Chapter 22

Callum

Finding out the royal yacht is missing isn’t the best beginning to Etienne’s wedding day.

At least I get to spend some time with Flora aboard my fishing boat, even if this excursion is mainly about saving the second prince from the consequences of his own actions.

I’m delighted to learn Flora knows how to throw a rope, and pretty soon, we have the yacht tethered.

“You stay here,” I tell her. “I’ll get his ass down from the crow’s nest.”

“No way,” she says. “Etienne won’t go anywhere with you; he looks at you the same way he looks at Sigurd. He has a soft spot for me. Let me handle it.”

I can’t let her do this. “It’s too dangerous.”

She puts her hands on her hips. “You want to stand here and argue or do you want to help me get this idiot to the chapel?”

“Why are you so fired up about this sham wedding taking place, anyway?”

Flora’s lovely face is luminous in the early morning sun, but it’s also full of apprehension. “Because if he gets married, then Sigurd will come home. And maybe everyone will relax and leave me alone. Us…alone.”

I fire back because I’m tired from being awakened at 5 a.m. “What if I don’t want us to be left alone? What if I want us to freely exist as a couple?”

“Now’s not the right time, Callum.”

I could give her an ultimatum, but I know her well enough by now to know that won’t work. And I wouldn’t want to do that to her.

“I’ll wait. But not forever. Don’t let this go until one of us dies, Flora. I don’t want things to end for us like they did for Nanny and my father.”

She looks like she wants to either cry or kiss me. But we’re on open water, in full view of the shoreline, and people are starting to notice.

She gives me a tight nod, then turns away to climb up to the crow’s nest to rescue her layabout brother.