Anders
Even after two coffees, my brain’s having more than a little bit of trouble taking in that I’m in a castle. The urge to text pictures of every detail to my nieces jumps at me.
“Hey,” Emily says, sliding into the window seat next to me and resting her head on my shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.” I squeeze her shoulder. “Did you like breakfast?” The castle staff member took the cart out of Oliver’s room while Emily hid in the bathroom.
“I did.” Her eyes flick to the paneled hidden passageway next to the massive fireplace. “But it’s not nothing.” She lifts her head and cocks it to the side.
“I was thinking my nieces would flip out if they knew I was here. Last Christmas I practically had to hide to keep them from asking questions about Oliver.”
“What did they want to know?” She sips her green tea.
“What he eats, how tall he is, I don’t know. It was creepy. Angie finally shut them down by offering a trip to Sephora.”
Emily laughs. “That would have done it for me too.”
“You can’t talk; you have a thing for Oliver as well.”
“And you. I have a big thing for you too.” She takes my mug from my hand and places it on the table before crawling onto my lap. Her arms wrap around my neck, and she presses kisses around my jaw.
My eyes close. Damn, I know I should walk away from her.
It would be better for both of us. But I can’t.
I lift her chin up and hold her eyes. I’m wordless, but I try to tell her how much she means to me with a look.
Our lips crash together. Behind us someone is rattling around, but I don’t give a damn.
“Anders, Emily,” Oliver says, the normal chuckle in his voice rising. “As much as I’d like us to hide away here the rest of the day, there are things we have to do.”
Emily breaks the kiss. Her eyes search mine, questioning whether I’m okay. I squeeze her knee. “Oi, let’s go,” I say in my best vaguely European accent.
Oliver’s forehead furrows. “Yeah, don’t do that in front of the press today.”
“Press?” Emily’s spine straightens, and she slides off my lap.
“If you’re okay with it. I’ve talked to Thayer already. We’re going to sit down with our capital city paper. They’re friendly. Have helped quite a bit with the ‘Sutton situation,’ as it’s being labeled. This––this should be a cakewalk.
“I don’t like cake,” Thayer says, stepping in from the other room. “How are you, wife?”
Emily rolls her eyes at him. And unlike Ryder, I stifle my laugh. She’s under his skin as much as the rest of us. “I’m good, husband. Were you lonely in the other room?”
He glares at her, his mouth tightly shut. There’s no winning in this situation.
“How’s your hand?” Thayer asks, lifting his chin at me. If you’re not staring at him, the scruff of his beard hides the forming bruise.
“Good. Your chin?”
“I’ve been hit harder. I’ve got a ring in the carriage house.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“Holy fuck, if you two need a room, there’s plenty of others in the castle. Should I call Margareta for the two of you to work things out? Or can you play nicely for the day?” Oliver slaps Thayer’s linen-suit-coat-covered arm.
“We’ve got an hour before the reporter will be here. Would you like a tour?” Oliver asks Emily.
“I’d love one.” Emily loops her arm with Oliver’s.
“Dempsey, can you help me with something?” Thayer asks.
Ryder glares at him and glances back at Emily. “What?”
“Is it about James? I can help.” Emily unlinks her arm from Oliver’s and moves toward Thayer.
“Not this. I need to talk to Dempsey.”
There’s no way Ryder will go with Thayer.
“I’ll catch up on the tour.” Ryder follows Thayer back through the passageway. Emily stares at the back of his head, then the door as it closes. I’m just as shocked as she is.
“What the . . . What could he need Ryder for? I don’t like this.” My stomach flips, and I have to agree. I’ve thought of him as my closest friend for a while now. And him having private conversations with Zambrano can’t be a good thing.
“Do you still want the tour?” Oliver asks.
“Yes.” Emily steps into the hallway first, glancing left and right before opening the door wide.
I glance over at Oliver. His forehead furrows, like it used to on the Rock Candy when he sensed I was about to correct him. Only on minor things. When Oliver puts his effort into something, it’s always his best.
“What?” he asks.
“I’m just finding it hard to imagine you living here.” I shrug.
