“Easy,” he says quietly. “It’s all right. Sounds like they’ve opened a bottle of champagne.”
I feel a warm glow in my chest start to spread. “They’re celebrating?”
“Apparently.”
“That’s good,” I say. “That means they’re happy.”
“Of course they’re happy,” Alex says, leaning over me and planting a line of slow kisses along my jaw. “Our babies are here, and they’re strong and healthy. How could anyone not be happy?”
“But what about the bad blood between your father and your uncle?” I ask.
“Mmm. Maybe they’re getting past it.”
“You think?”
“Well, it was never exactly like they hated each other,” Alex says. “They’ve always been civil, and there was no open animosity. Things were just…tense. But this has given them something they can both celebrate. New heirs. A future for Gosars on the throne. That’s exciting. It’s the kind of thing that would mean a lot to both of them.”
He gives me a little squeeze. “I think we might be looking at a new chapter in relationships among the royal family. I think this is probably going to bring everyone closer.”
“That would be great,” I say.
“That would be amazing. And all because of you, Erica.”
“All because of them,” I correct, reaching down over the side of the bed to touch Vito’s tiny face. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Of course you did,” he counters. “You brought them into the world, didn’t you? You carried them. You gave birth. Not to mention moving here to Avaran, leaving behind everything you know to be a part of this world. Enzo won’t say it, but I know he’s impressed.”
“You think so?”
“You heard how he talked about his own son, Lauro. About his family in America. It means something to him to see our family continuing on Avaranian soil, even aside from the throne. It’s tradition for Gosars to live here, to be raised here, surrounded by our culture. You’ve made him very happy.”
“I’m glad,” I say. “But I doubt anyone’s as happy as I am.”
“I don’t know about that,” Alex says. “I could give you a run for your money.”
“Can you believe we have two children?” I say. I watch, entranced, as Marianna yawns in her sleep. It’s the most perfect little yawn I’ve ever seen. “I know this is insane, but there’s a part of me that wants to wake them up right now. Spend time with them.”
Alex laughs. “Don’t do that. We’ll have plenty of time to bond with them. We should consider ourselves lucky they’re sleeping right now.”
He reaches over me and rocks Vito’s bassinet gently back and forth. “They’re such good babies. My mother says I never slept at night when I was a newborn. Apparently, I kept her up every night for months. She was exhausted, she says. She likes to tell me that when she thinks I’m being ungrateful.”
“Didn’t she have…I don’t know, a nurse for you or something?” I ask. “I’ve been here long enough to see how things are done. There are members of staff for every need you could possibly have at the palace.”
“I had a nurse,” Alex says. “But my mother preferred to care for me herself. But don’t worry, we’ll be able to hire as many nurses as we want. We won’t have to lose sleep like that.”
“No,” I say, surprised to hear the vehemence in my own tone.
“No?”
“I mean, we can hire help. That’s probably a good idea. It’s not like I’ve ever raised a baby before. But I can’t stand the idea that they might be up in the middle of the night crying and the person who goes to them wouldn’t be me. Or you. It should be a parent, not someone we’ve hired. They aren’t a job.”
He kisses my shoulder. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”
“It’s come up,” I say, and turn my head to meet his kiss.
We lie there for a time, entranced by the beauty of our children. I feel secure in Alex’s embrace, as though nothing can go wrong. The world seems a much more benign place than I’d ever realized. How is it possible that everything has gone so well, that with everything that could have gotten in our way, Alex and I are able to be here with our two healthy and perfect babies?
“This is better than I ever imagined,” I say softly. “You get to keep the throne. Your father and your uncle are on good terms. And Vito and Marianna…” My voice trails away. I can’t put my love for them into words. “I couldn’t ask for anything more,” I say finally.
Alex is silent, his hand tracing slow patterns up and down my arm.
“Alex?” I crane my neck around to look at him.
“Yes?”
“Is everything all right?” I feel a sudden pinprick of unease. “You’re being awfully quiet.”
“Everything’s fine,” he says.
“Just fine?” I know I’m being neurotic—hasn’t he already said how happy he is?—but everything is just so wonderful that it’s hard to take at face value. My life has generally been pleasant, even a bit charmed, but it’s never been perfect.
He kisses my shoulder again. “It’s just that you said you couldn’t ask for anything more,” he says quietly. “I wondered if that was true.”
What could that mean?
“I can’t think what else there is,” I say honestly. “I suppose I wish my parents were here. They’ll be sorry they missed the birth. But they have plane tickets to come out in two weeks anyway, so we’ll see them then.”
“Yes,” Alex agrees. “We will. And I know they’ll be as pleased to meet their new grandchildren as my own parents were. You must be excited about that.”
“Of course.”
“But that isn’t what I meant,” he continues.
Confused, I roll over in his arms so I’m facing him. “I don’t understand.”
He inhales deeply and closes his eyes. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you, Erica.”
“What is it?”
