The royal wedding had moved well beyond the ceremony itself, leaving the palace reception in full swing. Music drifted through the grand ballroom beneath glittering chandeliers, champagne passed from hand to hand, and conversations overlapped beneath the careful elegance expected of an event filled with royalty, politicians, diplomats, celebrities, and enough security personnel to make wandering into the wrong corridor a very bad idea.

Prince Henry had managed to find one of the quieter edges of the room.

That was, admittedly, becoming something of a skill.

He stood slightly removed from the largest clusters of guests, composed and immaculate beneath the weight of royal expectations. Every so often someone approached him with a greeting, a congratulation, or a few painfully polite words of conversation. Henry responded exactly as expected—pleasant, restrained, effortlessly princely—before allowing the conversation to end and the guest to drift elsewhere.

Across the reception, Alex Claremont-Diaz was accomplishing almost the exact opposite.

He seemed physically incapable of disappearing into a crowd.

One moment he was laughing with a group of younger guests, the next he was charming someone important enough to have several security officers watching from nearby. Somewhere along the way he'd apparently irritated an elderly aristocrat, made another guest laugh hard enough to nearly spill their champagne, and earned a warning glance from someone on the American delegation.

Alex responded to the latter with an innocent smile that fooled absolutely no one.

Then, somewhere between one conversation and the next, his attention wandered across the ballroom.

And landed on Henry.

Alex's expression shifted.

Henry was standing alone again.

For a moment, Alex stayed where he was, watching him from across the room. Their interactions had never exactly been simple. Henry had an irritating talent for getting under his skin without seeming to do much of anything, while Alex had an equally irritating talent for making sure Henry knew exactly when he'd gotten under his.

Maybe walking over there was a terrible idea.

Naturally, Alex started walking.

Henry noticed him before he'd crossed half the room. His posture remained perfectly composed, but there was the faintest change in his expression as recognition settled in.

Alex caught it.

That only made him keep going.

Around them, the reception continued uninterrupted—music playing, glasses clinking, conversations unfolding, guests wandering between the ballroom and adjoining rooms. Whatever happened next didn't have to concern either prince or First Son at all.

But Alex was already closing the distance.