Was that his indirect way of telling me he understood? I wasn’t sure, but I nodded. “Thank you. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Your Highness.”
Oh, it would be the merriest Christmas ever for me.
I gave Floris a tight hug. “Thank you for everything.”
“Go be with your man. I want updates, you hear me?”
One last wave and then I walked out to the Gulfstream that was waiting to take me to my man. To my freedom.
28
BASH
I’d been useless all day.
Christmas Eve at the Puller house had always been a sacred tradition with Mama’s famous sugar cookies, the fresh pine tree that was decorated with ornaments collected through thirty-three years of marriage, and all the delicious smells coming from the kitchen. But this year, I couldn’t focus on any of it. Every few minutes, I found myself checking my phone for possible updates.
“Honey, you’re gonna wear a hole in that kitchen floor if you keep pacing like that,” Mama said, looking up from the cookie dough she was rolling out.
“Sorry, Mama. I’m nervous, I guess.”
She wiped her flour-covered hands on her apron and gave me the kind of look that said she could see straight through my attempt at casual concern. “That boy is giving up everything to come be with you, honey. Everything. His title, his money, his family. You think he’s gonna change his mind now?”
The simple way she said it, like it was obvious that someone would choose love over a royal title, would choose me over all his wealth and privileges, made my chest tight with gratitude. When I’d told my parents about Eddie’s sacrifice, about what it meant that he was coming here, Mama had nodded like it made perfect sense.
“He needs a family,” she’d said, and my throat had closed up. “I bet he’s missing his own mama something awful and his father isn’t in his corner, so we’ll be his family, Bash. He’ll be welcome here.”
Dad had taken a little longer to come around, but this morning, I’d found him in his workshop, carefully sanding a picture frame. When I’d asked what it was for, he’d grunted and said, “Figured your mama might want somewhere to put a photo of you two.”
It wasn’t wholehearted acceptance, but it was a step. And he hadn’t said a word of protest against Eddie coming to celebrate Christmas with us.
My phone buzzed, and I nearly dropped it in my haste to check the message. It was from Floris—Prince Floris from The Netherlands, who was texting me like we had been friends forever.
Wheels up from London. He’s on his way to you. Flight details attached. You’d better take good care of him, mate. Merry Christmas.
I immediately texted him back.
I swear I will. Hope to meet you soon to thank you for what you did for us. Merry Christmas.
“He’s in the air,” I announced.
Mama clapped her hands together, sending up a small cloud of flour. “Well, it’s about time! I was starting to worry that stuffy family of his would lock him in a tower.”
“Pretty sure they tried,” I said, thinking about the confined-to-quarters situation Floris had described when he’d first reached out to me. “But Floris got him out.”
“I like that Dutch prince already,” Dad said, appearing in the kitchen doorway with wood shavings in his hair. “Takes balls to walk into a goddamn palace and steal away a prince.”
No kidding, I couldn’t believe Floris had been willing to try it… and even less that it had actually worked. He had used their own aversion to scandal against them, and if that wasn’t brilliantly ironic, I didn’t know what was.
When Mama went upstairs to shower, I approached my dad. “Dad, there’s one thing we haven’t talked about…” I took a deep breath. “I will probably lose the contract for protecting Eddie, and I don’t know if the Secret Service will have me back once this all becomes public. I may be out of a job. Mama’s medical bills…”
“…are not your responsibility, son. They’re mine.”
“But I promised I’d pay them and now…” I made a helpless gesture. “I had to choose Eddie, Dad. I had to.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “I understand. We’ll figure it out, okay?”
