own, arriving in New York without an escort, and then making my way to Chicago via train. And I was going to be doing it as David Escobedo rather than Francisco de la Laros. Which meant I also wouldn’t be traveling with the protection of the crown or my brother’s influence.
I was going to be truly on my own for the first time in my entire life.
It was terrifying… and exhilarating.
And I wasn’t about to back out on the trip. Because I knew Erika needed me. Even if she hadn’t been able to admit it.
The next day, I stood in my bathroom, all the lights on and a frown on my face, and shaved my head.
I know, I know. I had a boat to catch, a fake passport photo to take and then a passport to pick up, a border to smuggle myself over, and a girl to go save (I mean, metaphorically speaking). How the hell did I have time to shave my head?
The truth was, though, that this was an incredibly important part of that whole fake passport thing. Because I could hide most of my face behind sunglasses. Grow a beard to disguise my jawline. Refuse to talk to anyone. But my hair? Those messy chocolate curls that I’d spent my entire life cultivating? Those had become my trademark.
They would, I knew, give me away immediately if anyone was actually looking for me. And once my brother realized I was no longer in the country, it would only be a matter of time before he put another call out to the international community to find me. And those curls would be one of the first things he told people to look for.
So they had to go. Unfortunately. And they had to go before I went to take my picture for the fake passport.
“They’ll grow back, they’ll grow back, they’ll grow back,” I chanted, sweeping my fingers through them one last time… and then putting the clippers to the front of my hairline and pushing them backward before I could think about it again.
The hair fell away quickly. I swallowed heavily and kept going. It was only hair. They were only curls.
An absolutely minuscule price to pay if it meant I got to see Erika.
Three days later, I stood on the docks of the harbor in Orlo, looking out at the ocean as it sparkled in the early morning light, my heart singing.
I had two bags at my side and my messenger bag strung across my chest. And in that messenger bag, quite a bit of currency, in the form of traveler’s checks—since credit cards were going to be impossible for me, unless I wanted to be caught—my laptop—or rather, the new one I’d bought, which I was sure didn’t have a tracking device on it—and the passport I’d paid so much for.
And that passport had a photo of a man who didn’t look anything like the man Javier de la Laros knew as his brother.
It had taken me until that morning to stop being surprised by the reflection of myself with the buzz cut I was now sporting, but I could say with confidence that I didn’t look anything like myself. Which was both exhilarating and… off-putting, honestly. I felt like a stranger to myself, though that was sort of fitting as well, considering I was doing something I never in a million years would have guessed I’d be doing.
I was going after a girl. I was breaking all my own rules—and the rules my brother had set down for me—to cross the big, blue ocean and find the woman who had stolen my heart. I was doing it without friends or security, which meant I was setting out on my own for the first time in my entire life.
And even for a rebellious prince who has made his mark on the world by refusing to follow the rules, this was daring.
But if I found Erika at the end of this path and fixed whatever was upsetting her, then it was an adventure worth taking.
So I bent down, grabbed my bags, and started walking toward the gangplank that would lead up onto the ship, whistling to myself and letting my mind run forward into New York and then Chicago. Where I hoped I would find her, happy to see me.
Chapter 18
Francisco
It took me about three hours to figure out that crossing the ocean by myself, posing as someone else, was the opposite of romantic or adventurous. It