Tired as she was, she took note of his possessive pronouns where the no doubt massive ship was concerned and his certainty he could obtain care for an unimportant human. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a prince?” she asked, tongue loosened by the drugs she’d been pumped full of, including obviously stellar pain relievers. “Were you afraid I was a gold digger?”
Jaw clenched, he met her gaze. “It was agreed beforehand my presence in this cohort of the dating cycle wouldn’t be publicized. My family has enemies including at least one terrorist group which doesn’t believe we should have joined the Sectors. Beyond that there’s a lot of interest from the Sectors paparazzi and gossip organizations in me. They apparently have nothing better to do than speculate about any woman who gets within five feet of me. Combat duty is easier, trust me. It had nothing to do with you individually. May I ask how you learned the truth?”
“Damnian told Ysilda and she told me,” Rosalie said, comforted to hear his deception wasn’t personal to her. She closed her eyes and felt herself drifting off to sleep. “Aren’t you supposed to be going to dinner with your friends?”
“If you think I’m going to leave you here by yourself to go have a meal, you’re sadly mistaken about the kind of person I am,” he said in a voice capable of cutting glass.
Despite her drowsiness, she forced her eyes open again to stare at him. “I’ll be fine. The staff obviously know what they’re doing here when it comes to the stupid fish stinging me. I truly don’t mind if you go.”
“I’ll be right here with you until the doctor says you can go back to the bungalow and then I’ll ensure you get there in one piece. Delain and I are going to have a further unpleasant conversation about this whole incident but not tonight.”
With effort she moved her hand to rest on his much large one. “Thank you. It’s nice to have a friend watching out for me.”
He turned his hand so her palm rested in his and squeezed gently. “Count on me.”
I wish I could count on you for always, she thought as she sank into peaceful oblivion. It would be nice to have a partner to help carry the load. He didn’t even need to be a prince, just someone willing to shoulder half the load of life’s challenges.
Chapter Four
She probably didn’t realize she said that out loud. Treylon’s heart clenched a little. Rosalie looked so small and fragile in the medbay bed and her hand was petite in his. He took a deep breath and stretched, trying to release the tension that had ridden him from the instant she fell off his shoulders during the damn game and disappeared in the waves. He could not afford to fall in love with a woman right now but she was endearing in all the right ways and obviously needed a protector, which appealed to the side of him all about protecting those in need of help.
He detached his hand from hers, careful not to wake her and got busy on his handheld. First he issued orders for Damnian to report to the ship immediately pending further disciplinary action for revealing confidential Ardannan information to a civilian. His friend’s time at this resort was over. His next call was to Delain, telling him to get Ysilda off the planet tonight and to blackball her from any future IDA activities involving the Ardannan. Delain could decide for himself whether to ban her entirely from IDA. Treylon didn’t care about IDA’s problems. He suspected the woman had come on the trip with intentions to uncover juicy gossip for her social media and Damnian fell into her path.
He commed the Ardannan royal family’s legal team with instructions to obtain a restraining order against Ysilda, preventing her from publishing anything about her time here at the resort.
Then he contacted the five star restaurant where they were to have had dinner and ordered a veritable feast for himself and Rosalie. Surely she’d be hungry when she woke the next time or if not, the meal would keep in stasis until the point where she was ready. In the meantime, he was certainly in need of food and the small medical facility here on Resort Planet didn’t have much to offer aside from a few vending machines. It wasn’t set up for long stays. Ardannans had fast metabolisms and required a huge number of calories daily.
After that time dragged a bit or would have if he hadn’t been fascinated watching Rosalie’s expressions as she dreamed. He ate his share of the dinner when the chef from the restaurant personally supervised the delivery. Finally he sighed and opened the queue of official messages and went to work.
The doctor came in several times to check on Rosalie’s leg and pronounced himself satisfied each time but she didn’t wake.
Treylon dozed a bit in the uncomfortable chair, using a pillow brought to him by a nurse and finally in the wee hours of the morning Rosalie woke up as the doctor performed yet another exam and said she could return to her bungalow now. There were a slew of aftercare instructions and things to watch out for, which Treylon took charge of as she was wide eyed and clearly not taking it all in as the doctor recited the details. He organized the antigrav containers to transport the remains of dinner and her personal possessions, which had been delivered to the clinic an hour or so after Rosalie’s arrival. He dealt with the clinic’s clerk, who wanted Rosalie’s insurance information, telling her the care was entirely on IDA’s account and to speak to Delain about it.
He allowed her to be taken to the groundcar he’d ordered in an antigrav chair since the staff informed him the precaution was an unbreakable rule but he lifted her into the vehicle himself and drove her to their bungalow at a much more decorous speed than he’d brought her to be treated earlier. Despite her protests, Treylon carried her from the car to the living room and settled her at the table, since she insisted she was too wide awake to sleep any more.
“Good, I had our dinner delivered to the hospital and you can eat some of it now,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “You know, you’re quite highhanded at times.”
“Comes of being a prince,” he bantered back, happy to see her in such a good mood. “Do you mind?”
“I’ll tell you if I do,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “And then you’d better back off in a hurry, buddy.”
“Or?” He tried to imagine Rosalie putting up solid resistance to anything he wanted to do for her and failed.
“Or you’ll find out how tough us Earth girls can be.” She waved her steak knife at him in a vaguely menacing way and they both laughed.
Treylon refused to leave the bungalow to meet up with his friends for any of the previously planned activities and Rosalie was right she couldn’t sleep any longer. She’d have been happy to work on her to be read list but if the prince was stubborn enough to insist on keeping her company, she wasn’t going to refuse his company. Bored, she pulled up the instructional holo on the resort and then narrowed the vast information flow to highlight the bungalow. “Ah ha,” she said in triumph at last, zooming in on a portion of the floor plan. “Says here there are a supply of board games in this cupboard in the living area for and I quote rainy days.”
“Considering one of their selling points for this place is the perpetually sunny weather,” Treylon said as he went to investigate the cabinet in question, “When did they expect anyone to play old fashioned games?”
“We’re about to,” she said with glee.
He flung the door of the cupboard open and revealed two shelves packed with brand new unopened boardgames. Treylon sorted through them, tossing some aside with no hesitation.
“Hey, that one sounded fun,” she said in protest as he pushed away a dice-and-board game.
“But this one will be perfect.” He held up his prize which Rosalie saw with amused disgust was a military strategy game.
