1. Jensen

CHAPTER 1

JENSEN

I peer over the windowsill, my eyes scanning the driveway. All seems clear right now, but I don’t trust the silence. There’s almost definitely someone hiding out there, waiting to catch me.

Carefully, trying to make it look more like a breeze or draught than a nervous prince waiting to get caught out, I let the curtain slide shut again.

For the last three days, we’ve had all the blinds drawn, the curtains closed, all the lights off except for the ones we absolutely need. It’s like we’ve been hiding in a bunker, waiting for it all to be over.

And because George has been working, I, for the first time in my entire life, am being expected to keep house. I wanted to order takeout every day, but George pointed out that letting people come to the door was probably a bad idea.

So, I’ve been learning how to use an oven, digging pre-made meals out of the freezer, and playing with the settings. At least he isn’t expecting me to cook, and I haven’t needed to do laundry yet.

I can’t stay here forever, though. Being normal is going to kill me.

On top of that, I feel kind of bad that I’ve taken over George’s house and ruined his week. Any plans he might have had, he’s had to cancel now. He claims he didn’t have any, but it’s possible that he’s just being nice — he’s always been a social butterfly.

We got up to a lot of mischief at college. They made a mistake making us roommates. We were out every night and spent all day nursing hangovers and scheming up ways to get girls to notice us.

That was the best year of my life.

“Anyone there?” asks George from behind me, making me jump.

“I can’t see anyone,” I say, turning to face him. “But I know they’re there. I can feel it.”

“Maybe they got bored.”

I scoff. “You know as well as I do what the press are like when they get wind of a scandal, even if it isn’t true.”

George grimaces. “Yeah. I remember.”

A few years ago, his dad, a preeminent lawyer in his firm, got into some hot water on a case surrounding a pop singer and her personal life. Something about fans stalking her and negligence with her address, or something. Maybe she had been pregnant, too? I had been too caught up in my own dating life to pay much attention to the rumors.

It wasn’t quite enough to be a scandal, but the journalists did harass the family for years afterwards. If anyone in the world can understand me, it’s George.

“I’m bored of doing nothing,” I sigh. “And I miss having a maid and a chef, or at the least a delivery driver — and I’m sorry for ruining your week.”

George shrugs. “It’s done now.” I give him a pained look, and he shakes his head at me. “Jensen, stop stressing, all right? You’re a media darling. That’s all there is to it. They can get an easy story about you — you’re always doing dumb stuff.”

“Well, thanks a lot,” I mutter. I press my lips into a firm line, unable to really deny it.

“You could just go out there and end it, man. Tell them your side of the story and hope they leave you alone.”

“You know that never works.” I sigh again, flopping dramatically back onto the sofa. I practically live here now, on this sofa. I’m becoming one with it. The two of us have shared many movies and meals together lately.

I just want to eat one meal from a restaurant. Just a taste of fast food. Anything that’s not this.

George sighs. He might understand me, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy at the imposition. I wish it didn’t have to be like this.

“You could try saying something to them?” he tries again.

I shake my head. “No, it’s hopeless. They’ll start asking me questions about who she is and why we slept together and what I’m going to do about the baby and is it definitely mine. And I don’t even know what her name is.”

“She’s a daughter of some duchess, by the sounds of it,” says George, scrolling on his phone.

“Are you reading the stories again?” I groan. I thought he was supposed to be on my side here, not reading the articles and seeing if he agrees with them.

Surely he knows me better than to agree with them? I might be stupid and reckless, but I’m not totally irresponsible.

“Her name is Maria von Holtz, and you met her three months ago at some charity ball to fundraise for the restoration of some castles or something.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying desperately to even remember the event . It’s not coming to mind.

I go to all sorts of events all the time. I stand there and I smile and I shake people’s hands, and they tell me what a rebel I am. And I keep trying to smile, just taking it all as my brother, who is always ever so proper and correct and perfect, takes all the attention. And it’s so frustrating.

They all act like I’m someone awful. It’s not like I’m trying to be a bad person. I just like partying. I don’t want to be some stuffy royal who never does anything except placidly pose for the media. I don’t want to be some faceless guy who people don’t remember.

