The staff gives me lots of space. Even Eyvar is quieter than usual—if that’s even possible. They let me mope in the palace and spend time with my dogs, and I do my best to forget about the woman who plagues my dreams.
Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, and soon, the mornings are brighter and the evenings are longer. I watch water droplets dripping down from the eaves outside my bedroom window, spying the first of the birds returning for the summer.
This place will be alive again, but I’ll remain dead.
In late March, a long procession of royal vehicles drives along the slushy road leading to the palace. My sister, or maybe one of my brothers, has arrived.
I pad through the silent halls to the front entrance, ready to greet them. I can’t quite put a smile on my face, so I don’t try.
What is there to smile about? Spring will burst into summer, and soon it’ll be winter once more. The world will keep turning, and I’ll keep standing still.
My sister emerges from the second vehicle in the convoy, a thick jacket wrapped around her slim body. She lifts her eyes to mine, dipping her chin down in greeting.
“Hi, Pen,” I say, too exhausted for formalities.
She puts her hands on my arms, squeezing. Her eyes search mine. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks.” I shrug her off.
“It’s that bad, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your broken heart.” She throws me one more glance, then brushes past me to walk into the palace.
You could say my sister is callous. Heartless, even, but I know the truth. She’s been hurt, too, and the only way she knows how to shield her pain is through a thick layer of frost. Who am I to try to change that? I’d rather hide away in the Summer Palace year-round than deal with my own scars. We’re more alike than I want to admit.
My sister’s heels click on the floors as she pulls off her gloves, handing them to a footman holding a silver tray out for her. When her jacket is stripped off, Penelope turns to glance at me. “Come to the office. We have construction logistics to discuss.”
Following my sister to the office near the palace library, I try not to think of what this will mean—constructing the design that Rowan spent months—years—working on. Erecting the building that came from her mind. Will I really want to live in a building she drew? Every aspect of this renovation will have Rowan’s essence soaked into it. I won’t be able to escape it. It’s stifling and exhilarating all at once.
When I sit down across from my sister, she nods to one of her personal staff members, who pulls out a laptop and a stack of large, rolled-up construction drawings. I listen as they outline the project’s timeline, various stages of construction, and expected disruption to the current palace staff and myself.
It’s beautiful. Rowan changed her design from a modern mansion to a full-scale restoration. The three-dimensional images she’s created make my heart swell.
Rowan gets it. She understands this palace—this land. In her design, I see how much she belongs here. When I first met her, I thought Rowan was an outsider. I thought she’d never feel at home here—but her design shows otherwise. She’s restored this palace to what it was a century ago, while still maintaining all the eco features and modern touches her original design boasted.
It’s fucking perfect, and it makes me want to cry.
Big, bad Wolfe indeed.
When the presentation is over, Penelope glances at me. “Any questions?”
“Rowan,” I croak. Even saying her name is painful. I haven’t spoken it since I left Stirling, and I try to ignore the burning pain that slices across my chest when I say it aloud. I blink, trying to regain control over my aching body. “Will she be here?”
Penelope interlaces her fingers and rests them on the desk. She takes a deep breath and finally shrugs. “I told her it was her choice. We’ll break ground before she comes up here, but we’ll need her approval for some of the later stages of construction. That can be done through photos and email, but…”
“You’ve been talking to her?” Am I jealous of my sister for that? This ache in my chest feels like betrayal.
Penelope arches an eyebrow. “I had to take over the project, Wolfe. You left.”
Shame burns all the way down my throat. I left, when I should have stayed. I should have fought. I should have told Rowan how I felt, but I lost my chance.
She might not even come up here for the project that was meant to be the defining moment of her career.
I took that away from her.
“I’ll leave,” I say to my sister. “Rowan should be here. She deserves to see this project in person.”
My sister’s face softens ever so slightly. She dips her chin in agreement, then the stone mask returns to her features. I stand up, take my leave, and walk out of the office.
My feet take me next door to the library, where once again, I’m assaulted with memories of Rowan. She spent so many hours in here, drinking up scraps of information that she poured into the design.
I stare at the ashes in the fireplace before letting my gaze drift to the window, where the sun shines bright and snow melts all around.
This is as much her palace as it is mine, but I’ll never get to share that with her.
30
Rowan
My second trip up to the Summer Palace of Nord is very different than my first. Grandma and I are flown on a private jet directly from Farcliff to the airstrip a short drive from the palace. No cramped train ride with too-small seats. A private car is there to pick us up when we land, complete with a driver in a crisp black uniform who opens the back door of the car for us. He gives Grandma a warm smile as she greets him by name.
It’s the beginning of May, and there’s no howling gale outside. The sky is blue and although it’s still fresh outside, the snow is mostly melted and the whole landscape is green and lush. Only the tops of the mountains and particularly shady spots have remnants of snow still clinging to the earth. A bird sings in a nearby tree, and the air tastes sweet.
