It pisses me off all over again. “Seriously? Are we fucking twelve here?”
“Geez, who pissed in your café au lait? I’m calling to give you good news and this is what I get? So much for brotherly love.”
“Good news? So the meeting with Parliament went well?”
“What? Fuck, no. It was an absolute shit show, per your predictions. I tried to talk them around, but they pretty much ignored me. They plan on holding a vote to withdraw from the treaty sometime in the next two weeks.”
“What? Are you fucking kidding me? How could you let that happen?”
“Let it happen? Dude, I studied the hell out of your notes on the treaty, but they kicked my ass. You know I’m no good at this shit. Plain and simple, they outmaneuvered me.”
“They outmaneuvered you because you’ve spent your life fucking around instead of figuring out how politics really work. Maybe if you hadn’t tried to cram for this like a damn final exam—”
“Sorry, but cramming is pretty much all I’ve got open to me, since I’m trying to learn a hundred years of modern policy on the fly. Which is why we need to get you back into Daddy Dearest’s good graces and fast, before I end up giving away the treasury.”
I snort. “Yeah, well, that’d be one way to lose your position as the King’s favorite.”
“Yes, well, I’ve got another way—which is why I called. We just got the first polling data back—”
“Polling data? What are we polling?”
“You and Lola, obviously. And guess what? The people love you guys. I mean, like they’re one step away from creeping into your bedroom, dude.”
What the fuck? It takes me a minute to even try to wrap my head around what he’s saying. “What the hell are you talking about? You had them do a poll on Lola and me?” The fuck?
“It was Liese’s idea, actually, but it’s obviously a good one. I’m going to float the numbers to the King later today, let him see what’s up. But don’t worry, it’s totally going to put pressure on him to do the right thing.”
“Wait a minute. Just wait…a minute. Let me get this straight. You polled Lola and me as a couple and the people like us?”
“Are you not listening? They don’t like you. They love you. Seriously. Ask me the approval rating. Go ahead. Ask me.”
“I don’t give a shit about the approval rating. You can’t just boil Lola’s and my relationship down to a bunch of numbers—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Can you just give me a minute to catch up here? What relationship? The last I heard, this was all an act. I thought you two didn’t really hit it off.”
“We didn’t. But now we do and it’s…”
“What? Now it’s what?” He’s so excited, he’s pretty much crowing at this point. “I told Savvy there was something going on here—something about those last pictures of you guys in the airport raised a flag for me.” He is crowing now. “So you two are actually in a relationship now? For our purposes, that’s so much better than faking it. Tell me everything.”
“I will not.”
He makes a dismissive sound. “You’re such a fucking Boy Scout. Fine, tell me something, then. Anything. When did you two decide you wanted to be together for real?”
Shit. I knew better than to open my mouth. Now there’s no way Kian’s going to back off until I give him something. He doesn’t have it in him to walk away from anything empty-handed—with the exception of parliamentary meetings, apparently.
Still, what’s between Lola and me is new and fragile. I want to keep it just between us until we figure out what’s going on—well, between us and a few million of our closest fans, apparently. Damn it. “We haven’t decided anything yet.”
“What? I thought you just said—”
“We haven’t actually talked about whatever this thing between us is, okay?”
“Well, why the fuck not?”
“You’re asking me that? The original man-whore?”
“Reformed man-whore, thank you very much. True love has changed me.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now?”