Page 72 of Royal Reluctance

Bo drops his arm.

“I don’t know if it’s that easy,” I admit.

“It could be. You tell me how you’re feeling, and then I’ll tell you how I feel.”

A smile tugs at my lips. “Why do I have to go first?”

“Because you’re braver than I am.”

“I don’t know, I’ve seen you climb pretty big trees.”

“You’ve had a baby. Alone.” He shifts again but his arm doesn’t move. “What was it like?”

“Having a baby?” I laugh. “It hurt.”

He grins and it’s so nice to see him open and… happy. There have been a lot of emotions crossing Bo’s face, but I haven’t seen a lot of happiness since I’ve been here.

Except when he’s with Tema.

“I think I could have figured that out,” he says. “Tell me about it.”

“For the most part, it was easy. I was pretty sick for the first six months, and I didn’t get that big. I managed to hide it until around then, if I was careful to wear baggy clothes. I might have a picture.” I reach for my phone, reminded of the brief conversation with Timothy earlier.

He had asked what we had for dinner. Nothing about how it felt sharing a meal with the royal family. Nothing about what was said.

He spent more time telling me about his latest condo deal than asking how I was.

I push thoughts of Timothy out of my mind and scroll through my photos. There are so many of Tema and I show them to Bo.

He moves closer so we can look at the screen together, close enough for me to smell the spiciness of his cologne, almost masked by the soapy lavender scent of Tema’s bubble bath.

“Here. This is me a few days before I went into labour.”

Bo takes a long time to study the picture, even touching the screen with his finger. “You’re beautiful,” he says roughly. “You always have been, but seeing you like this… I wish I’d been there.”

I nod.Me too. But I can’t tell him that. Not yet.

“Were you with anyone?” he asks. “When you went into labour?”

“Abigail. We were watching The Suitor.”

Bo makes a disgusted sound in his throat. “Do you still watch that?”

“Yes, and I have yet to ask Odin what he was thinking going on the show.”

He tips his head back and laughs quietly. “I think we all asked him that. Craziest thing he’s ever done, but at least it got him Camille.”

“In a roundabout way. Tell me about—”

“No,” he interrupts. “You first.”

So I tell him what the contractions felt like, how scared I had been, but that Abigail had been as tough and strong as she always is. How my grandfather had been painting in his studio and we couldn’t get him to hurry, so we left without him, taking a taxi through the streets of Victoria because I was terrified I wouldn’t get to the hospital in time.

“Abigail kept complaining how we were missing a good part of the show to distract me. It was the overnights episode, and we kept talking about what we thought would happen, until the contractions got too severe and I couldn’t really talk anymore. Things moved pretty fast—I was seven centimeters dilated when we got there, and about two hours later, I had Tema.”

“Just like that?”

I snort-laugh. “No. No, it wasn’t just like that, but that’s what it feels like now. There were a few scary minutes because she was in distress, but I was pretty out of it. Abigail says it still haunts her.”

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