Settled in the back seat, Grandma threads her fingers through mine and I lean my head against her shoulder. She spent the winter in Farcliff with me, helping me prepare for the arrival of the baby. I’m thirty weeks pregnant now. I’ll be a mother in ten short weeks. Less than three months. Panic and excitement are still waging war within me, as they have every day since I found out about my pregnancy.
If all goes to plan, I’ll see the visitor’s cottage completed this week, and do some final approvals on details of the main palace design. I’ve been communicating with the site team via email and phone, but I’ve come up here to help with the millions of little architectural decisions that need to be made to complete the project. In a few months, both my babies will come to life.
I’m not sure I’ll get to see the full palace restoration. Maybe one day. By the time it’s finished, in September, I’ll have a new baby. My life will be different. Coming up to the Arctic Circle won’t be a priority. The Queen promised pictures, so that’s what I’ll have.
“There will be flowers everywhere in a week or two,” Grandma says, sighing happily. Her eyes shine as she squeezes my hand, shifting her gaze to the tinted windows of the royal vehicle.
The Prince was right. It’s very different here in springtime, and I can only imagine how beautiful the height of summer will be. I let out a soft sigh, ignoring the clenching of my heart.
I know I made the right decision. There were no paparazzi following me in Farcliff. After the first flurry of articles about my affair with the Prince, the gossip died down. Once I left, there was nothing to feed the rumor mill. My life went back to normal, but I felt far from the same.
Everything is different. I’ve gone to work every day, in the same office I left behind, but it’s like I’m seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. I see the awards I’ve won and the degrees hanging on my wall, but they don’t mean anything.
My baby means something. Everything. I spent every evenin
g trawling through books and online forums about what to expect, preparing myself for every possible eventuality—yet still feeling completely unprepared.
But I’ve had Grandma with me, and she’s reminded me about the importance of family. Her presence, along with the baby growing in my womb, have shown me everything I’ve been missing.
Work doesn’t seem quite so important. Apart from the Summer Palace, I haven’t taken on any more projects. I’m planning on taking some time off once the baby gets here.
I still care about the business, of course. I still love architecture. It just doesn’t hold the same weight as it did before.
Plus, in a way, it feels wrong to think about another project while the Summer Palace design is still ongoing, like a strange, misplaced kind of infidelity. This palace deserves my full attention—or maybe I just don’t have the energy or desire to think of anything else. I cling onto the last thing that reminds me of…of him.
As the car drives up to the tall, wrought iron gates, I glance at the spot on the ground where I first collapsed. That’s where the Prince first saw me. Where he first held me in his arms and brought me back to life.
Have I ever been the same?
That moment, everything changed. I’ve been staring at my life through a kaleidoscope, wondering how I could have ignored all the beauty and color of the world around me. How did I exist with only work and business on my mind? How did I miss all the other things that make life worth living?
We drive through the gates, and my heart clenches. I slide a hand over my abdomen, smiling as my baby moves. I grunt, feeling a foot kick me in the ribs. My stomach bulges to the left as the baby shifts, and I rub my hand over it.
We’re home. Even after spending all winter in Farcliff, coming back to this palace feels like the homecoming I’ve always wanted. I belong here. This landscape took a piece of me, the Prince grabbed another, and my baby took the rest. There’s a chunk of my heart kept captive here, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get it back.
All I can do is just enjoy being here while it lasts.
Grandma must feel me tense up as we get closer to the palace, because she squeezes my hand. “I called Vikki, and she told me the Prince left last week,” she whispers. “In case you were nervous about seeing him.”
I force a smile, but a spear of sadness pierces my heart. He left—again. Didn’t even want to see me.
But it’s for the best, right? Keeps up the appearance of nothing ever happening between us. Why would the Prince stay here during a large construction project? That in itself would be suspicious.
It hurts more than I’d like to admit. Call it weakness, but somewhere deep in my heart, I hoped I would see him at least once.
We arrive at the castle but instead of stopping at the front entrance, we’re driven to the side door reserved for the staff. My throat tightens, and I know that I don’t have special status here. I’m not the Prince’s lover or someone who will be given free rein in the building.
I’m an architect. A contractor. A pregnant nobody.
Isn’t that what I asked for when I left? This is the choice I made.
Vikki’s just inside the door, waiting to greet us. She wraps her arms around me and coos over my growing belly, beaming at me.
“Have you picked a name yet?”
I shake my head, smiling. “Decided to wait to find out the sex of the baby, so I want to hold the baby in my arms before I decide on a name.”
“Smart,” Vikki replies, wrapping me up in a tight hug. I let out a sigh as she holds me close, realizing how much I missed her. My time in Farcliff was full of work and not much else—not that I’ve made many friends over the past ten years, anyway. I’ve been too focused on the business.
But Vikki is a friend. She kept in touch with me while I was away. She made me feel at home here—still does.
Vikki gives my grandmother an equally big hug, then leads us both to the kitchens, where a meal has been laid out for us. I let out a happy sigh, easing myself into a chair and smiling as I accept a plate full of steaming-hot food.
