Peerless Perverted Actor Has a Celebrity Harem?!

"For what it’s worth," he said, low enough that it went nowhere except into her, "I love you. I have the whole time. Sixteen years of it, and you never once had to earn a minute of it."

Aveline went rigid under his hand.

"You don’t have to say anything," he went on, thumb moving once against her side, small and absent and devastating. "You don’t have to believe me either. I’m going to keep telling you until you get bored of hearing it, and then I’m going to carry on telling you after that and in actions too just like this right now. I’ve got time and I’m extremely difficult to discourage."

He drew back just far enough to look at her, and Aveline found herself staring up into cognac-gold eyes from six inches away with absolutely nothing prepared.

"I’m going to win, Aveline," he said, and smiled. "I want you to know that it’s going to happen, so you can decide how much of a fight you’d like to put up first before you start to love me too."

Then he let go of her waist, straightened, and walked away beside Emmeline without waiting a single second for a response—which was, of course, the entire point.

Aveline did not gasp, drop her cup, or clutch at her collar, because she was not an actress in a low-budget family drama. She simply sat absolutely still while her cheek went on burning and the imprint of his palm continued existing against her side long after there was nothing there to justify it.

’That little bastard.’

There was anger somewhere in the thought.

A teaspoon of it, perhaps but the rest was considerably more inconvenient.

Because little quiet brother was so cute and handsome. Ridiculously, stupidly, structurally unfair about it in a way that made irritation feel unstable underfoot.

And her brother had just put a hand on her waist and told her he loved her in the exact voice like he meant it and had no interest in being thanked. Worse, that speech at breakfast about family and about people failing to notice what they had until it was nearly gone had gone into her considerably deeper than she was prepared to admit before nine in the morning.

She was starting to open up to her brother?

Worse still—and this was the part that had been quietly wrecking her since yesterday—she had recently learned what their father had been doing. Quietly throttling Park’s career before it could draw breath. Keeping him hidden, small and making certain his only son never stood anywhere bright enough for the public to start asking arithmetic questions about dates.

That knowledge had been doing awful, soft-hearted things to her all morning, and now the subject of it had kissed her and told her he loved her and left before she could mount any defence whatsoever.

She still had pride. Aveline Bennett did not lose arguments to her own emotions before breakfast had finished.

But pride and sympathy were currently throwing hands in the hallway, and sympathy had reach.

Evangeline had watched every second of it.

By the time Park and Emmeline had disappeared, she had one hand pressed over her mouth, white hair spilling forward over her shoulder, her pale eyes glittering with laughter she was containing purely for the sake of the family name.

Aveline touched her cheek once, then looked deeply annoyed with herself for having done it.

"Little bastard," she muttered.

"You’re growing soft."

"No."

"You are."

"I am really not."

"You don’t even hate him properly any more."

"Hate is a strong word."

Evangeline’s brows rose. "Mon dieu. We’re already reducing the charges."

Aveline inhaled slowly through her nose, the official elder-sister method for resisting homicide. "Whatever strange charm and soft side we have for him does not erase a single fact."

"But?"

"There is no but."

Evangeline waited. She was extremely good at waiting, which was one of several reasons Aveline found her unbearable.

Eventually Aveline looked away and adjusted a spoon that had been perfectly straight before she touched it. "Whatever happened, he is still our brother."

It was not really forgiveness, and certainly not surrender—only the first honest admission that Park’s existence had stopped being something she wanted to punish him for every single day of his life.

She straightened another piece of cutlery that had needed no help at all and carried on more briskly, because sincerity made her itch.

"And this childish cold war has become ridiculous. He didn’t ask to be born a Bennett. He didn’t ask to arrive in the middle of our family disaster. We can hardly keep behaving as though he personally organized the affair from inside the womb."

"Whatever you say."

"Don’t start."

"So that’s why you let him kiss you."

Aveline’s eyes snapped across the table. "I did not let him do anything."

"You sat there."

"He surprised me."

"You are the eldest daughter of the Prime Minister and the Royal Chancellor. Entire rooms full of hostile politicians surprise you less than that boy’s mouth apparently did." Evangeline smiled into her tea. "And his hand and you didn’t do anything afterwards."

"Evangeline."

"Fine. You’re simply protecting the family."

"Exactly. Somebody has to keep an eye on him or he’ll embarrass all of us before lunch."

"Naturally."

Aveline ignored the tone entirely. She was not soft; she was just managing a potential scandal, and that was the story she intended to carry into the grave with both hands.

***

Park was having a considerably better morning.

There was something deeply thrilling about climbing into a car worth north of 200,000 Cels while still technically a teenager and pretending it counted as ordinary sibling bonding.

As far as he could compare, back on Earth a single Cel would have run to roughly ten dollars, which meant Emmeline casually owned a vehicle capable of paying off several lifetimes of his old rent, buying a small building, or financing a truly irresponsible quantity of bad decisions.

Then again, she was the Prime Minister’s daughter. And the black Mercedes-Maybach idling behind them cost more still, so outrage had clearly arrived late to this family and been refused entry at the gate.

The Aston Martin DB12 Volante sat in deep metallic bronze that shifted between chocolate and copper and dark gold as the sun moved over it, looking less painted than poured out molten and left to cool into the shape of a sports car. The tan leather wrapped around them in soft quilted luxury, every stitch neat enough to make Park think about every bus seat of his previous life and offer his spine a private apology.

The roof was down, obviously, because Emmeline had not purchased a convertible in order to hide underneath it like a responsible citizen with respect for weather, privacy, or the law.

The moment she cleared the private garage she put her foot down. The engine gave a rich, furious growl and the car shot forward hard enough to press Park back into the leather.

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