Contenting himself with a short nod and a dry look at me, Jonathan turned and went back the way they’d come. I knew the girls loved the man, but I liked him just as much as he liked me. Which was to say not at all.

“Is Jonathan going gray?” I asked as Trent closed the few steps remaining between us.

“I haven’t noticed. But that might be why he’s cutting it so short lately.” Trent stopped before me, worry creasing his features. “You could have slept upstairs. You did sleep, yes?”

“A few hours.” I fell into step beside him when he gestured for us to continue down the hall past Ivy’s door. “I’m not a spare room kind of girl.”

“It wouldn’t have been the spare room you would have been in,” he said, matching our steps and giving me a sideways hug. “Life is too short for bad coffee,” he said, taking my cup out of my hand and setting it on a table in the hall. “How’s Ivy?”

“Okay, thanks to you,” I said, not wanting to talk about it. My arm went around him and my head fell onto his shoulder. Trent eased us to a halt and I pulled him to me, resting my head against his chest. The light scent of his aftershave was a bare hint, just enough, and my jaw finally began to relax. I could hear the sound of his waterfall downstairs, past the great room, and my eyes closed.

The relief that he came to help me in the ever-after had almost hurt, even if he’d risked his life and an already failing reputation. There hadn’t been a wisp of regret in him, and I shoved the coming heartache down because even though he meshed with my life perfectly, I did not mesh with his.

Trent had been moving toward bringing his people back from the brink of extinction his entire life. The path had been laid out. He’d willingly sacrificed for it—and he would again. The ugly truth was, I couldn’t help him accomplish what he needed to do, I could only hinder it. That was why Jonathan disliked me and Quen disapproved even as he agreed that this was the happiest Trent had ever been despite his dwindling fortune and the lawsuits piling up like cordwood. Trent was all about duty—and I was dragging him down.

“You okay?” he asked, and I tilted my head and turned the hug into a brief kiss.

“Yes.” I dropped my head again, needing to feel him next to me if only for this space of time. “I don’t like leaving her in that ugly white bed.”

“It’s going to be okay.” His voice rumbled up through me.

I didn’t want to move. Ever. “I don’t know what I would have done if she had—”

I couldn’t even say it, and my eyes warmed as the tears spilled over.

His grip strengthened, and I blinked up at him, feeling like a wimp. “But she didn’t,” he said firmly, understanding in his eyes. “You did good. You got her out of immediate danger, and more important, gave her a place to meet her future with dignity and peace. If she had died, she would’ve done so with the person she loved most in the world with her. No one can ask for more than that, even kings.”