by Emma Lea
Charles Bingham, Duke of Monterey, Prime Minister of Merveille looked at me shrewdly, his lips flat. “Now try that again without lying.”
I huffed out a frustrated breath. My father could be the most infuriating man when he wanted to be. I had never been able to get anything past him. What had I been thinking that I thought I could do it this time?
“Fine,” I said. “I don’t want to see Jamie.”
Both his eyebrows popped up in surprise. “That was not what I thought you were going to say,” he said.
“I’m still angry at him for lying to me. In fact,” I said, warming to my subject, “I’m still mad at you too. All this time! All this time and not even a heads up?”
Father sighed and shook his head. “Try again, Meredith. I know you’re upset about what happened but that is no reason to breach your contract with the guard.”
“So you’re not going to help me get out of it?”
“Is that what this is? You want me to step in and try and get my daughter excused from her national obligations?”
“Yes,” I said and then shook my head. “No. When you put it like that it sounds kind of underhanded. I just really don’t want to go.”
“Ah, Mer. I know something is going on with you. You haven’t been the same since you got back from Barcelona. You know you can tell me anything, right?”
“I know, daddy,” I said quietly.
He waited for me to go on and when I didn’t he sighed. “I can’t intervene,” he said. “Benjamin is the commander and he reports directly to the queen. There is nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”
“I know,” I said, dropping my head. “But it was worth a shot.” I stood and Father did too. He hugged me again.
“Whatever it is,” he whispered in my ear, “I’m here if you need to talk.”
I nodded against his chest before stepping back.
“So are you and mother going to Kalopsia?”
He smiled. “We are.”
Of course they were. It wouldn’t take much for my father to know something was up between Jamie and me once he saw us together, so I had to make sure he never saw us together.
One week later, after five hours on a plane, we were finally arriving at the palace of the new king of Kalopsia. It was a beautiful Parthenon-inspired building with a tall, white marble colonnade. The entire palace was set on a cliff and had an incredible view of the Aegean Sea that surrounded the small island. I stood for several moments and just stared. It looked like something that would house the Greek gods and not somewhere us mere-mortals could reside. And Jamie had grown up here.
“Stop gawking Meredith,” Cody called as he headed up the stairs.
We were the advance party before the queen and prince arrived. We were supposed to be meeting with the head of the royal security to go over the schedule and other pertinent details. The queen would be arriving in a few hours and we needed to make sure everything was secure and safe for her arrival. But my feet were rooted to the spot. I knew that once I stepped inside that building I would be in Jamie’s world and I wasn’t entirely sure I would find my way out of it again…or if I’d want to.
“Meredith!” This time it was Scott who called to me.
I shook myself out of my stupor and gave myself a pep talk as I walked toward the stairs that would take me into the lion’s den.
“You can do this Meredith,” I whispered to myself. “You are a professional. Just remember not to make eye contact with him. Look over his shoulder or at his chest…no. No! Don’t look at his chest. Look over his shoulder but not at his eyes. Don’t you dare look in his eyes.”
“What on earth are you muttering to yourself?” Scott asked as I met him on the stairs, and we continued up together.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Whatever,” he replied, but he didn’t look away from me. “You’ve been acting really weird lately. Has all this countess thing gone to your head?”
I pushed him with my shoulder. “No, it’s just being back working with you morons. I’m used to a better class of people these days.” I tried for light-hearted but it fell flat.
“Whatever,” Scott said again and moved ahead of me.
He was right. I had been different since I’d been back training with them. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be there, it was more the reason I was there. It had all been for this. Coming here to Kalopsia, seeing Jamie again. I just wasn’t emotionally prepared. I didn’t think I would ever be.
I stepped over the threshold and into the dim, cool interior of the foyer. I stopped again to look around. I expected…more. I expected paintings on the walls and precious marble statues and porcelain vases. The foyer was rather empty - minimalist - with just a heavy wooden sideboard that held an enormous vase of fresh flowers.
“The palace was practically stripped of all its art and artefacts,” a voice said and I looked up. My gaze met Danika’s and I had to clench my fist at my side so that I didn’t take a swing at her.
“Oh?” I replied, taking another look around.
“General Anastas was desperate for money toward the end and he tried to get it where he could.”
“That’s a shame,” I said quietly, and meant it. To some people, the items in the palace might be thought of as frivolous and extravagant but they held the history and culture of the nation. To have them sold off to the highest bidder was a tragedy.
“Come. We are meeting in the conference room.”
I followed Danika as she led me along a long hall that was overlooked by a mezzanine. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked and I tried really hard not to look up, but I couldn’t help it. Our gazes clashed together and I stumbled. I couldn’t read the look on his face. He was standing in shadow above me, but his eyes held me captive.
