“I hope you can understand and respect Nicholas’s need to move on from the train wreck you once shared together,” the King continued. I swallowed thickly, fear mixing with anger. What Nicholas and I had was special, not anything like a terrible accident. We’d cared deeply for each other. I’d had to leave him for his own sake, but I had never stopped caring about him. Yet as annoyed as the accusation made me, I did understand the King’s point of view. Nicholas had revealed to me that he was still hung up on our break up even now, three years later. He deserved to be free, to find someone to love. I doubted, however, that the King’s concern for his son had little to do with genuine care and everything to do with full control. Nicholas had been tied up in this from the start. The King and