by London James
“So, tell me,” I say as we sway in the center of the dance floor. “Why would a vacation house need a ballroom? I thought the whole point of taking a vacation would be to get away from things like this.”
Owen turns me and brings me in even closer. His head shakes back and forth slowly.
“The royal family doesn't get a real vacation,” he says like he's letting me in on a deep secret. “Coming here is just a chance to get away from Calidonia and the responsibilities there. But in many ways, it's just another opportunity to entertain important guests and throw parties.”
“You make it sound like your parents don't like anyone,” I tell him.
“Oh, it's not that.” He swings me out to the side, so he holds me at arm's length for a moment, then flicks his wrist to spin me back into him. “I'm sure a lot of them are genuinely friends of theirs. I know your grandparents were. Just, not all of them. We don't know if they can tell the difference sometimes. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of living up to expectations and fulfilling duties when the eyes of an entire country are on you. A lot of relationships form because of those expectations.”
“So not always the royals of the future?” I tease.
“I suppose there are just some traditions that are hard to break,” he says.
I tilt my head to the side and smile at him. “Your accent is stronger here,” I say. “It was barely noticeable in Vidalia Isle, but I can hear it better here.”
Owen nods.
“Force of habit,” he says. “I get here or home and a switch flips in my mind. Does it bother you?”
I shake my head. “Not at all.”
“Good.”
I don't know how long we've danced before Owen turns off the music and leads me back upstairs. He stops outside the huge doors and kisses my hand again.
“Are you leaving?” I ask.
“Just going down the hall,” he says. “To the guest room.”
“You sleep in your room,” I tell him. “I'll take the guest room.”
“No,” he says. “I want you in here.”
He takes both my hands in his and dips his head to brush a soft kiss across my lips.
"Goodnight," I murmur.
"Goodnight," he says.
I'm still floating the next morning when I wake up to a tray sitting on the nightstand. Breakfast looks so perfect it could have been crafted out of resin, but the sparkling cut-crystal vase in the corner of the tray is empty. I contemplate it as I eat my way through a stack of pancakes drizzled with warm syrup and fresh fruit. Two pieces of expertly crisped bacon are gone and being nibbled through my teeth when I notice the folded white note tucked under the edge of the plate.
Jeans and closed shoes.
Meet me outside.
-O
I smile for literally no reason. The note is short, terse, and could have been written to anyone on the planet, and yet here I sit in my polka-dot nightgown, munching bacon, grinning like he wrote me a sonnet. I finish eating and rush to the bathroom to take a shower. Usually I'd just toss my hair up into a ponytail or squiggle it around into a bun, but the allure of an elite-brand hair dryer is too much to resist. I discovered it in my search for towels and brought it with me into the bathroom.
Now I can't in good conscience just leave it unused. The blast dries my hair in a fraction of the time of my old model at home, and the instant I flip it back and see it bounce on my shoulders like a shampoo commercial, I'm ruined for other hair dryers for life.
The jeans and white t-shirt I pull on are a decided downgrade from the gown last night, and I slip on the blue sweater Owen bought me. It's still jeans and a sweater, but the shade brings out something in my eyes I didn't expect, and I wonder if it's the color, or just knowing he had chosen it for me.
I expect Owen to be waiting for me right outside the front door of the palace, but I don't see him. Swinging the empty bud vase between my fingers, I roam along the walkway that leads along the building. Halfway around, I find Miles.
"Good morning, Miles," I say.
He stands up from where he appeared to be clipping the grass along the side of the walkway.
"Good morning, Miss Carlisle," he says, folding the tiny scissors into his fingers to conceal them.
"Avery," I tell him. "I don't think you need to be that detailed. Owen really means it when he says he wants you to relax."
He gives me a hint of a smile. "Thank you, Miss... Avery." He tucks the scissors into his pocket.
"Do you know where he is?” I ask. “I haven't seen him this morning."
"The last I saw of him was when he left for his walk after breakfast," Miles tells me.
"Walk?" I ask. "Owen takes walks?"
"Every morning," he confirms. "Has since he was old enough to toddle out on his own."
"You mean since he was old enough to duck his nanny and run," I say.
Miles straightens, and I know he's not going to give an answer that would suggest Owen did anything wrong, but his smile is knowing.
"Have a nice day, Avery," he says.
I smile at him. "You, too, Miles."
The walkway guides me around the front section of the palace and through a breezeway to the back. Owen waits for me just beyond.
"Good morning," he says.
I hold up the bud vase.
"I found this on my breakfast tray," I tell him. "It's empty."
"I know," he says.
"Do you frequently leave girls empty flower vases on their breakfast trays?" I ask.
"No," he tells me.
"So, you leave flowers on other girls trays, and I just get the vase?" I tease.
