Chapter 414: Chapter 414: To the date.

Dax said nothing at first. His eyes moved again over Chris’s T-shirt, jeans, bare arms, and the complete lack of concern on his face.

Then, very calmly, “You’re comfortable.”

It wasn’t a question.

Chris’s mouth curved. “I’m from Palatine.”

Something like amusement flickered in Dax’s expression. “Right.”

Rowan stepped in with the air of a man presenting evidence in an ongoing case. “He refuses the coat.”

Chris looked at him, scandalized. “Because I do not need the coat.”

Dax’s gaze went from Chris to Rowan to the coat, then back to Chris.

For a second, Chris thought he might actually side with him.

Then Dax exhaled, slow and resigned, like a man accepting that logic was irrelevant and he was about to do what he wanted anyway.

He reached up, caught the edge of the coat draped over his own shoulders, and shrugged it off in one smooth motion.

Chris blinked.

The thing looked even bigger in Dax’s hands.

Heavy, expensive, dark, and lined with enough warmth to survive weather Chris would classify as ’a little annoying.’

“Dax—”

“No.”

The word was quiet. Final. Not because Chris was wrong, but because Dax had already made a decision and saw no reason to pretend otherwise.

He stepped in close and settled the coat over Chris’s shoulders.

It was enormous.

It swallowed his frame, dropped past his knees, and carried Dax’s warmth and scent with it – clean skin, spice, and something darker beneath. The collar brushed Chris’s jaw. The weight of it was ridiculous.

Chris stood there in offended silence for one full beat.

“I was not cold,” he said.

Dax adjusted the front of the coat with deliberate, unhurried hands. “I know.”

Chris frowned. “Then what is this?”

Dax’s mouth twitched. “Sahan hospitality.”

Rowan, traitor to the end, added, “And post-surgical caution.”

Chris turned his head toward Rowan. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Immensely,” Rowan said, deadpan.

That made Chris laugh despite himself.

Dax’s hand slid to Chris’s waist, thumb brushing once in a way that was half possessive, half check-in, and all familiarity. He looked at Chris with that quiet focus that stripped the rest of the world down to background noise.

“You can give it back in the car if you’re too warm,” Dax said.

Chris glanced down at the coat swallowing him whole, then back up at Dax in his black shirt and dark trousers, now standing in the same weather coatless because he’d handed over the expensive problem.

His expression softened before he could stop it.

“This is ridiculous,” Chris said, but there was no heat in it.

Dax’s eyes flicked over his face, satisfied. “Yes.”

Chris tugged the coat closed with one hand, mostly because it smelled like Dax, and he was weak to that in ways he would deny under oath.

Rowan saw and blissfully said nothing.

Chris pointed at him anyway. “If you mention this later, I’ll assign you to the heir wardrobe committee.”

“I would never.”

“You absolutely would.”

Dax huffed a quiet laugh and opened the rear door with one hand, keeping the other at Chris’s waist.

“Get in,” Dax said. “Before Rowan escalates to scarves.”

From behind them, Rowan said, “I have one in the car.”

Chris closed his eyes briefly. “Of course you do.”

He ducked into the back seat wrapped in a coat he did not need, wearing a smile he couldn’t quite hide.

Dax followed a moment later, and as the door shut on the palace, the gardens, and Rowan’s aggressively competent concern, Chris leaned back and looked at him sideways.

“For the record,” Chris said, “I wasn’t cold.”

Dax adjusted his cuffs, looking entirely too calm. “I know.”

Chris narrowed his eyes. “Then why give me the coat?”

Dax turned to face him, his gaze warm, direct, and impossible.

“Because I wanted to,” he said.

—

Outside, the car eased away from the private lane with the kind of smooth discretion that came from expensive engineering and a driver who understood that royal privacy was a national asset. The palace walls slipped past the tinted windows in flashes of stone, glass, and late-spring green.

Inside, the space was quiet in a way Chris had forgotten he missed.

No aides. No monitors. No one knocking.

Just the low hum of the engine, the soft leather under his hands, and Dax sitting beside him in a black shirt with his coat now hanging off Chris like a captured flag.

Chris looked down at the coat again, then back at Dax.

“You’re unbearable,” he said, but the words had gone warm at the edges.

Dax leaned back, one arm stretched along the seat behind Chris, posture loose in that deceptive way that meant he was relaxed enough to enjoy himself and still alert enough to kill a man if needed.

“Yes,” he said. “You married me anyway.”

Chris snorted and turned toward the window, mostly to hide the smile that answered before he could stop it.

The palace perimeter gates opened without ceremony. Security outside the vehicle shifted with practiced invisibility, one car falling in far enough back to pretend it was coincidence, another peeling off at the next turn like it had never been there at all.

’No entourage,’ Dax had written.

Chris watched the choreography and huffed softly. “Your definition of ’no entourage’ is creative.”

Dax followed his gaze toward the window. “I said no entourage. I didn’t say, ’No security.”

Chris laughed, turning back to him. “Where are we going?”

Dax looked at him for a beat, unreadable in that infuriatingly calm way he wore when he was enjoying himself.

“Out,” he said.

Chris stared. “That’s not an answer.”

Dax’s mouth twitched. “You’ll survive the suspense.”

Chris leaned back against the seat, Dax’s oversized coat pooling around him like a very expensive hostage situation. “I survived surgery, a national panic, and Sahir trying to name infrastructure after our son. I can survive anything. That doesn’t mean I like it.”

Something warm flickered in Dax’s eyes at that—at the ’our son,’ maybe, or the fact that Chris was laughing at things that had nearly broken them two months ago.

“You’ll like this,” Dax said quietly.

Chris watched him for a second longer than necessary.

The confidence in it wasn’t theatrical. Dax wasn’t trying to impress him. He sounded like a man who had thought it through, moved pieces around, and built a pocket of time with his bare hands because he refused to let the palace eat them alive.

Chris’s smile softened despite himself.

“You planned an actual surprise,” he said. “Should I be worried?”

“Yes,” Dax said, deadpan. “You’re on a date with me.”

Chris snorted. “I walked into that.”

“You did.”

Outside, the city slid by in flashes of late-spring color and polished glass. Inside, Dax reached over and tugged the front of the coat closed again where it had fallen open across Chris’s lap.

Chris looked down, then back up at him. “I’m not cold.”

“I know.”

“Then stop fastening me like luggage.”

Dax’s hand lingered at his chest for half a second, thumb brushing the fabric once. “No.”

Chris laughed again, softer this time, and let his head tip back against the seat.

“Fine,” he said. “Be mysterious. But if this ends with a public event, I’m filing for divorce.”

Dax turned to him, scandalized in the driest possible way. “On a date?”

“Especially on a date.”

Dax’s gaze moved over his face, warm and entirely too pleased. “It’s private.”

Chris narrowed his eyes. “That sounded like a line.”

“It was a reassurance.”

“It sounded smug.”

Dax’s mouth curved. “That too.”

Chris watched him, amused and happy in a way that sat oddly gentle in his chest after weeks of chaos.

He leaned a little closer, voice lower. “If you kidnapped me for paperwork in a prettier location, I’ll make you regret your birth.”

Dax didn’t blink. “If I wanted paperwork, I’d have brought Sahir.”

Chris groaned. “You really do want this date to end in sex.”

For the first time, Dax actually laughed – low, brief, and impossible not to feel.

Chris smiled wider, victorious, and looked back out the window as the car turned again.

“Alright,” he murmured, lacing his fingers with Dax’s when Dax offered his hand without looking. “Surprise me, then.”

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