by Erin Hayes
Ramen feels less like a date, especially as Ferdinand noisily slurps up his noodles. Nothing takes the romance out of a lunch like slurping noodles. I chuckle and pick up a piece of pork with my chopsticks before chewing on it.
His bite of noodles disappears between his lips, and he frowns at me. “What?”
“I never thought I’d see the day where a prince is sucking up his ramen noodles like that.” I spoon some of the broth into my mouth. “It just seems so unlike Miss Ricci’s etiquette classes.”
Ferdinand watches me for a moment as I try to eat the noodles without making a slurping noise and failing miserably. He leans in across the table.
“The good news about ramen,” he says, picking up more noodles with his chopsticks, “is that you’re supposed to slurp them as you eat them.” He indicates the rest of the restaurant. “It shows that you’re enjoying it.”
“You’re making that up.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Look it up. It’s a part of the etiquette.”
Perplexed, I take out my phone and run a quick search. “Huh. You’re right.”
“See? I’m doing princely etiquette.”
I’m about to put my phone away when I scroll through my notifications. There are a few text messages from James, and I feel a twist in my stomach. It’s not like I’m cheating on him with Ferdinand. We haven’t kissed or had sex or anything like that. We haven’t really even touched each other.
But I feel uneasy, because while there hasn’t been anything physical between us, I’m clamping down on old feelings for Ferdinand. Feelings that I shouldn’t have. It’s absurd, really. That I would feel anything. We’re practically strangers by this point.
People can change a lot in fifteen years.
Or maybe they don’t change at all.
“What’s going on?” Ferdinand asks.
I quickly place my phone face down on the table. “Sorry. Work.” Liar. I give him a tight smile. “I can’t seem to escape it.”
He smirks. “I’m sure Phillip is wondering where his therapist is. I didn’t really give any of my patients a lot of notice for where their doctor is.”
“Do you like it? Therapy?”
He considers my question for a moment before sitting back in his seat, watching me with those brown eyes of his. “I do,” he admits softly. “I think I got into it to…” He swallows thickly. “Try to and help myself,” he amends. “And what I’ve found out is that I can help other people.”
I set down my chopsticks. “And what about yourself?”
He stills for a long moment before letting out a breath. “I don’t know. There’s a reason why therapists see other therapists and not themselves. Sometimes you have to have someone else guide you on your way to healing.”
“So you’re seeing another therapist then?” Shit, I know I’m digging too deeply, but it feels great to be able to talk about this with him.
“No.” He meets my eyes. “No, I’ve been trying to self-medicate and do what I know I should do. Which is why I’m here.”
“Has it helped?”
“It’s a little unconventional.” He hesitates. “I’ll let you know.”
I nod. Because I haven’t gotten help either. I’m not sure why, but being with Ferdinand here, in this time and place, I think it’s because this is a path that we were meant to travel together.
“Your friend has good taste,” he says, slurping up more noodles.
“Pardon?”
He indicates the bowl of ramen. “Good recommendation for a restaurant.”
I blink before nodding. “Yes. Yes it is. Sachiko is a great friend.”
He laughs softly. “I guess this means that we don’t have to go to another restaurant.”
I want to tell him that I do want to have dinner with him. That I’d love to try to pick things up where we left them between us. I don’t want this to be the end of our time together.
But I’m engaged.
I glance at my phone, which is still face down on the table. I don’t pick it up, but I think about James’s text messages to me. James loves me.
Surely Ferdie doesn’t still love me. Just as I keep telling myself that I don’t love him anymore.
“Then we won’t go to another restaurant,” I agree.
He looks like he wants to say something else, but then doesn’t. He takes a big bite of noodles, and I get splashed with broth as he sucks them up. I playfully glare at him. “See? Miss Ricci would be proud of my etiquette.”
And suddenly, I wish he wasn’t so bound by his etiquette. Because I feel like that’s the only thing that’s keeping myself in check.
I’m engaged to another man. And I feel like shit looking across at Ferdie and feeling something for him that I’ve never felt for James.
Am I a terrible person? I look down at my bowl before pushing it away.
“Something wrong?” Ferdinand asks. He puts his hand over mine, and I stare at it for a long moment, our hands clasped together. Like old times.
“No.” Everything’s wrong. So, so very wrong. “I’m just not hungry.”
He finishes the bite, and I can tell, based on his face that he doesn’t believe me. “All right,” he says. “Let’s get going.”
17
Ferdinand
You have to stop. She’s engaged, for fuck’s sake. You can’t keep doing this to yourself.
You can’t keep doing this to her.
But I can’t get enough of Alexandra. She’s like a drug, and I’m an addict that has finally given in. So many times, I’ve wanted to reach across that divide between us, wrap her up in my arms, and tell her that these feelings I have are as fresh and as strong as the last time we were in Japan together. I’ve been through hell and back, let down my brother, and let down myself by not being honest with the most important people in my life.
And now that I have the chance, I can’t do it. I won’t tell her. Just because I’m a wreck doesn’t mean that I need to tear down her carefully put-together life.
