I can tell that Henry’s nervous.

And it’s not from our date—he’s probably dated hundreds of girls in his time, according to his reputation.

No, I think it’s from driving.

I watch him from the corner of my eye as he pulls away from the Palais Dubrevs. He’s cleaned up a lot. With his suit—another five-thousand-dollar suit, I imagine—his freshly clean-shaven face and his hair coifed à la Justin Timberlake, he looks a thousand times better than he did last night.

But there’s still the sheen of sweat on his forehead and his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. He’s constantly flicking his eyes from the wing mirrors to the rearview mirror. All good practice for someone who’s not familiar with driving, but Henry was the official race car driver for Dubreva in the Grand Prix.

This isn’t like him at all.

The pieces start to fit together for me. From the wreck to having his driver pick him up at the hospital in the limo—to the fact that he doesn’t like to drive now.

Scratch that, he’s terrified of driving.

“I shouldn’t have done this,” he mutters under his breath.

“What?”

He keeps his eyes on the road in front of him, only shifting his eyes from mirror to mirror. “Driving. I didn’t realize how scary it would be with you and the baby in the car too.”

I pause, watching him. Feeling the flurry of butterflies grow to a crescendo in my stomach. His worry is charming, but I can tell it’s distressing him almost to the point where he’ll freeze.

I put my hand on his lap and give it a quick pat. “You’ll be fine,” I tell him. “We’ll be fine.”

He stiffens underneath my hand, like my touch scared him, before he relaxes. After another moment, he takes a hand off the steering wheel and holds my hand in his own, giving it a quick squeeze.

“Thank you,” he says, softly.

“For what?”

“For doing the right thing. Always.” His eyes flick nervously to the mirror again, but it’s less frantic, like he’s no longer expecting us to be T-boned at any second. “You didn’t have to come back. You didn’t have to tell me.”

“I had to.”

His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. “Yeah. I know I was an arsehole when you told me, but…it means a lot that you trusted me with this.”

“Well,” I say. “It’s only fair.”

He chuckles. “There’s a lot in life that’s not fair.”

We drive in silence for a while longer, before he lets out a long sigh of relief. “Thank fuck. We’re here.”

* * *

It’s not until I look at the menu that I get my own flare-up of nerves. The menu at Depardieu’s is mostly fish, and everything else has cream and unpasteurized milk. And there’s soft cheese everywhere. And the smell of fish assaults my nose as well, and I feel my morning sickness come back to me—only it’s the evening, so I don’t know what the hell is going on.

I don’t know enough about what I can and can’t eat right now, so I’m scrolling through my phone, trying to decipher if a fish is considered at risk for heavy metals. What the hell does a tilefish fall under? Why isn’t there an easy-to-find chart for me to look this stuff up?

I’m surreptitiously trying to look at the phone, but Google, for once, doesn’t pull up what I need.

Poor Henry watches me as I mostly ignore him while I’m on my phone. I realize how awkward this is, and that we’re sitting at the chef’s table, as they’re giving us the royal treatment.

And I have no idea what I can eat.

“What would the lady like to drink?” the waiter asks, leaning forward. He looks like a stereotypical waiter with a white shirt, black vest, and a bowtie. He holds out the wine list for me, smiling encouraging.

I blink at him, blearily. I can’t even get tea, really, as I’ve already had some coffee today. “Do you have ginger ale?” I ask. What I wouldn’t give for a glass of red wine.

“But, of course,” the waiter says with a sweeping bow. “And you, Your Highness?”

“I’m fine,” Henry murmurs. “Don’t worry about it.”

The waiter cocks his head in surprise and stiffly turns to leave.

“You don’t know what you can eat, do you?” Henry asks.

I look up and give him a helpless smile. “I…” My voice trails off, and I let out a sigh. “I mean, I know women have been eating all sorts of food for centuries and it’s never been a problem before. But I’d never forgive myself if I did eat something and it adversely affected the baby.” I toss my phone on the table in defeat. “Maybe I can order a soup or a salad.”

Henry smirks and leans in. “Do you want to go somewhere else, then?”

“What? But you had reservations here. I thought this was your favorite place.”

He shrugs nonchalantly, giving me a lopsided grin. “No, not really. I was just trying to impress you.”

