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twenty-three, I had a party. Invited all of Paris and more   —hosted it in the ballroom. Took the cap off the budget.” He blinked hard, looked away. “The place was jammed with guests   —most of whom I didn’t know. I’d purchased my own fame and drank it in.”
    He still hadn’t pinpointed why he’d needed the adoration of thousands. When he closed his eyes, regret could yank him back to the moment when the screaming began, right after Francesca’s toast. “We’re not sure how, but a fire started on one end of the ballroom. In the chaos of the fire alarm, I got separated from Francesca, my fiancée.”
    Claire glanced at Jensen at the word fiancée . Roark took another sip of coffee. “We found her after the fire. She’d been trampled.”
    “Oh, Roark.” Claire rested her hand on his arm. “It wasn’t your fault.”
    He met her eyes. “It was my party.”
    He couldn’t bear to confess the rest   —how he’d made a few choices that had landed him on the side of God’s wrath, and the hotel fire only confirmed it. “So I quit. Left the hotel industry, the infamy of my mistakes, and have been wandering around the world since then, trying to figure out how to live with myself.” Heset the coffee on his bedside table. “Then I met Amelia. She didn’t see me as broken or damaged or even rich. Just as the guy who made her laugh. Who could speak a couple languages, introduced her to Nutella crepes, and helped her see the world through the different f-stop settings on her camera. I wasn’t the hotel heir who burned down the Constantine Paris, or the grieving fiancé, but a photography bum on holiday. Who happened to be taking the same course she was.”
    Jensen raised an eyebrow. “ Happened to?”
    “That might be a stretch, but in my defense, I was going to tell her. Just not yet. And not until I’d cleared the way with Cicely, Francesca’s sister. The woman Amelia thought I cheated with . . .”
    “That’s why you didn’t tell her who Cicely was,” Claire said. “Because then you’d have to tell her the whole story about the fire.”
    “Ending with the fact that my uncle wants me to report to the board in two months to ease into leadership.”
    “And you didn’t think Amelia would jump at the chance to helm the empire with you?” Claire asked.
    “I don’t know. I just knew that I’d had enough of women seeing only the euros attached to my name. Amelia didn’t . . . and then the omission became gaping, and I didn’t know how to bridge it. I’m not sure what to hope now. Especially since she’s already dating someone else. A big guy named Seth?”
    Claire’s mouth formed an O. “Right.”
    “His family owns Turnquist Lumber, and he’s the heir to his own throne,” Jensen said. “A sort of Deep Haven royalty, as it were.”
    Roark winced.
    “So when are you going to tell her?” Claire said.
    “Tell her?”
    “That you’re rich to the third power. You know, ‘very, very, very’? How rich is that, anyway?”
    He sighed. “Add a comma for every very .”
    The room went quiet as Claire   —and probably Jensen too   —did the math. Their expressions confirmed the resolve inside Roark. In fact, he doubted that they would hear anything else he said. That was why . . . “I can’t tell her. Not yet.”
    “But   —”
    “No, he’s right, honey.” This from Jensen. “If he tells her, he’ll never know if Amelia loves him for his money or for himself. He has to win her back without the money.”
    Thank you, Jensen.
    “But with Seth in the way, it does get tricky,” Jensen added. “He has hometown advantage.”
    “But Roark has you and me.” Claire got up and patted Roark’s shoulder. “The first thing we’re going to do is get you out of this bed, get you back to our place, and fill you with warm stew, Your Highness.”
    “Claire   —”
    “I’m just kidding. I’m going to call you Caesar instead.”

    A guy who just tied the knot with the woman