“What charity,” I said, my sarcasm evident. “You should be sainted.”
“Laugh all you want, but I was willing to push you two together because you were so clearly in love, even if it meant I had to take up the mantle should Bridget abdicate. Is that not a sacrifice?”
It was a sacrifice. But I wasn’t admitting that to Andreas.
My head pounded with the volume of new information rushing in. There was every chance Andreas was bullshitting me, but my gut told me he wasn’t.
“I almost told her about our father, you know. At Nikolai’s wedding reception. It doesn’t help much with the Royal Marriages Law, since it requires the monarch to marry someone of legitimate noble birth. You were born out of wedlock and never acknowledged by Erhall as his son—he doesn’t even know you are his son—so you don’t qualify.” Andreas finished his tea and set it in the sink. “But she disappeared from the reception and before I could talk to her, The Daily Tea allegations broke.” He shrugged. “C’est la vie.”
Dammit. I’d hoped, now that I knew I was the son of a lord…
“If it doesn’t help with the law, why would you tell her?” I demanded.
“Because I have an idea of how it might help in a roundabout way.” Andreas smiled. “It might even help you get Bridget back if you work fast enough. Holstein’s scheduled to propose next month. I’m willing to help you…”
“But?” There was always a but in these kinds of games.
“But you stop treating me like an enemy and as…perhaps not a brother, but a friendly acquaintance. We are, after all, the only direct family left besides our lovely father.” Something flickered across Andreas’s face before it disappeared.
“That’s it.” Suspicion curled in my stomach. It seemed too easy.
“That’s it. Take it or leave it.”
Something occurred to me. “Before I answer, I want to know. Did you ever snoop around my guesthouse when I wasn’t there?”
He gave me an odd look. “No.”
“The truth.”
Andreas drew himself up to his full height, looking affronted. “I am a prince. I do not snoop around guesthouses…” the word dripped with disdain, “…like a common thief.”
I pressed my lips together. He was telling the truth.
But if he wasn’t the culprit, who was?
I supposed it didn’t matter anymore, considering I no longer lived there, but the mystery rankled.
I did, however, have more important things to focus on.
I didn’t trust Andreas. He may be honest today, and he may not want to steal the crown from Bridget, but that didn’t mean he would be honest always.
Unfortunately, I was running out of both time and options.
I hope I don’t regret this.
“Your idea,” I said. “I’m listening.”
43
Bridget
The palace assigned Booth as my bodyguard again. I’d been in a terrible mood since Rhys left, and the palace handlers assumed it would help if someone I knew and liked replaced him.
Booth took the role after Edvard left the hospital two weeks ago, and while no one could replace Rhys, it was nice to see Booth’s smiling face again.
“Just like old times, huh, Your Highness?” he said as we waited for Elin and Steffan in my office. I usually didn’t have a guard in the palace, but meetings with external guests were an exception.
I forced a smile. “Yes.”
Booth hesitated, then added, “A lot has changed over the years. I’m no Mr. Larsen, but I’ll try my best.”
A fierce ache gripped my chest at Rhys’s name. “I know. I’m glad to have you back. Truly.”
And yet, thoughts of dark hair and gunmetal eyes, scars and hard-won smiles still consumed me.
There was a time when I would’ve given anything to have Booth as my bodyguard again. In the immediate weeks after his departure, I’d cursed him every day for leaving me alone with Rhys.
Insufferable, domineering, arrogant Rhys, who refused to let me walk on the outside of sidewalks and treated every visit to a bar like a mission into a war zone. Who scowled more than he laughed and argued more than he talked.
Rhys, who’d planned a last-minute trip for me so I could fulfill my bucket list, even though it must’ve gone against his every instinct as a bodyguard, and who kissed me like the world was ending and I was his last chance at salvation.
The ache intensified and spread to my throat, my eyes, my soul.
He was everywhere. In the chair where we’d kissed, the desk where we’d fucked, the painting where we’d laughed over how the artist had drawn one of the subject’s eyebrows a little higher and more crooked than the other, giving her a permanent expression of surprise.
Even if I left the office, he would still be there, haunting me.
The door opened, and I curled my hand around my knee to steady myself as Elin and Steffan walked in.
“Thank you for coming,” I said as Steffan took the seat opposite me. It was my first time seeing him in person since he’d agreed to the engagement.
He gave me a smile that looked almost as forced as mine felt. “Of course, Your Highness. We are going to be engaged, after all.”
The way he said it, I wondered if I hadn’t been the only one forced into this arrangement. He’d seemed eager enough on our first two dates, but he’d been distant and distracted since he returned from Preoria.
My mind flashed back to the tension I’d picked up on between him and Malin.
An awkward silence fell before Elin cleared her throat and pulled out her pen and notebook. “Excellent. Shall we start the meeting then, Your Highness? Top of the agenda is the timing and venue for the proposals. Lord Holstein will propose in three weeks at the Royal Botanic Gardens. It’ll be a good callback to your second date. We’ll tell the press you’ve been in regular correspondence while he was in Preoria so it doesn’t seem like the proposal came out of nowhere…”
The meeting dragged on. Elin’s voice blurred into a running stream of noise, and Steffan sat straight-backed in his chair with a glassy look in his eyes. I felt like I was attending a business merger negotiation, which I was, in a way.
Just the fairytale girls dream of.
“…your honeymoon,” Elin said. “Thoughts?”
Her expectant gaze yanked me out of the place I’d mentally escaped to while she droned on about media interviews and outfit options for the proposal.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“We need to decide on a honeymoon location,” she repeated. “Paris is classic, if cliche. The Maldives are popular but getting too trendy. We could choose somewhere more unique, maybe in Central or South America. Brazil, Belize, Costa Rica…”
“No!”
Everyone jumped at my uncharacteristic shout. Booth’s eyes grew round, and Elin’s brow creased with disapproval. Only Steffan’s expression remained neutral.
“No, not Costa Rica,” I repeated more calmly, my heart pounding. “Anywhere but there.”
I would rather honeymoon in Antarctica wearing nothing but a bikini.
Costa Rica belonged to me and Rhys. No one else.
Bucket list number four.