I wanted to stop, turn around and run to him. My body yearned to be close to his. My hands itched to touch him again. My eyes ate him up greedily. I had seen him on television numerous times now, but it wasn’t the same as seeing him in the flesh. There was something different about him and yet so familiar that I was bombarded with melancholy. I knew what he would smell like if I got close enough. I knew what his lips would taste like if he kissed me again. And yet there was something else that I hadn’t seen in him before. There was an authority, a dignity. It was in the way he carried himself and the set of his shoulders. I had seen the same transformation in only one other person. Alyssa. She had also grown and changed when she accepted the crown. And just like her, he wore it well.
I tore my gaze away. He was born to be king. I could see it now. He had hidden it well for all the years we’d known each other, but seeing him standing there, I could recognise the royalty that ran in his blood. The man was a king, through and through. He was a man with a calling and a mission. He wasn’t free to love me. I had held out hope that maybe, somehow, some way, we could be together. I had sent him the annulment papers to give him an out and when he hadn’t returned them, I began to hope. Seeing him now, though, that changed things. I was not the woman he would need by his side. I was not the woman to be his queen. I wanted to be, but even I knew that I was not right for him. He needed someone beautiful and elegant and graceful. He needed a proper lady born with an impressive pedigree and trained in all the gentle arts of a woman of nobility. Not a woman like me. I was a fighter, a soldier, a warrior. As much as it pained my mother, I was not a lady. I was not cut out to be a queen, however much I wished to be.
Chapter 22
Jamie
I knew she was coming. I had orchestrated her being here and yet it didn’t prepare me for seeing her again.
Her hair was tied back in a long tail and she wore the uniform of the royal guard. She was just like I had seen her a hundred times before, but she was different. Her skin was pale and she had dark circles under her eyes, but even that wasn’t what made her seem different to me. There was something in the way she walked, like she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. She seemed…defeated.
T
hen she looked up at me.
It was in her eyes. There was a sadness there, a sadness that seemed to burrow deep inside her. Had I put that there? Was I the cause of her sorrow? Was I the cause of her slumped shoulders and dark circles? It killed me to know that I was. I was desperate to make it right. I wanted to take away her pain and hurt and put a smile on her face. I wanted to make her laugh and see the life and sparkle back in her eyes.
She disappeared from view and I took a steadying breath. I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder and looked behind me to Freddie.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded and swallowed, clearing the lump from my throat before I spoke. “Tell me I’m doing the right thing,” I said. “Tell me bringing her here is not just going to make it worse.”
Freddie turned me so that we were face to face. He stared me down. “Do you love her?”
“You know I do,” I said, “but is love enough? What I am asking of her is big. I’m asking her to give up her life and her country and her friends for me.”
“It’s not as if she will never see her friends or family again,” Freddie said. “Or her country. Yes, you are asking her to give up her title, but she never really wanted it anyway. And you are offering her something more.”
I snorted disbelievingly. “I hardly think offering her to be my queen is really going to impress her all that much.”
“No,” Freddie said, deadly serious. “That’s not what I mean. You are offering your heart to her.”
I searched Freddie’s eyes, afraid to ask the question…was my heart enough?
“What if she doesn’t feel the same way about me?” I asked instead.
“What if she does?”
I took a deep breath. What if she did? I was so focussed on what I would do if she turned me down flat that I hadn’t even considered what I would do if she didn’t.
Freddie grinned and then slapped me on the back as he walked away. I turned back to the balcony railing and looked down at where Meredith had been standing. The room seemed darker without her in it.
What would our life together look like? Could I even dare to dream? It was easy to think in abstracts and to get caught up in the daydream of fantasy, but what would the realities be if it turned out that Meredith wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with her? We were already married, but the people of Kalopsia would want to witness the wedding of their king and queen. It would go a long way to boosting public opinion and putting a smile on the faces of the people who seemed to have lost their hope. Meredith wouldn’t want to make a spectacle and I respected her for that. The country couldn’t afford to spend a lot of money on something that would only be a performance.
And there wouldn’t be much of a honeymoon either. I had only just come home, I couldn’t leave again so soon. Sequestering myself and Meredith away in the palace was not exactly a hardship. We had access to a private beach and there was really no need to leave the compound if we didn’t want to. I allowed a small smile as I imagined spending every day and every night with her. Waking up beside her every morning, kissing her goodnight at the end of every day. Those were the thoughts I could get behind. But real life would eventually knock on the door and then what? What would Meredith do while I fulfilled the duties of king? I hadn’t really paid much attention to what my mother had done as queen. I had been more preoccupied with trying to be like my father. My faded and vague memories of my mother were of her lunching with other women and organising charity events. Not exactly something that I could imagine Meredith doing. Not that she couldn’t do it, just that it seemed more like something her mother would do. Would she be happy with that kind of life?
I raked a hand through my hair. I was back to wondering if I was doing the right thing. What if she ended up hating me? Fairytales may make marrying a prince out to be the perfect life goal, but the reality was a lot different. Meredith had never wanted that for herself. The very fact that she had pursued a career in the guard and not lived the high-life of a privileged peer of the realm was proof of that. What if she said yes to me and then when real life set in after the honeymoon ended, she regretted it? A quick annulment now before our marriage was made public would be a whole lot less messy than a king and queen divorcing in twelve months’ time. And then there was the fact that it would break my heart into a million irreparable pieces.
