“Okay, I’ll do as you ask.”
He just looked at her for a moment and sat down on the bed, his hips near hers. “I should mark this date on my calendar. You actually fucking agreed with me.”
She slapped the top of his hand, which was resting protectively on the bedsheet over her hurt leg. “Stop. I agree with you plenty.”
He took her hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss, then seemed to be warring with himself. After a few moments, he came to some decision and locked eyes with her. “Will you tell me now why you do it? Why being an agent is so important to you? I’d like to understand.”
She knew this moment had been coming, but so few knew the truth that she was rusty in speaking about it. “I’ll tell you my story if you’ll tell me yours.”
He frowned. “You know my story.”
“Do I?” She knew some of it, but not the rest, not even after a year together.
He sighed. “I’m sorry. I thought you…I’ll tell you. After you share first.”
“You go first.”
“No, you go first.”
She batted her eyes at him in an overexaggerated flirting move. “Please, Ethan?”
He pursed his lips—more to keep from laughing, she guessed, than any anger—and eventually nodded. “I shouldn’t let you get away with that.”
“But you will.”
“This time, yes.” He leaned forward again and pressed a soft kiss to her lips, then sat back. “You want to know why I became a doctor? Or an agent?”
“Both.”
He nodded again and settled in. “I always loved medicine, even as a kid. It’s hard for a prince to want a ‘normal’ job, I suppose, but I’m the youngest of my siblings, so maybe it wasn’t that unusual after all. I was a preemie, born at seven months, and then I was weak as a kid, maybe until about six. I saw a lot of doctors during that time, and that’s when I started to like the idea of it as a profession. I think that’s another reason my parents have trouble accepting me as a grown man; they still see the sick kid that needed extra attention.”
She let out a little giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
She shook her head, already knowing what he might be inferring from her. “I’m not laughing at the idea of a sick kid. I’m truly sorry you went through that, and I’m sorry your parents and family went through that, too. It just suddenly struck me as funny to think about the King and Queen as normal ‘parents’, that’s all.”
“They’re just Mama and Papa.”
“To you. To the rest of us, they’re mythical figures come to life. They’re ideas, not reality. No one ever thinks they’ll meet the King and Queen. They think even less of them as parents like anyone else.”
He smiled. “You’d be surprised how ‘normal’ they are, whatever the fuck ‘normal’ means anyway.”
“You love them, I can tell, and it’s clear they love you and all your siblings. Everyone knows that about the royals.”
“It’s hard not to love them, all of them, even when they’re annoying the hell out of me.” He looked away, then back at her. “My brothers were all in the armed forces, and I picked the Navy because they needed doctors the most.”
“Was that the only reason?”
“No. I knew the Navy would also keep me away from my family more than the others. I don’t like spending so much time away from them but, when I joined, I needed the distance. Being the youngest means I have ten people—two parents and eight siblings—who think they can control my life, and it was getting to be too much. I don’t regret my decision—not then, not now—but I do wish I could spend more time with them.”
“What did Marcello say when you joined?”
“He was pissed, but since the rest of my brothers joined the military he couldn’t deny my request—yes, he had to approve my joining in the first place—and I think the fact I was planning on joining the medical corps helped, too.”
She squeezed his hand and spoke gently, but not sadly. “You’re still trying to prove yourself to him, aren’t you? Trying to prove to him and your family that you’re not a sick kid anymore? That’s why you really became an agent, isn’t it? It didn’t have anything to do with me.”
He gripped her hand tightly. “Of course not—”
