by T. K. Leigh
That in his place is a relative stranger.
That I’m expected to marry a man I feel like I don’t even know.
The man I’ve been sharing my bed with barely resembles the one who approached me in front of Lincoln’s tomb and tried to impress me with his useless knowledge of the plot to steal Lincoln’s body. I want to marry that man. I’m not sure about this other person he’s become since we landed in Belmont.
It’s times like these I wish I were still in New York. All it would take would be a single text to Evie, Chloe, and Izzy, and they’d drop everything to offer me the advice I need. Or a proverbial slap in the back of the head if they thought I was being ridiculous, as has been known to happen.
Grabbing my old phone, I check my international clock to see it’s a few minutes past nine on Thursday evening in New York. While we used to get together every Thursday night at a local bar near Chloe and Evie’s work, once they got pregnant and moved out to the suburbs, we opted to trade the local bar for one of our places, usually Izzy’s or mine.
Figuring it’s worth a shot, I find Chloe’s contact information and hit the FaceTime button, waiting as the call connects. I feel like I haven’t talked to them in ages, not just the few weeks I’ve been here. After I FaceTimed them to tell them about our hasty wedding announcement and the reasons behind it, I haven’t had much time to get in touch, my days filled from the second I wake to the moment I fall into bed. We’ve all sent the occasional text, but that’s not the same.
A ping from my phone brings my attention back to it, Chloe’s bright, gray eyes and brilliant smile greeting me.
“It’s about dang time you called!” she exclaims. “We were starting to think you’d forgotten about us.”
“I could never forget about you girls.” My throat constricts at the sight of Izzy’s familiar townhouse in the background. It reminds me of home. They remind me of home.
Chloe moves from the kitchen island, setting her phone onto the coffee table in front of a couch I’m all too familiar with, Evie’s and Izzy’s faces popping into view.
“We miss you so much!” Evie states.
“When are you coming to visit?” Izzy inquires.
“Is that why you’re calling?” Evie beams. “To tell us you’re coming soon? Girls’ night isn’t the same without you. It’s like we’re missing an important member of our gang.”
“I know,” I sigh longingly. What I wouldn’t give to be there with them right now. “I’m just so exhausted lately.”
“You have a lot going on,” Chloe encourages. “You’re in a new place. New country. New life.”
“You’re also pregnant. That puts a lot of strain on your body,” Izzy adds, always the nurse. “You need to make sure you get plenty of rest and take care of yourself, regardless of everything else you have to do.”
“I am,” I tell her, although nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t have time to take care of myself.
As has been ingrained into my brain these past several weeks, my needs will always come second to the Crown’s. That, from now on, I serve the monarch and the country. It’s a noble idea, but I would love nothing more than to be selfish and put myself first, even for just a day.
“How’s Anderson?” Chloe asks, a touch of hesitation in her voice.
When I don’t immediately respond, she eyes me warily, somehow able to pick up on the tension. I should have expected nothing less. She’s always had a unique ability to read me, even when I tried to hide my feelings from everyone, including myself.
“What happened?” she pushes.
“I just…” I expel a long breath. “Everything came to a head last night, and I snapped. Since we arrived here, we’ve barely had time for each other. Between all the pre-wedding planning, public engagements, and princess training—”
Izzy holds up a hand. “Wait a hot second. What’s princess training? Is that really a thing?”
“Of course.” My voice oozes with sarcasm. “The future of this very nation depends on whether I know how to hold my teacup properly.”
In a way, it does. Like Queen Veronica told me, it’s all about the illusion. Once the illusion disappears, once people see us as normal, the monarchy risks becoming obsolete.
“We haven’t had sex since right before the king announced our engagement,” I admit softly. “Over three weeks ago.”
“When you say right before,” Evie states, “are we talking in the throne room before? Or…”
“No. Not the throne room,” I giggle, already feeling better and a little less homesick.
“Pity.” Chloe smirks. “But getting back to this unusual dry spell… What’s going on with you two? Why no hanky-panky?”
