“Catherine,” King Jasen murmured, but the queen dropped Fran’s hands and shifted toward him, the sweep of her glance taking in the older man standing at his side.
“Tell me I’m wrong, Dr. Lessing,” she said majestically. “That it’s a bad idea to have a companion who can help Ari reintroduce himself to his former life, someone who can’t stir up memories because they don’t know each other.”
“You’re not wrong,” Dr. Lessing responded with a polite nod. “A young member of his own country might have been better, but I do understand your need to keep Ari’s presence here secret.”
“No one can know he’s back until he’s ready to be back,” the queen said severely. “Francesca neatly avoids the issue. She’s Nicki’s friend and that’s enough to explain her presence here.”
Fran saw her opportunity. “Has his recovery progressed very far?” she asked, her tone level. She pointedly did not glance Stefan’s way. So far, he didn’t seem to pick up on her hyperawareness of him.
Dr. Lessing’s expression became sterner. “It’s not an exact science, I’m afraid. It could be months.”
What?Fran kept her face composed but Nicki squawked on her behalf.
“Months!” she said. “No way. Fran can’t stay here that long, none of us can.” Fran watched as Stefan sent his cool regard Nicki’s way, but Nicki didn’t waver. “And we definitely can’t remain much longer cooped up here on this island, no matter how awesome it is. I swear I’ve already been over every inch of it and we’ve barely been here a full week.”
Dr. Lessing spread his hands. “Actually, Ari may do better with a gradual reintroduction to his former stomping grounds.”
“Thesearehis stomping grounds,” Queen Catherine retorted. “He’s been to this island a hundred times over the years.”
“But not recently.” Kristos Andris shifted against the table where he was leaning. “The last few times you announced you were coming here, Ari always managed to be fooling around in his airplane or on some diplomatic trip, entertaining foreign visitors, that sort of thing. We haven’t been out here for, what—” Kristos glanced at Dimitri Korba, captain of the Garronia National Security Force. “Three years? Four, I think.”
“At least,” Dimitri said. His voice was a sonorous boom, and Fran smiled despite herself. Lauren had missed the hulking captain since he’d come to the island to watch over his best friend, for all that Ari didn’t realize that the occupants of the island’s primary house were his own family and closest comrade. “And the island was given over to guests of the state more often than not.”
“True, but—”
“Your Highness.” Stefan straightened, his hand at his ear. “Ari is approaching the main house.”
The queen whirled on Dr. Lessing. “Should we see him?” she asked, her tone so pleading that Fran’s heart twisted. “Can we talk to him yet?”
The doctor frowned. “I don’t think that would be wise, Your Highness.”
Even as he spoke, Fran’s resolve to get off the island and out of Garronia was dealt a mortal blow. Here all these people wanted nothing more than to have their son back, their son, their brother and their best friend. They weren’t thinking about her, they weren’t interested in prying into her background and revealing all her stupid secrets and missteps. They were thinking about Ari.
And she could help them with that. She could helphim, maybe, walk the path back to his memories—or at least give him someone to talk to as he found his own way.
“I’ll intercept him, if that’s helpful?” she suggested as the queen turned to her, obvious in her urgency. Fran pointed. “I think there’s a door to that garden, right? I could go out that way.”
Queen Catherine nodded quickly. “He loved that garden as a little boy,” she said. “He hasn’t been there yet that we know of.”
Stefan’s words set them all on edge. “He’s at the front drive. We can send a diversion.”
“I’ll go out now.” Fran offered up the same warm smile she’d used to win over drunks and ball-breakers from the time she’d been five years old, her hands lifting in the same conciliatory gesture that had allowed her to back away cleanly from pushers and pimps.
The audience in the royal receiving room of Garronia’s island idyll was different, sure…but they relaxed all the same.
“It’ll be fine,” Fran said, hoping desperately she was right.
“It’ll be fine,”Ryker muttered, surprised he wasn’t wringing his hands like an idiot teenager. He knew Francesca was staying at the main house along with some other VIPs, but there was no reason for him to think she’d be randomly strolling through the gardens on her first afternoon. Still, he couldn’t stay away.
The door opened at the front of the main house and he instinctively shifted his direction, angling around the long drive toward the western gardens. He’d scoped the whole building out already—its exterior anyway—along with wandering down every path and access road in and out of the compound. The place had impressive security, but the workers seemed to be doing their level best to stay out of his way. He appreciated that. Stefan may have thrown a gauntlet of doctors at him, but he’d tried not to make him feel like a prisoner.
Ryker had barely cleared the house when he heard Francesca’s voice, high and clear—and talking to someone.
“Yes, I know—that’s fine,” she said as he quickened his pace, passing the final row of bushes to move into the garden proper. “I can’t wait to see you too…right, absolutely. You too.”
A pang of jealousy struck Ryker so hard it made him scowl, and he barely blanked his expression in time as he rounded the corner and saw Francesca. She disconnected the call and was pocketing her phone when she saw him.
“Ryker,” she said. “I was just about to ask where I might find you. Nicki’s last time trial is going over and I’m on my own for a few hours. I figure I didn’t come all this way to sit in my room.”
