Chapter l348

Chapter 0348

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nicholas snapped back.

“You need to stop walking Piper around,” Julian said, firm. “It makes me look bad. She’s supposed to be my date, remember?”

“It’s after hours,” Nicholas said. “There shouldn’t be any cameras.”

““Shouldn’t be,“” Julian said. “You admit it. There could still be some.”

“You are being overly paranoid,” Nicholas said.

“And you aren’t being paranoid enough,” Julian countered. He looked at me. “If we want this to seem real, we need to keep up appearances even without the cameras. I don’t care what you two get up to behind closed doors

His gaze dips to my n*eck, where the love bites Nicholas left are still prominent.

“But when we are in public, even if it’s late, you have to respect that I’m Piper’s boyfriend,” Julian said.

Boyfriend? We’d never used that term before. We’d only been dating, or I was Julian’s favorite. But neither he nor 1, nor any of the producers, had gone so far as to call Julian my

boyfriend.

He didn’t back down. He didn’t take it back. He just glared at Nicholas like he planned to say it six or seven more times to stab him with the word.

“You are not her boyfriend,” Nicholas said, his voice dropping low and dangerous. A growl was hidden there, revealed around the edges. “You are fake dating. That is not the same.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Julian’s l*ps quirked into a mocking smirk. He was baiting his brother, and protective and jealous Nicholas was falling for it.

“Julian,” I said, strained. My patience was thin. I’d already had a trying day, making Elva cry. I didn’t have the necessary calm to deal with these brothers and their deep–seated rivalry today. “Please stop antagonizing him.”

His smirk wavered a bit.

“And Nicholas,” I turned to him next. He seemed surprised that I would address him in this argument, but a moment later, he met my disapproving gaze with a steady one of his own.

“Piper.”

“Julian’s not wrong. We should be careful…”

“There won’t be cameras,” he said, and made it sound so

o sure.

+15 BONUS

“You think,” Julian chimed in.

1 weaved my fingers together. My heart told me to go with Nicholas anyway. Our moments. were so stolen and rare, I collected each like precious gemstones. But I didn’t dare risk my fake relationship with Julian…

“All I want to do is walk you back to your room,” Nicholas said. “It’s all very innocent.”

I didn’t believe that, especially not with the heated glace he was giving me. He, like me, hadn’t forgotten our time together the night before. Even now, every inch of my skin tingled for the touch of his hand, or the press of his

of his tongue…

“Okay,” I said at once. For Nicholas, I was willing to throw caution to the wind. What could possibly happen that we wouldn’t be able to cover for? “I’ll go with you.”

Nicholas held out his arm again, and I laced my arm through it.

Julian exhaled a loud, disappointed sigh.

To him, I said, “It’s going to be fine.”

“It had better be,” Julian said.

Veronica watched everything with a neutral expression. Though she seemed pleased now that we were getting ready to leave. “Have a good night.”

Julian stayed with us part of the walk back, but then he had to veer away to go to his own private rooms. He looked back twice on his walk away.

“It’s not like him to be so concerned about anything,” Nicholas said, though I didn’t think that was true. I thought it much more likely that he was simply better at hiding his worries most of the time.

“This is a big deal,” I said. “Sometimes it feels like the fate of the kingdom depends on Julian and my fake relationship. We can’t be careless.”