Page 36 of The Prince's Castaway Baby

“So long as we don’t hit any adverse weather, we should do.”

He nods once, then blurts, “Where are you going to sleep?”

I shrug. “I wasn’t really planning on it.”

“You can come down here if you want.”

“With you?” I say, my heart in my mouth. I should be dead set against this. Shouldn’t I?

But if that’s what Jensen wants, he doesn’t admit it. “Whatever. We can swap, if you want?”

This is the kind of moment you have in dreams, those dreams where the sun is setting and the thick light leads you to make foolish, foolish love, alone and adrift on the ocean. Our eyes meet, lingering, that magnetic pull almost drawing my body towards his without asking.

But we’ve been there. Whatever my heart wants, I shouldn’t listen.

“It’s okay,” I say, looking away. “I was planning on being here all night anyway. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh. Okay.” He hesitates a second longer, then slumps, as if he just lost his last chance. “Good night, then.”

He disappears before I can say anything to him.

I spend the rest of the night awake and alone, thinking about him.

The dawn comes and goes, and I assume he’s sleeping through it. I kind of want to go and wake him up, just so he can see howgorgeous the land on the horizon looks as the sun crests over it. But I also don’t think I can handle another conversation like last night again, so I stay put.

Jensen must sense some change in the waves beneath us because he comes out of hiding just as we’re coming into land. “Did you see the sunrise?” he asks, then shakes his head. “Of course you did. It was amazing, wasn’t it?”

I allow myself a smile at the idea of him staring out of the porthole. “Yes, it was. We’re about to weigh anchor.”

“Right.”

I force my face into a light smile, and with as little emotion as I can manage, say, “Well, then, you’ll be home soon. You can go right back to your life. You can forget all about this torment.”

“Yeah,” he mutters uncertainly, and I can feel another one of his moments of sincerity coming on.

Quickly, I say, “So I should check in with the port, let them know we’re coming. Make sure there’s a place for us.”

I duck back into the control deck and pick up the communicator. It’s a lie — they definitely do know I’m coming — but Jensen doesn’t know that. This felt like a solid, important reason not talk to him, even if it is a lame excuse.

But the tension was rising again, and it was getting too awkward to handle. Even now, watching him sit on deck, looking out at the sea is too much to handle. Everything about Jensen is too much to handle.

Reality is setting in, for both of us.

We are never going to see each other again.

I can’t tell if I should be heartbroken or relieved.

As expected, when we pull into the dock at San Juan, someone is waiting for us. I wave to him, and frown when he doesn’t wave back. He seems confused, or upset, which is weird.

And it all makes sense the second we step out onto the dock, as a million photographers and journalists descend on us.

Instinctively I cover my face, cowering behind Jensen who, by his own instincts, has reached out as if to shield me. I would have felt something about it if I wasn’t painfully overwhelmed by all the people here to see us.

Well, it’s all for Jensen, really. They have no interest in me, I’m sure.

Or at least they didn’t until now.

“How did they know you’d be here?” I hiss, leaning in to him.

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