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9
It had been a week since they’d returned from the villa.
To Armin, it felt more like a month. A year, even. A decade.
He thought of Katie every waking moment, and most of the moments he spent asleep. She had intoxicated him. And their little interlude on the balcony, far from slaking his thirst for her, had only made it worse.
Armin was not the kind of man who crossed lines like this. He had been meticulous in his professional life to keep his business dealings separate from his personal feeling, except when it came to things like the orphanage—he was personally invested in that, but he’d determined through careful review that it was also the responsibility of the royal family to care for those who needed most in Stolvenia.
He hadn’t anticipated hiring a nanny like Katie.
He hadn’t anticipated even meeting anyone like Katie.
Thankfully, she seemed to understand the stakes as well as he did. She was completely professional whenever they were in sight of other staff members or the girls.
But they weren’t always being watched.
And in those instances…
Armin had pulled her inside a closet once while the girls were finishing up their piano lessons, kissing her hard and hot up against the walls. He’d slipped his hand underneath her dress, pressing her back against his office doors, when they’d been attending a dance lesson with Stolvenia’s premier ballerina.
He couldn’t help himself. And Katie was always beautifully responsive. “Yes, yes,” she’d breathe in a voice that drove him wild. Her eyes shone whenever they were together…right up until she closed them, stifling her own little noises of pleasure with the back of her hand. Or the palm of his.
Those moments were the first things that Armin felt belonged to him. His relationship was the one thing in his life that felt truly private. It didn’t belong to anyone else. Not anyone in his family, not anyone on his staff, not any of his security team…not even to the people of Stolvenia. The unending burden of his responsibility weighed heavily on his shoulders, except when he was with Katie. Then it was as light as feather. There was nothing he couldn’t handle.
Of course, it was still dangerous. He did feel a flicker of guilt around the scandal that would break if they were ever found out.
And yet, with her body pressed up against his, he felt…like a man. Not Prince Armin of Stolvenia, who had to be ready to step in and lead the country at a moment’s notice. Just Armin, a man who was in love with a woman. He was, after all, a human. He was not immune to love.
Plus, that love was improving his relationship with the girls as well. His openness with Katie had shown him the way to give more of himself to the girls, too.
The only cloud on the horizon was his publicist, Valentina. She’d come to his office looking displeased the day they came back from their trip. “Not a single picture for the press, Prince Armin?”
He’d looked up at her, frowning. “I took the girls on holiday. Surely the press doesn’t need to see photos of that.”
“But it’s another happy memory,” she insisted. “Perhaps you could stage some, out on the grounds, to show the country—”
If there was one thing Armin knew, it was that the public did not need a deluge of holiday pictures from the royal family. Not at this particular moment, when things were so unstable. They would only look indulgent.
“No,” he’d said sharply.
She’d been ramping up the pressure to recreate the photos of the girls at the park, to see Armin out shopping with them, to see them dining at a local restaurant, and it all seemed…off. Like she wanted to give the country fodder for gossip.
Or maybe he just wished he was still on holiday.
The door of his office closed with a soft click, and he looked up to see a blushing Katie rushing toward him across the room.
“I only have a minute,” she breathed. “The girls are in their painting lesson.”
He pulled her into his lap without hesitating, her lithe body straddling his as if they were meant to be this way.
“Take it, then.”
Katie threaded her hands through his hair and kissed him, rocking her body against his.
“You awful little tease,” he groaned. “We can’t…”
“I know,” she breathed. “I can’t…I just wanted to touch you.”
