Page 32 of A Fierce Princess

I nod. “Yes, as I said, I told him last night,” I say.

“OK, what do we do? Do you have a plan?” Chris asks.

I shake my head. “We need to get Logan out of here. We can’t protect him on this island. The assassin that took the job is good, like really good. We need to take him home with us. Then we can figure out everything else,” I say. “We need to buy ourselves some time.”

Chris laughs. “You want to waltz home with a tanned, yacht captain in tow, into the palace, and you think Dad’s just gonna let that fly,” he says.

I glare at him. “Obviously, we’ll need some sort of story, and we’ll need to talk Logan into coming with us,” I add, biting my lip again.

Auggie puts up a hand. “Wait, he doesn’t know anything about your idea to take him home with us?” Auggie asks.

I shake my head.

Auggie runs a hand through his hair.

“Jesus, you do like to live dangerously,” he says.

I shrug. “Please, I need you to help me persuade him,” I beg as I put my hands together.

“He has a life here, Anna. He has friends, a business. You can’t expect a man to just drop everything because you toss him some crazy story about him being a prince and being a target for an assassin,” Auggie says.

“Well…I think he does actually believe me about the prince thing, but I agree, it’s hard to wrap one’s head around it. If I hadn’t spent years on the dark web, I’d have thought it was a little far-fetched too,” I say.

We are quiet again, all three of us in deep contemplation. Only the sound of the wind and water fill the void made by our lack of conversation.

“He’s a businessman, right?” Chris finally says.

Auggie and I look at him. “What if I were to suggest a business partner out our way? Ask him to come back with us,” Chris says.

“Like what type of business proposition?” I ask.

“Well, we’ve had a great week, right?” he asks.

We nod.

“What if we could offer that to other high-end clients who need a week to get away without all the pomp and circumstance,” he says.

I contemplate it for a moment and grin. “I like that idea,” I say.

“Good, cause it’s the only idea we have, and we dock in less than an hour,” he says, looking down at his dive watch. “I’ll talk to him.”

Chris stands, but before he walks away, he looks down at me.

“I’m glad you told us, Anna. I’m glad you trust us. You know we’ll always have your back, right?” he says.

Auggie puts a strong arm around me. “Always,” he repeats and kisses my brow.

“Thank you. I love you both to the moon and back,” I say, repeating a line my mother used to say to us when we were little. They both smile at me, and Auggie and I watch Chris walk over toward the wheel where Logan watches him approach.

I sit nervously waiting, chatting with Auggie, and occasionally glancing over at Logan and Chris who are in deep, deep conversation. It feels like a lifetime, and as land begins to approach, I feel my heart constricting further and further.

“Breathe,” Auggie says to me, stopping his story.

I let out a breath that I didn’t know I was holding and look back at Auggie. He takes my hand in his.

“I’m scared, Augs,” I admit to him.

“It’ll be alright, Suzy Q,” he says. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

---