He steps up close to me and puts his hands on my hips, guiding me forward a step. "There are no flowers. No vases. No breakfast trays," he tells me. I wiggle the vase back and forth again, and he smiles. "Come with me."
He leads me across the grounds and onto another walkway that flows along a slightly rolling lawn until we reach high, thick hedges. They look like solid green walls with a narrow passage for us to walk through. I step through and turn a sharp corner that brings me into the midst of a world of color.
"I want you to choose your own," Owen says.
Roses bloom all around me, the bright, brilliant labyrinth hidden from view by the tall hedges, making it even more spectacular.
"I've never seen so many roses in September," I tell him.
"These varieties bloom three seasons of the year," he says. "They take little rests in between, but they'll keep getting blooms until the frost comes." He sees me looking at him and smiles. "One thing my mother and I did together a lot when I was younger was visit all her roses. She taught me their names, and I used to sit with her while she made arrangements for the house."
"They have names?" I ask.
He nods. Taking my hand, he gently rests it on the velvety petals of a delicately pink bloom close to us.
"This is the Lady of the Lake," he says. We move a step, and he guides my fingers along a brighter pink curve. "This is the Mayflower. And this," our touch grazes across sunny yellow petals, "the Poet's Wife."
We move along the labyrinth, lost in the roses. When we've wound our way back to the entrance, I touch the first rose again and shake my head.
"I can't pick any of them," I tell him. "They're too beautiful to disturb."
He takes out his phone.
"Then I'll take a picture of them for you." He snaps a shot of the perfect bloom and then reaches for my hand. "I have another surprise for you," he says.
Chapter Nineteen
Avery
I let Owen take the vase from my hand and gently place it on the walkway before leading me further into the grounds. Finally, he gestures in front of us, and I know why his note asked me to wear jeans.
"You said you didn't have ponies," I accuse, hurrying to the fence so I can stroke the glistening chestnut coat of the gorgeous animal standing there.
"I didn't," he says. "And I still don't. These are horses. Different animals."
"What's the difference?" I ask.
"Horses are bigger."
I scoff. "You are extremely precise.”
"Well," he asks. "What would you have thought of me if I had told you I grew up with a stable of ten horses?"
"Exactly the same thing I've thought of you since I realized who you are."
"That I'm spoiled?" he asks.
I continue running my hand along the horse, marveling at its strength and beauty. "Yes," I tell him. "But I'm getting used to it."
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him grin and reach for the latch on the gate.
"Do you want to ride him?" Owen asks.
"I can?"
"Of course. That's why I brought you out here. Besides, he's taking to you, and that's saying a lot. This is Zephyr. He's strong, but he's stubborn, defiant, and really likes getting what he wants, when he wants it."
My eyes slide over to him. "I wonder where he learned that," I say, then rest my face against the horse's cheek. "We know, don't we Zephyr?"
We walk into the corral, and I notice two other horses.
"That one is Maelstrom," Owen says, nodding toward a huge, black animal. "And the little pale one is Coffee."
"Coffee?" I ask.
He nods as he fits Zephyr with his saddle. "Because she looks like cream and is as sweet as sugar."
My knees get weak, and my belly tightens. I never would have thought the explanation behind a horse's name could wake my body up and heighten cravings he had already stirred up.
"Are you riding Maelstrom?" I ask.
He shakes his head. "Absolutely not. Coffee all the way. If you're taking Zephyr, at least one of us needs to have some level of cooperation," he tells me.
"That's encouraging."
"You'll do fine."
A few minutes later, we are both astride our horses and heading toward the mouth of a trail leading into the woods at the edge of the grounds. Owen watches Zephyr, but the exquisite chestnut horse doesn't give me a second of trouble as we move along the path.
"It's such a shame you only got to enjoy this place in the summer when you were younger," I say. "I mean, I'm sure your regular old palace is nice and all." Owen laughs. "But this island is…"
"Magic," he says.
"Yes."
We ride along slowly, the horses ambling at a pace that allows them to nibble the patches of grass along the path and occasionally nip the heads off wildflowers who haven't figured out it's fall. They bring us through a narrow brook and wade across it. The sound of the water trickling by is so peaceful I want to stop in the middle and listen to it, but Zephyr is having none of it. He has his eyes on a meadow in the distance.
"Thank you for bringing me here," I say as we climb up the other bank. "It's exactly what I needed."
"You're welcome. It seemed like things were really getting to you. I thought this would give you a chance to get away from it and not have to think about it so much," he says.
I let out a long breath. It doesn't feel so much like a sigh as letting out a breath that the tension has kept trapped deep in my lungs for the last few days.
