“Eve, you can’t understand what it’s like to be the first-born. I can sympathize in a way. The Hamiltons don’t have a country, but as far as Daddy’s concerned, we have an empire.” She sighed a bit, knowing her own choices had never quite satisfied him. “Since there was no son to pass the business on to, the pressure fell to me to learn it. When the message finally got across that that wasn’t going to work, the pressure changed to my marrying someone who could take over the business. Maybe that’s why I’ve never done either.”

“I guess I’ve never really understood.”

“Why should you? It was different for you.”

“I know. No pressure here.” With a sigh, Eve leaned back against her dresser, taking a last look at the room she wouldn’t see for months. “Of course I had to go to school and perform well, and it was expected that I’d restrain myself from doing anything to disgrace the family, but if I’d wanted to sit by the pool for the rest of my life and read magazines, it would have been fine.”

“Well, you hid the fact that you had a brain very well.”

“I did, didn’t I?” She could smile at it now. “From myself, too. In any case, by the time it was discovered, the Hamilton Company of Players was too well established for Daddy to expect me to come into the business. So you’re right. I don’t really know what it is to be the heir and have little say in my own destiny. Even knowing that, it’s difficult for me to feel sorry for Alexander.”

“Oh, I don’t know if you should. He’s meant to rule as much by personality as by circumstances of birth. I just wish the two of you got along better.” She took a small white daisy out of a vase on Eve’s dresser, broke the stem short, then slipped it into her sister’s buttonhole. “You’re going to be working closely with him and it isn’t going to help if one of you is always making the other snarl.”

Eve took the rest of the flowers out of the vase, wrapped the dripping stems in a tissue and handed them to Chris. “I don’t think we’ll be working that closely.”

“Isn’t Alex president of the center?”

“Presidents delegate,” she said, and opened her purse to make sure the airline tickets were in place. “Believe me, His Highness doesn’t want to work shoulder to shoulder with me any more than I do with him.” She closed her purse with a snap. “Probably less.”