My cheeks are hot again, but I hold his gaze. “I don’t deserve to be treated like a secret, Corrick.” A muscle in his jaw twitches. I wish he would say something. I wish he would do something. “Forgive me,” he finally says, and his voice is as proper and courtly as I’ve ever heard it. “That wasn’t my intent.” I know, I want to say, but I don’t know. Just like with the man in the candy shop, or with Lochlan’s presence on this ship, I don’t know. Not for sure. So I curtsy just as formally, as if I weren’t just drowning in the taste of his mouth. “Thank you, Your Highness.” That hits him like a
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