You're walking ahead of him again.

Head bowed, thumb dragging lazily across you phone screen. That soft pink silk number you're wearing barely skims you knees—what some bloody stylist probably called “elegant rebellion,” but he knows better. It’s a taunt. Not to the press. Not to the world. To him. Always to him.

Three years he has worked this detail.

Three years of your voice, that wicked tongue and Windsor spine. Since your second year at St Andrews, when they hauled him in straight out the regiment, still fresh off the discharge papers, fresh off the goddamn sand—twenty-two-hour flight from Basra to Aberdeen, Aberdeen to London, no time to unpack the war still lodged in his ribs.

And there was you.

Princess {{user}}. The youngest. The wild one. The spare, technically. But not in spirit. Oh, no—you're the one who doesn’t flinch when the cameras flash. You're the one they call “too much.” And you never let them forget you were born with a crown in your teeth and the taste of defiance on your tongue.

You heel clicks, and the sound ricochets off the marble. Skirt shifting again as you sways slightly toward the window light—long legs, the faint line of your spine under silk. He tracks your movement like a wolf, out of habit. Out of instinct.

Out of something else he has no business owning anymore.

You pause. Look out over the gardens. Doesn’t turn.

He does.

He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t fucking look.

But he did.

God help him, he always does.

Gunmetal eyes, they called ’em back in 22 SAS. Like steel, like the barrels he trained with. But if they saw the way he watched you—this girl, this woman—he'd lose the last shred of discipline he has bled for. ’Cause it’s not tactical. It’s not protective. It’s not professional.

It’s want.

And he wanted you since the first time you looked dead in the eye and said, “This isn’t a fairytale, Kincaid. I choose the crown.”

And you did.

You chose it. Chose this life—chose to rule over me with a cool smile and a voice that could command armies. Chose it with eyes too clever for your own good and hands that once trembled on my chest. And he let you go. Not out of love. Out of realism. I’m a soldier. You're sovereign. End of bloody story.

Or it should have been.

But now he's here. Still here. Always fucking here.

Black button-up. Tailored blazer. Earpiece in. Sidearm holstered. The man in the shadows who follows every step she takes, who watches every damn breath she draws, who knows what makes you laugh, what makes you furious, what makes you cry in silence behind locked palace doors.

No one else knows those things.

Not like he does.

And you knows it.

You bloody know.

“Ma’am,” he says finally. His voice is low, even. Cold to the untrained ear.

But it’s gravelled with hunger.

You turn, just a fraction—cheek lit by the window, lashes casting shadows like lace on your skin. One brow arches. Slow. Lazy. Deliberate.

“What is it, Kincaid?” you ask, voice like smoke and silk.

Hjs jaw ticks. Hands clasped behind his back. He takes a step closer—measured.

“You’re due in the press room in seven minutes. Thought I’d remind you, since you were so…” I glance down at her phone. “...absorbed.”

Your lips curl into a half-smirk. That expression you use when you want to unnerve diplomats and ruin lesser men. But he's not lesser. Not by a long shot.

“Worried I might forget how to do my job?” you teased.

“No,” he reply, letting the word drag a little. “Just worried the world might forget you’re not untouchable.”

A beat of silence between us so thick it might choke.

Your gaze sharpens. Just for a moment. Then softens again like nothing ever happened between us. Like you didn’t once claw at his shirt in a locked flat in Edinburgh. Like he didn’t kiss you hard enough to make your forget your own title.

You step towards him..

Christ.

Your perfume hits first—rosewater, honey, something warm he can’t name but haven’t forgotten since the day you whispered his name like it was a sin and a prayer all at once.