by Emma Lea
We walked along in silence. The sky was slowly turning to night and was showing off with streaks of gold and purple and even pink. The soft shushing of the waves far below us and the gentle fragrance of the plants we brushed past gave the evening a magical and romantic feel.
I took another look around the gardens and considered just how much work had been done in the intervening two years. If my own family’s estate was anything to go by, the palace gardens would have been an absolute wreck. So while I might remember the gardens as they were before, I could certainly appreciate what they were becoming now.
It was a cheesy, but no less poignant metaphor for my life. Who knows who I might have become if we’d stayed in Kalopsia. Fleeing to America had been good for my parents and for their business (and their bank account) but it hadn’t been so good for me. I’d lost myself in the huge, scary move. I’d lost the people who had been friends and my support network. God knows, my parents hadn’t been any sort of support network for me. And while Effie tried to fill the gaps, there was only so much a sister could do. Coming back to Kalopsia was a rebirth for me and I was slowly finding myself again and I had the woman walking beside me to thank for it. Without Frankie by my side, I would still be the shy, cowed man who I’d been for all the years I spent in America. If I’d come here with Clarissa, there was no way I would have grown and stretched into this new person. Frankie was right, I was growing into my skin at long last and I liked the man I was becoming and I knew I couldn’t have done it without her. I still had a way to go, not unlike the garden we were currently strolling through, but I could feel the new shape of myself and the potential of what I could become and it gave me hope.
We reached one of the small seating areas sprinkled throughout the terraced gardens. We were still on the top level and this particular area looked out over the ocean. The breeze was heavy with salt and the unmistakable freshness of the sea. I breathed it in, letting it fill my lungs. I had missed this. I hadn’t even known I’d missed it until I came back here.
I looked down at the woman beside me, the woman who had made all this possible, and I knew I couldn’t let her slip away. I needed Frankie in my life, but more than that I wanted her in my life and I wanted more than just a friendship with her.
The ring on her finger glinted harshly in the moonlight. The ring was all wrong for her, but seeing it on her finger and knowing I was the one who put it there just felt…right.
Frankie stared out across the sea, the soft wind playing with her curls and sending her chocolate chip cookie scent toward me. I didn’t think anything or anyone had looked lovelier and I wanted to remember her just like this for the rest of my life.
“Frankie,” I said, my voice rough with the onslaught of emotions I was feeling.
She turned to me and tilted her face up to mine. Whatever I had been going to say died in my throat and I lowered my lips to hers. It was a soft brush of lips at first until my hand slid around her waist and tugged her gently toward me as I deepened the kiss. She melted into me and everything went soft and fuzzy around us for a moment, and then…
And then she stiffened and pushed away from me.
“Lucas, stop,” she said, turning her back on me before turning to face me again.
Her face was sad and I hated it, I hated the look in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, shoving my hands in my pockets and rocking back on my heels, preparing for the blow I knew was coming.
“What are we doing?” she asked, throwing her hands in the air.
“What do you mean?” I asked, frowning.
Frankie growled low in her throat. “You kissed me.”
“O-kay, but I’ve been kissing you—“
“Exactly. You’ve been kissing me when there are people around so that we can play the ‘young and in love’ couple we’re supposed to be, but there’s no one here. No one’s watching. There’s no reason for you to kiss me.”
I looked around, making sure no one could inadvertently overhear the conversation we were having.
“But maybe there is,” I said, looking at her through my lowered lashes. “Maybe there is a reason for me to kiss you.”
Frankie shook her head. “This is all fake, Lucas, remember? We’re pretending. We agreed that this was just fake. We’re best friends, not whatever this is turning into.”
“What if I don’t want it to be fake anymore?”
Frankie took a step closer and my heart rate picked up in anticipation. She ran her hand down my chest, smoothing my shirt and her lips turned down. Now my heart was racing for a completely different reason.
“You might think that,” she murmured, “but you’d be wrong.”
“How can you tell me what I’m feeling is wrong?” I asked.
“It’s this place,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “It’s this place and these people and the situation. You’re a long way from home and this is all unfamiliar and out of your comfort zone and I’m the only familiar thing in your life right now.”
“So what you’re saying is that I’m clinging to you as some sort of security blanket?” I asked in disbelief that she could dismiss my feelings so easily.
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” she said.
“Right,” I replied with a nod. “So?”
“So, we’ve never once been tempted to go beyond friendship. Don’t you think that says something about our relationship? Don’t you think that it proves that this—“ she made an encompassing motion with her hands “—is an anomaly?”
“Maybe the change of scenery had the added benefit of casting each of us in a different light?” I replied hopefully.
“No, I don’t think so,” she replied. “I don’t want to lose you as a friend Lucas, and I’m afraid if we keep going the way we are, that’s exactly what will happen.”
Before I could say anything in my defense, she was walking away. I stood like an idiot watching her go and feeling the separation tangibly.
