Page 31 of The Prince's Castaway Baby

Her mouth opens and closes again, like she’s trying to comprehend what I’m telling her. She takes a shaky breath. “A prince?”

All I can do is watch as she put the pieces together, and the moment when it clicks is sickening — a flash of sudden, horrid realization crosses her face, and then she gasps, snatching her hand away in shock. “Prince Jensen?”

I close my eyes and nod. I don’t know what else to do.

“As in,a thousand parties a yearPrince Jensen?Slept with a million girlsPrince Jensen?Doesn’t care about anythingPrinceJensen?Sólveigr’s biggest celebrity exportPrince Jensen?” She gets more and more agitated with each sentence, shaking her head like she can’t understand it.

I can only sit and watch as she thinks of every bad thing she’s ever heard about me. I reach out for her hands again, but she’s already flinging herself out of bed and dragging on a shirt, hiding that beautiful body from me. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” she says, her voice loud. It’s not quite shouting — there isn’t enough anger for that.

It’s more a total horror.

“Why would you lie about this?”

“I didn’t lie… I just omitted some truth.”

“A lie of omission is still a lie!”

I can see tears forming at the corners of her eyes, and more than anything I want to go and hold her, to reassure her that all of that crap she’s read about me online is utter nonsense. Well, some of it’s true, but most of it is exaggerated to hell.

But she’s right. Anything I could say now would be a terrible defense.

“Billie,” I say pleadingly, not sure what else to do.

She holds up a hand and shakes her head, her golden hair falling over her shoulders. “Please, Jensen. Stop. I think you’ve done enough. Thank you for last night. But I need some space.”

With that she rushes out of the room, and I hear the door to the cabin slam behind her, leaving me all alone in the bed, surrounded by sheets that smell like her skin.

I guess the experiment of being normal is over.

It was fun while it lasted, but now I’ve been left with a gaping hole inside my chest. One that I know will never be filled.

And it’s all my fault.

CHAPTER 16

BILLIE

Iget dressed quickly and head out. To my relief, I don’t bump into Jens — Jensen — in the kitchen or the communal area and I manage to get out before he can see me.

I don’t know why all this feels like such a betrayal when I probably should have recognized him to begin with. I don’t really follow celebrity news, but Prince Jensen of Sólveigr is hard to avoid. Really, the mention of Sólveigr should have tipped me off straightaway, but the terrible lie of his name being Jens should have sold me on it.

How could I have been so stupid as to not see right through that? The more I think about it, the more I realize how often there was a sense in the back of my mind that he was familiar to me. And it’s because hewas.

And like an idiot, I slept with him.

And like an even bigger idiot, I think I’ve caught feelings for him. Or at least the him I thought I was getting to know. The one who wasn’t a prince. I could tell he was keeping a secret, but this?

I’ve never felt so dumb in my life.

I don’t know where I’m going, and I didn’t bring my camera, so I spend an hour just walking, trying to clear my head. Automatically, like they’re thriving on the irony, my legs take me right to the sea turtle nest.

When I realize where I am, I crumple to the floor, crushed by the flood of emotion that surges through me. Tears flow down my face as I think about Jensen and I lying side by side, wondering if the way we were feeling might be more than what we were admitting.

I guess I was just a fun time. Just something for him to do while he was away from reality.

Even as I’m having that thought, it feels too cruel. I’ve heard hundreds of stories about the Prince of Parties, and I guess part of the reason I didn’t recognize him was because he’s nothing like that, not really.

He’s ridiculous and unassuming, inquisitive and sharp. He’s polite and gentle and so, so hot. It’s hard to imagine the bumbling Jens I’ve come to know being so reckless and callous. I can imagine him being a massive idiot — that doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination at all.

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