{Release Day Review} His Royal Secret (His Royal Secret #1) by Lilah Pace (@LilahPace @BerkleyRomance)

The first in an enchanting new male/male romantic duology from Lilah Pace, author of Asking for More and Begging for It....

James, the handsome, cosmopolitan Prince of Wales, is used to being in the public eye. But he's keeping a king-sized secret...James, next in line for the throne, is gay.

He’s been able to hide his sexual orientation with the help of his best friend and beard, Lady Cassandra. Sometimes he feels like a coward for not coming out, but he daren’t risk losing the crown. If he did, the succession would fall on his deeply troubled younger sister, Princess Amelia. To protect her, James is willing to live a lie.

While on holiday, he meets Benjamin Dahan—a rugged international reporter with a globe-trotting, unattached life—who catches far more than James's eye. And when Ben is transferred to London, it seems fate may finally be smiling on James.

But what began as a torrid fling grows into something far more intimate and powerful. Soon James will have decide who he is, what he wants from life and love, and what he’s willing to sacrifice for the truth...

​Being a member of the Royal Family isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and no one feels that more deeply than James.
 
As the Prince of Wales, he is honor bound to his bloodline, his family and his country. And still, he longs for the freedom to reveal to them who he really is in his heart of hearts. 
 
His entire existence seems to be one elaborate illusion after another and he knows far too well the pain that comes from betrayal. 
 
So when he meets a gorgeous man in lush jungles of Africa, it will either be the one chance at love that he has always dreamed of or the destruction of everything he holds so close.

The lie he and Cass had lived for nearly a decade now seemed like the only option. The very hypocrisy he’d once tried to escape, he now had to perpetuate.

​Benjamin Dahan can hardly believe that he just had the most amazing sexual encounter of his life with the reigning Prince Regent.  As a respected journalist, he knows that if he takes his story public it could skyrocket his career into the stratosphere.  It could also shatter the life of the one man who he could ever give his heart to. 
 
When Ben unexpectedly accepts a position in London, he and James resume their affair.  They know that they are playing a very dangerous game but cannot resist the attraction that burns so brightly between them.  For if they are discovered, it won’t matter how much the world has changed – everything will be lost.

Ben, I’m never going to forget you. Not one moment I spent with you, not ever. Fifty years from now I’ll still remember what it was like to kiss you, the way your voice sounded, that afternoon in your flat when you held me close. I’ll be able to recite the words we spoke to each other. I’ll be able to sculpt your face in snow. Even though we’ll never see each other again, you will be a part of every day I live.

​Lilah Pace has once again brought her uncompromising mastery of erotic romance to brand new heights!  His Royal Secret is both poetic and brutal in its heartbreaking reality.  The passion is tangible and the sting of injustice is almost crippling.  And still through it all, the beauty of the story shines through with colours as bright as the noonday sun. 
 
She makes you ache from the unfairness of the world and then she makes you dare to hope that one day we will all be free to love how we choose. And that is indeed a dream worth dreaming…

Exclusive Excerpt - 

James had been horribly lonely in the year after university, so lonely he had made his one and only mistake. He let himself be drawn in by Niall Edgerton.
​
It had been an obvious blunder from the beginning. To begin with, Niall was a servant, an assistant to the Keeper of the Privy Purse. It wasn’t as undignified as bedding a footman, but not much better.

Worse, Niall’s chiseled face and slender body had concealed a manipulative, cruel spirit. James had honestly believed Niall had fallen for him, and in those early, heady days, he’d thought he was caught up in some grand forbidden passion. But then Niall asked for more and more favors, began to jostle for greater authority. James had slowly realized he was being played.

If he had pulled away immediately, he might have minimized the damage. He hadn’t. That gave Niall power, and power went to Niall’s head. He became controlling, both in bed and beyond it. Others on the staff began to comment on his attitude, and while their affair had not yet been exposed, James realized that sooner or later pride would lead Niall to flaunt his connections.

Finally, James had told Niall it had to end, and promised he would be given the most glowing references were he to leave employ at the palace immediately. James had said this feeling as though his heart were breaking. He’d even entertained a faint hope that Niall might see the error of his ways and promise to do better, if only they could give it another chance.

Niall had instead shrugged and said they should talk about money.

The following year was the most humiliating of James’s life. Being blackmailed was about more than losing cash, and he lost quite a lot of that. It was like losing a bit of your soul, check by check. Every single time Niall came demanding more, James had to face anew what a fool he’d been.

And now Niall . . . well, that was over. There was no more to be said. He tried to not even think about it.

James had sworn never to be so weak and stupid again. He could make do with films and fantasies and his own hand. Better that than to make another such mistake. When he took another lover, if he ever did, it would be someone vetted. Trusted. A known quantity whose influence, and potential damage, could be contained.
Certainly it could not be a stranger he met in Africa. A dashing novelist who seemed to have swept in from a more romantic age. A foreigner on the edge of the world.
But Ben took his breath away.

Already James had told Ben more about his inner life than he’d told anyone else—even Cass, even Indigo. Already Ben had told James so much in return, maybe more than Ben himself realized. He was gay too: unashamed, confident, comfortable in his own skin, all the things James wanted so badly to be. Over the course of the two hours they’d spent together, James had gone from merely being attracted to Ben to feeling as if he couldn’t bear not touching him one moment longer.

Concentrate on the bloody game.

He concentrated. He saw his opportunity. And he took it.
James moved his remaining rook into position and said, “Mate in two.”

Ben squinted at the board as though he could somehow change the game at this point, but after another moment he nodded. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” This would probably be a good moment to say he’d lingered here too long, to make a clean, polite break.
Still, his dinner with the team from Médecins Sans Frontières wasn’t for another three hours . . .

A flash of daring made James lean forward with a smirk on his face. “So, where’s my last secret? I’ve earned one, haven’t I?”

“Give me a moment.” Ben pushed back from the table, rose, and went to the bar to top up his drink. “I have to come up with something worthy of your victory.”

The distance between them was slightly bracing. James got to his feet. The rain hadn’t slowed at all; if anything the real world only seemed further away. But reality was out there, waiting to catch him back up in the grind. He would never see Ben again. Already it seemed impossible to him that he’d spoken so openly to a man he’d only known for hours.

Yet, when Ben turned back with his glass of rum, James was under his spell again in an instant.

Ben’s dark eyes met his with almost unnerving directness.
“Are you ready for your prize?”

“Can’t wait.”

“My final secret is this.” Ben took another sip of his rum, then said, “I want you. And I know you want me too.”

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