I look at him incredulously. Trying to impress me? “But what about the reservation? They were waiting for us. They gave us the best table and—”

Henry tosses a wad of Euros on the table, enough to make my jaw drop at the sight of it. There’s enough there to cover my rent in my apartment for Alison and me for three months. “You forget that I’m rich,” he says. “And that I’m a prince. I can do whatever I want. Now, if you could have whatever you wanted right now, what would it be?”

My stomach gurgles, and the craving hits me so hard, it pops out before I can stop it. “Chinese food.”

He processes this, then smiles. “Chinese food it is.” He gestures with his head as he slides out of our round booth. “Come on, I know a place nearby. And we can leave the car here.”

Which I’m sure he’s happy about. I slide out, following him, but our waiter stops in front of us, carrying a can of Canada Dry and a fancy glass full of ice.

“Y—your Highness?”

“Change of plans,” Henry tells him with the practiced ease of someone who grew up having people listen to his orders. “The lady and I are going elsewhere to eat.” He jabs a thumb at the pile of cash on the table. “There’s enough there to cover what we would have had and more. Plus,” he adds, darkly, “keep my car, until I get back.”

And he takes my hand, and even though he’s still using the cane to help him walk, he’s striding out like the arrogant prince I slept with the night of the banquet.

Like the Henry I used to know. However briefly that was.

* * *

“Want me to carry that?” I ask, looking down at the tied plastic bag with our boxes of chow mein and fried rice packaged neatly inside.

“Nah, I’m good.” Henry holds it in his free hand as he aids his walk with the cane in the other. “I want to show you my favorite place on the whole island, anyways.”

He gestures with his head up a hill that’s at the end of the beach road. The road curves to the left while there’s this little copse of trees up at the top. The ocean is far below, and from here, I can see the cliffs leading to the water.

There’s no railing either, making the spot look a little treacherous. Not to mention hard on weak legs.

“Sure you can make it up there?” I ask.

Henry’s face darkens. “Of course.” To punctuate his statement, he picks up the pace.

I shut my mouth, silently apologizing to him for the blunder. I wish I had the bag of takeout, because then I’d have something to do with my hands.

It takes us a good fifteen minutes to climb the hill, and even I’m winded by the time we make it up there. I have to take off my pumps at one point. But Henry presses on, his jaw tight as his determination forces him to finish the climb up the hill.

When we get there, I see why he forced himself up here.

“Oh, Henry,” I breathe. “It’s beautiful.”

The park itself isn’t that big, just a few trees and a bench. I think most people would drive by it or decide that the climb wouldn’t be worth it. There is a crescent of island silhouetted by the setting sun. The water shimmers, and I can see a large landmass on the other side. Possibly Italy? I wish my geography were better.

“This is my favorite spot in the entire country,” Henry says, smiling absently as he stands next to me, facing the water. “It’s called Julie’s Peak. I haven’t been here in years. I wanted to go after I won the Grand Prix, but…well, we know how that went.”

“Does everywhere in Dubreva look like something out of a picture book?”

He smirks at me as he turns to take a seat on the bench behind us, sticking his bad leg straight out. It must hurt, because it’s looking really stiff right now.

“I like to imagine that’s why my ancestors settled here all those years ago,” he says. “I’ve been plenty of places in my life, but I always come back here. Like there’s a part of me that can never leave it. No matter how hard I try.”

“Yet, you went to Australia for so long,” I say, taking a seat next to him. He regards me before handing over my box of food, along with some chopsticks. “Thank you,” I say as I open it. The smell is perfect, and I realize that I may have a lot of bad cravings during this pregnancy.

“I was trying to get away,” he says suddenly. “I spent a long time traveling the world, trying to find my place in it. And I ended up in Australia for four years, because it’s the only other place that’s appreciated guys like me.”

“Like you how?”

He grins at me. “Ruggedly handsome. Daring. Macho. Cocky bastards.”

“All reasons why I walked out the morning after we had sex,” I remind him.

“I didn’t say they were my best qualities. Only that Aussies liked me for them.”

I slurp up my first noodle. This is some damn good Chinese food. Maybe not the best to eat on a date, but it’s not like there are any surprises for me. “What were you running from?”

His face falls, and I immediately regret asking my question. “You don’t have to—” I start, but he shushes me, shaking his head.

“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s better to talk about it than…not, I guess.” He pats his pec. “Remember the name I have tattooed on my chest here? You asked about it.”

I wrack my brain. “Wasn’t it your mother’s name or something?”

