Trane resisted the urge to haunt Phina’s rooms at the palace. He knew she left. What good would it do to sit in her empty rooms while the staff cleaned? He walked by the couch in his own rooms, his eyes lingered on the piece of rug that caught him when he fell. He turned to the door she stood in, power emanating off of her in great femininity. He couldn’t believe how much he put himself out there, focused all his attention on her, on the potential of them. Only to have it reciprocated in such a nonchalant uncaring manner. To think that not only did she not put forth the same effort, but that she might be using him to get a story, might try to expose them all with some twist-of-the-truth angle she would dream up.

A sane voice inside reminded him that she had been simply on the receiving end of his experiment, that she hadn’t committed to him, only accepted his attentions. He groaned and fell down onto his couch, scooting over to be far away from the end where his lips had explored hers.

“Oh, don’t be so pathetic.” Lucan stood in his doorway, Tripp at his side.

Tripp shook his head. “Leave him alone, Lucan. He wants to mope. It makes him feel better.”

“Shut it, you two. I don’t expect you to understand.” He frowned. “And Lucan if you so much as smirk an I told you so…”

His brother held up his hands. “I’m not even thinking it. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Trane eyed them both and asked the question that had been pounding around in his mind. “So, should I still take her as my date to the ribbon cutting?”

Lucan sat in the nearest chair. “If you remember, you were supposed to stay close to her, keep her near…”

Tripp joined him on the couch. And he began to feel a little bit surrounded.

“What, are we having a meeting?”

Tripp’s hand gripped his shoulder. “Lucan’s going to ask you to do something hard.”

Trane leaned his head back against the couch. “When has he not?”

“I need you to get back together with Seraphina.”

He opened one eye and felt a sick sense of exhilaration. What was wrong with his masochist brain? Did he need more torture in his life? “Why?”

“Well, for one, we need the press all over her. We need her at your side as your date at the ribbon cutting, and she may not go with you if you are still at odds.”

“You still want to keep her close, keep tabs on her.”

“Of course.”

“I’m not that heartless that I could do such a thing. What beats in your chest? Feelings are involved here.”

“Well, mother is of the opinion that you guys will eventually end up together so this is really just aiding you along.”

Trane lifted his chin to Lucan. “But brother here thinks she’s in league with terrorists.”

“No, just friends with terrorists. That’s different from being in league with them.” His small smile grated.

“I won’t do it. I’m not going to pretend to be anything with Phina. But I will ask her to still be my ribbon cutting date.” He stood. “She’ll come. Best seats in the house.”

Seraphina closed out her email window on the laptop. Trane’s assistant had begun emailing her the itinerary for the ribbon cutting, where she needed to be and when. From the looks of it, she was still Trane’s date. That simplified a few things with their planning. But Trane had not reached out since the helicopter dropped them off on the helipad behind the palace. He had nodded to her, thanked her for a lovely outing, in a very business-like voice, and then turned and walked away.

She opened up a word document. Writing always helped to calm her thoughts, organize her emotions. She couldn’t be letting her own emotional preferences rule the day here. She needed to focus. The EcoFresh group let her know of some interesting leads she would check out this afternoon and before then, she worked on the beginnings of an article.

She had done her own research to discover that a whole fleet of green yachts were being designed and would soon be available. Reusable water containers and eco-friendly habits could do much to improve the situation. Besides the traditional yachts, over-fishing was another risk to the Mediterranean not likely discussed much. But she discovered most of the areas outside of Turkey and Greece were barren. The Mediterranean was fast becoming a dead sea. But the areas closest to Spain and Italy still had healthy marine ecosystems. And the best news of all, to help combat the idea that the countries would lose money gained from fishing, the marine reserve off of Spain earned many times more in tourism revenue than they could from fishing the same waters. The efforts they took to preserve the wildlife was regenerating the fishing population.

The clincher for her occurred this morning. A whale was found washed ashore. It died shortly thereafter. And when they did an autopsy to discover the cause, they found 64 pounds of plastic in its system.

Phina was ill. She had gone over, taken pictures and investigated herself. Tears burned her eyes again while she typed. Where did humans think the garbage went when they tossed it into the sea? She was embarrassed to be a human. And her writing was fueled by emotion as her fingers furiously flew across the keyboard.

The Valdez family thought they had their resources protected, but the very lifestyles of the Valdez brothers proved otherwise. They could do more, lead out in green friendly yachts, in banning water bottles, in a temporary halt in fishing.

She whipped out a text to her boss, explaining the bullets of her article. She could almost hear his hands rubbing together in his response. “Stay on it. Keep digging.”

Nothing could pull her from this story now. Once she had seen the stats of how many fish swam in the nearby waters, she thought of her people, who relied on fish as their main sustenance. She thought of the generations of people, in future years, who would require a healthy ecosystem in these waters. And she thought of that whale. And her blood boiled. She stood up, almost tipping her laptop to the floor. Her breathing heavy, she clenched her fists, then sat again and pounded anew all her emotion, all the words she could think of, to plead for a better way.

But what good would this article do if she published it after the summit? Perhaps it should be a series. And perhaps she should start today. If it generated enough attention before the summit, the leaders could add it to their discussions.

A quiet voice suggested she send a copy of her concerns to Trane before she sent the article to the paper. But doing so would lessen the effect for change. They would hear the problems in a diplomatic manner and be able to create reasons not to address them. Once they again heard about it via the press, they would already have that first no in their heads. No, he would have to hear it with the rest of the Mediterranean countries before the summit. That would give them all time to address the problems. If they would. She hoped they would. She would work to make her article as convincing as possible. Common courtesy persisted its urging, so she sent a copy to the main press desk where they likely received hundreds of such potential articles. There, she’d done her due diligence.

The hotel front desk called that flowers were waiting. She asked someone to bring them up to her. Security stood outside her door. Things were so much easier when she stayed at the palace, and so much more complicated. Trane sent them. “I am happy you are still my date. See you at the first summit event. Regards.”

So formal. She suspected he didn’t even send the flowers. She should write his assistant a thank you note. If Trane could return to the cold and distant ways they had been used to, then she would feel no qualms exposing his family’s habits to the world.

Her phone dinged. She had another meeting with EcoFresh this afternoon. She had been unable to get them tickets into the events, but she could at least give them details of where and when everything was happening so they could wait outside, perhaps bring people to demonstrate. They would need all the publicity they could get if they were going to make a difference.