“I liked it better when you called me ‘darling.’”
“Bite this and stop talking.” He places a stick between my teeth.
Time crawls like molasses, until I feel one final tug, followed by a pinch. “Done.”
I spit out the stick. “Thank you.”
He cleans up his supplies and closes the first aid kit. “With any luck, someone who knows what they’re doing will fix it soon.”
“I think our luck ran out the moment the plane went down,” I say.
His gaze travels to the bodyguard a few paces away from us. “Winston’s asleep.”
I watch the bodyguard’s chest move up and down. “I hope he’s not in pain.” Sleep sounds ideal. I want to sleep until we’re rescued.
We lapse into a long stretch of silence. Henry sits with his arms on his knees, staring out at the ocean while I lie on my back and look at the empty skies. I feel strangely untethered, like if no one is watching, I might dissolve entirely.
Every time Henry shifts, I expect him to leave, and I’m newly shocked each time he doesn’t. “You don’t have to wait with me.”
“I’m afraid I do,” he says.
“You don’t even know me.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I want to know a lot more about that, but when I push myself into a sitting position, I’m distracted by my view of Theo, who’s aggressively sorting through the salvaged luggage down on the beach below. When he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, he pushes his hands through his hair. A wave crashes into the rocks, covering him with ocean spray.
Muscles ripple across his shoulders as he lifts his arms above his head and dives into the water. “He’s not—” I cut myself off, becausehe is.I watch in horror as he swims toward the flaming wreckage. “What is he doing?”
“Looking for something.”
“It’s dangerous! It’s reckless, and—”
Henry places his hand on my arm. “He’ll be safe.”
“I’m going to get him. He’s being stupid.” I stand up and my vision goes temporarily black.
Henry catches me when I stumble sideways. “You’re not getting in the water.”
I pull myself out of his arms and sit back down. I hate that he’s right. “I’ve only been around the royals for a day and I’m already sick of being told what to do.”
In the distance, Theo drags himself out of the water andstops to catch his breath. He shakes out his arms and dives back in. Even now, his gravitational pull is so strong that I’m tempted to jump in after him.
“Theo’s trying to do what’s best for you,” Henry says.
“What’s best for me is getting off this island,” I grumble, trying to ignore my burning thirst.
“Once we’re rescued and back in London, you should let him.”
My pride bristles, and I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Of course he knows best, because he’s aman,and I’m just a silly eighteen-year-old girl.”
Henry picks up a rock and chucks it off the cliff. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying that you might consider the possibility that the person who was born for the throne knows more about the dangers of proximity to the royal family than you do.”
“I get that it sucks to be written about in tabloids—”
“You don’t,” Henry cuts me off. “And that’s not your fault, because there’s no way you could understand.”
My stomach squirms. “What happened to ‘it’s not so bad’?” I use air quotes to remind him of what he said about royal life back in the hotel room.