For some couples, three weeks wouldn’t be long at all. We’ve gone longer, but not when we were living together. And certainly not when we shared a bed every night.
“We haven’t had time. Our days are filled with obligations. Even on the weekend, we’re torn in two different directions. There have been a few nights I’ve tried to stay up until he got home, but I’m constantly exhausted. Plus, morning sickness has kicked my butt. Most days, I can barely stomach more than some dry toast or crackers. And let’s not talk about how much the royal family hates me.”
“Esme doesn’t hate you,” Izzy reminds me. “At least the few times I’ve met her, she seemed quite nice. Not like a princess at all.”
“Oh, Esme’s great. It’s Anderson’s grandmother who worries me.”
“God, that woman.” Chloe rolls her eyes. “She’s been known to make even some paparazzi cry, and they usually have thick skin. You have to in order to not give a shit about invading someone’s personal space in their moment of vulnerability, all for a buck. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a jar where she stores all their tears. Or souls. Or hearts.”
“Either would I. Pretty sure she tried to get me to cry when she invited me for tea.”
All my friends lean closer to the screen, hanging on to my every word.
“Do tell.” Evie grins mischievously.
“You guys can’t repeat a word of this conversation. Or really anything. My PR team wouldn’t like the idea of me talking to you at all, since you two work for a magazine.” I point between Evie and Chloe. “But that’s not going to happen.”
“Damn straight,” Evie snips. “We’d hunt you down. Plan a rescue mission if we had to. Bust you out of there.”
I bark out a laugh at the image of a very pregnant Evie and extremely pregnant Chloe being part of any sort of rescue attempt.
“Plus, you know we’ll never share things you tell us in confidence,” Chloe adds. “That’s not how we work. We may love our jobs, but we value our friendship more. We’ve kept you out of the headlines so far, haven’t we?”
“Yes. You certainly have.” I smile, although my heart squeezes, emotion overwhelming me. I love talking to these girls, but every minute I do makes me miss them more than I thought I would. Makes me want to pack my bags, hop on a plane, and never look back.
But if I did that, I’d be leaving a piece of my heart here.
I’d be leaving Anderson here.
“So what happened at tea with Queen Veronica?” Evie presses.
“She tried to bribe me.”
Their eyes widen.
“As long as they’re able to establish paternity, of course. They won’t pay if I’m not actually carrying Anderson’s child.”
“Bribe you? So you’d…leave?” Izzy’s voice rises at the end.
“Yup. Unless I opted to ‘eliminate’ the problem,” I tell them using air quotes.
All their mouths drop open simultaneously.
“That hag!” Evie exclaims once her shock wears off.
Hag isn’t a word I’d use to describe Queen Veronica. At least not regarding her outward appearance. She’s the picture of beauty and grace. But I can attest to the fact that the inside doesn’t match the outside one bit.
“What did you tell her?” Izzy inquires.
“I told her to shove it. And not just metaphorically. Word for word, I told her she could take her bribe and shove it up her ass.”
The line goes silent, my friends staring at me in shock, mouths agape. Then Chloe laughs. Soon, everyone joins in, including myself. I can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed. The last time I’ve felt this happy, even if it’s fleeting.
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute…” Chloe clutches her protruding stomach as she struggles to breathe. “You told Queen Veronica, Anderson’s grandmother, the queen mother, to shove it up her ass?”
I shrug, my lips quirking into a small smile. “Then I got up and stormed out of there. But not before curtseying and saying ‘Your Majesty’ in an overly dramatic way.” I swipe at the tears streaming down my cheeks, unsure if it’s from laughing or crying. Possibly a combination of both.
“It’s official,” Chloe says. “You’re my hero.”
“What was I supposed to do?” I counter. “Accept her offer to leave? Not an option.”
“And now?” Izzy interjects. “Is leaving still not an option?”
