A Prince on Paper (Reluctant Royals #3)(10)

Oh là. He was losing his touch.

This . . . was not how things were supposed to play out. She was supposed to accept his apology with a shy smile. Maybe a giggle.

“I don’t understand,” he said, more to himself than to her.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

“Weren’t you the one who told me I shouldn’t excuse you?” she asked. That surprising anger that he’d heard before she’d cried crept into her tone. “I get it. It was a joke to you. But I’ve had some time to think and I don’t want your apology or your protection. I want to not be treated like a sex object or a . . . a sugar bubble depending on your mood.”

She turned a page decisively.

Oh là là.

Johan tore his gaze from her and tried to wrap his mind around the current situation. Nya—wallflower Nya, barely able to make eye contact Nya—had just soundly put him in his place. For a second time. She was like a feather pillow with a knife hidden in its down, and he kept managing to sit on the pointy end.

He hadn’t expected that response from her at all, which was worry enough in itself, but his reaction was even more troublesome.

He liked it. He quite liked it.

Oh là là là là.

He was prepared to sit in silence because he was supposed to be ignoring her, but then he heard a little shuddering sigh emanate from her direction and glanced across the aisle.

Her head was bowed over the magazine but the fingers of one hand tapped the pages nervously. The imperious demeanor she’d sported when putting him in his place had slipped away and she seemed smaller. Sadder.

“Ahem.” He took a moment to recalibrate his idea of her and what she might need to lift her spirits before speaking. She’d laughed a bit at the body fluids bit, though he sensed that she liked being joked with more than raunch. “What exactly is a sugar bubble, so I can avoid treating you like one?”

“Google it,” she said, though the edge of her mouth turned up just a millimeter. So she wasn’t entirely immune to his charms, then? He could work with that. All he needed was the slightest crack and he could ease his way in, turn this situation around.

Okay, maybe he was manipulative. But he didn’t like seeing Nya Jerami cry, nor did he like her sighing and troubled across the aisle from him.

He would distract himself from his worries about Lukas by helping her ease her own. That’s all this was.

He picked up his tablet and tapped at the blank screen as he pretended to do a search. “Hmm. ‘Sugar bubble is the name for a beautiful opalescent form of dark pearl, hollow with a thin shell. It appears delicate but is actually almost indestructible.’ Oh, but this sounds like something good, this sugar bubble.”

He looked over and saw her shoulders shake a bit, but her head was still down. She lifted a page of her magazine but didn’t turn it. She was listening.

“This is interesting, too. ‘Many people think the Trojan War was started over Helen of Troy, but this is a common misconception as her nickname was Sugar Bubble. The war was actually over the theft of this rare jewel, but fighting over a woman sounded more macho in the history books.’”

Her head swiveled in his direction, a smile on her face that rivaled the sunlight glowing through the window behind her. There was a repressed amusement in her tone when she spoke. “You’re lying.”

“Ouay.” The word came out deep and low because he was flirting, despite his best effort not to.

“This isn’t going to make me accept your apology,” she said cautiously, but then closed the magazine. “What else does it say?”

Johan worked his bottom lip with his teeth in faux studiousness to suppress his grin.

“Let’s see, let’s see. Paris stole the famed sugar bubble from Menelaus because the king owed him some money, and Paris really wanted to buy this sweet new chariot—”

Nya’s giggle mixed with the ping of the PA system, and then the captain’s smooth voice filled the cabin. “We will begin making our descent shortly. Please ensure your seat belts are fastened.”

When Johan glanced at Nya, the laughter was gone from her eyes. Her frown may as well have been a blaring siren, impossible for him to ignore.

Merde. Telling stories was one thing, but what he wanted to do now was another.

He’d already insulted her. He was likely the last person she wanted to share anything with. But something in him itched to bring the smile back to her face, or at least to smooth away the frown.

He was used to this urgent need to assist; it was his shameful secret. There couldn’t be a distressed person within fifty paces without Johan catching wind of it and that urge to fix it almost overwhelming him. He buried those acts by acting a fool every two weeks or so, and occasionally showing his ass—literally. He couldn’t bury the fact that this desire to help Nya felt different, with roots in something not at all altruistic.

It’s nothing more than a courtesy.

He ran a hand through his hair so that a few locks hung before his eyes, giving him a nonthreatening, shaggy-dog appeal.

“Nya?” She looked at him, and he dropped his shoulders forward, smiled sheepishly, and swept the hair away from his eyes, emphasizing that his attention was entirely on her. He waited, saw the moment when her gaze went a little soft, then spoke. “I didn’t make a great first impression, but if you need to talk, I don’t gossip and you’ll rarely see me again after the wedding, if ever. Perfect, as far as confidants go.”