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I laugh. “And you thought you were keeping a secret from me all day.”
His stern gaze softens, and after a few seconds of processing, Torben leans back, throws his head back, and laughs from his belly.
I’m seeing the man for who he is for the first time. And it fills me with warmth from my toes to my eyelashes.
“You have a great laugh.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s very mischievous and unexpected.”
“You should hear Sig and Etienne. When they’re getting along, anyway.”
“I’ll bet the three of you are a riot.”
“When we’re not starting fights in the public square.”
I wince. “I might have read about that.”
Torben dips a pita chip into the artichoke dip, then looks at me warily. “So, you already know why I’m here.”
I set down my glass. “According to the stories I read, the King has declared that you have to announce your bride by the end of the month.”
“And I came to America to find her.”
We share a silence as thick as the air around us. The prince is not daring to say what he wants, and I am not daring to hope.
I chuckle awkwardly. “There’s gotta be hordes of women in your home country that would love to marry you.”
And I’ll scratch their eyes out. Every last one of ‘em.
“Plenty. But I didn’t want any of those women.”
“Why not?”
“For me to date anyone in Gravenland, it would be no less than an arranged marriage. Every date is supervised, arranged, chaperoned, and analyzed under a microscope. I am debriefed by the king and queen’s advisors after every social gathering, made to break down the pros and cons of every candidate. I’ve never felt comfortable dating anyone because every moment is so … dissected. I’ve grown so cynical of the entire process. The king and queen don’t see that marriage isn’t the be-all, end-all, which is ironic considering how they’ve ignored each other for years.”
That’s … a lot to unpack. He’s also probably looking back at many generations of lukewarm royal marriages, which sets a dreadful example.
“And you’ve never felt the slightest connection with any of those women?”
Torben shrugs. “Not for more than a few dates. No one has captured my heart.”
“May I ask an intrusive question?”
“Of course.”
“Why do your parents ignore each other?”
Torben sits back in his chair and stares out at the mountains. “They used to have fun together. But now, I don’t know if they even like each other’s company. Father went through a—well, I suppose you could call it a mid-life crisis when I was about 22. Things have never been the same between him and my mother.”
I take a sip of my wine. “He bought a Corvette? Started jumping out of planes?”
“No,” he chuckles. “He didn’t do anything flashy like that or dangerous. Now that you mention it, his base personality didn’t change. He just…went missing. For days at a time, we had no idea where he was. It was so strange because he loved nothing more than keeping a schedule. But then, one day, he didn’t attend a meeting with the emperor of Japan, and I had to step in. Mother sulked in her room and wouldn’t come out.”
“I’ll bet you handled it beautifully.”
“You flatter me, Hailey Wild.”