The frivolity filling our conversation mere seconds ago vanishes, all our expressions becoming serious.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“What did you and Anderson fight about last night?” Evie asks.
I glance toward his side of the bed, the covers still drawn up, evidence he didn’t sleep here last night.
“It all started because he missed my doctor’s appointment yesterday.”
I don’t even have to explain why that’s a big deal. They know. To most women, that first appointment with your OB is a big deal. But for me, for someone who’s experienced an excruciating loss in the past, it’s even more important.
“Did he tell you why?” Izzy asks.
“Wait…,” Chloe interjects. “He had an appearance with the Queen of England, didn’t he?”
It doesn’t matter that she was promoted to the current affairs desk at the magazine a few years ago and is no longer working on the celebrity news column. Chloe still likes to keep an ear out for gossip. Then again, this is probably more current affairs than gossip.
“Queen Veronica was supposed to greet her and appear with her at Westerly College,” I explain, “but she woke up with a head cold and didn’t want to get the queen sick, so she asked Anderson to fill in on her behalf. I know how it sounds,” I add quickly. “He definitely had a valid reason, so I didn’t go all crazy on him because of one isolated incident.”
“But because of everything else, too,” Chloe states matter-of-factly.
“It was just the catalyst. The event that drew into focus something I’ve felt since our engagement was announced.”
“And what’s that?”
I look up at the ceiling, taking a moment to collect my thoughts. “As I stood next to Anderson, his arm around my shoulders, while his father announced to the media that he’d granted us his permission to marry, it felt like a stranger’s arm was around me. It wasn’t Anderson’s. It was Prince Gabriel’s, this man I know nothing about. I brushed it off, though, because I still saw bits of Anderson, too. But in the past few weeks, as I’ve learned more and more about the royal family, its history, seen coverage of his public appearances, it feels like I’m sharing a bed with a man I don’t know. That I’m about to marry a man I don’t know.”
Evie offers me a sympathetic smile. If any of my friends can empathize with what I’m going through, it would be her. She dealt with something similar with her husband, Julian. Maybe not to the level of Anderson and me, but she can certainly relate.
“Do you want to know what changed my mind about Julian?” she asks, her green eyes awash with compassion.
“What’s that?”
“I realized how lucky I was. When I first learned that Julian kept this huge secret from me, that he was the subject of the article I’d been writing for the magazine, unbeknownst to me, I was absolutely furious. It was the worst kind of betrayal. But then I realized the truth.”
“The truth?” I repeat, swallowing hard through the ache burning my chest.
“I was one of the few lucky people to know Julian. The real Julian. Not this other persona he’d created. Just like you’re lucky enough to know the real Anderson, the side of this highly sought-after prince that no one else gets to see. Who cares if you don’t know Prince Gabriel? What you have is infinitely more special. Sure, when his father was up there announcing your engagement and upcoming marriage, Anderson may have not been the same man. But I guarantee you the love he has for you is the same. Don’t throw it away because you don’t think you know him. You do. You know him better than anyone. And I’m not saying that because you own his cock.”
I burst out laughing, swiping my tears from my cheeks.
“It’s because you own his heart,” Chloe adds. “Regardless of whether he’s the Anderson you met on Route 66 or the Prince Gabriel the public adores, his heart is still the same. There’s no doubt in my mind that it beats for you, and only you.”
Emotion swells in my chest, and I choke out a sob. “God, I hate all these pregnancy hormones.”
“Oh, don’t get me started,” Evie says. “I was watching Schitt’s Creek the other day and couldn’t stop crying.”
“Was it the series finale?” Izzy asks. “Because I cried during that, too.”
Evie slowly shakes her head. “No. It was that scene where David and Stevie are buying wine and equating the wine to David’s sexuality, like how he likes red wine and white wine, and sometimes a red wine that used to be a white wine.” Her lower lip quivers. “It was so beautiful how accepting Stevie was of that.”
The line falls silent for a moment before we all laugh once more. Unfortunately, my moment of happiness is cut short by a knock on the door.