I swore quietly under my breath and turned back to the view, no longer seeing it. Just when we’d overcome all the weirdness between us, I made it weird again. How many hints did I need before I got it? Frankie didn’t want me like that. Hadn’t she already made that clear?
But she kissed me back. That had to mean something, right? Her body responded to mine, I felt it. I did not imagine the way she pressed against me or the way she returned my kiss. And Frankie had never actually told me she didn’t want me.
There was also the way she had been looking at me all night through dinner. She had to feel something for me, didn’t she? Friends did not look at each other the way she looked at me.
I ran a hand through my hair and groaned. I was hopeless at this. I was so completely clueless about women I didn’t even realize Clarissa was pulling away from me. I thought all those Instagram posts about engagement rings was a hint for me, but I’d been wrong. She’d been trying to hint at whoever the other man was she’d fallen in love with.
And now with Frankie, I thought she might be starting to fall for me like I was falling for her, but no. Frankie had made that pretty clear. She was redrawing the friend zone line in the sand and I was firmly put on the other side of it.
Chapter 19
Lucas
Three weeks had passed since that night in the garden and Frankie was doing a stellar job of avoiding me. Oh, she wasn’t avoiding me completely; I saw her every day, multiple times a day, she just made sure we were never alone.
But I couldn’t just blame Frankie. I was busy too. I’d been working on the co-op plan with Jamie and Dorian and even the elusive Evan from time to time. The Komis of Alethia was so much of a recluse that the first time he walked into a meeting I thought he was a homeless man who’d found his way into the palace somehow. His black beard was thick and bushy and hid half of his face. This was more of a wild bushman beard than a hipster beard. His thick, dark hair was tied into a messy man-bun—and I really hated to use that term because, ew, but there was just no
other way to describe it—at the nape of his neck. He watched from his chair and barely said a word and then left without so much as a goodbye. Thankfully, the next time he joined us it wasn’t such a shock, and he actually had some helpful suggestions.
While the king couldn’t always join us, Dorian was my constant companion and even though we were chalk and cheese when it came to personalities, we actually complimented each other in our work. He did the schmoozing of the members of parliament and concerned citizens, and I did the numbers and the negotiations with Effie.
But despite all the busyness, there was a part of my brain that focused solely on Frankie and working out ways that I might get her alone. I needed to talk to her. I needed to lay all my cards on the table because even though she thought my feelings for her were some construct devised by my anxieties, I knew different. I had fallen in love with Frankie and it had nothing to do with her being the only familiar thing in my life. I’d even made a spreadsheet about it and a pros and cons list and a timeline of my feelings, all of which I intended to show her if only I could get her alone long enough to explain it all to her. But she was avoiding me with the dedication of an Olympian. I was getting desperate. It would only be another couple of weeks before she had to go back to America and Boston and her life and I wanted her to know where I stood before she did. I wouldn’t force her to stay, but I wanted her to at least know she had a choice.
I was so desperate, in fact, that it overrode all my anxiety about baring my soul to her. I wasn’t worried about her turning me down; I was more worried about never being able to tell her. Short of going to her room when everyone else had gone to bed, I didn’t know how else to make the conversation happen. We were both existing in this weird limbo where our friendship wasn’t quite what it used to be and it wasn’t yet what it could be—and I didn’t know what that new normal would be yet—and I hated it. I hated the fake smiles she gave me and the way she dodged me and the fact that I was obligated to the king and couldn’t just blow off work and go after her like I wanted to.
“Lucas? Are you going to join me or are you going to continue to stare into space?” Dorian asked.
I was sitting in the car and he was standing outside of it waiting for me along with the foreman and George.
“Sorry,” I murmured as I got out of the car and shook hands with the foreman and then endured a manly hug and a slap on the back from George. Although, it wasn’t really a matter of enduring it at all. I genuinely liked George and the way he had accepted me and treated me like one of his own sons.
“So, we are on schedule as far as the structural updates go,” the foreman, Sandro, said. “But we are still waiting on the alembics.”
Dorian frowned at me.
“The distillation cauldrons,” I said, even though I had gone over all the equipment needs with Dorian several times.
I turned to George. “How are the growers?” I asked. “Will we have crops?”
“Maybe not as many as we’d like,” George answered, “But enough to do some test batches.”
I nodded. I knew this would be an extensive process. No one could just produce the botanicals we needed instantly. The fields and vineyards had been struggling for a while now. During the occupation of General Anastas, he’d let them go to seed and although in the years since Jamie had returned the farmers had also come back, it still took time to build up the produce.
“What about in six months?” I asked. Our goal was to have a viable product to serve during the state visit from Merveille. Prince Will was known to be a savvy investor and exporter, as was Queen Meredith’s brother, and if we could garner interest from them, then we might have a chance to get this crazy scheme off the ground.
George nodded thoughtfully. “If we concentrate on the signature flavor, then yes, I think we could produce a reasonable product by then.”
“Good,” I said, some of the tension leaving my shoulders.
