Page 53 of Reluctantly Rogue

Jonah is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “But, it’s Christian Waite. And he reached out first. He likes her.”

I frown. “So?”

“So this could actually turn into something.”

“We don’t want that.”

“Why not?” Jonah volleys back. “This could be good for her.”

I don’t say anything. I know what he’s getting at.

Yes, Torin, Declan, Fiona, and Cian are the royals, but the Olsens matter too. Linnea’s happiness matters. It mattered to Alfred. It matters to us. Astrid’s and Alex’s do too. But it would be very difficult for anyone to convince me that Linnea Olsen wouldn’t be happiest as queen of Cara.

“The guy’s going to be the president of the United States someday,” Jonah says.

“Maybe,” I say.

“Come on,” he says. “You know the odds areverygood.”

He’s not wrong. Politics are tricky of course, but all of the data we’ve got—and it’s a lot—points to Christian Waite being right on track for the highest position in one of the world’s most powerful countries.

“She’s going to go out with James Hill though, too, right?” Colin asks.

“Yes. But nothing will come of that,” Jonah says.

I lean closer to my screen, interested in this in spite of myself. “How do you know?”

“I know her,” he says. “They’ll talk about his energy program and she’s into that, but there won’t be any chemistry between them.”

He seems completely confident.

“But there will be with Waite?”

Jonah nods. “I think so.”

“He’s still not Torin,” I point out. “That’snotthe plan.”

“In a lot of ways, he could bebetterthan Torin,” Jonah says. “Another powerful man in our circle? How is thatbad? She’d have influence over different things. We could spread our influence even wider.”

I roll my neck. “This isn’t the plan,” I say again. As if anyone is listening.

“Plans can adjust,” Henry says.

I glare at him. He’s the one who has, so far, done the worst job of sticking to the plan. “The plan hasalreadybeen adjusted. A few times.”

“And the world hasn’t ended,” Henry says with a grin. “Maybe “the plan” needs to relax a little.”

When he says “the plan”, Henry means the man who pays all of our salaries.

But theactualplan was Alfred Olsen’s happy, hopeful vision for all of the grandchildren.

He loved them dearly. He knew they were born with incredible privilege and opportunity that shouldn’t be squandered. And he believed in them. He knew they had big hearts and lots of varied talents and passions and was convinced that given time and the space to figure themselves out, then supplied with the right resources, they would all find their path and make the world a better place.

He supplied those resources. And kept King Diarmuid at bay during the years they were all growing up and finding themselves.

He and Diarmuid were old friends, and I have to believe the king trusted him implicitly and he was simply unable tonotbelieve in the things Alfred preached so whole-heartedly.

Hell, it took Alfred only ten minutes to convince a highly trained, incredibly cynical, kind-of-bitchy FBI agent who had believed her life’s mission was to take down all the billionaires to leave her job and work right next to an asshole, know-it-all billionaire every single damned day.

---