The Millionaire's Royal Rescue

“I wanted to talk to you about that note you found in your mother’s journal. There’s just something about it that’s not quite right.”

That’s what he wanted to talk about? A little smile pulled at her lips. “What doesn’t seem right to you?”

“It’s not any one specific thing. It’s more like a bunch of small things. You said the handwriting wasn’t your mother’s, right?”

Annabelle nodded. “My mother was a perfectionist when it came to penmanship. She would never abide by that mix of upper and lowercases in every word.”

“Do you know of your mother keeping secrets? Or sneaking around?”

“My mother? Never.” And then the memory of that day at the South Shore came back to her. “Then again, there was that strange man that she was arguing with.”

“Maybe your mother was holding the note for someone else. Do you think that’s possible?”

Annabelle shrugged. “At this point, I guess most anything is possible.”

“Then I’m about to tell you something and I don’t want you to freak out.”

“Now you’re worrying me.”

“I just told you to stay calm.”

“You can’t tell someone not to freak out and expect them to remain calm.” She stopped walking. She drew in a deep breath of sea air and blew it out. “Okay. Now tell me.”

His gaze met hers. “I think the note is some sort of cipher.”

“A cipher?”

“Yeah, a code. A secret message.”

“I know what a cipher is. I just don’t know what my mother would be doing with such a thing. Surely you must be wrong.”

“I don’t think I am. Back in college, my buddy and I would write them just to see if we could outsmart each other with some unbreakable code.”

“Seriously? That’s what you did for fun?”

Grayson shrugged. “Sure. Why not? The party scene just wasn’t for me.”

“You’d rather exercise your brain.”

“Something like that.”

“How good were you?”

“Let’s just say the government got wind of what we were up to and wanted to recruit us out of college.”

“I take it you didn’t accept their offer.”

“I didn’t. But my buddy did. He works for one of those three-letter agencies.”

Wow. She’d never met someone so intelligent that they sat around writing coded messages for fun. Who did that? A genius of course. And Grayson was the cutest nerd she’d ever met.

“So what did this message say?” Annabelle asked, more curious than before, if that were possible.

“I didn’t start working on it. I mean, I wanted to, but I wanted to check with you first.”

“Yes, decode it. I need to know what it says.”

Grayson’s brows drew together. “Are you sure? I mean, it could be anything. Something innocent. Or it could be something about your mother that you never wanted to know.”