Page 116 of The Unlikely Spare

My hand finds my signet ring, twisting it round and round as everything I thought I knew about Eoin rearranges itself into a new, uglier picture.

Of course he’s undercover. Of course the one person who makes me feel like I can drop my mask is wearing the biggest mask of all.

“So, you’re professional enough to hide the fact that you’re really an undercover agent, but not professional enough to refrain from fucking me. That’s an illuminating insight into your priorities.”

“Nicholas—”

“Or was sleeping with me just part of your cover story? After all, your fellow protection officers would hardly suspect you were an undercover agent when you were busy fucking theprincipal. Did Scotland Yard teach you how to seduce your way into royal confidence, or was that your own creative initiative?”

“Of course it wasn’t—” Eoin starts again, but I cut him off.

“It’s a fascinating technique. Get the prince to trust you, get him to open up about his past traumas, then what—file it all in your official report?Subject displays vulnerability regarding maternal relationship, recommend exploiting for further intelligence gathering.”

“Nicholas!” Eoin roars. He swings the car over to the side of the road and sits there, staring at me, his chest heaving. The vein at his temple throbs visibly, and his gray eyes have darkened to the color of a winter storm. When he finally speaks, his Irish accent bleeds through stronger than I’ve ever heard it.

“Is that what you think? That I played you? That I—Christ, Nicholas.” He claws a hand through his hair. “I’ve risked my entire career, my reputation, everything I’ve worked for since crawling out of Belfast’s slums because I couldn’t stay away from you. Every moment we’ve spent together has been a breach of protocol so severe I could lose my job. After last night, I almost requested immediate extraction because I knew I’d compromised myself beyond repair. Does that sound like a bloody cover strategy to you?”

My lips feel numb.

“And why didn’t you request extraction?” I manage to ask.

“Because I discovered there was definitely a sleeper agent in your protection team, and I needed to keep you safe.” He takes a deep breath, dragging a hand across his face. “You have every right to be angry that I didn’t tell you who I really was. About my assignment. But don’t you dare reduce what happened between us to some kind of tactical maneuver.”

I want to believe him. I want so desperately to believe that the moments between us aren’t just a performance from a man trained to be whoever the job requires. That when he looks atme, he sees Nicholas, not the investigation target or the royal spare.

But then I believed every word Daniel said to me, and look where that got me.

I can feel myself shutting down, that familiar numbness creeping in from the edges. It’s the protective mechanism that got me through those first weeks after Daniel left, after I understood what my mother had orchestrated. It’s easier this way, to let the ice form around my heart again, to retreat behind walls I’d foolishly started dismantling.

At least when you expect betrayal, it doesn’t leave you gasping like a landed fish.

I look away from him.

“You’d better start driving. There are terrorists after me, remember?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Eoin

Fuck.

I’ve hurt Nicholas. Which is the last thing I ever wanted to do.

The silence between us is heavy in the confined space of our stolen pickup.

“I need to ring Scotland Yard,” I mutter.

I start the car again, but I don’t go far. Instead, I turn down a narrow farm track, cutting the engine behind a row of pine trees that shields us from the main road.

“Wait here,” I say. Nicholas doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at me as I step out of the car.

I pull my secure phone from my jacket, walking just far enough away that he can’t hear, but close enough that I can still see him through the windshield. Thornton answers on the second ring.

“O’Connell? Holy hell, where are you? We’re getting reports of some kind of attack?—”

“We’re compromised,” I cut Thornton off. “Attack at Hobbiton. Multiple hostiles, coordinated. They knew exactly where we’d be.”

“Any casualties?”