Page 129 of The Thing About My Prince

Didn’t hear anything after the first sentence. Too busy picturing every worst-case scenario.

Can’t shake it off. But she’s out there doing her thing, and that’s all she ever wanted. So I’m pleased there was some way I could make her happy.

Did you know it was that bad in Yemen? That almost half the kids can’t go to school cos the buildings have been bombed?

CHASE

Had no idea.

And Chase watches way more news than I do.

So Lexi is definitely doing a good thing by getting these stories out into the world. How is a country supposed to rebuild and get better if it can’t educate the next generation?

I stare down at her face, frozen mid-word where I paused the video. Before I know it, I’m running my finger over her cheek.

Fuck.

What are you supposed to do when you want to be with someone but can’t? When a simple picture of them makes you feel like your insides are being sucked into a black hole? When all you want to do is fly to the other side of the world, scoop her into your arms, and keep her safe?

I drop my phone onto the sofa and walk over to the windows. Watching the hustle and bustle of the street below,with people going about their lives, somehow always calms me. My building is only twelve floors, so even though I’m on the top one, I’m not on such a high perch that I’m disconnected from reality or that I can’t see what’s going on around me.

On the other side of the street are a couple of people who look like they might not be sure where they’re sleeping tonight. One has a shopping cart piled high with bags of cans and bottles, collecting them for the refunds, I assume.

A few feet away, a man pulls a crumpled pizza box from a trash can, opens it, and pulls out an abandoned crust. He munches on it while rummaging deeper in the rubbish with his other hand.

This is real fucking life.

The real fucking life my parents never give a second thought to. Real fucking life most people don’t give a second thought to.

Christ, if Lexi can put herself in harm’s way to try to raise awareness of the plight of desperate, forgotten people, there must be some good I can do with my globally high profile, some good that can come from the skills I learned in my business running lavish, wasteful, consumerist events for all those years.

I must be able to help more than sending the occasional person on vacation to see polar bears. There has to be a bigger impact that my otherwise completely useless life can make.

I straighten, blood rushing to my brain, which is now firing on all cylinders, ideas inspired by the woman I cannot get out of my head or my heart forming themselves into mental bullet point lists.

I cross the apartment to the sofa, more purpose in my stride than I’ve felt in a long time, possibly ever, and pick up my phone.

Still there on the screen is the paused image of Lexi staring back at me.

“I really do fucking love you, you know,” I say to the image before closing the video and calling the guy from the streaming service who canceled my documentary.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

LEXI

Agnetha and I collapse into our chairs in a restaurant that’s become our regular haunt in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

“Coca-Colas for my American friends,” Tariq, the owner, says from the other side of the room. He’s treated us well since we came here on our first day. To others in the community, we’re not that welcome. So it’s good to have somewhere we feel safe and at home to relax and eat at the end of the day.

“Oh dear God.” I wipe the sweat from my brow. “Has it really only been three weeks? How the hell are we going to do three more?”

“It’s exhausting, huh?” Agnetha pulls her camera strap over her head and deposits the camera on the table.

In New York right now, fall has fully set in. People are wandering the streets, hugging their pumpkin-spiced drinks and thinking about what holiday gifts to buy.

Here, although it gets chilly at night, we’ve sweltered our way through to the early evening, charging around here and there trying to get someone from the government to talk to usabout overcrowding at the few hospitals remaining after so many others were attacked.

Tariq appears at our table, places a glass in front of each of us, uncaps two bottles of cold Coke, and puts them beside the glasses.