“Not as much as I missed you,” he tells her.

Galen and I exchange eye rolls as he walks around to prop himself on the table beside me, his wet shorts making a butt-shaped puddle on the expensive wood. “Go ahead, angelfish,” he says, nodding toward the pile of polish.

If he’s trying to give me a clue, he sucks at it. “Go” could mean green, I guess. “Ahead” could mean … I have no idea what that could mean. And angelfish come in all sorts of colors. Deciding he didn’t encode any messages for me, I sigh and push away from the table to stand. “I don’t know. We’ve never talked about it before.”

Rayna slaps her knee in triumph. “Ha!”

Before I can pass by him, Galen grabs my wrist and pulls me to him, corralling me between his legs. Crushing his mouth to mine, he moves his hand to the small of my back and presses me into him. Since he’s still shirtless and I’m in my bikini, there’s a lot of bare flesh touching, which is a little more intimate than I’m used to with an audience. Still, the fire sears through me, scorching a path to the furthest, deepest parts of me. It takes every bit of grit I have not to wrap my arms around his neck.

Gently, I push my hands against his chest to end the kiss, which is something I never thought I’d do. Giving him a look that I hope conveys “inappropriate,” I step back. I’ve spent enough time in their company to know without looking that Rayna’s eyes are bugging out of their sockets and Toraf is grinning like a nutcracker doll. With any luck, Rachel didn’t even see the kiss. Stealing a peek at her, she meets my gaze with openmouthed shock.

Okay, it looked as bad as I thought it did. Like a child, I close my eyes as if they can’t see me either. The fire from the kiss broadcasts itself all over me in the form of a full-body blush.

Galen laughs. “There it is,” he says, running his thumb over my bottom lip. “That is my favorite color. Wow.”

I’m going to kill him. “Galen. Please. Come. With. Me,” I choke out. Gliding past him, my bare feet slap against the tile until I’m stomping on carpet in the hallway, then up the stairs.

I can tell by the prickles on my skin that he’s following like a good dead fish. As I reach the ladder to the uppermost level, I nod to him to keep following before I hoist myself up. Pacing the room until he gets through the trap door, I count more Mississippis than I’ve ever counted in my whole life.

He closes the door and locks it shut but makes no move to come closer. Still, for a person who’s about to die, he seems more amused than he should. I point my finger at him, but can’t decide what to accuse him of first, so I put it back down.

After several minutes of this, he breaks the silence. “Emma, calm down.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Highness.” I dare him with my eyes to call me “boo.”

Instead of the apology I’m looking for, his eyes tell me he’s considering kissing me again, right now.

Which is meant to distract me. Tearing my gaze from his mouth, I stride to the window seat and move the mountains of pillows on it. Making myself comfortable, I lean my head against the window. He knows as well as I do that if we had a special spot, this would be it. For me to sit here without him is the worst kind of snub. In the reflection, I see him run his hand through his hair and cross his arms. After a few more minutes, he shifts his weight to the other leg.

He knows what I want. He knows what will earn him entrance to the window seat and my good graces. I don’t know if it’s Royal blood or manly pride that keeps him from apologizing, but his extended delay just makes me madder. Now I won’t accept an apology. No, now he must grovel.

I toss a satisfied smirk into the reflection only to find he’s not there anymore. His hand closes around my arm and he jerks me up against him. His eyes are stormy, intense. “You think I’m going to apologize for kissing you?” he murmurs.

“I. Yes. Uh-huh.” Don’t look at his mouth! Say something intelligent. “We don’t have any clothes on.” Fan-flipping-tastic. I meant to say he shouldn’t kiss me in front of everyone, especially half naked.

“Mmm,” he says, pulling me closer. Brushing his lips against my ear, he says, “I did happen to notice that. Which is why I shouldn’t have followed you up here.”

His cell phone vibrates on the nightstand, almost startling my hair off my head. He grins and walks over to pick it up, leaving me there to stare after him. “It’s Dr. Milligan,” he says. “Hello? Hold on, Dr. Milligan, let me put you on speaker. Emma’s here.” Galen presses the button on the screen. “Okay, Dr. Milligan,” he says. “Go ahead.”

“Well, my boy, I just wanted to let you know that I received the results back for the DNA tests. Emma is definitely half human.”

Galen winks at me. “You don’t say?”

I cover my mouth to stifle a giggle. Rudeness should never be contagious.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. That said, I’m not sure if she even has the capability of forming a fin.”

Galen laughs. “We sort of already went along with that assumption, Dr. Milligan. Then the Archives confirmed it. There’s a painting of people who look just like Emma in Tartessos.”

Dr. Milligan sighs. “You could have called me.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Milligan. I’ve been … busy.”

“Did Emma figure out her lineage, then?”

Galen shakes his head, though the reaction is lost on Dr. Milligan in Florida. “As far as we can tell, Emma’s father was a Half-Breed. He’s got the coloring, he wore contacts, he loved seafood and the ocean. He obviously knew about Emma’s physical issues.” He tells Dr. Milligan about his theory that some of the half-breeds survived the destruction of Tartessos.