Page 190 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

Livia closed her eyes and took a long, calming breath. Suddenly, she was aware that the flurry of noise had stopped. Something in the warm summer air shifted, and she opened her eyes. He was there, standing in her tiny entryway in front of her. Her breath caught in her throat. Because it wasn’t Edvin.

It was him.

It was Gustav. She couldn’t breathe. But it couldn’t be him, she told herself. Even if all the differences between Edvin and Gustav seemed to disappear. All except one. Because never had she felt this liquid rush of attraction for Edvin. Her memories must’ve all been warping because the color of his eyes was different, so much more like…

Livia folded her arms and gave herself a little pinch. This was not Gustav, despite the fact that his eyes now looked more gray than blue. Despite the fact that he seemed taller. Leaner. Despite the fact that he was studying her with an intensity that made her feel things she’d never, ever felt in Edvin’s presence. She felt naked. Raw.

You’re imagining this.

“Livia.”

Livia reminded herself to focus on the differences, not the similarities, between the crown prince’s voice and his half brother’s. This voice was deeper than the one lodged in her mind from eight years ago. And the candid pictures of Gustav’s wilder moments she had caught glimpses of over the years made him look… No, she couldn’t let herself go down this path, not when this couldn’t be Gustav. The man in front of her had nothing in common with the teenager who had listened to her dreams and then kissed her as if she was the only thing he had ever wanted.

Livia had tried to drive a wedge between past and present, and it worked. Or at least it had, until now, when all the differences seemed to have disappeared the moment this man had entered her apartment. That freefall in her stomach wouldn’t leave her alone.

It was the beard. The beard was obscuring the differences between the brothers, throwing everything off. That was why this moment felt odd, Livia told herself as she desperately fought to ignore the way his gaze seemed to reach inside her and take hold of the part of her she had kept for herself, the wall she had built to separate her memories from reality. He took a step closer. His gaze moved over her face and stopped at her lips. Unmistakable desire flashed in his eyes along with a strange intensity, a burning, startlingly unexpected, and she had the sudden sense that he was going to kiss her.

And worse, she wanted it.

This was impossible. Never once had she felt a spark of connection, physical or something more, with the crown prince. This simple truth was one of the many ways she had rationalized her plan to break off their engagement as soon as her sister turned eighteen: She and Edvin were so clearly not suited. While the crown prince was objectively a beautiful man, all sharp aristocratic features, she had always sensed an air of obligation, an unbridgeable distance that yawned between them. Livia had assumed that he was far too well trained to reveal something as base as physical attraction, but clearly she was mistaken. In fact, she was beginning to suspect she was mistaken about so much more than that.

In front of her was a mirage, one she couldn’t stop herself from hoping was real.

“Gustav?” The name escaped from her lips before she could stop it.

He didn’t frown or sneer or snap at her mistake. Instead, his eyes darkened. Slowly, so achingly slowly, he raised his hand to cup her cheek. His touch was an electric shock, hot and unexpected, and her breath caught in her throat as it sizzled through her.

“Livia.” This time, her name sounded like a prayer.

She parted her lips to ask. Or beg. Or do something to stop this feeling inside her. But then his hand was gone, leaving only the echo of the soft, rough scrape of his fingers on her skin.

“It is you,” she finally said. She lifted her hand to her cheek, where he had touched her, shuddering as the sensation from that moment flowed through her in a dangerously intoxicating rush. His fingers on her skin. The way his eyes darkened at the touch. The feeling that his hand was the missing piece that she had been searching for.

Memories, so long denied, flooded in. The flash of his white shirttails among the dark trees as he disappeared down the path. The way his gray eyes looked almost black in the moonlight. The scent that she’d learned to associate with breathless kisses and her awakening desire.

In the bathroom of an acquaintance a few years ago, she had inadvertently discovered what that scent was: a particular brand of soap. Livia had no idea how long she had stood in that over-decorated room, her eyes closed, holding the soap bottle to her face, letting the scent take her into the past. But when a knock on the door broke the spell, Livia had set the bottle next to the sink and never looked back.

Gustav didn’t smell like that soap anymore. He smelled like the forest, wild and warm and dark, and each breath sent another intoxicating rush through her. She stared at him, now suddenly aware of how much had changed. He had always been tall, but he had filled out in the intervening years, his gangly teenage body now hard, lean muscle in a well-fitted shirt. Everything about him was harder now. His glare. His mouth…

She absolutely should not be thinking about his mouth! Not until she figured out what was going on.

Since her involvement with Edvin, Livia had contemplated what to say to Gustav when their paths inevitably crossed again, but she had always imagined the scene with Edvin present. An intermediary that made this feeling of breathlessness less…solid. But even that possibility had been slim. She had heard rumors that Gustav had left his tiny archipelago country a few years ago to work on a clean-energy venture…somewhere? But none of her well-rehearsed lines came, so carefully chosen for polite conversation.

“What are you doing here?” she finally blurted out. “You’re not supposed to be here. I thought…”

These words were all it took for the heat in his eyes to disappear. In its place she saw something that looked very much like anger.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Livia.” He shook his head in mocking regret. “Were you hoping for the crown prince? You got the Bastard Spare instead.”

He tilted his head as if he were assessing her, and before she could come up with an answer, he continued. “The Livia I knew dismissed me so easily when she found out that I was royalty, no discussion. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I heard about the new girlfriend of my half brother—the crown prince.”

“It’s not like that,” she protested. “We’re not…”

His gaze was cold as he waited for her to complete the sentence. She swallowed. “Are you asking for an explanation? Because you don’t strike me as someone in the listening mood.”

“Trust me, I am listening.”

The dreamy haze of the past had lifted, leaving in its place frustration, but the heat was still there, dark and burning. “My parents want a royal title to lift the family’s name, and I am in the best position to get it for them. That is the reason I’m here, and it’s not a secret.”