James
As I headed home with Haley, we had a friend in the backseat of the car: an enormous teddy bear with a sweet grin and big brown, glass eyes. Haley kept turning around to stare at the stuffed animal, managing to get ice cream all over the back of the seat. I didn't really care. I was just so happy to see her happy.
"Thank you so, so much, Papa James!" she said again. "I love him! And I love you."
Tears stung my eyes. I blinked them away, taking a sip of my melting milkshake to give myself a chance to hold myself together. "You don't have to love me," I said. "We can just be friends."
"But I do love you. I don't love you like I love Daddy, but I love you like a Papa. And I think that's okay," she finished.
Damn this pure, sweet child for making me cry.
This time, nothing I could have done would disguise the wobble in my voice, so I just nodded. "I think that's okay, too."
We were nearly back at the palace by now. I let my mind wander a little, thinking on all the things I'd seen that I would love for the baby to have. Reid seemed to think we had enough stuff, but I didn't think that was possible.
Maybe if I got Haley in on it, we could gang up on Reid and convince him to come over to the dark side. "Hey," I started.
"Look out!" Haley shrieked.
I looked up in time to see a bright red car lurching down the middle of the road, heading straight for us. "Fuck!" I shouted, and yanked hard on the steering wheel. The car slashed past us, and flakes of paint drifted up into the air like snow.
My car came to an abrupt stop on the shoulder of the road.
I realized I had flung an arm across Haley. I swiveled to face her, staring into her eyes. "Are you okay?" I demanded.
Haley blinked at me. "I dropped my ice cream," she said, sounding close to tears. She blinked some more and pulled in a shaky breath. "I'm okay."
"Sweetie, don't you worry. We can have more ice cream when we get back to the palace."
I replied automatically, though my thoughts were racing far ahead of me. The red car had been going so fast that I already couldn't see it anymore in the rearview mirror. It had been a Tesla Model S, if I was correct.
Lesandra drove that type of car. In fact, as the car had blasted by us at top speed, hadn't I seen a blonde woman behind the wheel?
This wasn't good. No, it wasn't good at all. Why would Lesandra be driving away from the palace as fast as possible, unless something had come up to drive her away?
"Is your seatbelt on, Haley?"
"Yes," she replied in a small voice.
"Good. I'm going to drive a little faster, so you just hold on and we'll be home soon enough."
Without waiting for an answer, I stomped on the gas and drove as fast as I dared. Not as fast as Lesandra had been going, but fast enough that I probably wouldn't have time to react if anyone or anything jumped out in front of us again. My heart pounded in my chest, beating to a double rhythm. I really hoped I could chalk this feeling up to adrenaline and nerves, but I couldn't really convince myself of that.
Something was wrong.
I had the wrongness confirmed for me when I reached the palace gates and I found it standing open wide. That never happened. It was a breach of protocol, a safety hazard.
Fuck. What is it? An assassination? Terrorists? A fire?
But it couldn't be any of those, because Amalienborg would be completely blocked off in those events. If it was a fire, I'd have seen the smoke from a very long way away.
