We start to push the boat into the salty water. The waves lap against my feet, calves, and soon I’m submerged up to my waist. The air may be warm, but the water feels freezing. The sailboat bobs, and I raise the sail. The boat tilts precariously on the surface of the water.

“Climb on,” I call to Jace, raising my voice to make myself heard over the sound of the waves and the wind.

To my surprise, he does as I instruct without comment. Once he’s on board, I hoist myself up as well. The boat sways under our combined weight but remains vertical. We’re past the break point now, starting to drift away from shore rather than toward it.

I crawl around the small hull, adjusting lines and lowering the tiller. The sail whips taut in a strong gust of wind, and we’re rapidly propelled farther away from the shoreline.

I look over at Jace. “Now you’ve been sailing.”

He grins in response as the wind tousles his dark hair into a casual disarray. The stretch of beach we departed from is now just a thin white strip beyond the tranquil waters that surround us.

A carpet of shimmering blue stretches endlessly around us, marred only by the occasional whitecap. We’re pushed along for another couple hundred feet, until the wind dies down and our speed lessens to nothing more than a slight rocking motion.

Jace looks over at me, eyebrows raised. “You have a plan to get back to shore, right?” he asks. The Vanderbilts’ enormous house has become little more than a speck on the horizon.

I shrug. “Wait for some more wind?”

Jace stares at me in amazement for a moment, then bursts out laughing. “So, we’re stranded?” he asks.

“Looking that way.”

“I thought you’ve been sailing before?” Jace asks, shaking his head.

“I have. I just haven’t been the one doing the sailing,” I reply.

“Who was?”

I haven’t made a conscious decision yet, but the words come out anyway. “Some of my father’s men. Technically, the Royal Yachtsmen.”

“The Royal Yachtsmen?” Jace asks, grinning. It dies when he sees my serious expression. “You’re not joking?”

I shake my head.

“So…when the pilot called you Princess…”

“I didn’t go to school in London,” I admit. It’s a relief to say the words out loud. “I’m from a small European country by the Mediterranean Sea. It’s called Marcedenia. It’s a monarchy still, and…” I let my voice trail off, unable to say the words.

Jace stares at me for an elongated moment. “This isn’t happening,” he mutters to himself. “This isn’t happening,” he says again, louder this time. “This is some sort of joke, right? What are you talking about?”

“Jace, it’s the truth,” I reply, my voice pleading. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I had to make certain my cover story was protected, and I didn’t think—well, I didn’t expect—”

Jace cuts me off, his voice shifting from disbelief to anger. “What the hell are you talking about? You’ve been lying to me this entire time?”