“Everything we’ve done together,” he says, “our whole relationship, we’ve done backwards. Our first date was a whirlwind, barely a date at all. We were expecting children before we exchanged phone numbers. Everything we’ve done has been out of order, without a plan or any kind of organization. But I’ve felt that it’s all been for the best. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes,” I agree. “We’ve been very lucky. If this had happened with anyone else, I probably would have regretted it, but with you…it’s like it was meant to be. It’s like the children came to let us know we were meant to be a family.”
“Well, that’s what I think too,” Alex says. “And that’s why I think…” He cradles my face in his hands. “Erica, will you marry me?”
I’m struck dumb.
He misinterprets my silence. “We don’t have to,” he says, and I can see the disappointment registering on his face. He’s trying to hide it. It’s heartbreaking. “I know it’s not something we planned on. I just thought, since none of this is what we planned…and I can’t imagine being with anyone else…I love you. You know how much I love you. But I understand if you don’t want—”
“Alex,” I interrupt, finding my voice. “Stop. Stop talking.”
He stops.
“Of course, I’ll marry you,” I whisper.
There’s an instant that seems to last a lifetime, an instant in which our eyes lock and I lose myself entirely in the beautiful brown of his gaze. Then he moves, quickly, so gently, pulling me close in his embrace and kissing me fiercely.
I have no idea how long the kiss lasts, but I know it’s the sweetest I’ve ever experienced in my life, filled with promise and hope and the beautiful, bursting feeling of a dream coming true.
He breaks the kiss but keeps me close, pulling back just enough to talk. Our foreheads are still resting against each other.
“You’ll be royalty,” he says. “Really royalty.”
“I don’t care about that,” I say. “I don’t care about the crown. I just want you. I want you fo
rever. I want everyone to know I’m yours.”
“And they will,” he promises. “They’ll know it, and they’ll know that I’m yours as well.”
“I’m just a commoner,” I say. “I’m not even Avaranian. Will your people accept it? Will it be another scandal?”
“You’re the mother of my children,” he says. “That’s more important than anything else you are. And you’ll help raise them to rule so that one day they’ll be able to lead this country.”
A little shiver passes through me.
Alex’s arms tighten around me. “What is it? Are you all right?”
“I just don’t think I could be any happier,” I say. “I’m overwhelmed.” A few tears escape my eyes and trickle down my cheeks, and I smile as they reach my lips. “I love you, Alex.”
“I love you too, Erica. Forever.”
Epilogue
A Year Later
“Vito! You scoundrel! What are you doing?”
Vito looks down at the sound of his name and laughs. He is sitting at the top of the main flight of stairs in the palace, leading from the entry foyer to the receiving rooms and ballrooms above. At a year old, he’s bold, daring, and adventurous, but he turns to putty at the sound of his own name.
Thankful that I haven’t changed into my dress yet, I take the stairs two at a time and scoop him into my arms.
“Down!” he demands, pounding a fist on my shoulder. “Down!”
Unlike his sister, who adores being carried, Vito wants to walk everywhere he goes. The better to get into trouble, I can only imagine. I ignore his demand and carry him back to the room where I’ve been getting ready for the day’s events.
Alex’s cousin Ilaria looks up from her makeup as we walk in. “How did he get out of the playpen?”
“I have no idea,” I admit. “He’s a little escape artist.” I set him down next to his sister, find his favorite stuffed alligator, and hand it to him. “That ought to keep him busy until Lauro gets here to pick them up.”
“I hope so,” Ilaria says. “You need to start getting ready.”
“The wedding isn’t for two more hours,” I point out. “I have plenty of time.”
“That isn’t plenty of time,” she says. “People are already arriving. The ballroom is full of guests who aren’t attending the church ceremony.”
“You’re kidding. I didn’t see anyone in the foyer.”
“Well they’re not being permitted to linger around there. The butlers are escorting them straight up.” Ilaria shakes her head at me and smiles. “Sometimes I forget how new you are to all this. You are marrying the king today, you know. It’s a very big deal. The whole thing is tightly organized.”
“I’m beginning to see that,” I say.
In my defense, Alex has only been king for a few months, since his father voluntarily abdicated. Just when I was getting used to life with a prince, he rose to power. And today I’m marrying him. The king of Avaran, my husband!
I consider myself lucky in that the people of my new adopted country have welcomed me and my nontraditional family with open arms. After the conflict with Parliament, I was concerned about how the Avaranian public would respond to the news of our engagement. But I shouldn’t have worried. Everyone seems to agree that the stability of a nuclear family is what’s best for the children. Not only that, the public appearances I’ve done since I’ve been here have gone well. Everyone has responded to me very positively. Avaran truly seems to like me.
And I like Avaran. I like the city; the way people trade in open markets right across the street from corporate stores. I like visiting the shore with Alex and his family, letting the children play in the sand and kick at the waves as they crash on the beach. And I love the people. They’re fiercely proud of their country. I admire them for it.
But Alex being the king hasn’t always been easy. It comes with a lot of responsibilities. Most of those involve governing, which is, of course, a big job.
