I’m still drowning in heartache and pain, but beneath it there’s a fresh stirring of anxiety as the implications of the press suspecting a relationship between Jace and me begin to set in.

Our entourage stops briefly at the beach house for the Vanderbilts to disembark. The parting is awkward; I refuse to look at their house, keeping my gaze on my hands resting on the fabric of my navy dress.

We pull up at the airport to see only one plane parked on the runway.

“Where’s the other plane?” Richard asks as soon as we’ve all climbed out of the cars.

“There was a fuel leak,” the attendant answers. “It was scheduled to be resolved by tomorrow morning, so we didn’t think we needed to inform you.”

My mother looks at me accusingly. Yet another problem I’ve caused on this trip.

“We need to leave today,” Richard replies. He looks to my father. “We’ll have to risk it.”

My father nods. It’s against protocol for the two of us to travel together, but we’ve obviously crossed into extenuating circumstances at this point.

We all climb up the stairs and inside the small aircraft, which is packed to capacity between me, my parents, and the dozen agents traveling with us.

The flight crew begins rushing around, hurriedly preparing for the unexpected takeoff. Richard pulls out his phone to answer a call. I sink into one seat in the first row, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. I wish I had turned around and left as soon as we arrived, just as I threatened to.

The sound of Jace’s name causes my eyes to fly back open.

Richard has hung up the phone and is now standing in front of the television that’s mounted in the front of the plane, currently set to an American news station.

“Dawson was a first-round pick for the South Carolina Sharks and made his professional debut today. The Sharks have released a statement saying Dawson is stable and expected to make a full recovery, and the league has suspended the Panthers player who made the illegal tackle for three games. The Sharks even pulled out their first preseason victory in five years, but it’s what happened after Dawson was tackled that has them in the headlines. The Crown Princess of Marcedenia, a small European country, was revealed to be secretly attending Lincoln University last December. Aside from her undercover arrangement and true identity, very little came out about her time there. That may have all changed today.”

The screen changes from the pretty blonde woman speaking to a video of me outside the stadium, standing next to Jace’s stretcher, and then climbing inside the ambulance after him. The screen freezes on my face. The pain and panic in my expression are readily visible.

“As you can see in this video footage we obtained, the first person to rush to Dawson’s side after he was injured was none other than the Princess herself. Before making his hotly anticipated debut as a Shark today, Dawson was the best quarterback to come out of Lincoln, leading them to a championship in his final season there for the first time in twenty-five years—”