“The latest polls show that the public has lost significant confidence in the von Braustein name, and that your recent actions may have cemented the end of the monarchy.” Well, the guy from the Looking Glass was getting right to it. “What are your thoughts?”

“Thoughts? If I’m solely responsible for the downfall of a kingdom that is hundreds of years old, I hope they at least use a good selfie of me in the history books.”

More laughter. Good.

Another journalist raised their hand. “Do you have any explanation as to why you were hiding monetary transactions using a shell company?”

“I wasn’t hiding them,” Johan said. “I wasn’t publicizing them, but most people don’t. And I had good reason for that.”

He smiled, even though he thought he might be sick. Johan had always been okay with the performances he’d had to put on. They’d never been him. But with Nya, and now with this, he was having to reveal parts of himself that he’d wanted to keep hidden. Personal things. The only things that separated Johan from Jo-Jo.

At this point, he wished he had been engaging in criminal activity.

“The accounts and the secrecy are connected to something private and unrelated to the royal family, which is why I didn’t feel a need to share them.”

“A trust fund for your secret children?” another reporter called out, and Greta had had enough.

She leaned toward her mic. “Charity. That is what the funds are used for.”

Johan looked around at the reporters, taking in the disappointment clear on some of their faces as silence filled the room. He pulled the mic back over to himself. “It’s a network of charities I’ve been funding that I didn’t want linked with me or my more unsavory undertakings,” he added. “Many of you here have reported on me for years, so you understand that my name isn’t exactly associated with respectability.”

“Are you serious, man?” Krebs asked. “Like, helping kids and stuff?”

“Yes. Greta has posted all the necessary disclosures on my website and will be providing you with the link. Everything you need will be there. Merci!”

He stood, ignoring as they clamored for more information.

He’d almost made it to the door when Phillipe’s voice rang out, breaking with emotion. “Are you saying that you’ve secretly been carrying on your mother’s legacy?”

A hush fell over the assembled journalists. Mentioning his mother to him had been verboten, an unspoken rule, but one that most of the journalists who knew him had respected. Anyone who didn’t immediately lost access to him.

Johan didn’t force a smile—it was enough not to grimace. “Thank you, everyone. Any further questions will be answered in my memoirs, set to be published fifty years after I die.”

He winked, though it was a lackluster one, and walked casually out of the room, even though he badly wanted to run.

He tried not to think as he strode past the security guards and down the hallway that led back to a private wing of the palace.

He could vaguely make out the shapes of people around him, but all of his attention was focused on the riot of emotion inside of him. His heartbeat filled his ears, but he heard Lukas’s voice from the parlor, where he’d left him with his tutor.

“It looks like you charmed them as usual,” his brother called out. “Social media is blowing up with news of how wonderful you are.”

Johan gritted his teeth and kept walking. He hated this. Everyone talking about his good deeds. Everyone making him out to be some kind of saint, like his mother had been. He had wanted to keep that small part of her, that most important aspect of her legacy, to himself, and now it would be splashed everywhere for people to speculate on. The charities would fall under scrutiny, and their statuses might be affected.

But he had to be okay because none of this was Nya’s fault, and he was about to take her to the opera.

He stopped. Took a deep breath. Thought of how awful Nya’s night would be if he allowed himself to freak out.

That was the thing with emotions—they were like gremlins. You let one cute harmless one in, nurtured it, and soon a bunch of uninvited ones hatched, making a mess of things.

“How did it go?”

Johan inhaled deeply, schooled his face to a neutral expression, and turned to Nya’s voice. For a moment, all his anxiety and turmoil were pushed to the background because he could think of nothing but her.

“You look . . .”

“‘Damn girl’?” she said, holding up her hands with a grin. “I know.”

A beautiful floral African print top with matching bottom. Off the shoulders. Frills. BARE STOMACH. THIGH SLIT. Johan’s brain rapidly cataloged these things, but mostly he looked at her radiant smile and forgot his worries. They would be there when Nya was gone.

Soon.

He helped her into her coat, his fingertips brushing her bare shoulders.

“I saw the press conference,” she said. “Maybe we can go in through the opera’s back entrance. Your father told me there’s a special one that leads straight to the royal box.”

“Are you sure? If ever you wanted to shock the world”—he looked down at her outfit before helping her button her coat—“tonight would be a good time to do it.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said as they walked out to the SUV that would take them to the theater. “I don’t think I want to live to shock people. Like you said before, I can’t hurt my father without hurting myself, really. I can only do what I think will make me happy. And tonight, that’s being with you, whether anyone sees it or not.”