Page 79 of The Royal's Pet: A MMF Ménage Royal Romance

A smile inches across his face. “Don’t worry about me, kitten,” he says and closes the folder.

“Now boarding Zone 3 for Flight 106, heading to Edinburgh,” the voice crackles over the loudspeaker.

The chairs are hard semicircular plastic bits that are curved in such a way that make it impossible to get comfortable. My giant backpack takes up the whole seat next to me. I curl up against it, rubbing Oscar’s soft, velvety ears.

This is usually my favorite part. Onward to adventure! I’m probably the only person in the world who still loves traveling through airports. They’re the closest things we have to portals. You enter in one country, you exit in another a few hours later. It’s amazing, really, how quickly someone can turn their life around.

So why this sinking pit in my stomach?

I’ve got my phone charging in the outlet beside me. My one-way plane ticket juts out of my pocket. I haven’t been this nervous since my first flight out of Michigan.

“Now boarding Zone 4,” the loudspeaker announces, voice bored. “Zone 4 for Flight 106.”

A tingle runs up my spine. Zone 4. That’s me. I pluck out my boarding pass and stare at it. “What’re we going to do, Oscar?” I sigh.

“I’m telling you, we put it right on the bloody belt!” I glance up to see a man in a suit yelling at an attendant. She folds her arms over her yellow-and-orange neon vest as he jabs a finger at her. “How incompetent does the airport staff have to be to lose a bloody suitcase?”

His hair is slicked back, his three-piece suit barely ruffled, and his Rolex gleams from his wrist. The attendant is doing her best to soothe him, but his face only gets redder by the second. A little girl—maybe five or six, wearing a spring dress dotted with daisies—tugs on his blazer and wails.

“Daddy!” she howls. “Misses Kitty! They lost Misses Kitty!”

“Debbie, sit!” the businessman snaps at his daughter as though she were a dog.

Debbie throws herself into the seat beside me, as dramatic as a 1920s starlet. She wails into the seat, her blonde pigtails bobbing with every heaved sob.

People are starting to shoot the family glares. Sure, maybe she is a spoiled little girl, but… shouldn’t every little girl get to be spoiled? I can’t help it. I hate to see kids cry. I pick up Oscar and push him toward her, as though his otter feet are walking over the divider separating our seats.

“Hello, little girl!” I say, curling my tongue on the roof of my mouth to give Oscar a pitchy voice. “Why are you so sad?”

Debbie climbs into her seat, sits down, and scowls at me as she wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I’m six. I’m not a baby.”

Well. Called out by a six-year-old. I can cross that item off my bucket list. I abandon my plan and drop the cutesy voice. The little girl sniffles beside me, so I try a more honest approach. “You lost your friend, huh?”

Her bottom lip wobbles. “My best friend.”

“You know, Oscar has been my best friend for years,” I tell her, turning the stuffed otter around in my hands. “We’ve been on lots of adventures together, all over the world. He’s protected me no matter where I go.”

“Misses Kitty keeps me safe.”

“Do you think Oscar could protect you? Just until Misses Kitty comes back?”

The little girl stares at Oscar, and then she reaches out to take him. I hand the stuffed toy over. She hugs him tightly to her chest.

I can’t help but smile at that. “Stay brave, sweetie,” I tell her.

“Debbie!” her father snaps. “Come!”

The little girl scampers after her father, clutching her newfound friend. I smile as I watch them go.

“Last call!” the loudspeaker squawks.

Time to take my own advice. I have to make a choice. I look down at the bold black lettering on my boarding pass. Stay brave, Rory.

42

Ben

The golden Angel of Justice gleams brightly from her post. Spotlights illuminate her from underneath and cast sharp, crooked shadows on the stone memorial. Beyond her, the Buckingham Palace gates loom like prison bars.

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