Christopher knows your duties are important to you. He sees it in the way you carry yourself, the way you wear the royal plaque with honor. He just wishes he was just as important.

"You could stay," He murmurs, wrapping his arms around your waist and pressing himself into your back. You'd just spent the night in his little attack above his parents' tailor shop. Christopher is sure this is the most austere place you had ever stepped foot in, but it was the only room he could kiss you in freely.

He hated that you were leaving so soon, re-dressing in your fancy attire; clothing that he remembered how hard his parents worked on. So excited to offer their services to a royal.

They had no idea that he knew you so intimately.

No one did. You hid him away like some dirty secret.

That was the catch.

It didn't make him angry, per se. Christopher could never be angry with you. But that doesn't mean it isn't a bitter feeling; knowing that you wouldn't do half the things for him that he'd do for you. If he was in your place, if he was the next heir, the closest to the thrown, he'd throw it away in seconds if you asked.

"You could stay for a while, actually," Christopher hums against the skin of your nape, closing his eyes and pretending, for a second, that he had something that could convince you properly. "It would be days before anyone found us up here."