Page 13 of The Prince's Castaway Baby

“What’s for breakfast, then? Please tell me nothing else from a can.”

I shrug. “I’ve got bread and jelly, cereal, long-life milk, granola bars, that kind of thing. Nothing of the quality you’re used to, I’m sure.”

He doesn’t comment on my attempt to lead him into telling me about himself, and I let it drop. He’ll tell me more when he’s ready to. Or maybe he won’t. I’m curious, but I don’t really care. Once these two weeks are up, I’m never going see this guy again. Why should it matter to me if I know anything about him?

“I think I’ll risk the cereal,” he says, looking around as if to find it. “Where is it?”

“Let me show you around the kitchen,” I say. I don’t need him bothering me at all hours because he can’t find stuff. Best to get that out of the way now. “You can take whatever you want; you don’t have to ask.”

He follows me through the cabin to the kitchen, which is only really big enough for one person to cook in — a stove, a tiny fridge, a bit of cabinet space. There’s a pantry too, though that’s pretty empty right now.

“There’s no particular order to where anything lives,” I say, gesturing around aimlessly. “You just have to look in all of the cupboards to find what you want.”

People are always coming and going from this place, and it goes for long stretches without being used at all, so it’s hard to keep any sort of system that makes sense. Just as soon as I get it the way I like it, someone will come along and totally rearrange everything.

“Cool,” Jens says absently, as if he wasn’t really listening, then starts rummaging in the cupboards.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” I say, backing away towards the door and breathing a heavy sigh of relief when he doesn’t even glance in my direction as I go. Maybe he really will stay out of my way.

Unfortunately, I’m not that lucky.

I get about twenty peaceful minutes to myself, then Jens saunters back in and comes to stand behind me, peering over my shoulder to look at my pictures. It takes all my strength not to give in to the prickling in my fingers and slam the lid of my laptop shut.

“I think it’s really interesting,” he says suddenly. “All this stuff.”

“Do you?” I ask suspiciously.

“Yeah. Show me some of your photos!”

I twist my head around to look at him. I’m not sure why I expect him to be leading me on, but I’m surprised to see nothing but genuine interest in his eyes.

“Okay,” I say, still not entirely trusting, but patting the sofa next to me anyway in permission for him to come and sit down.

He does, and looks at me expectantly. “What have you been doing?”

“Well, this island has some of the rarest hummingbird species in the world, and I managed to find some of them the other day, which was awesome. Hang on, let me just…” I navigate through the files and pull up a couple of images of the tiny blue birds. The sight of them still makes my heart leap in delight.

“Oh,” Jens says. “That’s wonderful.” On most people, that tone would seem sarcastic, but I can tell he completely means it. His eyes widen as he takes the picture in, like it’s absorbing him completely.

“I’m particularly looking at birds on this trip,” I continue, flicking through some more photos. “The scientists I’m technically hired by are writing a paper all about the rarest bird species in the world, and most of these birds that I’m taking pictures of now — last time they were photographed was in the eighties or nineties, so the quality of the pictures isn’t that good. And some of these birds, I’m taking the first photos of maybeever.”

“That’s a real privilege,” he says quietly. “You must feel really lucky.”

“I do,” I say, feeling myself softening. “I get to see some amazing things.”

“I bet.”

It’s against my better judgment, but I keep showing him photos, and he keeps showering me in flattery. I am good at what I do, but there are a hundred other wildlife photographers out there, and Jens is acting like he’s never seen a picture of a bird before.

But it’s nice to have someone show an interest in my work, and despite appearances, his interest seems completely genuine.

I haven’t had anyone care so much about my work in a long time.

Eventually there’s a lull in our conversation, one that feels like we’re both working out what to say next. “Hey,” Jens says suddenly, “would it be okay if I took a book off the shelf? Iborrowed one yesterday when I was bored. I hope I was allowed to touch them.”

“Sure, no problem at all. It’s what they’re there for.” I smile.

Bookish, polite, bumbling. Every new fact makes him more of an enigma. There’s an intelligence in there, but it seems to be buried under layers and layers of performance.

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