Page 66 of The Unlikely Spare

After what happened at Ulu?u—after I essentially told a member of the royal family to back off—I’d been bracing forconsequences. Sharp comments. Renewed antagonism. Those unnerving blue eyes dissecting my every flaw with surgical accuracy.

Instead, I’ve gotten…nothing. He’s been unfailingly polite. Professional. Distant.

It’s fucking unsettling.

I expected Nicholas to double down, find some cutting way to put me in my place.

And instead, I’ve got this careful avoidance that feels like someone’s replaced him with a well-mannered doppelgänger.

And although I meant every word I said, there’s something else swirling inside me besides relief.

It gnaws at me like hunger, this strange hollowness where his barbs should land.

I’ve grown accustomed to being his target. Without that familiar friction, it’s like I’m left shadowboxing with air.

Adding to my confusion, there are all the other small moments of Nicholas I’ve glimpsed in the past few days.

Like when he was judging a solar car race and one team’s car died halfway through. Instead of moving on to the winners, he walked the entire length of the track to shake hands with the devastated teenagers, then helped them push their car across the finish line.

At the veterans hospital yesterday, after all the cameras had packed up, he sat with an old digger who’d been wheeled out too late for the official meet-and-greet. The man was rambling about his time in Vietnam, stories that looped back on themselves, repeating the same details about monsoon mud and tinned peaches. Nicholas just sat there in the sweltering courtyard, nodding along to the third retelling of the Battle of Long Tan like he hadn’t heard it twice already.

Then there was the school, where, after the press had got their photos and moved on, Nicholas let a kid called Jarra draghim around for half an hour, introducing him to every bleeding chicken in their garden. “This is Bertha. She’s a diva. That’s Kevin, he’s a bit thick but means well.”

I watched Nicholas crouch in the dirt in his expensive clothes, seriously discussing chicken politics with a ten-year-old like it was a UN summit.

All these incidents add up to a pattern I can’t ignore, something I started to suspect after witnessing him with the koala in Sydney and with Archie in Alice Springs.

Deep down, at his core, Nicholas is kind.

And for some reason, he hides this part of himself under his arrogance and practiced charm and cutting wit like it’s something shameful, only letting it leak out in unguarded moments. Light shining through cracks in armor.

It’s yet another layer to him, yet another side to the man. He’s like one of those shapes that has so many sides you can’t even begin to count them all.

But I still don’t understand why I care so much.

Today, we’re at the cultural center, which is jammed with people all craning their necks for a glimpse of royalty experiencing First Nations culture.

The performer, a Larrakia Elder named William, settles onto a raised platform, cradling the didgeridoo like it weighs nothing despite its impressive length. The painted patterns along its surface seem to shift in the afternoon light, the ochre and white telling stories I can’t read.

Cameras stay off until William finishes the Welcome to Country—nonnegotiable, the Larrakia hosts said, and the palace actually listened.

I take up my position near Nicholas, close enough to intervene if needed. Every instinct is focused on scanning for threats, identifying risks, maintaining security.

Except when my eyes keep drifting back to him.

He’s wearing a green button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing off forearms that are more defined than you’d expect from someone who’s never done a day of manual labor in his life.

Fuck. I’m doing it again.

This obsessive cataloging of his every gesture, expression, and movement is a problem. A serious, professional problem. I should be watching the crowd, not noticing how the sunlight catches the blue of his eyes or how his dark hair curls slightly at the nape of his neck in this humidity.

I force my gaze away, sweeping the perimeter with renewed focus. The forensics on the funnel-web spider incident came back yesterday. Definitive evidence that the security footage had been tampered with—a three-minute loop inserted during the exact window when someone would have entered Nicholas’s suite to plant the spider.

Which means someone with access to our security systems is involved. Someone on our team.

The suspicion sits like acid in my stomach. These are people I’ve worked alongside for weeks now. Who are trusted with Nicholas’s life.

I catch myself again. He should be “the prince” or “His Royal Highness” in my head. Not Nicholas.