Page 11 of The Prince's Castaway Baby

“You’ve never been camping before, have you?” Billie says, looking at me with barely concealed amusement.

“What gave it away? I say weakly. “I don’t really do a lot of canned meals.”

“Suppose you have a live-in cook, huh?” she jokes.

I know she’s just teasing me again, but it still makes me flinch. I have to stop reacting like this to every joke she makes or else I’m going to give myself away. “I have a lot of takeout,” I manage to choke out.

She hums in acknowledgment, and I feel myself slipping off the hook. I got away with it this time, but it looks like this “normal person” thing is going to take some work.

Maybe I should just tell her the truth. Maybe I should out myself for who I really am and tell her that I’m going to annoy her so much she’ll want to take me back on her boat straightaway. Going home means I won’t have to deal with any of this back-to-nature-living stuff, and she can get on with her day.

I go to speak, but I waver, my mouth hanging open.

It would probably be easier for Billie to take me back and probably better for both of our blood pressures. But despite her irritation and my fumbling way of putting my foot in it, she honestly doesn’t seem to know who I am.

Despite all of my newspaper headlines and foolishness, she’s barely even heard of Sólveigr.

And she doesn’t exactly seem to want to take me home.

If I’m going to be stuck here for God knows how long, maybe it will be better if shedoesn’tknow. Maybe this could be the “normal person” break I’ve been longing for.

Plus, the longer I stay here, the longer the press will go without bothering me.

This is starting to seem like a great scheme. I’ll hide here, get a taste of “normal person” living, and then she can dump me back in Puerto Rico when we’re done and she’ll never have to see me again.

“Thank you for the food,” I smile, despite the fact I don’t really want to eat it. I poke at it with my spoon again then force myself to take a small mouthful. It’s sloppy, but it isn’t too bad.

Billie chuckles, the first glimmer of a smile cracking through her cold exterior. “You’re welcome.”

CHAPTER 6

BILLIE

The second I wake up, I hear the rain. A full-blown rainstorm can only mean one thing: Jens and I are not leaving the cabin today.

It’s early still, and I lie in bed for a while, listening to the rain drumming on the roof. It’s such a pleasant sound, a gentle white noise that usually soothes me right back to sleep. Usually.

Today, I’m faced with the unpleasant reality that I have a useless man in the cabin who’s probably going to follow me around all day. Again.

If only telling him to go away didn’t feel so much like kicking a tiny dog.

I let myself lie in for just a little while longer, then drag myself up. As I walk past Jens’s room on the way to the kitchen, I hear the faintest sound of snoring coming from inside.

I guess I would be tired too if I had been shipwrecked.

Thankfully, the longer he’s asleep, the less time he’ll be spending bothering me. There’s no way I’m going to wake him up before he’s ready.

Breakfast on the island looks like toast and juice, every day. It’s not exciting, but it’s not too far from what I’d have at home. The fridge space here is so tiny that the orange juice is a special treat, and I try my best to make it last.

I take my time eating since it’s not like I’m in a hurry to get anywhere today. These rainstorms are heavy and can last days, and this one is probably the one that washed Jens up here.

The more I think about him, the more questions I have. Who is he?

After breakfast, I go through to the common area and pull my laptop out. I want to upload some of the pictures from my camera onto my hard drive.

One of the things I’m most terrified about in the whole world is losing all my data, so I make copies religiously. I put all my photos onto my hard drive, my backup thumb drive, and when I get home, I upload to the cloud too. I’d do it here, but the internet is nonexistent.

It’s not like I have anyone I actually want to speak to, anyway.

---