I shouldn’t have bought that fucking ring back at the jewelry store. It’s just that I thought that ring had been lost to time. Lex had given it to me when she broke off our engagement and disappeared across the Atlantic. I took it with me to Afghanistan, and I lost it.
Having the chance to get it again feels like I’ve found a puzzle piece. Of course Lex can’t wear it. And it won’t fit any of my fingers.
So it’s just a very expensive souvenir of one night fifteen years ago.
It’s also so unhealthy for my mental state. In my ongoing search for self-care, I’ve turned my back on myself. And if I’m not careful, I’ll drag Lex down with me.
Alexandra refuses to meet my eyes as we leave the ramen restaurant. Her gaze is cast down, and she looks distracted as we walk down the street. A group of school-aged boys walks by us, completely absorbed in their own worlds.
Were Lex and I ever that carefree? Or has there always been drama between us? For a long time, I thought we could be happy.
“Did I say something wrong?” I ask her as I jog a little bit to keep up with her.
She doesn’t speak, rather, she shakes her head and continues walking, dogged in her retreat. Of what, I’m not sure.
“Alexandra,” I say, finally catching up with her. “Lex!” I grab her arm, and she spins on me, looking at my hand on her. I drop her like she shocked me. For a moment, we don’t say anything. Finally, I speak. “Talk to me, Lex.”
She wets her lips with her tongue and crosses her arms. “There’s nothing more to say.”
“Bullshit.” The word leaves my mouth before I can stop it, and her frown deepens. I hold up my hands in a gesture of platitude. “Sorry. I just...I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“I don’t know either,” she says. “But I also don’t know what we’re doing here either, Ferdinand.”
She used my full name. The name of the prince of Dubreva, who put his country first and let her go. Not Ferdie. Not the man she loved.
She chuckles mirthlessly and throws up her hands. “We’re doing lunch. Having drinks with each other. Spending time. It’s not like we can pick up where we left off.”
I swallow thickly. “I know that.”
She gives me an incredulous look. “So what are we doing then?” she whispers brokenly.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I tell her.
Except, perhaps, I do. At least in my own case. I have been crossing that line too much. Buying engagement rings, retracing our steps. It’s too much. And perhaps she’s realizing that now, too.
Her bottom lip trembles. “It...it feels like you’re trying to...to…”
Make us fall in love again.
Am I? This all started out as us talking to each other, reconnecting and sharing in our grief. There were bound to be hard conversations between us and there were sure to be times when the past felt so close we could reach out and touch it.
But maybe this has been too far.
Am I in denial of what we’ve been doing here? Of what I’m doing?
I don’t want to hurt her. Fuck, that’s the last thing I want to do, because Lex has been hurt enough. I’m not trying to do anything bad toward her.
Maybe I can’t stay on this side of the line. Maybe I’ve been subconsciously trying to make her fall in love with me.
“Lex…” I whisper, reaching out to her. Big mistake, and I let my hand fall before she even has a chance to recoil. Shit. We are really too far gone. I gulp back the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry,” I tell her honestly. “This wasn’t my intent. At all,” I promise her.
She meets my eyes. She looks like she wants to say something else, then thinks otherwise of it. Her lips press together in a thin line, and then she closes her eyes and sighs. “I know,” she whispers. “I know it wasn’t.”
We stand a meter apart as I look at her. Shit, I wish we could take this back. Do things correctly, so she won’t get spooked again. Yet, is there a way that doesn’t end in me breaking her heart? We’re so tightly coiled around each other, I don’t know if that is even a possibility.
“Lex,” I whisper.
She appears to steel herself as she takes in a shuddering breath. “I don’t think this a good idea, Ferdinand.”
“What isn’t?” Although, this too, I already know.
She meets my eyes. “I think we need to go our separate ways. For good.”
I go back to my room at the Ritz-Carlton, feeling off-kilter, like I’m drunk, even though I haven’t had a single sip of alcohol. Numbness spreads throughout my body as I open the door and slam it closed behind me.
The world around me looks watery, and I blink rapidly to get the tears out of my eyes. Fucking hell. A prince crying. With my thumb and forefinger, I rub at my eyes and wipe away the tears.
When did it all go wrong?
After Lex told me that she wanted to stop seeing me, I ordered a limo to take her back to the Shangri-La. I was hoping to use the privacy of the drive to talk, rather than ride the subways. But she wasn’t speaking. She was listless the entire ride over to the hotel, refusing to look at me.
And when we pulled up at the front of the hotel, she got out rather than wait for me to come around to open the door like a gentleman. The valets tried to approach her to help, but she strode past them.
I realized then that I was going to lose her forever.
“Lex!” I called out to her just as the ushers opened the front doors for her. She froze in place, her back to me. It was the first time I tried speaking to her since we got into the limo. She turned back to me, and I could see the emotions warring across her face. I cleared my throat, because when I spoke next, I wanted her to hear it. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. For everything.”
