Page 97 of The Unlikely Spare

Having Nicholas, holding him, only reminded me of how vulnerable he really is. His extreme good looks, along with his armor of charm and humor, almost turn him into someone larger than life, a character rather than a man.

But I now know intimately how he’s flesh and blood. Muscle and sinew. How easily he could be broken by someone determined to do so.

I also now know that Nicholas’s resistance to his constraints is not just a pampered prince having a tantrum. It’s something deeper than that. I know him well enough to understand how much it goes against his core nature to be passive. He’s smothering, choking under his royal binds.

He’s a risk-taker. How much do I simply constitute a risk? Another rebellion against the constraints of his life? A thrill precisely because it’s forbidden?

Maybe that’s what terrifies me most. It’s not just that he’ll get himself killed chasing the next thrill, but that I’ve become complicit in his self-destruction. I’m a match he’s striking while standing in a room full of gasoline.

He laughs at something the elderly volunteer says, head thrown back in that way that exposes his throat, and I have to look away.

Because somehow I seem to simultaneously want to protect him and possess him.

And I’m not sure where that places me in the rankings of the threats against him.

That afternoon, I arrive at Nicholas’s suite to what I expect is going to be a standard security briefing, only to discover the space has been transformed.

He’s somehow managed to get a proper Christmas tree delivered to the penthouse suite, complete with that fresh pinesmell that seems to make no sense when people are currently sunbathing on the beach only a few miles from here.

But, apparently, we’re going to pretend it’s not thirty degrees outside while “Let It Snow” plays through the speakers.

Nicholas moves through the room in dark chinos and a cream linen shirt. No tie, top button undone, sleeves rolled up.

“I know it’s difficult to be celebrating Christmas so far away from family, but James helped me put together this rather modest attempt at festive cheer as a thank you for all of your hard work,” he says.

There’s something almost boyish in how he rocks back on his heels, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a half-smile. He glances around the room, his shoulders relaxing when people actually seem engaged rather than just polite.

“But before we commence the forced festivity,” Nicholas continues, “I have something for each of you. Think of it as compensation for having to put up with my occasional bouts of independent thinking.”

Davis makes a strangled sound that might be a laugh. Blake’s mouth twitches. Even Cavendish looks almost human.

There’s a table stacked with wrapped packages, each one labeled in what I recognize as Nicholas’s handwriting.

He works through the group, offering gifts that are thoughtful without being too personal. He gives James a leather-bound planner. “For managing my ‘inadvisable deviations from protocol,’” and James actually cracks a smile. He gives Cavendish a book of cryptic crosswords while Blake unwraps a set of police patches from every city we’ve visited, and I realize he’s noticed her habit of picking up law enforcement memorabilia. Davis clutches the Australian cricket shirt Nicholas gave him to his chest and tells him he’ll treasure it forever.

When he reaches me, there’s a moment where his practiced ease falters. Just a second, but I catch it.

“O’Connell.” The package is smaller than the others, wrapped in dark-blue paper.

I open it. Inside is a first edition Walt Whitman. My throat goes tight.

“You mentioned containing multitudes. So it seemed only fair to provide you with the source so you can continue to quote literary references at me.”

Ah, fuck me sideways. It’s not the book itself, although a first edition Whitman isn’t exactly something you pick up at the airport. It’s that he remembered what I said.

“Walt understood about wanting things you shouldn’t,” I say quietly. “It’s probably why his poetry lasted.”

The words hang between us, innocent enough. But the quirk of Nicholas’s lips deepens into something more dangerous.

Then he recovers, but not before I catch the slight intake of breath, the way his tongue darts out to wet his lips.

“Right then. Shall we attempt this Christmas dinner?” James asks.

The food table looks like someone tried to negotiate a peace treaty between British tradition and Southern Hemisphere logic. Traditional British Christmas dinner fights for space with sensible summer alternatives—roast potatoes nestled against potato salad, Yorkshire puddings standing guard over pavlova.

The catering staff seems to have adopted the philosophy of offering an excess of champagne in the hope of making everyone forget that mixing gravy with thirty-degree heat is basically a war crime.

MacLeod stares at her plate with genuine distress. “This is not how Christmas works.”