Free His Princess in the Making by Melissa James Page B

sister—and as for the handsome young Grand Duke with a castle and two-hundred million euros…
    Giulia smiled for Max, laughed with him and talked to him in a way she’d only talked with him, Toby, before.
    How had she changed so much? She’d become a princess in more ways than the obvious. And now, only five minutes after the most beautiful kiss of his life, he had the sinking feeling there was no going back.
    The woman he’d loved for ten years had always been like a flower touched by frost: coming to warm, vibrant life only for him. Now she was blossoming on her own, and that scaredthe living daylights out of him. If she didn’t need him, who was he? What life did he have without her in it?
    But then he saw her serene expression change. She paled and, beneath the silver silk dress that made her look like a dark-haired, golden-skinned angel, her toes started the tap-tap thing. He could see the slight up-down motion of her hem. One of her few secretive signs of stress. He got to his feet.
    A hand fell on his shoulder as he took the first step. “Grizz, we need to talk.”
    Toby forced a smile as he turned to his turbulent best friend. “You have your hands full with your bride, Rip. You don’t need to bother with me tonight.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t have if you’d toed the line.” Charlie didn’t have the thundercloud look Toby had expected: another sign of his friend’s rapid growth from volatile fireman to king-in-waiting. “Jazmine’s gone to talk to Lia.”
    A sense of doom fell on him, hard and fast. “Is the entire royal family in array against me?” he asked lightly.
    Charlie swore. “Look, this is hard enough to say. This is my wedding night, and you’re my brother. If you’d come to me five, six months ago and said you wanted to marry Lia I’d have been the happiest bloke in Ryde.”
    Seeing Charlie floundering, Toby supplied the rest of it for him. “But now you aren’t the happiest Crown Prince in the palace.”
    Charlie said bluntly, “Lia can’t renounce her position without the permission of the reigning king and the entire House of Hereditary Lords—and with only four of us to rebuild the dynasty there’s no way they’ll let her go.”
    Toby went cold. “Does Giulia know that?”
    “ I didn’t know until Jazmine told me a few days ago.” Charlie sighed. “The law is designed to tie royalty to the nation for life. That’s why Papou had to disappear the way he did, and could never come back.” Charlie’s mouth tightened. “I trust you with her life, Grizz, you know that. But you can’t take her home.”
    He stared his old friend down. “Then I’ll stay with her.” The thought of a life without Giulia in it was unbearable. She and Charlie were his family, had been ever since his parents had divorced with a bitterness that had torn the Winders apart. His parents had demanded full loyalty, that he live with one parent or the other. Unable to stand it, he’d opted out and chosen the Costas—and neither of them had forgiven him for the betrayal.
    “You can’t.” Charlie’s voice grew stressed. “The people won’t accept you. This is a male-dominated society, and whoever marries Lia becomes a prince by default.”
    A cold shiver ran through him. He loved Giulia, he always would. But he was a fireman. He loved his life at home. To have the woman he loved, he’d have to become a prince, facing the media and the task of rebuilding Hellenia on a daily, hourly basis. It was a vision as ridiculous as it was impossible.
    He’d come to Hellenia ready to save her, convinced she’d collapse under the stress of royal life; but all he’d seen in the past eight weeks had been her strength, her wisdom, courage and dignity. Since coming to Hellenia, she’d flourished.
    So what was he doing? Trying to ruin her new life filled with challenges she revelled in, weaken her strength to re-find his place with her?
    Charlie ran a hand through his hair. “When you planted the first kiss