She froze as the crown prince alleged that his personal bodyguard, a man whom she suspected held very little fondness for her, was occupying the men's bath. Just as quickly as her escape route had appeared it now vanished. The brunette was struck with the dilemma of whether to linger a while longer and enjoy the spring or to save herself from the enigmatic man that was to one day be her husband. Rhiane did not fear Luke so much as she worried about what his intentions were. At times he was more ruthlessly critical of her than his mother the queen, and at other times he was genuinely gentle, and today he had already traversed the distance between these extremes more than once. An unoccupied bedroom was increasingly tempting.

His proposal that they abandon their names and stations for a night gave her pause. It was not an apology, but she knew him well enough to recognize that this was his peace offering. She wavered in indecision. Not once had he proven himself capable of setting aside his prejudices for more than a few hours; when he did, he was merely shelving the thoughts, not accepting her identity in small increments. At the end of her marriage she anticipated he could loathe the peasants more through her than respect them. Rhiane was increasingly anxious about the affect she was having on the future of New Rome. Playing these games with the man who would one day lead them could have catastrophic results were she to make too many missteps. Exhaustion whispered in her ear that fleeing the battlefield was the wiser choice.

Just as she had been ready to decline he had drifted to her side of the pool and placed his hand on her arm. Effortlessly he pulled her back into the depths of the water. Trusting him for the moment she watched with apprehension and mounting confusion as he lured her to the center of the bath. The compliment that easily dropped from his lips that dispelled her puzzled expression. Her cheeks flushed a sufficiently bright pink to be visible under the muted glow of starlight. Flattery from Luke was rare and evoked a different reaction than anyone else. He had seen her converse with lords and ladies, esteemed professionals, and poor laborers, but none had made her an ounce flustered when they showered her with adulation for her beauty. Tobias praised her more, and this is why she leaned onto the cousin that was her champion, but only the arrogant heir to the throne could make her breathlessly enamored.

There was a prolonged pause as she listened to the fake name, the pick up line, his light-hearted laugh, and the pick-up line repeated with the correction cited. Just as he was almost certainly losing hope she would play along she let out a small giggle and shook her head slowly in disbelief. "Of all the names you could pick and you stuck with a simple Alex?" she asked with amusement. She couldn't quite say what was so funny about his selection. In fantastical stories of whirlwind romances or epic heroes whose legacies lived on for millennia they had unique names to suit. What was even more absurd was that he had such disdain for commoners and yet chose a name that was just that- common.

"Tell me, Alex, do you regularly go to the women's bath to meet people?" she inquired with a raised brow. "It's a little inappropriate to be stripping down nude and then approaching ladies who are similarly undressed," she added, suddenly more aware that they were not wearing clothing. Rhiane pulled back her good arm and withdrew a few inches. He had not touched her more than was necessary, yet the proximity made it hard not to recall their earlier intimacy, and she felt shamed that he was so composed and casual while she was twittering like a schoolgirl. Luke was staving off her fatigue though not in the way she had imagined. It felt dangerous to linger closer than was required for them to speak. Whether or not he had control was irrelevant; she was compromised enough to act on urges best left unexplored.

"I know you're not a prince," she said with a sudden change of topic, obviously overeager to broach a topic that was safer than thinly veiled flirting, "but if you were... do you think there would actually be a crown? Heavy is the crown is the metaphor, but I'd think if there was an actual physical crown- I've never seen one, mind you- it'd be quite heavy if it's made out of gold and gems. Uncomfortably heavy," the princess elect mused aloud with an almost childlike wonder. When she was distracted by a more innocent subject she was prone to pondering such inane things as she did now. Tobias told her this was what made her so congenial; she was not limited to politics, but had a wide breath of humorous speculations, and anecdotes that were of trivial shared experiences. In another life she would have been an excellent advertising executive, social media coordinator, or talk show host.

"Technically that's not true," she chased after serious contemplation. "I made my brother a crown once, out of paper, but then I ended up trying to tell him what to do anyway. I think I was maybe five years old," the brunette recalled slowly as she tugged free the distant memory. "He barely tolerated wearing the crown to appease me, but he would not tolerate me becoming a dictator after making him the so-called-king, so we ended up getting punished for fighting. I stole back the crown later because I was angry," she confessed mischievously, "and it was quite light when I wore it. Light enough it blew away on the wind within a few minutes of going outside."