Page 179 of Reluctantly Rogue

Adding a new girl to the situation is not ideal, but Cian cannotmarry Astrid. Not even temporarily.

They certainly cannothave a child together.

How did I not know that having an O’Grady-Olsenbabywas a part of the arrangement?

Maybe because the entire ‘arrangement’ was written on the back of a whiskey-soaked playbill by two drunk guys while playing poker almost three decades ago and it had never occurred to either of them—or apparently the men with them who acted as ‘witnesses’—that anyone else needed every detail. Or that they would ever be questioned.

I suppose kings and dukes are like that.

Maybe they just assumed a baby would come along, so it didn’t need to be spelled out.

Whatever.

This not-so-little discovery definitely has my mind spinning. This could be very…interesting.

But Cian needs to stay away from Astrid.

I take a big bite of cake.

Damn, that is good.

I need to figure out how to sneak some of this into my suitcase.

Yes, the woman he met two years ago or whatever. The one he made you try to find.

How drunk are you?

Not drunk enough.

I cannot go home and tell the boss that Linnea is off the list, so Diarmuid just went on down the line and decided Cian and Astrid would be the O’Grady-Olsen couple.

He might be okay with it.

At least he’llthinkhe’s okay with it.

Or he’ll tell me, and himself, that he’s okay with it.

But that can’t happen.

So yes, Henry needs to find this woman who enchanted Cian, then snuck out the next morning and disappeared. Henry looked for her for a couple of months but came up empty-handed. But Cian has not forgotten about her.

You can use our full resources.

Henry did the basic things to try to find her but ran into dead ends. We all discouraged him from looking further. We figured Cian would get over it as he always did when he ‘fell in love’ and there was no reason for Henry to chase down some strange woman who didn’t want to be found.

Until now.

Why is this suddenly okay?

Because I said so.

Astrid is not an option.

I would ask why you’re getting in the way of a king, and what is supposed to happen with this O’Grady-Olsen family thing if Cian doesn’t marry Astrid, and what happens if I can’t find this woman…but that seems like a lot of words I don’t really want to type. Or read.

I’m going to need to pull out my notes about why I think Henry is the perfect person to be Cian’s bodyguard, because it’s very easy to forget why I keep him employed.

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