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Andre’s words had the desired effect, and he watched in silence as Marek left the room after he was dis shoulder to shoulder in front of hi a word Puzzled, Andre asked, “What is this?”

“We failed you, too, Sire,” Lukas said shortly

Dauilty based only on his obvioushis character into account We jumped to a false conclusion We even did our best to convince you of his guilt To pressure you to have him arrested We failed you”

“Ahhh,” Andre said, glad to have the riddle solved, but aware this posed a tricky dilemma For the first time in forever he didn’t knohat to say to these men Men ere not only the best of the best and who took what they saw as failure personally, but men for whom he felt friendship Just as with Marek Zale, he had to find the words to let thes of shame, but that no blame attached to them None Otherwise, their sense of failure would ruin theuess themselves in the future, and that would dull their reaction time

Then it cae for you to accuse your co your careers could be destroyed And yet you illing to risk that, and more, to protect h, you did not convincecould have done that”

Lukas started to speak, but Andre overrode hi him with an ironclad alibi—you may have saved my life, and Miss Richardson’s, too, because Niko could not afford to kill us unless he could blame it on his brother”

When he finally dismissed them to wait outside so he could talk with Juliana in private, Andre wanted nothing more than to sleep for the next twelve hours But he couldn’t do that Not yet He glanced in Juliana’s direction and was surprised to find she was already awake Awake, and aware of everything that had just taken place

“You heard?”

She nodded, then held out her arms to him, arms that folded protectively around him when he went into her embrace And as he lay there with her on the sofa, his head cradled against her breast, he realized he’d been wrong There was one person as closer to him than Zax Closer even than his sister, Mara One person he could trust enough to let his weakness show

Juliana

A woh to take a h to lend hih My very own Eleonora, Andre thought, just before sleep claiht holding hi him as he slept the sleep of the just

The subsequent scandal caused by the arrests of the five conspirators couldn’t be avoided The news spread like wildfire, and the paparazzi had a field day Rumor and speculation were rampant There was scarcely a Zakharian who didn’t condemn Prince Nikolai’s actions as treasonous and clamor for his swift execution, the same way Prince Xavier had done But when Andre announced he would commute any death sentence handed down to any of the five, all of Zakhar stoutly held that their king ithin his rights and praised him for his mercy

“Mercy that should be credited to you,” Andre told Juliana in private She just shook her head and smiled

It wasn’t until two days later, after the initial furor had died down, that Andre and Juliana were free to leave Zakhar

Juliana stood at Sabrina’s grave with Andre, his strong ar her fro her face into the co shelter of his chest as she wept, not just for Sabrina lying so peacefully in her grave and for her twin daughters still in neonatal intensive care, but for Dirk, too Dirk, who stood stoically at the graveside, his face displaying no erown dark and cold without Bree, a world where he blamed himself for her death

“This is rief when she’d gone to see hiJuliana said to hi she said seeh that iainst everyone and everything Against friendship Against every huainst fatherhood—he’d only visited his tiny daughters twice in the neonatal ICU, both times for less than ten minutes