And it’s not that I want to be the king, either. That seems like way too much work. I don’t want that responsibility.

But I don’t want to be the king’s brother, either. I don’t want to be worth nothing except my title. I’m a real person. And I want people to understand that.

“You know you can stay here as long as you like,” says George, finally coming back to my side. He really is the best friend I could ever ask for.

And then it hits me. “Your yacht,” I say, turning my head to look at him.

“What?”

“Your yacht.”

“What about my yacht?”

“I want it.”

“What?”

“Stop saying that!”

“Start making sense!”

I shake my head and sit up. This is perfect. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. “You want your life back, right? I want to hide, and you know I’m so grateful that you would let me stay here, but even you can’t keep me here forever. So, trust me, okay? This way you can still feel good for helping me out, and you can go about your normal business.”

There’s a pause during which George frowns, trying to catch up to what I’m saying. I put it in the simplest possible terms for him. “Let me take your yacht, yeah? The press will leave you alone once they realize I’m not here anymore.”

George presses his lips into a thin line. I can see I’m going to have to try harder to persuade him. “Just let me borrow your yacht for a few days. I’ll go out to sea. No one will be able to talk to me. And I’ll come back in a week or so when all this has blown over and they decide to start harassing someone else instead.”

“Jensen, it’s a two-man ship at least. You shouldn’t go alone.”

“It’ll be fine,” I say, waving his concerns away. “It’s not like I can take you away from your work, is it? And anyway, we’ve sailed it together before, just us. I basically know how it works. It’s all autopilot, right? Or whatever the equivalent is for boat. Auto-sail? Auto-drive? Whatever. My point is, it’s fancy. It does it all for you. I wouldn’t need another captain.”

“You only have one captain,” says George, giving me a withering look. “You would be the captain — period.”

“So that’s a yes?” I give him my best wide-eyed, persuasive look.

He sighs. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea. But I suppose you’re right. You’ve sailed aboard it before. And if you don’t go far, it can’t hurt.”

“Trust me,” I say, giving him my biggest winning grin. “What could possibly go wrong?”

I spend the rest of the day packing my bag and getting ready. George makes me review some of the safety material for the boat, and I pay maybe eighty percent attention. I know I should take it all in, but when he leaves the room, I start skimming the books, flicking through the pages and wondering why he even still has paper books. Hasn’t he heard of the modern world?

You’d think that manuals and stuff would all be digital these days. What’s the point of wasting a tree for stuff no one ever reads?

As darkness starts to fall, we sneak out of the house, narrowly avoiding an incident with a dog walker whose tiny, yappy dog draws the entire state’s attention to us. Quickly, we hurry away and head down to the harbor.

The water looks murky in the half-light, and the sound of waves lapping against the dock makes everything feel eerily quiet and still. “We are meant to be here, aren’t we?” I whisper to George.

He throws me a look. “Yes, it’s fine. Stop worrying.”

Technically, you’re supposed to write a log about where you’re going and what your plan is and all that stuff, but George told me he’ll do it later and make it look like he was the one sailing. I trust him to know what he’s doing.

I’m not so sure I trust myself.

We hurry over to the yacht, shining blue in the low light. “You know how it works, right?” asks George.

“Yeah, promise,” I say. “Don’t leave the engine running when I’m not in the cockpit.”

“Good. Don’t cost me my license, okay?”

“Yes, skipper!” I salute, which makes George smile. He gives me a final hug before pushing me aboard.

As I scramble up to the cockpit, I feel him watching me. I turn the key and the yacht roars to life, the engine vibrating underneath me. The controls all look easy enough, and I’m not going to play with any of the complicated-looking ones. All I need is backwards and forwards and stop.

“Be safe out there!” George calls up to me.

“You got it!” I yell back with a wink.

I put the engine in gear, and on George’s thumbs-up, I cast off, leaving my best friend waving on the dock, holding the rope that had been tethering me to land. He waves, and I wave back.

Then I turn to my task, setting off into the darkness of the sea.