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Chapter Nineteen
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“So tell me the royal codpiece is wet in more ways than one.”
I should have known better than to take a swig of water during my first contact in two days with Ezra. As soon as I chugged, the shit came back up on a giggling choke. It spattered into the soft sand next to the Endigoh Beach palm tree under which I enjoyed a break from helping with the storm clean-up efforts. Nearby, the seven other women from my task crew also lolled in the sand and chatted, though a few eyed my reaction with open curiosity.
“‘Gee, Luce, how are you?’” I emphasized the razz in my tone, since the island’s touch-and-go cell reception made a video call impossible. “‘So nice to know you’re still alive, darling, after surviving the first hurricane of your life. I was sick with worry, my little Ferdinanda. Haven’t slept in days, wondering if you were alive or dead.’”
For a second, silence. Then the distinct sound of him sipping on something. Since it was close to midnight in LA, I assumed he was sucking down a martini. “Well, I could say it, but I’d be lying. Wait,” Ez cut in, before I could fume, “it would not have been a lie, had the Prince of Hotness not reached out like he did.”
“The Prince of—” My turn for the self-interruption thing. “Who did what?”
“Oooo. Coy girl,” he drawled. “New one for you, but I like it.”
“What the hell?” Coy, my ass. This was genuine vexation. And confusion. And probably the beginnings of agitation, though I couldn’t explain why. I rose, needing to take the conversation beyond earshot of my posse. Though every one of the women was a gem, and we’d cleared a lot of debris together in the last two days, none of them needed to take home a little extra gossip today too.
Especially because said “scoop” would be unfounded.
I hadn’t seen Shiraz since he left my suite yesterday morning, before I left myself to tour the tarmac with his brother. After that, I’d asked Samsyn where I could best help with getting the island cleaned up—though I had to admit, stepping foot onto this shoreline, I’d wondered who’d received the better part of the deal. Even half-destroyed by a hurricane, Arcadia’s coast looked damn near CGI’ed. This kind of beauty, with trees this lush, sand this white, and water this stunning, simply couldn’t be real.
I’d stayed on the beach for as long as I could, meaning I was an exhausted heap by the time I returned to the suite. Shiraz’s text had pinged during the five minutes of consciousness between showering and sleeping.
::Cannot see you tonight—but you already know that, yes?::
“I already know what?” I’d groused at the display, fighting a roiling stomach at my first logical—and horrible—conclusion. Clearly, he’d decided to go to Ambyr. To patch up their tension from the storm shelter.…perhaps to even use the détente as an excuse to propose to her…
Oh, God.
But something about that scenario hadn’t fit. Because I hadn’t wanted it to? Or because there was a “tone” in his message, as well? Something in the way my head replayed the words, hearing them spoken in his silk-over-steel voice…and hearing the overture of accusation in them. A teasing thing, but impossible to miss.
And hopeless to interpret.
“Now you’re the prince of obscure too?”
I’d told him that with my answer, sending him a purple kitty with a confused frown, along with three question marks.
His response was more mystifying than its predecessor.
::We WILL discuss this tomorrow.::
Forget obscure.
He got the crown of totally confusing.
Words I’d have typed back if I’d been certain to continue the conversation, but that blue moon wasn’t happening in the cosmos of my exhaustion. Though more rested today, I’d managed to keep the bafflement at bay—until now. Ez was talking with the same odd overture Shiraz had used in those damn texts. You know what I’m talking about—it’s just up to you to run through my little maze and figure it out.
“Ezra.”
“Hmmm?”
“I’m too tired for mazes.”
“Huh?”
A look back at the posse. I’d walked far enough away that they wouldn’t hear my huff. “Let’s just go for straight-up. What the hell are you talking about?”
Another pointed sip. “You mean the Prince of Hotness himself wasn’t clear enough?”
