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that news was presented to me without the reassurance afterward that it was false, you still got the better end of the deal."
    The silence between them was heavy. Jaque broke it first.
    "Your silence sounds furious," he said, trying to lighten the mood, but the Queen of Sweden was having none of it.
    "Jaque, I have told you before that it was past time to stop this nonsense. You have a responsibility and a family name to uphold, and your antics are making you vulnerable in a way that no Swedish royal has ever been."
    "You cannot expect me to curb my behavior over the actions and lies of a woman I have never seen before," he argued.
    "Jaque," said his mother. "For a moment there, you believed me. It is not so far outside of the realm of possibility as you might think day to day, but when I presented that information to you, you knew that it was all too likely."
    "I don't know what you want me to say."
    "I don't need you to say anything. Just know that something like this could have hurt our family's standing very badly, and I don't need to remind you of the fact that our standing is Sweden's standing. If I believe you are going to hurt that, I will disinherit you. It might be the hardest thing that I have done since I married your father, but it is something that I will do."
    A thousand things crowded in Jaque's mind, but at the end, there was only one response he could make.
    "I understand, Mother," he said curtly.
    "I hope you do," was her soft reply, and then the call ended.
    He and his mother had always been too much alike to get along when he was younger. Her temper was formidable, and he suspected that his own came directly from hers. However, one of the problems of being too much like his parent was the fact that he could see when she was right too easily as well.
    News of the illegitimate child of the Prince of Sweden was simply too good for the world to pass up. He and his family would be raked through the worst publications, and, his mother was right, Sweden would suffer.
    He rubbed his face with both hands, trying to ignore a thought that was worming its way through his head.
    When his mother had announced his impending fatherhood, there was something in him that didn't hate the idea. He had always thought that fatherhood was a chore that he would of course one day have to undertake, but when it had been presented to him, even by Greta at her most caustic, the first feeling in him had been one of joy.
    No. He didn't have time to think about what that might have meant, not today.
    He strode to the well-appointed bathroom next to his office, the one that held a state-of-the-art shower complete with all of his preferred toiletries.
    Just a few hours later, he was in a meeting with his head developers and one thing was becoming very clear.
    "The world is changing," said the woman who headed up his top engineering team. "What we are told over and over again is 'go green or get gone.' Our yachts are still the prizes for the elite, but unless we are seen making intense improvements on our designs over the next two to five years, we are going to be going the way of the dinosaurs."
    "All right," said Jaque. "Tell me what you need to alter the designs."
    The engineer listed a few resources that Jaque had already been considering anyway, and then she said something that made him look up.
    "And of course, a sustainability consultant. We know what our yachts do, but we don't know what they do to the world, not precisely. Do we need vessels that are localized to different environments? Is there some kind of blanket solution we should have on everything we put out? Right now, these are things that we don't know. A consultant with the right skills and qualifications could help guide us a great deal."
    Jaque's mind flashed to a shy Columbia graduate with a braid of sunrise red hair, one who couldn't seem to look up at him until he made her.
    "Actually, I think I have just the person for you," he said. "I'll get her installed in your