Page 29 of Wear It Like a Crown

If you go through with this, Leo thought,youshouldbe proud of yourself. I would be proud of you.

He pushed the thought away and went back to his notes. James had put him in charge, and Leo wasn’t about to let him down. He wasn’t about to let Joshua down either.

They had a brief chat on the phone early in the afternoon, Joshua’s voice bright and firm as he called to ask how things were going, whether Leo needed any kind of input. He sounded more determined than the night before, almost impatient, when Leo had feared that things would look different to Joshua in the light of the morning. It seemed as though Joshua was someone who stood by his decisions. Rare, that.

Leo suggested that he and Nate show up at Joshua’s place later in the day, meet up with Joshua and his trusted sidekicks to form the Small Council—and, by the way, Leo demanded to be named Hand of the King in spite of the inherent risk to his life. To Leo’s disappointment, Joshua didn’t catch theGame of Thronesreference. Really, any self-respecting royal should be intimately familiar with sinister plays for power. How was Leo supposed to trust a leader who’d exposed such a shocking gap in education?

“Good thing I’m not first in line,” Joshua said around a laugh when Leo expressed his misgivings.

“Better get your sister a taster, then,” Leo told him. “To sample her wine. Wouldn’t want this country to end up in your incapable hands.”

Again, Joshua didn’t catch the reference. “Someone,” Leo told him, “desperately needs to bring you up to speed. This is embarrassing. Howdo you last through any social gathering with your astounding lack of knowledge?”

“Is that an offer?” Joshua asked.

The question pulled Leo up short. “Maybe,” he said after a delay that had likely been noticeable, and Joshua didn’t probe for more.

* * *

Joshua had ordered enough food to sustain a small army. On the way home from the hospice, he’d also looked up what exactly the Small Council was and had then considered dressing his living room table in red brocade and picking up some antique candle holders and wine cups from his mum. Atmosphere was important, after all. He’d been running late though, and by the time he arrived at home, he had just enough time left to hop under the shower.

He wandered out of the bathroom, towelling off, to find Tristan perched on the work surface in the kitchen. He was surrounded by food that had arrived at some point between the start of Joshua’s shower and now. “Put some clothes on,” Tristan said in lieu of a greeting. “No one needs to see that. Or are you reconsidering a career in the porn industry?”

Joshua spread his arms and twirled. When he came to a stop, Tristan looked decidedly unimpressed, and Joshua snorted, not hurt in the least. He draped a towel around his waist and glanced around. “Did you come with the food?”

“Good timing, eh? What if they’d turned around ‘cause you didn’t open?”

Joshua nodded. “A tragedy in the making.”

“We’d have to eat Mo,” Tristan said. “Or Nate. Not as scrawny.”

“Too much muscle, though.”

“And Leo is tiny. Guess it’ll have to be you.”

“Thanks for calling me fat,” Joshua said.

“Eh, you’re pretty scrawny too. But among all those subpar choices, you’re my best bet for survival.”

Joshua ambled over to look into the casserole that had been left on the hob. Au gratin potatoes that smelled like heaven. Only now did henotice he’d barely eaten all day. “I’m the best cook you know,” he said over his shoulder. “Cooking the cook is a bad idea.”

“You don’t know about Leo and Nate. Maybe they’re decent cooks, could take over from you.”

“Why are we talking about cannibalism again?”

Shrugging, Tristan hopped to the floor and flicked one of Joshua’s nipples. “Put some clothes on, cunt. Mo and I might be used to it, but the other two aren’t. Don’t want to scare them away, do we? Or”—he waggled his brows—“seduce them?”

The bell rang just as Joshua was about to reply. Tristan looked disappointed to see his investigation cut short, but went to open the door while Joshua dashed into his bedroom to pull on a pair of shorts and grab a T-shirt out of the closet. He was still tugging it on, wet hair dampening the fabric, when he went back outside and arrived just in time to catch Leo’s light tenor, addressing Tristan. “Are you supposed to be Joshua’s bodyguard? Because mate, I’m not convinced.”

“It’s all about dedication and loyalty,” Tristan replied, perfectly unperturbed. “I’d help Joshua hide the body. Any body.”

“By eating it,” Joshua supplied. Which probably sounded weird to people who hadn’t been around for his and Tristan’s earlier exchange. Glancing up to gauge reactions, Joshua found Nate watching him with a vaguely amused expression. Leo, on the other hand, was staring fixedly at Joshua’s hip, at the tattoo there, not yet covered by the hem of the T-shirt. Joshua stilled his efforts in tugging it all the way down, holding his breath.

Leo blinked and snapped out of it. “I smell food,” he said, voice a little slow. “Baked cheese, praise Jesus our Lord and Saviour. But real talk, Joshua, still no bodyguard?”

Oddly disappointed, Joshua pulled his T-shirt all the way down. “Worried about me?”

“Hardly.” Leo raised a brow. “More like making plans to return with a ski mask and rob the place. Just let me know where you keep the crown jewels.”