I took another deep breath. I wanted her in my life. I couldn’t deny that I wanted to rebuild my country and my family with her by my side. I wanted to make a family with her. What I didn’t want was to stifle her and kill the spark that had attracted me to her in the first place.
“Meredith!”
She didn’t look back at me as she turned the corner and disappeared into the garden. Infernal woman! I quickened my pace and turned the corner, stepping down the three steps into the sunken garden that was overgrown and forgotten. So many things had been left to go to rack and ruin under General Anastas’ rule and I was still trying to catalogue everything that needed to be done and then find the finances to do it.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and listened. I could hear her moving through the overgrown foliage, even though I knew she was trying to be quiet. Moving as stealthily as I could, I headed in the opposite direction. There was only one way in and one way out of the garden, something I didn’t think Meredith knew. The path she was on wound around the perimeter and finished up back at the stairs. I had every intention of intercepting her.
I could hear her stomping footsteps and her muttering before I saw her. She obviously thought I had given up on chasing her down, something that I was looking forward to disabusing her of. I leaned against the wall with one shoulder and crossed one leg over the other while I waited for her like I had all the time in the world. In this moment I did. There was nothing more important than speaking with her and I was willing to take as much time as I could to do just that.
She came around the corner, her head down and a scowl on her face. I couldn’t help the lift of the corner of my lips or the sense of absolute peace and rightness that descended on me when I saw her. It cemented my decision when nothing else could. I needed her in my life and I intended to convince her that she needed me too. Finally she looked up and stopped in her tracks as she saw me standing there. Her eyes raked over me as she stood frozen and I could see the need and sadness in her eyes. She turned on her heel, but before she could make her escape, I reached out and took her by the elbow.
Her reflexes hadn’t dimmed in the time we were apart and before I knew it we were locked in a sparring match, neither one of us dressed appropriately but neither one of us caring either. With a growl, I pinned her to my body, locking her arms beside her so she couldn’t get any jabs in and dancing around so she couldn’t stomp on my foot.
“Stop,” I hissed in her ear. Her body went taught and then she relaxed against me, but I wasn’t fooled. I knew all her tricks and she was just playing possum.
“Am I supposed to curtsy to you now?” she hissed back at me.
The growl rose in my throat uninhibited as I turned her around in my arms and slammed my lips down on hers. Electricity arced between us, stunning us both. She whimpered and I gentled my assault on her lips, but didn’t release them. I couldn’t. I felt like a dying man being offered a chance at life. Her hands clenched my suit coat as she tried to get closer to me. My hands tangled in her hair, unbinding it from its tie and letting it tumble freely down her back and over my arms. I breathed her in and the knots of tension that had been my constant companion over these last weeks began to loosen.
“Meredith,” I whispered against her lips.
She tore herself out of my arms and swiped her hand across her mouth, stepping away from me, her eyes narrowed and furious.
“Meredith,” I said again, louder this time and more determined. “We need—”
“King Christophe,” she said, executing an appalling curtsey.
“Stop it,” I barked harshly.
She straightened and
slammed her hands on her hips as she looked at me. “You can’t do that,” she said.
“You are my wife!” I yelled, frustrated and cranky.
“That doesn’t give you the right to do…that!” She flicked her hand around to indicate the embrace and kiss.
I raked a hand through my hair and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Meredith,” I said calmly but through gritted teeth, “we need to talk.”
“There’s nothing more to discuss,” she said, her eyes not meeting mine. “You have the annulment papers. This nightmare will all be over as soon as you sign them.”
“Nightmare?” I snapped.
She lifted her chin and stared me down. “What would you call it?”
I took a step toward her, not willing to let her reduce what was between us to some flippant comment. She stepped back and her foot got caught on a trailing vine. I caught her as she fell and when her eyes met mine I could see all her fear and worry reflected in her eyes.
“Meredith,” I said softly. “Agapoúla mou.”
I brushed a soft kiss across her lips and I felt her melt against me. Why couldn’t she just trust what this was between us?
“Jamie, I—” Her voice was tremulous as she looked up at me with wide blue eyes.
The scrape of a footstep on the flagstone path had Meredith jumping out of my arms once again, dragging a long suffering sigh from me.
“Your highness,” Danika said, coming around the corner, her head down and looking at the tablet that she carried with her constantly. “The queen has arrived.” She looked up then and took in Meredith and me. It was a credit to her professionalism that she didn’t react to what undoubtedly looked suspicious.
Meredith shot a quick look at me and then back at Danika. “I - I need to go.” She turned and fled. I took a step to follow her, but Danika cleared her throat and stopped me.
“Dammit!” I said with a frustrated growl. I took a deep breath and turned back to Danika. “Let’s go,” I said.