Page 15 of Last Minute

“Of course, we’ll find somewhere to shop. Believe it or not, I don’t keep a tux in my back seat like James Bond.”

In a bold moment, I look Erik over from head to toe. “Maybe you should.”

Erik raises his eyebrows at me, and something in his gaze lights the butterflies on fire, turning them to ash and spreading warmth throughout my body. How many times had I wished Prince Alden would have looked at me the way Erik is now?

After a few seconds that feels like a small eternity, Erik faces forward again. “You know,” he says, his voice completely unaffected by the bonfire that just passed between us, “my mom is not going to know what to do with herself when I tell her that a princess came to her wedding.” He slides his gaze over to me. “After we leave.”

He reaches forward and taps the console screen. Shannon Donovan lights up on the screen, and it starts to ring. After two rings, the call connects.

“Yes?” Shannon’s voice fills the car.

“We’re coming,” is all Erik says before he ends the call.

CHAPTER 12

Erik

Why can’t I say no to Ellie? The way she lit up when I agreed to go to Mom’s wedding for her to be able to experience an American wedding is my undoing. I only met her yesterday, but something magnetic about her personality makes me want to go to the ends of the earth for her. Not because she orders it, but because I genuinely want to. She’s sneaking into the cracks of my professional exterior. The more she worms her way in, the less I want to pull her out.

Every new thing I learn about her is something I want to hold close and cherish. I have a feeling, based on how thrilled she is every time she does something new, that she doesn’t let many people see this side of her—they might not even know it exists. But she’s showing it to me—and doing her best not to bring out her royal side while she’s at it. But I wonder if that royal persona is the same as my Iceman reputation at work. That deep down, it’s not who we really are, but the person we have to be so often that we think it’s the only part of us that matters.

“Where is the wedding again?” Ellie asks. Since agreeing to her wishes, a new light has entered her being. I rattle off the town, just outside of Boston, where my mom has lived since she left my dad. Ellie squints at her phone. “Okay, that’s about six hundred forty kilometers away.”

“Can I get that in miles?” I ask, teasing.

Ellie rolls her eyes. “Four hundred miles. When will you Americans convert to the metric system? All this conversion is tedious.”

“’Merica.” I say, letting a smile creep onto my face. I look at Ellie to find her staring. My first instinct is to stop smiling, but I remember what Ellie said. I like it. So the smile stays.

“So how long is that flight? One hour? Two hours? That’s not bad.”

“We can drive that in a day.” It’s been years since I made that drive—I don’t visit Mom often for a myriad of reasons—but it’s only about seven and a half hours. Easily done in one day.

Ellie wrinkles her nose at my assessment. “But it would only be a short flight.”

“Isn’t it safer to drive?” I phrase it like a question, so I don’t feel like I’m outright lying to her. Statistically, you’re more likely to get into a car accident than be involved in a plane crash, but maybe Ellie doesn’t know that.

She raises her eyebrows at me. “It’s the airports, isn’t it?”

I look over at her, surprised, but I nod. “It’s the airports.” Airports are a nightmare for a protection agent like me, especially on a last-minute flight. There are so many variables that I can’t control while protecting a client during a commercial flight. And the crowds in the airports themselves are a liability that if I can avoid, I will.

“Okay, so it’s a road trip.” Ellie turns back to her phone with a smile on her face, unbothered by the inconvenience. Flying for two hours is certainly more comfortable than sitting in my car for almost eight, but she doesn’t seem bothered. “How do you feel about road trips?” she asks me.

“I haven’t been on a road trip since I was a kid. If I have to travel for work, I usually fly.”

Ellie nods like she understands.

“Brysard is very small, as I’m sure you know. Driving anywhere takes only a couple hours, so I’ve never driven that long in a car. Consecutively.”

Ellie purses her lips and manipulates the map of the route from our location to the wedding’s location.

“What if we split it up over several days? The wedding isn’t until Friday. If we drive all the way there today, we have to find something to do there until then.” She glances at me with a small smile. “And that poses the risk of running into your mother, which I’m assuming you want to avoid?”

I nod. If I had my choice, I’d show up on Friday for the ceremony and then drive all the way back to Arlington that evening.

“Conversely, if we wait until Thursday, we have to find something to occupy us here. And to be honest, my list wasn’t that long.” A cute blush creeps up her cheeks, and she flips back to her notes app. She holds it up to me, so I can see the things she’s listed.

Target—get the hype

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