I’ve done my best to be a good support system for him. In the evenings, after the children have gone to bed, we sit together and I listen as he tells me about disputes he’s settled and decisions he’s made on behalf of the country. Often, he asks me for my advice. It’s a bit frightening to advise someone so powerful, knowing that if he acts on something I say it will have real-world consequences for the people of Avaran. But it’s a bit heady too. My ideas, my insights, can actually help people on a significant scale. It’s an amazing thing.
I’ve also had a lot of opportunities I never would have had in my old life. Alex was wrong when he compared being royal to being famous in America. The two are nothing alike.
As an actress, I met other people in the entertainment industry sometimes, and I had fans and fancy dresses to wear to award shows. But now, going through the world on Alex’s arm, it’s completely different. The palace is surrounded by armed guards, and I see them in the halls all the time. That took a lot of getting used to. Their training forbids them from talking to me while they’re on duty, so I have to treat each one like a piece of furniture instead of a human. It’s a habit Vito and Marianna have already picked up just by watching us—though they both run to engage everyone else they see, from butler to visiting heads of state.
It was a relief, in a way, to go back to LA in the months leading up to King Donato’s decision to pass the throne to Alex. We had obtained permission to spend a few months living in California so that I could shoot one final season of Royal Blue before leaving the show for good. I’ll always be grateful to my new father-in-law for agreeing to that—it allowed me to leave the show gracefully without having to separate our family.
Filming my last season was bittersweet. I’d planned on staying with the show for much longer, but nobody faulted me for the choice I was making. To my delight, the showrunners didn’t even kill off Princess Aeryn. In a nod to the events of my real life, they had her marry a distant prince and travel abroad to rule his kingdom as a warrior queen. It made a great ending for the character I’d put so much of my heart into.
And being back in LA let me tie up some other loose ends too. I turn to my second bridesmaid, who has been fussing with her hair for the past twenty minutes.
“Lizzie, leave it alone. It looks fine.”
“I told them I wanted an updo,” Lizzie protests.
“That is an updo. What are you talking about?”
“No, but I meant like…up.” She waves a hand around the crown of her head, several inches above where her hair has been arranged in a chignon.
I have to smile. Lizzie will never change, not even as a member of the king’s wedding party. I’m just glad I had the chance to heal our friendship while I was back in LA. I wouldn’t have felt right leaving things the way we did.
Of course, Lizzie, being Lizzie, had no idea I was ever upset with her at all.
“What are you talking about?” she asked when I told her I wanted to put it behind us. “We didn’t have a fight.”
And, in her defense, I never had told her I’d overheard her gossiping about me. When I confessed to having overheard that conversation, she turned bright red.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m such a mess when I’ve had a few glasses of wine. God, I know how you felt about that stupid magazine article. You must have been so pissed off.”
“I was mostly just embarrassed,” I admitted. “But I’m over it now. And I’m sorry I used it as a reason not to tell you about Alex back then, and about what was going on with us. You’re my best friend, Lizzie. I don’t want anything to come between us.”
“It won’t,” she promised. “Never again.”
As a testament to our newly repaired friendship, I invited Lizzie to come to Avaran a week before the wedding. She’s been staying at the palace, and she’s had a great time experiencing royal life for herself. She took to it much more naturally than I did at first, taking full advantage of all the services the household staff offered. I followed her as she explored the palace, enjoying it
vicariously through her eyes as she saw my new life for the first time.
It was a strange feeling, showing off the palace and the country of Avaran as if it were my own, but it was fulfilling at the same time. This is my home now, after all. Avaranian royalty is who I am.
As much as Lizzie loved the palace, she loved the children even more. I’ve never thought of her as someone who particularly warms to kids, but she and Vito and Marianna are as thick as thieves these days. She’s spent every evening with them since she’s been here in Avaran, giving Alex and me a much-needed break. Thanks to her help, we’ve found ourselves able to spend time together every evening in the week leading up to the wedding, a luxury we’re not often afforded between the demands of raising two toddlers and running a country.
Lizzie gives up on her hair and stands. “Ilaria is right. You need to get into your dress.” She indicates the elaborate gown that was tailor-made for me. “That thing is going to take us forever to figure out. Why don’t you have a royal dresser? You’re a princess.”
Lizzie has proven fond of ending sentences with “you’re a princess,” usually as a tag to some query about why I don’t have something she feels I should.
“I don’t like being dressed by strangers,” I say. “You already know that. I never liked being helped into costume on the set of Royal Blue.”
Lizzie laughs. “That’s true. I used to think maybe that was the driving force behind your whole character development. Maybe they wrote Aeryn as a princess who wears pants just so you’d be able to dress yourself. I’ve seen stranger things in Hollywood.”
Ilaria, over by the window now, calls out to us. “Quick, come and see this.”
Lizzie and I run over and peer out. The street is packed, lined with Avaranian citizens on either side, the crowd so thick I can’t begin to guess at how many it contains. It looks like a parade route.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “What are they doing?”
Lizzie rolls her eyes. “It’s for you, silly.”
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