Page 60 of A Valiant Prince

“This…isn’t an Interpol safe house, is it?” she asks him.

He shakes his head. “This is mostly used for British Intelligence,” he explains.

“I see,” she answers.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything, OK?” Jack assures us.

“Fine,” Anna mumbles as she turns and walks toward the window.

“Anna…we’re close. We’re going to get whoever is behind this. I promise,” Jack says before he walks to the door.

“Jack,” Anna says without turning from the window. I look from her to Jack. “There’s another matter I’d like to discuss with you when this is over.”

Jack’s eyebrows shoot up. “Sure,” he says, quickly covering the surprised look on his face.

“Goodnight,” she says as she pulls the curtains closed.

“Goodnight,” he replies and shuts the door behind him.

“What are you going to ask him about?” I question as I walk over to her.

She shakes her head. “Nothing important,” she replies and the fact that she’s willing to share something with Jack but not me makes me irrationally jealous.

I walk away from her and crawl into bed. The mature side of me knows this is silly, but I can’t help it. I want her to share things with me. I want her to feel about me the same way I feel about her.

She comes to bed a minute later, crawling in beside me and curling up on the far side of the bed, as though sensing my anger and frustration and giving me space. My nana’s words fill my head, mocking my jealousy. “Never go to bed angry.”

I roll over and pull her against me. She stiffens for a moment.

I kiss the back of her head. “I wish you would tell me, but I respect your privacy. I’m just…I wish you could trust me with all your secrets,” I whisper in her ear.

She turns in my arms and looks at me. Her eyes appear as dark puddles in the dim light of the room.

“I’m not trying to hurt you or keep things from you, Logan. I…have kept this part of me a secret for so long that it’s hard to let go of, to just be open about it; it’s like giving myself up,” she says.

“Maybe you aren’t giving yourself up. Maybe you’re freeing yourself,” I suggest.

She frowns. “I never thought about it like that,” she says to me.

“Well, maybe consider that,” I say to her.

“I will,” she says softly. She leans up and kisses my cheek. “Thank you for understanding.”

Her words break through the wall I had started building around my heart a moment earlier. I give her a small smile. “For you, my princess, anything,” I say as I kiss her forehead and pull her tightly against me.

I hadn’t contemplated that Anna was still fighting demons. I had been so fixated with myself, the revelations in my life the past few weeks, the enormity of the changes in her life had completely escaped me. As I lie there considering this, my jealousy starts to melt into guilt. Susanna’s whole world had changed too, and I needed to have more patience with her. My stubborn, fierce princess has a lot of things on her mind. And that thought was the last one as I closed my eyes, the adrenaline from earlier leaving my body and taking my consciousness with it.

Chapter Twenty-One

The knock on the door wakes us both.

“Yes,” I croak.

“Can I come in?” Jack’s voice rings out.

“Yes,” Anna says, her voice gravelly from sleep.

Jack peeks around the door.

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