He nods. “Elizabeth di’Vale. The younger sister of the queen. It’s through her bloodline that I’m royalty.” He sighs and sits back, his food untouched. “My father is a nobleman from England. Has billions of dollars wrapped up in all sorts of different industries, as I understand it, from airplanes to phonebooks. They had an arranged marriage, more or less. They got married, and Mom had Ferdinand, then me.”

He combs a hand through his hair, lost in his memories. “Then my dad met someone else, left my mother for her, and disappeared out of our lives when I was five years old.”

I watch him carefully, hoping that’s not the end of his story. I already knew the royal family of Dubreva was no stranger to scandal. I just didn’t know how far back it went.

I can’t imagine growing up in such a public space and being exposed to all that. When I was Jessica’s assistant, I was always in the wings, helping her to run her business. But I was never front and center like that.

“So, I became a mama’s boy,” Henry continues after a moment. “Mom raised Ferdinand and me—Ferdie’s five years older than me, so he remembers our dad better than me. But Mom was always heartbroken by his betrayal.”

He stops, like he can’t go on any further, and I’m about to tell him again that he doesn’t have to tell me his story, but he speaks before I can do so. “Ferdinand joined the Dubrevian army after he went to university. Got a bachelor’s in psychology first. Then decided to join the military.” He snickers. “So, he left when I was seventeen, and it was just me and Mom. Well, and a lot of servants,” he adds. “But, for all intents and purposes, it was Mom and me. And then she got cervical cancer.”

And now my heart drops even further.

Henry’s face is impassive as he speaks at this point. “I tried calling Ferdinand. I sent him letters. Anything to let him know that our mother was dying. Nothing. He was stationed in Bumblefuck, and I couldn’t get a hold of my older brother. And I was left to take care of our mother. By myself. My family’s somewhat small—just my brother and my cousins and my aunt, so I was basically the only one left to take care of her.”

He chuckles humorlessly. “She died under my watch. And I realized how powerless I was against mortality. I lost my fear of death then—if a bunch of malicious cells can take your life, then I was going to go out how I wanted. Kind of ironic, huh?” he adds, tapping his cane. “That I got into a wreck and suddenly found my fear of mortality again?”

He finds this funnier than I do and he chuckles mirthlessly.

I just watch him helplessly as he pours his heart out to me.

“Ferdinand came back three months later. After Mom battled cancer for a year, he couldn’t come back in time to say good-bye.” I watch the muscle in his jaw tense and untense. “I know he could have applied for a discharge, but he chose not to. He’s a prince, and he didn’t make an order when it mattered.

“So, when Ferdie came back, I told him to fuck off, packed my bags, and left the country to go find myself. I’d spend six months away, come back for a bit, and spend six months elsewhere and keep coming home. Until I went to Perth. And I just…stayed as long as I could.”

The silence stretches on long enough that I clear my throat, inserting myself in the conversation. “But you think he had his reasons to run when he joined the military?”

“Who knows? He and I don’t exactly speak that much. Apparently, coming back was enough for him to stay. He got a PhD and is now practicing as a psychologist just down the road. Even though he doesn’t need to work. Every time he talks to me, I think he’s trying to shrink me. Sometimes he’s more tolerable than others. Other times…”

His voice trails off, and he lets out a long breath, glancing at me, embarrassedly. “Sorry about that.”

“No, I’m glad you told me,” I say to him. “That must have been hard.”

He shrugs. “I’ve been such a bundle of fucked-uppedness for the past two months, it’s good to get some things off my chest. But, that was a long-winded way of telling you that I may have made some bad decisions in my life. I’ve run from a lot of things, but when I say I want to be involved in the baby’s life, I mean it.” He shakes his head vehemently. “I don’t want to be my father.”

“You won’t be,” I say.

I lean in towards him and capture his lips with mine, catching him off guard. He wraps his arms around me, and neither of us is prepared for the flare of passion that ignites between us. Our bodies still remember each other from two months ago. Still ready to go again.

“Oh, Cat,” he whispers against my skin.

Then I jump, breaking the kiss at the sound of a crash. My box of Chinese food had fallen out of my lap and spilled out on the grass.

“Shit,” I mutter, bending down to pick it up. I manage to save most of it, but a lot of it is in the dirt.

He chuckles, his gaze lazy as I sit back up. “Hey,” he says, holding up his own entrée. “I’ll share with you.”