Page 70 of The Dandelion Princess

Then,Forgive me?

I exhale, a weight rolling off my shoulders. I do not deserve his patience.

I type,I didn’t know being in a relationship would mean saying sorry so much.I stare at the words. We aren’t in a relationship. My heart hurts. Delete.

I roll onto my stomach and tap the video button, prepare my pleasant smile and smooth my hair.

“Marc—” It ends in a squeak. He’s shirtless again.

I drop the phone and hear his laugh.

Our families have mixed for decades, taking summer holidays together at Outingen Huis and winter trips to Uncle Georg’s private island for much-needed sun. He’s been captured at beaches around the world by paparazzi using telephoto lenses. His abs are no foreign, undiscovered country, but I return to them each time like a long-exiled soul, kneeling on my native soil with tears of gratitude. I’m back. I am so back.

“Are you going to put something on?” I grit, righting the phone.

“I don’t think I am.” He grins, hitching up on one arm. He did a short stint as a male model after being scouted in Seong, and I’ve always been impressed by their impeccable hotnesspipeline. One must admire an entire country dedicated to the proposition that they’re not going to waste their baddies on a cubicle farm. Anyway, when he stretches like that, I know he knows what he’s doing.

“I know you like it,” he says.

“What makes you so sure—?”

Marc gives the phone a bland stare.

I look in the four cardinal directions and remind myself that there’s no future in ogling Marc van Heyden. “How was basketball?”

“Noah had no idea I’d been making out with his little sister, if that’s what you’re asking.”

My cheeks flame. I should be past this. I should be able to meet Marc on the well-lit ground we’ve decided upon—dead-end kisses, lots of fun, no complicated feelings. It’s an arrangement as chic as a wedding reception I attended last year for one of the Saint Sissela girls where the only refreshments were bowls of cigarettes.

I tamp the blush down. “I was asking about basketball.”

“We crushed him.”

Okay, hot. “Do you always crush him?” I ask, snuggling into my bed.

He watches me, a hand kneading the back of his neck. “I wasn’t in a mood to lose.”

When Marc shifts the pillow, his shoulder rolls into the frame. I bite my lip to stop a second squeak. This chat should have stayed a text.

Speaking of… “I was in the middle of messaging you,” I admit.

His lips tilt. “Yeah? Tell me what you were going to say.”

He’s flirting on purpose, certainly not part of the deal. That we’re attracted to one another ought to be enough of a disaster, given how desperately I need out of the royal way of life and howcommitted he is to the oath he made to prop it up. He doesn’t need to torment me with flirting.

“I called you names,” I lie. “Kraken of the Silicon Sea.”

“Oh, we’re doing this?” He has a smile I never see when he’s looking at anyone else.

“Hermit King of Lindenholm.”

Marc squints an eye and his hand seesaws. “Mid.”

“A man with gigabytes where his heart should be…”

His smile tips up, and the connection between us is so clear I see every pixel of his neck. “I said I was sorry. I am sorry. You were only trying—” I say.

“I know.”