Page 112 of The Unlikely Heir

“I want you to.” I swallow hard. “I can’t do anything else to show you’re mine. I can’t publicly claim you. But I can give you these to wear. I want to know something I’ve worn for years is now next to your skin.”

Callum’s eyes are wide as he absorbs my words.

“You’re such a romantic,” he says softly, taking the dog tags from my fingers and placing them around his neck.

“I’m fairly sure no one has ever said those words pertaining to me before,” I say.

“That’s because they didn’t know you well enough,” he says the words casually, but they’re like an arrow shooting straight into me.

No one has ever known me like Callum does. Not even my former husband.

Isn’t that what all of us desire in life?

To be known.

As I curl my body around a sleepy Callum, placing a gentle kiss on his shoulder, I think of the love Nan showed my grandad at the end of his life.

Wiping the sweat from his brow. Helping him shuffle down the hallway to the bathroom.

When his pain got unbearable and he couldn’t sleep, she would sit there reading Wilbur Smith all night, her voice growing hoarse but refusing to let me take over.

Love isn’t always beautiful. It’s not always caviar and champagne and beautiful sunsets. Sometimes it is simply a familiar voice when your world is darkened by pain.

I never let Garett get close enough to experience that kind of love.

But Callum…something about him disarmed my defenses from the outset. And now we’ve ended up here. Where I’m completely in love with this man with no clear way forward.

ChapterTwenty-Nine

Callum

“You’re not the real prince! You’re a pretender. A fraud. I should be the real prince,” Nicholas is saying.

My grandmother’s face is full of disappointment. “You’ve betrayed me. You promised you’d help save the monarchy, and instead you’re sleeping with the prime minister.”

“You just generally suck,” Cliff sneers.

I lurch up in bed, my heart racing.

Something flutters against my chest, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s Oliver’s dog tags. The ones he gave me last night. The metal is warm from my skin, and I grab them, using the feel of them, the rounded edges, to anchor me in the present.

But my stomach continues to swirl.

I’m falling more and more in love with Oliver.

I’m trying not to think about what it means for the vow I gave my grandmother to help her save the monarchy.

But it appears my subconscious is not as forgiving in letting me forget the contradiction.

“You okay?” Oliver’s voice is scratchy.

“Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to disturb you.” I settle back into bed.

“Bad dream?”

I swallow. “Yeah. Definitely not a nice one.”

His arm reaches out to pull me to him. He strokes my arms, and I close my eyes.