“We’re beginning our descent into London Heathrow,” the captain announces, his voice jarring me from my thoughts. “Local time is 6:45 AM, and the temperature is a brisk 8 degrees Celsius…”
I mechanically follow the landing procedures, securing my belongings, checking my seatbelt. The empty seat beside me feels accusatory somehow. Was our connection entirely one-sided? Did he simply find a more interesting conversation elsewhere on the plane? The thought stings more than it should.
As the plane touches down with a series of jolts, I find myself crafting explanations: perhaps there was a military emergency, a call that required his immediate attention upon landing. Maybe he’ll be waiting at the gate. The hope is foolish, but I cling to it nonetheless as passengers begin the slow shuffle toward the exits.
In the narrow aisle, I stand on tiptoe, scanning the crowd ahead for any glimpse of his broad shoulders or distinctive profile. Nothing. I deliberately slow my pace, allowing others to move ahead, earning impatient huffs from the businessman behind me. I tell myself I’m being ridiculous—we exchanged no numbers, made no concrete plans. A forehead kiss and some flirtatious banter don’t constitute a commitment.
When we get off the plane, I linger on the jet bridge, adjusting my bag with unnecessary precision, stealing glances at each disembarking passenger. I don’t see him anywhere, even though I’ve deliberately slowed my pace, giving him every opportunity to catch up if he wanted to. The disappointment feels like a stone in my stomach, dense and uncomfortable.
Finally, the flight attendant’s questioning look forces me to move on. The brief connection—that unexpected spark of something that felt like possibility—extinguishes as abruptly as it began. I straighten my shoulders, slip my professional mask back into place, and stride toward customs with renewed purpose. London awaits, with all its complications and expectations.
Chapter 4
Nate
Too bad I couldn’t talk to Isabel anymore. My father's secretary couldn’t have picked a worse time to call. Balls! The urgent summons pulled me away just when things were getting interesting—just when I’d finally worked up the courage to suggest seeing her beyond this flight. That kiss on her forehead was impulsive, a bold move, unprofessional even, but the soft scent of her hair and the surprised widening of her eyes made it worth the risk.
The call dragged on interminably—Dad’s secretary droning about arrangements and schedules and people expecting to see me. By the time I extricated myself, the plane was preparing for landing, and returning to my seat seemed pointless. I spent the remaining time in a cramped airline staff area, alternating between cursing my father’s timing and replaying every moment with Isabel in my mind.
Now, navigating through Heathrow’s arrivals hall, I scan the crowds with the same precision I’d use sweeping a combat zone. My height gives me an advantage, and I spot her golden ponytail almost immediately. My heart kicks against my ribs like a trapped animal as I quicken my pace, weaving between slow-moving passengers with their oversized luggage.
I manage to close most of the distance between us, but then I freeze mid-stride. Isabel is talking with a man—tall, expensively dressed. His hand rests lightly on her lower back with a familiarity that makes something primal and possessive rear up inside me. She takes a step back, then turns around for a moment, her eyes searching the crowd, and I allow myself the foolish hope that she’s looking for me, that our brief connection meant something to her too.
What did I really expect? Did I honestly think a woman like her—polished, educated, clearly from a good family—would genuinely be interested in someone like me? Behind my decorations and family name, I’m still just a soldier with too many nightmares and too little to offer someone like her. The cynical voice in my head sounds disturbingly like my father’s.
She pauses again by the exit doors, peering around once more as the man guides her toward a sleek black car with tinted windows. When our eyes finally meet across the terminal, recognition flashes across her face, and Isabel waves at me with a smile that makes my chest constrict painfully. The man with her immediately snaps his head in my direction, his posture shifting subtly into protective mode. I start to lift my hand in response, but something in his cold assessment makes me lower it again, the gesture dying between us like so many other possibilities.
I’m jealous. Jealous of a man whose relationship to Isabel I don’t even know. Boyfriend? Security detail? It doesn’t matter—his presence beside her creates a chasm between us that seems impossible to cross. Why are all the good ones taken? The thought is childish but it surfaces anyway as I watch the car door close behind her gain another look from the man before he gets in.
“Nathan?” a familiar voice calls from behind me.
I turn to find Lewis, my father’s long-serving driver, standing at a respectful distance. He looks older than I remember—hair now completely silver, lines carved deeper around his eyes—but his posture remains military-straight, a remnant of his own service years before I was born.
