Page 7 of The Prince's Castaway Baby

“What are you doing?” I shout as he gets closer to shore.

With a grunt, I get to my feet. I probably shouldn’t be so cold — the guy clearly isn’t in a life raft for fun. He might have been stranded for days. For all I know, him surviving at sea might be nothing short of a miracle.

That doesn’t mean I’m not furious, though.

I wave again, hoping that some encouragement might bring him in. The guy starts paddling with renewed excitement, splashing around frantically as he tries to get the boat to go in the right direction.

Just as he seems to finally be getting the raft to head to shore, he stands up again, shouts something unintelligible at me and grins. He must be feeling so accomplished with himself for not dying.

And then the raft hits a hidden rock under the water, and he topples right overboard.

“God help me,” I mutter, kicking my shoes off. Looks like he needs more rescuing than I thought.

He surfaces, splashing around like a panicked goldfish, and though the water isn’t that deep where he is, he’s clearly not inhis right mind. The guy might have ruined my shoot, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to drown.

I put my camera down in its case, then call out, “Hang on, I’m coming!”

As fast as I can, I run to the water’s edge and splash into the shallows. At least he’s stopped thrashing about as much. He must have realized he’s not in as much danger as he thought.

“Hey!” I shout as I get closer. “Who are you? How did you get here? Are you okay?”

I don’t get any reply.

The water is up to my knees now, and it makes hurrying hard, seaweed tangling around my toes and the waves lapping against me. I have to swim a little as I approach him. When I get there, I grab hold of him, dragging him towards the shore and lifting his head above water. He fights against me — or maybe it’s him trying to swim — and gasps for air, choking on it like he really might be drowning.

“Hey, calm down!” I snap, too harshly considering he may have nearly died.

But in my defense, he did ruin my day.

He flounders again, but as our feet hit the sand and we can stand freely, he pushes me away. He takes a stumbling step, then wipes water from his eyes, slicks his once-perfect hair back on his head, and blinks up at me, his brilliant blue eyes glinting in the sunlight.

We stare at each other for a moment, neither of us sure what to say next. Then he glances behind him, and his shoulders slump. “Oh, my boat,” he groans sadly.

The life raft bobs merrily away off into the ocean, and all we can do is watch as it goes. My eyes flick down to his wet T-shirt, and I tell myself off for noticing his abs underneath it. Really, how am I meant tonotnotice, though? They’re not exactly inconspicuous.

“I’m going to be in so much trouble,” he says, mostly to himself, his eyes fixed on the now distant inflatable.

“Who are you?” I ask again.

He frowns at me like that’s not a question he was expecting me to ask. After an almost uncomfortably long pause, he says, “Call me Jens.”

“Okay, Jens,” I say. “What are you doing on Isla Mostaza?”

He splutters, “Isla what?”

More proof of his cluelessness, then. I wonder where he came from. Our eyes meet, and I feel myself being drawn into them, like he’s exerting some magical pull over me. Frowning, I force my gaze away from his eyes and notice the gash on his shoulder.

“You’re bleeding,” I say, pointing at his arm.

“Oh,” he says softly, staring down at it like he just realized. Maybe he got stranded more recently than I thought.

“Did you just survive a wreck?”

“Yeah,” he says dopily.

Dammit. I want to be angry with him, but the more I look at him, the more of a mess he seems. He’s clearly dehydrated and has had too much sun exposure. I need to get him out of here and into the shade at the very least. There’s no way I have the right stuff here to deal with full-blown heatstroke.

So, I have no other choice but to drag him back to my camp. “Can you stand?” I ask.

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