I’m home, finally. I try not to think of the fact that this is temporary, and as soon as my work is finished, I’ll be on my way back to Farcliff. I might never come back.
Right now, though, I just stab a piece of broccoli and smile at Vikki as she tells me everything I’ve missed over the winter.
“Did the Prince spend the winter here?” I find myself asking.
Grandma and Vikki exchange a glance, and Vikki forces a smile. “He did. He mostly kept to himself.”
“Oh,” I answer, sadness wrapping itself around my aching heart. I don’t know why that makes me sad. Every time I think about the Prince, a wave of sorrow threatens to wash me away. He’s the one who got away—the one I never had a right to love in the first place.
The baby kicks, then punches me right in the bladder, as if to remind me that the Prince gave me a child. I grin, glancing down. I’ll always have a piece of him, even if our lives can never be joined. It’s cold comfort, though.
When I finish my meal, I ask to be taken out to the construction site. After lacing my steel-toed boots up—well, if I’m honest, I have to ask Grandma to lace them up for me—I’m led through the hallways and out to the back of the palace, where a demountable site office has been set up. A tall, weathered man hands me a hard hat, welcoming me with a grunt.
“You’re the brilliant architect who decided we needed to build this complicated glass atrium in the middle of the arctic, are you?”
I grin. “You should be happy. My original design had two glass turrets on either side of the castle. A courtyard atrium is child’s play compared to that.”
The site manager snorts, gives me a safety briefing, and begins the tour of the site. For the first time since I arrived in Nord, the sadness inside me fades. I’m not thinking of the Prince, or of everything I gave up by leaving. Here, touching the edge of the Arctic Circle, my most ambitious architecture project is coming to life.
By the time the tour of the palace is over, I can’t stop smiling. The crew has been working in split shifts through the days and nights for the past four weeks to construct this thing in record time. We need to finish it before the weather turns cold again—and they’re ahead of schedule. I won’t get to see the full palace done, but the visitor’s cottage might actually be complete if I stretch my visit here by a few weeks—and where else would I want to be for the next month?
The site manager drives me out to the visitor’s cottage. Works have been commissioned by local artisans, and the whole place looks like a restored ancient tribal palace. I’ve never been prouder.
There are murals depicting the first meeting of the communities that formed Nord, and carvings of each stage of the kingdom. I meet a historian, who leads me through the visitor’s cottage-cum-museum and shows me everything they’ve done.
It’s not a retreat for royals anymore. Soon, there will be a public road leading straight here and full-time staff in the summertime to give tours of the place. It’s a living museum that the royal family has restored and given back to Nord. It’s…perfect.
When we get back to the main palace, I make my way through the halls. My smile slowly fades as memories flood my brain, and I let out a long sigh.
I was in love with Wolfe. Maybe I still am. I can taste those sweet memories on the tip of my tongue as I wander through the Summer Palace, wondering if I’ll ever feel that way about anyone else—and knowing somewhere deep down I never will. I know it was the right decision to leave for Farcliff and tell him I didn't want to be with him. My life has been silent, with no paparazzi and no controversy. He’s been able to have a quiet winter. My baby will be born without fanfare.
It’s for the best.
But as I pass by the library doors, my ribs constrict and my lungs feel like they’re going to collapse. The fireplace is cold, the room empty.
And I feel so, so alone.
31
Wolfe
S
ummer months are usually special in Nord. The sun shines until late in the evening, and the weather is warm and pleasant. In the capital, shops will spill out onto the sidewalk, with many main roads closed off for days at a time to accommodate street festivals and markets. It’s like the whole kingdom explodes with life after a long winter of hibernation.
The Summer Palace is magical. Fields of wildflowers and herds of caribou. More birds than you can imagine. The whole place is so, so alive.
Usually, I’m there to enjoy it.
This year, though, I wish winter had lasted longer. Spending summer in Stirling is torture, especially when I know Rowan is only a short flight away at the Summer Palace. The days seem to drag on and on and on, with only a few short hours of darkness when I can sleep and be alone.
My brothers try to take me out hunting and fishing and riding. They try to bring me to sporting events and local festivals.
I go with them, at first, thinking it’ll distract me from the black hole in my chest. When, day after day, I realize it’s not helping, I keep to myself instead.
A month lasts an eternity. Truthfully, the past seven months since Rowan left have been the longest of my life. It feels exactly like the year after Abby died, when I just drifted through life, waiting for it to pass me by.
Jonah finds me in my study one afternoon, knocking on the doorframe before he saunters in.
“You’re still pining over that girl, huh?”
I glance up from the computer screen, where the latest progress report from the Summer Palace project is displayed. Leaning back in my chair, I arch an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“You haven’t left the castle in two weeks, Wolfe.”
“Are you keeping track?”
“Clearly.”
“Well, don’t bother,” I grumble, turning back to the screen. “I’ll be heading back to the Summer Palace soon. They’re doing the unveiling ceremony for the visitor’s cottage next week.”
Lone Prince: An Accidental Pregnancy Romance (Royally Unexpected Book 7) Page 18