Page 48 of The Unlikely Spare

His retreat into his sardonic humor irritates me.

“That’s the act. Not the person.”

Nicholas stops still. “Yes, well, we can’t all be straightforward protection officers who get to say exactly what they mean. Some of us were raised to smile while Rome burns.”

“Maybe those of you raised like that should actually spend less time smiling and more time doing something about the fire.”

“See? This is why you’re my favorite member of the security detail. The others just judge me silently. You do it with verbal flair.”

He starts walking again, and then we’re back among the crowd. Nicholas smoothly transitions to his public persona, going on stage to give a speech about the importance of the service provided by the Flying Doctors with perfect royal graciousness.

I resume my position, watching the perimeter, tracking each person who approaches him.

But part of my mind remains caught on replaying what just happened.

This weird…tension between us. It feels dangerous—both professionally and personally.

The presentation concludes, and Nicholas poses for official photographs. Over the chairman’s shoulder, his eyes find minein the crowd. He raises an eyebrow slightly, then returns his attention to the ceremony.

Despite the heat, a chill runs through me.

This assignment is becoming complicated in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

Royalty is a ridiculous, archaic institution built on centuries of inequality and exploitation.

As much as I hate royalty, as I watch Nicholas move through the crowd and see the genuine smile he gives to Archie and his mother as he passes them, the careful way he listens to an elderly nurse describe her first emergency flight, I can’t deny that Nicholas means something to these people. Maybe it’s simply a connection to something larger than themselves.

And Nicholas himself—when he’s not hiding behind the practiced smirk and rehearsed charm—seems to understand the responsibility that comes with his privilege.

It was definitely easier when I could dismiss him as merely a symbol of everything I oppose.

As the event draws to a close and we prepare to escort Nicholas back to the hotel, I force those thoughts aside.

I have a job to do. I have to find the traitor in our midst and keep the prince alive.

Everything else, including whatever this tension between us might be, is irrelevant.

Yet when Nicholas pauses beside me on the way to the car, close enough that I can smell his expensive cologne, and murmurs, “Thank you for sharing about your brother,” it takes every ounce of my professional training not to react.

“Just doing my job,” I say.

His lips curve into a wry smile. “Actually, O’Connell, I think you’ll find personal confessions aren’t in your job description.”

I can’t look away from him. The way his pupils dilate slightly, black edging out the blue, how the sunlight catches the angles of his face, and how his throat moves as he swallows.

Fecking hell. I’ve been in firefights that felt less dangerous than this conversation.

Then he’s sliding into the waiting car with Singh, leaving me to climb into the following car with MacLeod and Davis.

The car rumbles to life. Davis chats animatedly about something I can’t focus on while MacLeod studies her tablet beside me.

My mind replays that moment with Nicholas.

I’m trained to identify threats, to neutralize danger before it materializes.

Yet it appears I have failed to anticipate this particular vulnerability: my own defenses crumbling in the face of a royal who refuses to be the shallow, entitled symbol I thought he was.

It feels like the lines between us are blurring slightly.