She hesitated before giving a slow nod. “I’m sorry, too. Another time, another place. Different circumstances. Maybe we could have been something special.”
We were something special.
And, since it was the last time I was ever going to speak to her, the words bubbled out of my throat. “I love you.”
Still.
After fifteen years.
I still love her.
Her gaze turned into fury as she stormed over to me and got right up in my face. “You don’t get to do that, Ferdinand,” she said through gritted teeth. “You don’t get to drop that on me. Not when I’m trying to hold the pieces of my life together. It’s been so damn long, you have no idea who I am now. What I’m doing. You can’t manipulate me like that. You can’t love me.”
I wasn’t trying to manipulate her. I was trying to be honest with her, to tell her that I’ve been an emotional wreck since she left me.
But she glared at me one last time, turned on her heel, and went through the front doors of the Shangri-La. I could have followed her. Perhaps I should have.
But her words rooted me to my spot. I didn’t want to manipulate her.
I don’t know what the fuck I want.
Now, standing here in my hotel suite, I feel lost. Like a fool.
I pass a hand over my face, feeling sick to my stomach. I didn’t mean to hurt her.
What the fuck do I do now?
Drink. That’s what I should do.
I practically fall upon the wet bar, and with shaking hands, I pour myself a whiskey and bring it to my lips. It burns its way down my throat, and it’s the only thing my numbed mind has felt for the past forty-five minutes.
I’ve lost her.
For good.
And I don’t think any amount of self-help is going to get me through this.
18
Alexandra
“You seem to be doing well at school,” Father says as we sit at opposite sides of the table, eating the spread of dinner that’s been prepared for us.
While the food is good, my etiquette training wars with the need to get rid of the broccoli that is stuck in my braces. I’m going through that awkward phase where I’ve just turned fourteen, and I’m getting used to my contacts and my braces will come off in six months.
I just have to make it until then. Like a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis. Or so I tell myself.
“Yes,” I say softly as I move a meatball around the plate with my fork.
“Have you made some friends?”
I nod. “I’ve been trying to get along with everyone at school.”
Including the princes.
I try to keep the blush from my cheeks at the thought of the Dubrevian princes. Sure, Eric and Henry are jerks—even at nine and ten years old—and make my life terrible at the private school that we started at two years ago—they forced Miss Ricci into an early retirement due to their pranks. I actually grew to like the tutor once I adjusted to living in a different country. Eric and Henry, however, do their own thing at school. Meanwhile, Phillip is all right. He keeps mostly to himself as the rest of the girls fawn all over him. Probably because they want to be queen. Little do they know that Phillip wants that like he wanted braces.
And then there’s Ferdinand and the huge crush that I have on him
Maybe I like the tall, dark, and handsome types. Because Ferdie is tall, dark, and handsome. And broody. I can’t quite explain it. Except, I do like him.
A lot.
Too bad he doesn’t talk to me.
I'll take you wherever in the world you want to go.
He said that to me five years ago. What a load of shit that was. Since then, he’s been distant. Like, he still talks to me. Knows me. But it was an empty promise that he made me.
Granted, I am getting along better in Dubreva, especially since we started at this school. I’ve made friends beyond the quad of princes, other children of diplomats, wrapped up in their parents’ politics. I’ve made friends and got away from the shadow of being “that girl who hangs out with the royal family.”
I’ve seen the tabloids. They accuse my father of using me to get in with the royal family, which is totally not what’s happen
ing at all. And it really, really sucks.
But then again, there is my crush on Ferdinand. And I’d like to think that I would still like him even if he weren’t a prince. At least I think so. Everything has been so messed up lately.
I have math homework due tomorrow that I haven’t even started yet—lacrosse practice went late after school today—but I don’t want to rush my time with my father. It’s a rare occasion that I can sit down and talk to my father during dinner like this. Ever since he made international headlines as a humanitarian, he's been gone from Dubreva more than he's been here.
To be honest, I could possibly ask him to move back to Stockholm to be closer to my extended family.
Yet, for all my kicking and screaming, Dubreva has become something like home for me.
Not because of my crush on Ferdinand. But because I can feel in my bones that Dubreva is my future.
"I've been worried about you for a while," Father says thoughtfully as he chews on his food.
I set down my fork. "Why is that?"
"You had a really rough time when we first moved here." Father chuckles lightly. "In fact, that's a large reason why I wanted you to stop being tutored by that woman, What's-Her-Name..."
"Miss Ricci," I correct him.
He nods. "Miss Ricci. I figured that you should go to school to have more interaction with children other than those princes."
"But Phillip and Eric and the others came to school with me," I say after a beat, confused that they would start at a school when it was my father's decision to move me.
Father nodded. "The princes' mothers agreed as well. Being in a community setting will be better for all of you."
I think to my school, Dubreva Prep. My class is a couple hundred students, all dressed in fancy wool uniforms and most come from money. They're not indicative of most of the world, and I remind myself that every day.
Father deals with the impoverished of the world—he knows that my classmates aren't a normal set of students either.
Still.
I sit back. "Thank you," I say.