very last thing I wanted to hear out of his mouth. “Do you have any other ideas?”

Gabriel smirked as he stepped in behind me. “What, you don’t think I can do it?”

“Be me for a night?” My eyes found his in the mirror, the idea worming its way inside my mind. “No, you’ve done it before.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

The problem was that tonight was one of the most important nights Valoria had seen in decades. Tonight I would be presented to my betrothed. Everything had to be perfect, right down to the way I parted my damn hair.

“The problem is you’re too…friendly.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes, straightened his shoulders, then drew his lips into a thin line. “I think what you mean to say, dear brother,” he said, his eyes losing their warmth and frosting over with cool disdain as they assessed my reflection, “is that, unlike you, I’m far too personable to pull off your boorish attitude. I beg to disagree.”

“I don’t act like that.”

“You don’t think?” Gabriel grinned, and his entire demeanor changed.

I spun around on him, my annoyance reaching its boiling point. “This isn’t funny, Gabriel.”

“No, it isn’t, it’s very serious, and you clearly aren’t in the right headspace to do what you need to tonight. Let me help.”

“By being me?”

“Yes. It’s one night. One dinner.”

“And what am I going to do while you’re being me?”

Gabriel smirked. “Chase the footmen around the kitchen?”

I almost choked on his off-hand comment, but quickly covered my tracks with disapproval. “You better not be chasing anyone around the kitchen.”

Gabriel swiped his hand through the air and spun away from me. “Don’t start worrying about that. You have enough rattling around in that brain of yours to lose sleep over where I’m scratching my itch. But for tonight, I’m offering you a chance to choose you. It might be the last chance you get.”

He wasn’t wrong. After tonight, engagement announcements would be made to the public, wedding plans would be put in place, and soon enough I would be bound to another—not of my choosing—for the rest of my life.

God, what a depressing thought.

Gabriel leaned back against my desk and crossed his arms. “So, what do you think? Are you going to let me distract the prince so you can scope him out from across the room?”