“Really?” He looks around the stone walls, and for a second, I’m taken back to the pine plank walls of my parents’ home. Could they imagine me there?
He unclips a rope. There’s a sign on a stanchion that reads, “private family quarters.” A guard stands next to it.
“When I met you, I didn’t know about any of this,” I say. “It’s—”
“—just a building. A building that my parents are custodians of. They can’t sell it and move to Boca Raton or the Riviera.
When they wanted to redo the primary suite bathroom?
It took five years and a hundred-person committee.
It’s a grand place, and I was lucky to be born into this family.
But I’m more thankful for the relatives than the situation we landed in.
” He meanders into the next room. “This is the ballroom. After dinner I used to race my little tricycle down the middle of it. Once when I was three, I snuck under the rope during the day and raced right through a group of tourists.” It’s bigger than a basketball court.
Floor-to-ceiling gold draperies line one wall; the other has hundreds of paintings.
“Oh no!” Emily clasps her hands over her mouth. “What happened? Did you hit anyone?”
“Tricyclegate. I was in the paper for weeks. The debate over my parents’ parenting skills ranged from he’s a normal three-year-old to he’s going to be a serial killer. I didn’t know any of this, of course, until I found it on the internet when I was in college.”
“There you are, little brother.” Sutton speedwalks from a side door. “The press is set up in the east sitting room.”
“Should we change?” Emily asks.
“No, this is a casual little piece.” Sutton’s eyes flick over me. “Perhaps Oliver might have something for you? Though his pants might be too short.” She purses her lips.
“He’s barely got an inch on me,” Oliver snaps at his sister. And I see the same relationship I have with both of my sisters. It squeezes at my chest that I can’t see them more.
“Thanks, Oliver, I can slouch.” I smile at Sutton and can see why she’s captured the press.
There’s a movement at my side. Emily squirms, tucking a chunk of her hair behind her ear.
“Does Oliver have to use a stepstool to even us out? It’s a shame he’s so height-challenged,” I say, all while holding Emily’s attention.
Oliver slaps me on my back. “Ha ha. Let’s go find something worthy of your humor. Maybe a potato sack or my old fast-food uniform.”
“Fast food? You?” Emily asks, her mouth open.
“Yes, it was supposed to help me learn what the real world was like.”
“It was a two-week press op. He liked it and worked there for a year. They loved him. He worked hard and brought in thousands of preteen girls a week. They made the store a chain.”
“They renamed my favorite burger on the menu after me after I went to college.”
“Really?” Emily smiles up at him, grabbing his arm again. “What is it?”
“Remember, I was seventeen. A triple cheeseburger with extra bacon and double cheese.”
“It should be called a heart attack burger instead of the Prince Damien,” Sutton says.
“You’re not wrong.” Emily smiles; her strawberry hair shines in the sunlight.
Emily and Sutton head in one direction while Oliver and I go the opposite.
“I’m good at directions,” I say, “and your room is the other way.”
“Yes, but my overflow closet is this way.” Oliver shrugs and takes the slate stones two at a time. The castle corridor is cool and dim compared to the morning light.
“Overflow?”
“Yes, it’s hard for us to get rid of things. Especially if they’ve been gifted. And if we’ve bought them, it’s a perk for the company. If we’re seen giving it away or selling it? It’s a slap in the face of the designer or store. So it’s packed away until the business is gone or we are.”
I blink at him.
“What?” At the end of the hall, he stops at a door and holds it open for me.
A light wave of dust and fabric with an underlying note of Oliver’s cologne hits me. The room is four times larger than my apartment in Miami, with rows of racks running neatly down the middle of the room. Each has a year tag hanging from it.
“2006-2010, high school,” I read. “How did you become so normal? Seriously, I never in a million years on the Rock Candy once thought that you’re anything but—”
“—normal? Like you? That’s because I am.
I am a normal guy who was born with a fucking silver spoon in my mouth.
I know it. I know what it means. I know how lucky I am.
That time on the boat?” Oliver raises his voice.
“It was my luckiest time ever—the time I got to be just me, Oliver, not fucking Damien Oliver George Arthur Whitehall, the spare, spare heir.”
