Page 28 of Reluctantly Rogue

I nod. This all makes complete sense. And I've literally never given it any thought.

“Which means very early on in my teenage crush years, I imprinted on Declan. I never even looked at another guy. I convinced myself I was in love with him. Whenever I imagined my future romances, it was always with Declan. I never let myself think of any other boy in a romantic way. And, of course, my family never would've let me date anyone else anyway. I was promised to Declan.” She pauses and frowns. “And then when I was fifteen, imagine my shock and hurt when Declan left the country, abdicating the throne.”

I frown. “I never thought about that.”

She nods. “I don't think anyone in the family did. Well, my mother was devastated. She had latched onto Declan in the same way. She was sure that her daughter would be queen. Anything and everything Declan did was amazing in her eyes. Then suddenly, he was gone. We went to my grandfather, wanting to know what had happened. He and Declan had always been close. My grandfather told me not to worry. That everything was going to be okay. But he could never assure us that Declan was coming home.”

I nod again. I know that Alfred helped Declan invest in his original business and was part of the reason for Declan's success now. The two men had always stayed friends up until the very end of Alfred’s life.

“After a year, I went to my grandfather in tears, wanting to know if I could move on. He said I could definitely move on from Declan. He was not coming back. My heart was broken. But my grandfather assured me that I was still going to be queen. He knew that Torin was going to be a wonderful husband for me. So I had to suddenly shift all of my thoughts and feelings, after years of believing it would be Declan, to Torin. Which was difficult,” she tells me, meeting my gaze directly.

I can't help but chuckle slightly. “It was difficult to have feelings for Torin?”

She nods. “I've known the O'Grady boys all my life. Our grandfathers were friends. As were our parents. We spent a lot of time together growing up. Torin was always kind of a little shit.”

I laugh harder. “Really? In what way? I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I just want details.”

A smile tugs at her lips. “He just was always pushing boundaries and testing the rules. He’s always been rebellious, and he loves to be right.”

I roll my eyes. He hasn’t changed at all since childhood it seems.

“We used to get into debates about the monarchy,” she says. “He used to argue that the King of Denmark never should have given the island to Tadgh O’Grady in the first place. That he should have made him a duke in Denmark, or just given him a chest of gold for saving his life. That giving the man anislandcould have actually been a test, and King Frederick might have expected Tadgh to fail. To try to settle the island and die doing it.”

I shake my head. But that sounds just like Torin.

Cara had come to be under the rule of the O’Gradys after Torin’s great-great-great grandfather, Tadgh, an Irish sailor, saved King Frederick the Seventh’s life when pirates attacked their ship while sailing from Denmark to the Faroe Islands. The king gave Tadgh the island as a thank you.

“I, of course, argued that test or not, Tadgh and the rest of the people made it work so it doesn’t matter now and that Cara deserves to exist and to continue on as it always has. I can’t believe he now thinks he can convince me that hewantsto be king,” she finishes with a mutter.

“So the arguing between the two of you is nothing new,” I say.

“Absolutely not,” she confirms. “When he found out that the arranged marriage had shifted tohimand me, he started picking even more arguments. About history and politics and world events, always trying to trip me up and prove thatIwasn’t fit. He always wanted to debate that a representative government was better than a monarchy.”

I'm grinning. I know that he tried to convince his grandfather of that very thing just before he abdicated. “I take it you didn’t agree with getting rid of the monarchy?”

“Actually, I never said that a representative government was a bad thing or that there isn’t room in Cara to have more citizen input,” she says. “But I did have issues with his proposition for the transition. It was too fast, and it was sloppy and would have left a lot of holes in how things are taken care of now.”

I feel my eyes widen. I’ve heard Torin talk on and on about government structure for years. But I’ve tuned him out a lot of the time. It’s mostly ranting.

Now though, I want to hear Linnea talk about it. For hours.

“How are things taken care of now?”

She looks surprised, but she says, “Well, it’s not as if Diarmuid literally handles every single program and issue in the entire country personally and on his own. He has people overseeing various aspects of life. Education, healthcare, and so on. And those people are tasked with understanding the issues, talking to people, gathering information and ideas, and presenting solutions.”

“That sounds representative. At least, kind of.”

“It is,” she agrees. “And Torin’s plan didn’t have a transition for those people. Everything was about electing people into new positions. Which I understand, but you have to ease into things, respect the people who have been there doing the work and know more than you do, and understand that not everything functions in real life the way it looks on paper.”

I can't help it, I like her. I like that she’s smart, that she cares this much, that she knows what the fuck she’s talking about. But mostly I like that she’ll push back against Torin and tell him when his ideas need work.

“Torin needs people like you around him,” I tell her.

The earnestness in her expression shifts to something else. A true frown.

“He does,” she agrees. “But…well, you can imagine that I went from a crush from a distance on the older, broody, handsome Declan to thinking I was going to have to marry this annoying, pretentious boy that…I wanted to hit with a baseball bat.”

I understand. “I’veactuallyhit him with my fist. More than once.”

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