The upcoming state visit was the first step in getting Kalopsia legitimized among the world nations. Sure, Merveille was not a major player on the world stage, but they had a workable and innovative monarchy that I knew Jamie and Meredith wanted to emulate.
“Will you and the lovely Francesca be married by then?” George asked with a gleeful smile. He loved Frankie, all the people in the village loved her.
“We, ah, we haven’t set a date yet,” I said, my heart clenching. We hadn’t set a date because none of it was real, despite my attempts to move us in that direction.
“I will make you and Francesca your own signature raïda,” George pronounced, and it made the clenching of my heart twist harder. “To serve at your wedding.”
From George’s lips to God’s ears, I thought as I shook hands with him and then the foreman.
“I need you to help me with something,” I said to Dorian on the ride back to the palace.
“I’m already helping you with something,” he replied, not looking at me.
“Don’t be deliberately obtuse,” I snapped.
Dorian sighed like I was handing him the world to hold. “What do you need help with?”
“I need to spend some time alone with my fiancée,” I said.
I hated having to enlist Dorian’s help, of all people, but he was friends with Frankie and he was one of the people she used to shield herself from me.
He turned slowly to look at me and raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t be gross,” I growled. “We’ve both been so busy that it’s almost impossible to spend any time together and then there’s you and Sophia taking up her time. Is it too much to ask to have some alone time with the woman I’m going to marry?”
“It’s not too much to ask,” Dorian replied. “But my question is, why would you need my help to make it happen? Is the lovely Francesca avoiding you for a reason?”
For as self-involved as Dorian appeared to be, he was far too observant. He had to have noticed that Frankie dragged him along whenever I tried to have a private conversation with her. He’d never said anything and hadn’t appeared to be bothered by it, but he was for certain tucking the information away. Probably so he could use it against me at another time.
And he was right, and that sucked.
“Why would she be avoiding me?” I asked, feigning innocence.
He didn’t believe me, and he frowned at me to drive the fact home.
“Have you upset Francesca?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.
“Seriously?” I asked, staring him down. “You think I would hurt a hair on her head? I’ve loved her for years and I would die before I ever did anything to hurt her.”
He glared at me for a minute more before sighing. “She has been acting strangely lately.”
“I think it’s because she’s stressed. Jamie still hasn’t given her the interview she needs for her research and time is running out.”
“You’re going to let her go home to finish her degree?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at me.
“I don’t ‘let’ Frankie do anything,” I said. “Frankie wants to finish her Ph.D. before we get married and I fully support her decision. So yes, she will go home in a couple of weeks to do just that.”
Dorian snorted. “No woman of mine would leave me indefinitely to do something so inane as finish a university degree.”
“Yeah, well, maybe that’s why you don’t have a woman in your life.”
“Who said I don’t have a woman in my life?” he asked with an oily smile. “I have several, in fact, and none of them have any intention of leaving me for some dusty old university.”
“Then maybe you need to choose a better caliber of companion,” I replied as the car pulled up in front of the palace.
“Maybe you’re right,” he murmured as I slid out of the car.
“So will you help me?” I asked as we walked up the stairs and into the palace.
He sighed. “I will help you, but you will owe me.”
I rolled my eyes. “What do you want?” I asked, prepared to do
just about anything to finally get some alone time with Frankie.
“My price is yet to be determined,” he replied with another of those slick smiles.
“Whatever,” I said, waving his comment away. My desperation had reached such levels that nothing Dorian asked of me could possibly make me say no. “Tonight,” I said. “After dinner.”
“Fine,” he sighed.
I fidgeted through dinner and barely ate anything. If Frankie noticed, she didn’t say anything. I doubt she noticed, though, because her attention was on everyone else and never once on me. She barely looked at me, let alone made eye contact, and she answered my questions with the least amount of words as possible.
If I was the type of person to get angry and blow my stack, I would be close to doing just that. But I wasn’t that person, so I wasn’t angry, if anything I was hurt and disappointed.
Was that what Clarissa meant when she said she wanted passion in a relationship? Was I too polite? Too willing to compromise? Too…nice?
Nice. The kiss of death for a man. There was a reason the cliché ‘nice guys finish last’ was a thing.
I looked across the table to where Dorian sat. He confessed to having more than one woman in his life, and I believed it. He was discreet, but he definitely had the playboy look about him. And he wasn’t nice. Dorian was as far from nice as you could get. He was arrogant and selfish and stuck-up and callous. And yet, the women seemed to love him.
Of course, I could only go by what he told me and what I heard via rumors, but servants generally knew everything that went on inside the places they worked and the one thing I had to my advantage was that people very often overlooked me, including servants. I’d been privy to many a conversation without the conversant knowing I was even present to eavesdrop.
Dorian was the very definition of an alpha-hole and it worked for him. It wasn’t fair. What did he have that I didn’t? He wasn’t any richer than I was and although he had a more obvious style than I did; I wasn’t ugly. I might need a haircut and to get a decent tailor so my suits fit better, but I got my share of admiring glances. So what was it about Dorian that made him so popular?