“‘Normal’ doesn’t have designer suits in their cast-offs from high school days. I left football practice jerseys and plastic hockey trophies at my dad’s house, boxes in the basement. That make you feel better?”
He laughs. “Yeah, thanks. I needed that. This would be a lot easier if I weren’t who I am. Don’t worry. I’m not playing the poor little prince card. I’m good.”
“Didn’t say you weren’t. You’re human, with emotions.”
“Unlike you.” He steps into the room.
“Excuse me?” I hear Angie’s voice coming out of me. “I have emotions.”
“Sure.” Hangers screech as he flips through suits and pants. “You blew it. If you wanted her to yourself, you could have had her.”
I nod. “You’re right.” The breath the words come out on burns my lungs.
“Damn, well we can agree that we’re both in this for better or fucking hell most likely worse.” He shoves a stack of pants and multiple shirts at me. “Here, try them on over there. There’s a chair.”
The three pairs of pants all fit, as do the shirts. “If this is a fluff piece on how we all became friends on the raft, I don’t look like myself.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Good, then I’ll put my clothes back on.”
“You should let Emily decide.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me in the cracked mirror.
I look back at my reflection. It might be Oliver’s clothes, but it’s me.
My shoulders are wider, my thighs too. The difference in our height Oliver makes up in the fluff of his hair.
I’m still the Alaskan son of a police officer.
But if the son of a king and queen can be a deckhand . . . ?
“Sure. I’ll wear this.” I grab my clothes from the chair.
“Leave them. I’ll have someone pick up the rest of this later.”
The east sitting room is anything but casual, especially with the massive photography lights.
“You’re here.” A woman with a tight bun nods at Oliver. “Good, good.”
“Anders, this is Madeline Dubois,” Oliver says. “She’s our—”
“—image consultant,” Sutton inserts. “You look nice.”
This time, I give her a curt nod. Image consultant is another name for fixer.
Madeline arranges us three times before she turns to her assistant on the side of the room. “They’re ready.”
The assistant nods and lets the reporter and photographer in. Madeline introduces us and motions for a chair for the reporter to sit in across from us.
Emily’s in the middle, and Thayer’s on one side. Oliver’s on the other side. Ryder and I stand behind them. Pictures snap, more than my nieces take when they’re getting their perfect shot.
“Perfect as always. I’m going to ask a few questions, and then we’ll take some more pictures.” The reporter asks about the raft, then the time afterward when Emily was searching for Easton.
“I wouldn’t have been able to survive the year without Anders, Ryder, and my friend Shayla. They held me up when I couldn’t do it myself.”
The reporter nods and pushes forward. I do my best to not turn to Ryder. Because there’s steaming frustration rolling from him.
“It’s like Romeo and Juliet,” the reporter says to Thayer.
“Only without death.” Emily puts her hand on Thayer’s leg.
“Yes, of course,” Madeline says. “How are your families taking it?”
“In stride. We’re not children. We make our own decisions.”
“Yes, well, I wish you all the best. You have a lovely group of friends to support you.” She nods at us.
Oliver and Thayer stand.
“You know, I do have one more question. Perhaps we could switch people around. Why don’t Prince Damien and Thayer stand in the back, and the two of you come up,” the reporter asks.
“Sure,” Madeline says, and changes the arrangement of us.
Emily stands too. “Do you want me in the back?”
“No, you look great there,” the reporter says.
More photos are snapped with the new configuration.
“Oh, I have some other backup questions to fill in the article.”
Madeline steps in. If her bun wasn’t so tight, her forehead would be furrowed. “Just one or two more.” She paces behind the photographer.
The reporter nods. “Great. Anders, what did you do before being first officer of the Rock Candy?”
“I was first officer of Winston Rockwell’s other boat, The Mermaid’s Tale.”
“Oh, a real seaman. Wonderful. And how about you, Ryder Dempsey?” She leans forward.
Ryder doesn’t answer but glares across the room. What in the hell is going on?
“I see,” she says, even though he’s said nothing. “Well, thank you for having me.”