Page 25 of The Heir's Bargain

To my amazement, his aim wasn't too bad. However, when I won the competition, he ran home in tears.

I ended up taking a small trophy home. And, if I was being honest, it was a better prize than spending the rest of the day with Felix (or was it Lewis?).

I had thought that after the first suitor had run home practically screaming, my mother would have relented, but she was, in fact, relentless.

The suitors kept coming.

It had been almost two weeks of dates. Two weeks of putting on frilly dresses and my best smile.

The spring sun beamed down on me as I walked beside the latest suitor through one of the parks in the southern village off the coast. My gaze kept wandering to the sea as we twisted through the sections of flowers.

". . .that's when I realized the medical field wasn't for me. The—" The man—whose name escaped me—swallowed, his fist over his mouth. "The blood is just too much for me."

I hummed in acknowledgment as we circled the gardens for the third time. For the past half hour, the man had gone on and on about his intent on becoming a doctor. Apparently, during the first day of being an apprentice, he had been brought along to tend to a butcher who had chopped off his finger on accident. After one look, he fainted on the floor, and his dreams of being a healer fell to the wayside. Now, he was a researcher.

Or was trying to be.

Either way, he had no sense of direction. Based on the constant switching of careers—for before he tried to be a doctor, he wanted to be a baker, before that, a metallurgist, and before that, a musician—the current suitor was a wanderer. A dabbler. And if I knew anything, it was that a man without a purpose was no better than a man lost at sea who couldn't read the stars. Hopeless and disappointing.

"So, have you ever wanted to do anything outside the military?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Never?"

"Nope."

"I see," he said, nodding.

After a painful moment passed between us, I stopped walking and pulled the suitor to a stop.

"I—" I bit down on my lip, my brows drawing together as I stared at the freckle-faced man with blond hair. I sighed. "I'm sorry. What is your name again?"

The man chuckled nervously, tugging the low ponytail at the back of his head. "Torrince, Miss Ferrios."

"Torrince," I said with a soft, polite smile. "Look."

Torrince's shoulders dropped, his head hanging down as he stared at his feet. "You don't need to say it."

I sighed in relief, the knot of tension between my shoulders releasing. "Good. That makes this a lot easier. You seem like a nice man, but?—"

He snapped his head up. "I said you don't need to say it, yet you're still going to? Perhaps if you listened—" Torrince stepped forward, but when I leaned away, he tripped and fell into the bed of roses. He screeched.

"Are you—are you all right?" I extended a hand, and he grabbed it with a sneer.

"Do I look like I'm—" Torrince shut his mouth, his eyes growing wide as he stared down at his outstretched arm.

"Torrince?"

His pink face turned green.

Then he vomited on my shoes.

"Not again," I groaned, staring at the clouds floating in the sky.

These men would be the death of me.

Chapter 6

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