I’m not even sure how to greet him after so long. The formal handshake seems inadequate for someone who taught me to fish and occasionally smuggled chocolate to my room after particularly severe paternal lectures. Sensing my hesitation, Lewis steps forward and pulls me into a firm embrace. “Welcome home, Nathan.”
The unexpected warmth in his voice unlocks something tight and guarded in my chest. I tighten my arms around his shoulders, suddenly feeling like the eight-year-old boy who would run to the car to greet Lewis rather than his own father. “Thanks, Lewis. It’s good to be back again.” The words emerge automatically, though I’m not entirely certain they’re true.
He pats my back firmly before releasing me, resuming his professional demeanor as he holds the car door open. “The Duke and Duchess are eager to see you, sir.”
That, I know with absolute certainty, is a polite fiction. My parents haven’t been “eager” to see me since they sent me to the academy. But I nod gratefully anyway, sliding into the familiar leather interior of the Bentley that smells exactly as I remember—polish and leather and the faint trace of Lewis’s pipe tobacco that he thinks no one notices.
Lewis has been part of the family since before I was born—more fixture than employee in the sprawling Duke household. He’s the one who taught me to drive on the estate’s private roads, the one who covered for me when I did something foolish and inappropriate for my family. Who knows how things have changed at home while I’ve been gone? I haven’t been back for more than a flying visit in over fifteen years. When I finished military college, they fast-tracked me through basic training and into special operations. This is the first real leave I’ve had in years, not just a seventy-two-hour pass between deployments.
Not that there’s really anything worth coming back to, apart from nanny Alice, the only person who genuinely loved me in that mausoleum of a house. Mom and Dad have always been too consumed with maintaining the Duke’s social position, attending charity galas and royal functions, to bother much with their only son. I’ve always been too much for them: too lively when decorum was required, too serious when charm was needed, too talkative when silence was expected. When they realized punishment couldn’t reshape me into the perfect aristocratic heir, they effectively outsourced my upbringing to the nanny and an endless parade of tutors.
The only time I regularly saw my parents was during formal meals, and often not even then—Father frequently dined at his club, Mother at charity events. I still don’t know whether to resent or thank them for packing me off to military academy at thirteen. There I found my brothers-in-arms, the men who now form my special operations team. They’re the people I trust implicitly, for whom I would unhesitatingly risk my life, knowing they would do the same for me. The military gave me purpose, structure, the kind of clear-cut expectations that were refreshingly honest after the subtle manipulations of aristocratic society.
And yet, despite finding my place in the service, I often felt profoundly alone—emotionally isolated even among my closest comrades. There are parts of myself I’ve never shared with anyone, vulnerabilities that have no place in combat zones. Perhaps that’s why Isabel caught me so off guard—something in her eyes seemed to see past the uniform, past the title, to the man beneath. Now she’s gone, whisked away by a man whose proprietary hand on her back told me everything I needed to know.
As Lewis navigates through London’s morning traffic, I watch the familiar cityscape slide past the window. The weight of family expectation grows heavier with each passing mile, like additional gear loaded onto an already burdened soldier. Whatever brief escape I found in Isabel’s company—that taste of genuine connection, of being seen for myself—recedes into the distance along with her car.
I straighten my posture instinctively as we approach the imposing gates of Weister Manor. Time to don a different kind of uniform—that of the Duke’s son, returned to fulfill whatever obligation has summoned me home.
When I arrive at the manor, my mother is waiting for me on the threshold, a picture-perfect tableau of aristocratic welcome that feels staged for an invisible audience. The estate stands exactly as I remember it—classic Tudor architecture rising imperiously from manicured gardens that show not a single blade of grass out of place. A few more mature trees dot the landscape, but my eyes immediately catch what’s missing. The ancient oak that stood sentinel near the east wing has been removed, and with it, the crude treehouse I built with Izzy and Lewis one summer when I was nine. Not that I’d used it since childhood, but its absence feels symbolic—another piece of my youth casually erased. I tighten my grip on the car door handle, exhaling sharply before stepping out, swallowing the pointless protest that rises in my throat.
“Nathan.” Mother glides forward, enveloping me in a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and performative affection. “How nice to have you at home. Look at you. You’ve changed.” Her hands rest lightly on my shoulders, examining me as one might appraise a horse at auction. The gesture feels so contrived that my skin crawls beneath my jacket. I cannot recall the last genuine embrace we shared—perhaps before boarding school, though even that memory feels suspect.
“How are you, Mom?” I manage, the familial term feeling foreign on my tongue. In my head, she’s always been “Mother”—formal, distant, a title rather than a relationship.