“Ms. Tremblay, you need to be at the palace in ninety minutes.”
I groan, cursing under my breath. “Thank you!” I reply in a bright voice.
“You have to go?” Chloe presses.
“Duty calls,” I sing. “It was so good to see you girls.”
“It was great to see you, too,” Izzy offers.
“Let’s make a plan to do this every week,” Evie says. “You need some normalcy in your life. Let us be that for you.”
I beam. “I’d really like that.”
“We would, too,” Chloe states. “Now go. Be a fucking princess.”
“Okay. I’ll go be a fucking princess. Love you girls.”
“We love you, too.”
I blow a kiss to my friends, then end the call before dragging myself from my bed for another day of learning how to be a princess.
Or, as Chloe puts it, a fucking princess.
I like the sound of that much better.
But that still doesn’t solve my Anderson/Prince Gabriel problem.
Can I really promise my life to a man I barely know just for the brief glimpses I get of Anderson?
What if those brief glimpses become fewer and fewer until Prince Gabriel swallows him up entirely?
Is Prince Gabriel a man I want to be with?
I wish I knew how to answer that.
Chapter Twenty
Anderson
“If you ask me, it was kind of a dick move,” Esme snips out, not holding back at all. I didn’t expect her to. She never does.
“What choice did I have?” I throw up my hands as I sit in the director’s office of a local children’s home where we’ll play with some of the kids and read them a story, all to promote literacy and bring attention to the need for more families to open their homes to foster children, a cause Esme champions regularly. “Grandmother fell ill. Someone had to meet the Queen of England.”
“It didn’t have to be you,” she argues, arms crossed.
“You know damn well it did, Esme. When the Queen of England comes, either the queen mother or the highest-ranking member of the royal family must go. Since Father was out of town—”
&nb
sp; “It wouldn’t surprise me if she wasn’t sick at all and only canceled to keep you from going to Nora’s appointment.”
I wave her off, not voicing that I had the same concerns. “It wasn’t just the doctor’s appointment. That was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak.” I pull my lips between my teeth, resting my forearms on my legs as the previous night’s conversation plays on repeat, like it has all morning. “She claims she doesn’t even know who I am,” I manage to say through the lump in my throat.
“And rightly so,” Esme agrees.
I furrow my brow, darting my eyes toward her. “What do you mean?”
She smooths a few strands of her golden blonde hair behind her ear, then saunters toward me. Always one to shun expectations and protocol, she’s dressed in a sleeveless blouse tucked into a pair of skinny jeans that make her long legs appear even longer. And as a big middle finger to the establishment, she wears a pair of wedge sandals with her toes peeking through — two big no-nos.
Then there’s me, the picture of conformity — crisp suit, cleanly shaven face, tie that’s begun to feel more like a noose than an accessory.
“Since the news of your engagement broke, she’s been immersed in this world she’s had absolutely no previous experience with. She’s expected to jump right in, feet first, and become a princess, wife, and royal in mere weeks? Remember how you felt when you were pulled out of school, sent to London, and forced to learn a new way of life almost overnight?”
I lower my head, nodding slowly.
“Well, for Nora, it’s even harder. At least we had some exposure to all of this first. She never has. When we were ripped from our world, what was the one thing we had that helped us through it all?”
“Each other,” I admit, looking around the room. The linoleum floor is cracked, and some of the tiles in the ceiling show signs of water damage. Books fill the shelves lining the far wall, many of their bindings worn. It’s a rude awakening to visit places like this. Makes me even more grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had.
“Precisely, Anders.” She sits on the couch beside me, taking my hands in hers. “We had each other. With everything else in our world turned upside down, we were able to find comfort and stability in the idea that we were still the same people we were back in the country, riding horses and getting covered in mud. But Nora…” She shakes her head. “She boarded that plane expecting to start a life with Anderson North, but instead came face-to-face with Prince Gabriel of Belmont.”