Page 15 of The Prince's Castaway Baby

When Billie gets back, she finds a handful of logs abandoned by the fire pit, and comes inside to see me standing grumpily in the kitchen, chunks of soup slopped everywhere.

I hear the door open and I turn to her, clutching a wooden spoon and grinning sheepishly.

Her eyes widen in horror as she takes in the scene, and I think for a second that she’s going to yell at me, but then her face twists and she bursts out laughing. “What the hell is all this!”

“Lunch?”

Still laughing, she shakes her head. “Where on earth did you come from?”

“Sólveigr,” I say, even though I know full well that’s not what she’s asking.

She covers her mouth to pretend she’s not amused, but doesn’t stop laughing. “When was the last time you cooked?”

“About three days ago. Give or take.”

“Really?” Her eyes widen in disbelief again. “Because this looks like the work of someone who’s never cooked a day in his life.”

“Okay, so I don’t cook often,” I say defensively. “But I can more or less manage to make something edible.”

“Edible, huh?” She raises an eyebrow, surveying the damage again. “I sure hope you’re not expecting me to clean all this up.”

“No,” I huff. “I was just waiting for you to show me where the cleaning stuff was.”

I don’t know why getting her approval is so important to me, but the truth is that I had barely considered the future consequences beyondcook lunch. Tidy up was far, far in the future, and the fact that she doesn’t believe that I would do it without being asked does sting a little.

“Over here,” Billie says, marching over to and opening a cupboard. “All the cleaning supplies you could possibly need.”

“Thanks.”

“I assume you know how to clean up?”

Again, the insinuation that I’m useless makes me bristle. “I’m not a complete incompetent,” I scoff.

She raises both eyebrows without comment, then says, “Tell you what, why don’t I take over dinner, and you can start cleaning?”

Much as I want to protest that I could do it myself, I have pretty much categorically proven that I can’t. “Okay, fine.”

I snatch up the cleaning products and starting to tidy up some of my mess. I keep noticing her glance at me and bite her lip as if to stifle a giggle, which does nothing to improve my mood.

I guess this is better than her being angry with me. But I’d like her to see me as someone who’s capable of looking after himself, because despite the fact that I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m used to a lavish lifestyle, I can more or less manage to fend for myself on an island.

Sort of, anyway.

It would help if there was a restaurant.

When we finally sit down to eat, there’s a weird feeling in the air, and I kind of get the sense that she wants to avoid me. But she’s doing me the honor of sitting down at the table with me, so I should at least make an effort to be nice to her.

I don’t try to be an asshole on purpose. I just come across that way sometimes because I forget that not everyone’s been given everything they ever wanted. That sounds so snobbish, I know — that I forget that other people livenormallives and worry aboutnormalthings.

But I do.

I try my best to be kind and polite — when I’m not out partying, anyway. And even then, I mostly embarrass myself with the dumb stuff I do.

Unfortunately for me, you get a lot of attention when you do dumb stuff, and I like attention.

“Let me guess,” says Billie.

We had been sitting in total silence, so her speaking startles me. I blink in confusion. “Guess what?”

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