Page 53 of A Valiant Prince

She nods. “Jack says I can use the Wi-Fi at the cottage,” she says. She picks up her phone and sends a text. Her phone pings a moment later.

“He’s coming to get me,” she says.

“I’m going with you,” I say to her as we stand and head down to meet Jack.

Chapter Seventeen

Jack wasn’t kidding. He’s holed up in an actual cottage. Not like a cottage-style house back at home, but a real honest-to-god cottage. I look beyond to see the North Sea. Jack opens the door and even in the dim moonlight the view beyond him still steals my breath.

“This is quite an office view,” I say to him with a whistle. He laughs.

“It was a caretaker’s cottage originally. We rent it out now,” he says.

“You didn’t have it rented out, did you?” Anna asks.

“No, no. Don’t worry about that,” Jack says. Three men poke their heads out of what I can tell is a kitchen. “Harris, Brent, and Malik, this is Princess Susanna and Logan,” he introduces us.

“Please, call me Anna,” Anna says, blushing at the use of her formal title.

They all say hello.

“Do you need anything, Jack?” Brent asks.

“No. Anna here is going to use our Wi-Fi,” he says with a wink and offers up some space at a writing table in the corner of the room.

“Thank you,” Anna says as she pulls out her computer from a bag and begins to make herself comfortable.

“What exactly are you looking for at this hour?” Jack asks as he leans against the back of a sofa.

“Logan can explain, I need to get searching,” she says as she puts on her giant headphones and focuses in on her computer. She turns for a moment to face Jack. “Passcodes?” she asks. He nods, and she pushes back for a minute to allow him to enter some passcodes, giving her access to the Wi-Fi.

“Well?” Jack asks, turning to me once Anna is online.

“What do you know about my mother?” I ask Jack. Jack gives me a hard stare.

“Follow me,” he replies as he walks into the kitchen and opens the fridge. He pulls out two bottles of beer and opens them, handing me one before he heads toward a back door. “Come on, let’s talk,” he says as he holds the door open for me. The three men we just met are on computers set up around a kitchen table. I follow Jack out to a patio area surrounded by a small garden of flowers. The sea breeze whips through my hair as I sit down across from Jack at a bistro-style table.

“What do you know about your mother?” Jack asks me as he turns his beer in his hands.

I look at him with a raised eyebrow. “What do you want to know?” I ask him.

“Logan, what do you really know about your mother?” he asks me.

I lean in and set my beer on the table. “What exactly do you mean, Jack?” I ask, enunciating each syllable.

“Sit back, Logan. I think there are things you need to know,” he says to me.

I lean back in silence and confusion.

“Do you know what your mother was doing when she met your father?” Jack asks me.

“Yes, she was over here researching and writing articles about the anti-monarchist movement in Montelandia as a freelance journalist,” I say.

“What if I told you that was just a cover?” Jack says slowly, his eyes don’t leave mine, and I know he must see the complete and utter look of shock on my face.

“What are you saying?” I demand.

Jack sighs. “Your mother worked in intelligence,” Jack says.

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