Dima.
She swiped to answer. All sorts of snarky greetings went through her mind, but Jenna was a grown-up, so she went with, “Hello?”
“Jenna. You answered.” He sounded shocked.
“Didn’t you want me to?”
“I would not have called you otherwise.”
“Okay.”
“You talked to your brother.”
“I did.”
“Did it help?”
“With my feelings of guilt or betrayal?”
“Either?”
“Both actually.” Though she also planned to take Luke’s advice about asking Dima what he’d done to protect other people’s information compromised by Skylar, since they couldn’t be told about the leak.
“Then I am glad you spoke to him.”
“That’s not what you were saying in my office.”
“I may have been overzealous in telling you not to speak to your family.”
“Really? Because I reread that NDA your father had me sign, and it was pretty airtight. There were no exceptions.”
“Yes, well, your family isn’t going to blab to the press.”
“No, they are not, but you still had my brother sign an NDA before you told him what happened.”
“I’m a cautious guy.”
“Is that part of being a prince too?”
“I wish you didn’t say the wordprincewith such loathing,” he said, his own tone almost wistful. “I am certain that caution is part of my nature and has little to do with my position as prince.”
“You could be right,” she acceded.
“I have to fly back to New York.”
“You have been in Seattle all this time?” she asked, surprised as she dropped her wallet and other things she’d been carrying in her pockets in a small pile in the center of her table.
“No, I flew to Mirrus for a few days to meet with Nikolai and Konstantin.”
“Emma texted that Konstantin was out of town.”
Jenna had replied to her friend’s texts but still avoided committing to getting together in person.
“He wants to apologize for allowing you to think he doubted your loyalty to Nataliya.”
“Implying he didn’t doubt it?” she asked with skepticism.
“I told you that he didn’t.”