take that step.”
“I’m ready,” he says.
I arch a brow. “No, you said you wanted to go with the current, but that we can always get out of the river. When I get engaged, I want to know that my partner and I are in the water forever.”
“You’ll get very pruny fingers if you stay in that long,” he says, but I know he gets it. He nods. “All right, then. We’ll wait to get into the water.”
I touch gentle fingers to his cheek. “Hey, I love you, I really do. But we’ve only known each other for a few weeks. If we were anything but royalty stuck in a weird arranged marriage situation, people would think we were insane to get engaged this fast.”
“I don’t think so.” He rolls on top of me, gently kneeing my thighs apart. “Not if they knew how good we are together in bed. Maybe we should leak a sex tape.”
I roll my eyes. “Right. Our parents would love that.”
“My mother is sex-positive,” he says, kissing my neck.
“My mother has never said one word about sex in my presence, and my father blushes if Zan or I so much as mention a boy at the dinner table.” I wrap my arms around his shoulders, sighing as the ridge of his erection presses against my clit. “And now we should stop talking about our parents.”
“Agreed.” He guides his cock inside me, and we make lazy love, both of us still too tired from the first round to get too creative. But even without all the bells and whistles, it is still the best.
Every time with Andrew is the best, and it just keeps getting better.
By the time our last night on the island rolls around a week later, I’m wondering if I made the wrong decision. I don’t want to rush things or bow to pressure from forces outside our relationship, but the thought of going our separate ways in the morning is devastating.
But returning to Gallantia with Andrew instead of catching my flight home would only trigger another wave of ugly, gossipy headlines right when Andrew needs things to quiet down before his coronation. I know this, and I know going home is for the best. I have to check in on my business and my garden and my mother, of course, before she gets mad enough to follow through on that medical coma threat.
Still, I spend the twenty minutes Andrew is in the shower shopping flights to Baden Bergen. Maybe if I fly commercial instead of on the private jet with Andrew and sneak into the castle under the cover of darkness, no will notice that “the wrong twin” is still hanging around, making things complicated.
“Any email from Lizzy?” Andrew asks as he emerges from the bathroom, a towel slung low on his hips.
Closing the browser and shutting my laptop, I shake my head. “No. Nothing. They’ve been off the grid for a long stretch now. Should we be worried?”
“No. We shouldn’t.” Andrew steps into a pair of boxer briefs, and I spin in my chair to watch him get dressed. It’s not nearly as much fun as watching him get undressed, but still way better than anything my laptop has to offer.
“How can you be so sure? Lizzy and Jeffrey could have died in an avalanche for all we know.”
“Not a lot of avalanches in late June.” Then he adds in a guilty voice, “And I received a text from Jeffrey this morning.”
I sit up straighter. “What? Why didn’t you tell me? What did he say?”
“I can’t tell you,” he says, shrugging on his shirt. “I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
I stand, crossing the room. “But surely Jeffrey didn’t mean me. Lizzy is my sister. I deserve to know what’s going on with her.”
“She’s fine. He’s fine,” Andrew says. “But I can’t say more than that.”
I cross my arms at my chest and glare up at him.
“I’m sorry.” His lips quirk. “Once I make a promise, I keep it. It’s a good trait, I promise. You’ll like it when you tell me something you don’t want everyone else to know.”
“Maybe,” I grumble, leaning against the dresser as I admire the deft way he knots a tie. “You look like you could do that in your sleep.”
“My grandfather made me learn when I was five. Right after I mastered tying my shoes and before I was allowed to play video games with my cousins on Saturdays. He knew how much I loved Super