“If anyone gives you shit over eloping, let me know and I’ll kick their ass.”
Charlie chuckled, then pulled back. She gave him two cheek kisses in return, then walked to Nate. With a final wave goodbye, he watched them board the chopper and waited as it flew back to the mainland. He could have gone with them—he was headed back to the shore anyway—but didn’t want anyone to know where he was going.
Seeing Nate and Charlie make vows, seeing them be brave in their love for each other, even while they knew no one would approve of them eloping, made Ethan realize that he could be brave, too. Seeing Nate and Charlie in love made him realize just how much he loved Anda, and he didn’t want to hide from those feelings anymore.
He knew what he had to do. Hopefully, it would prove to Anda just how much she meant to him.
After taking care of a few things onboard, he caught the next boat headed to shore. He made a weaving path through the city streets, just in case anyone recognized him, so they wouldn’t know his true destination.
He’d scoped the location last time he was there, and knew the best way to slip inside and how to avoid the cameras. Royals always knew how to avoid the cameras, and how to use them for advantage.
He knocked on her door without being seen.
Anda opened it clad only in a too-easily-removed towel, her long, dark hair wet and slightly curled, her eyes wide in surprise.
He stood a few feet away from her, knowing he needed to say this before he got any closer and the need to have her took over. “I love you.”
She gasped then smiled wide. “I love you, too.”
Christ, his heart felt like it had been punched and the wall around it had come crumbling down to reveal the beauty and blinding light underneath.
She loved him.
He hoped she still would after his next words.
“I want to become an agent and work with you.”
She blinked and shook her head, as if not believing what she’d just heard. “Wh-what?”
7
Now
ETHAN
Present day…
Grand Valentia Theatre & Ballroom
Backstage Area
Ethan held Anda’s hand tightly as they made their way down the corridor. His mind drifted back to his earlier conversation with Marcello and the locations he’d given Ethan for the secret rooms or hidden passageways in the theatre.
Through his and Anda’s linked hands, he started discreetly tapping out a message letting her know about the idea, and it spoke to the kind of agent she was that she barely blinked at the secret communication. Their trick now would be to find the closest passage and use it as their escape, so they could continue the search for the perpetrators of the attack on their own. When Anda tapped out a message back, he did not have as good a poker face as her and shot her a frustrated look. She merely smiled, a soft, sexy curve of her lips. Her response had been to suggest that they do what they’d done in Dublin to get away.
Dublin had been interesting, to say the least, and, though they’d finished their mission, they hadn’t gotten away unscathed. That’s why he didn’t want to do Dublin.
He tapped out a message suggesting Berlin instead, where they had gotten their intel but had also gotten caught and escaped quickly.
Not Berlin, she tapped out.
Why not?
We almost got killed in Berlin.
Both of us almost got killed here, too. It will work.
It didn’t really work in Berlin. Why would it work here?
