A Princess in Theory (Reluctant Royals #1)(46)

“This was my local park for a while,” Ledi said. “When I was thirteen. I lived with this family, the Davises, and I’d come here on the weekend and ride my bike around. Sometimes I’d see kids from the school I’d transferred to and hang with them. Over there by the monkey bars is where I had my first kiss.”

“Romantic,” Thabiso said.

“Disgusting,” she replied with a small grin. “He had braces and we’d just eaten take-out Chinese. That’s all I’ll say about that.”

Thabiso wasn’t jealous exactly, but he wondered what would have happened if her family hadn’t taken her from Thesolo. There were no true constraints on the betrothed of a prince that said she must date only him, but might her first awkward kiss have been with him?

“I didn’t even like the guy really,” Ledi said. “My foster dad got wind of what happened, though, and said he didn’t want a fast girl under his roof because they were too much trouble. So all that kiss got me was some prechewed chunks of sesame chicken and a new foster family.” She looked up at him. “It’s funny, I’m so sure that none of this stuff bothers me, and then you bat your lashes at me and I take a left turn into emo-ville.”

She looked embarrassed, and maybe a little angry. She had every right to be angry. Kicking a young girl out for natural exploration was cruel.

“I’m honored that you trust me to be your copilot into emo-ville, as you call it,” he said. And suddenly the thistled path to the truth that he’d been fighting through fell away before him. He knew how to tell her. He knew how to make things right.

“I can tell you my own embarrassing story,” he said.

“Have you been involved in other ego-driven acts of arson?” she asked with raised brows.

“Figuratively, yes,” he said, leaning close to her. “I’ve only ever tried to burn a building down to get a woman’s attention once, though.” She laughed again. He took her hand, brushed his fingertip over her palm. “When I was a boy, I was certain I had a soul mate, even though many people told me otherwise. For a short period, I required those around me to pretend that she was real. A place was set for her at snack time. I asked that gifts be purchased for her. I was often found talking to an empty chair as if she were beside me. Eventually, my parents became worried and tried to wean me off of this imaginary soul mate, so I tried to run away and find her. I was seven, so this didn’t go over too well.”

Ledi smiled. “OMG, this is so sweet. I can imagine exactly what you would have looked like as a kid.”

Her brow furrowed as she stared at him, and he wondered if she was conjuring an image of him or pulling one from the recesses of her memory.

“What happened to your soul mate?” she asked.

“I stopped believing for a while there,” he said. “Became too busy with grown-up things and stopped thinking of her.”

“Hey, sometimes you do what you have to,” she said. “I stopped thinking of my parents because it hurt too badly, and then one day I tried to remember them and I couldn’t.”

She stared out toward the river.

Thabiso saw the opportunity before him like a neatly wrapped present. He made his move. “Would you want to know about them, if it was possible?”

An expression of distaste passed over her face. “Why? They’re dead and I’ve gotten along just fine on my own. Knowing who they were wouldn’t change any of that.”

“But—”

“My friend got me one of those DNA tests and I still haven’t looked at the results. I’m Naledi Smith. I eat biostats for breakfast and produce the cleanest gel images on the East Coast. I don’t need a past.”

Damn it.

The thorny path to the truth sprang up before him again. He had asked her if she wanted to know and she didn’t. If he told her who he was, in a way he’d be going against her wishes. What was he supposed to do now?

I know you just explicitly stated you don’t want to know about your past, buuuuut I’m going to tell you anyway because I also need to explain how I’m a lying prick.

Thabiso was scrambling to think of a way to tell her without alienating her even more when he felt a vibration against the bench. Ledi pulled her hands away from his and dived for her phone.

“Sorry, I’m expecting a call from my dean,” she explained as she tapped at her phone and raised it to her ear. Thabiso could see the worry in her eyes. “Hello? Yes, Dr. Bell, this is Naledi. I hope my email wasn’t too—oh. Oh.”

She stood from the bench and began pacing. “That doesn’t make sense, I—how could they? Why would they?” She paused, nodding slowly as if the person on the other line could see her. “Yes. I understand. I can be there in half an hour. Thank you.”

When she turned to him, her expression was blank but her eyes were glossy and her lower lip trembled for just a moment before she pressed her teeth against it to stop the movement.

“Naledi?”

Thabiso jumped to his feet, to stand beside her, but she backed away from him.

“I . . . Wow. I hadn’t been able to get in contact with my advisor about my field study for this summer. It was supposed to be at the Disease Task Force, this group that monitors infectious disease outbreaks.”

That sounded interesting and terrifying, though Thabiso had interned at The Hague, which also sounded vaguely menacing, and had been bored out of his mind.