"It really was getting to me," I confirm. "There's been a lot kind of coming at me from different angles recently, and I guess Mr. Mercer dropping dead was just the cherry on top."
"What's been going on?" he asks.
I wish this wasn't the direction the conversation was going. Complaining about life away from the magic bubble of the summer island doesn't exactly add to the romance. But he's looking at me expectantly, and there's nowhere to go from here since I'm the one who brought it up.
"We don't really need to get into all that," I tell him.
"Tell me," he says.
"My ex, Chad, has been aggravating me for months."
"Well, his name is Chad. That should have been your first clue."
I laugh and nod. "That's probably true."
"What has he been doing?" Owen asks.
"Nothing serious or anything. Just lots of calls and texts and random visits. He hates that we're not a couple or that he doesn't get to have the grand romantic gesture to get us back together. Of course, he hasn't really tried anything grand or romantic."
"Would that change anything?"
The tightness in Owen's voice makes my heart flutter.
"No," I tell him matter-of-factly. "No amount of boomboxes held over his head, sitting on dining room tables, or public musical numbers would make me ever want anything to do with him again." He looks at me strangely, and I shrug. "I like 80s movies," I explain.
"Makes sense. Was it a really bad breakup?" he asks.
"No. That's the thing. There wasn't even really enough of a relationship to have a bad breakup; if that makes sense. He and I started dating when we were teenagers. We'd only see each other during the summer when I came to Vidalia Isle, so most of the time it was long distance.
"That kept it at that place where it was still exciting to go see him, and we missed each other. As time went by, I realized I wasn't falling any further for him and that the relationship was just at a standstill. It was an accessory in my life. It didn't matter so much to me that it was there, and it definitely didn't matter if it wasn't."
"How did you two stay together for so long then?" he asks.
"Chad went to college. That wasn't for me. I stayed home and worked for a while, but then my grandparents needed me, so I came to Vidalia Isle. He and I always had the big talks about how glorious our life together would be if we were just in the same town together, but he had graduate school. And then law school. We would take breaks and see other people, but we always managed to float back together because it was just…"
"Expected of you?"
I nod. "Yeah. When he finally graduated, I told myself things would straighten out. This was what we needed. It would just take being together in the same space for a while, and we would get into the rhythm of being together. It only took a few weeks of living here for me to realize that was not the case. Being apart was the only thing that actually kept us together."
I laugh. "I felt nothing when I broke up with him, even though he tried as hard as he could to guilt me into staying with him. He even had his mother come talk to me and show me pictures of the wedding plans she had made."
"Wedding plans?" he asks.
"Apparently she started planning our wedding within a few months of us dating and had been piecing it together since. The wedding dress she had picked out for me and the horrible bouquets she had designed were supposed to win me over," I tell him.
"Was she planning your wedding, or her own?" he asks.
"Good question. But anyway, he's been continuing his campaign to get me back, and it's progressively getting more... determined. Then there's the bed-and-breakfast."
"What about the bed-and-breakfast?"
"Hometown Bed And Breakfast meant everything to my grandparents, and they always talked about me taking it over when I grew up, but I never caught that enthusiasm. I know it just sounds like I'm complaining and being unbelievably ungrateful. I mean, they ensured I have a place to live and a steady business without having to go through the hard part of building it. But it wasn't ever my dream to be an innkeeper. I love the place, and there are times when it's amazing. It just feels like there's got to be more out there."
"Like caramel apples?" Owen asks.
"It sounds funny, but, yes. Don't ask me why, I have no idea, but having my own little caramel apple business just makes me happy. I want to grow it and turn it into something amazing."
"That doesn't sound funny," he says. "You have a business already, and that's great, but there's nothing wrong with wanting something of your own. I can understand that."
I give a short laugh. "Right, because running a bed-and-breakfast on a tiny island while moonlighting making caramel apples has so much in common with being a prince."
"It does. People fawn on me and do what I say just because of who I am, because of who my parents are. Being a prince means
life has been handed to me and, like you so delicately pointed out, I haven't had to work hard to accomplish my position. But it also means I belong to other people.
They get a say in everything I do or don't do and try to have a say in what I think and feel. I'm obligated to them and to my duties, so I fulfill them, but there are times when the need for something that is just me is so strong it makes me feel seconds away from exploding," he says. "That's why I've been in Vidalia Isle for so long."
We walk out into the meadow and pull the horses to a stop. "A week?" I ask.
Owen nods as he swings off the saddle and walks around to the side of my horse. "The plan was only to stay for a couple of nights, just for a breather. I wanted to not be a prince for a little bit and just relax."
"What happened?" I ask.
He takes my hand, and I secure one foot in the stirrup, so I can swing the other leg over. His hands grasp my hips firmly, and he lifts me away from the horse and into his arms.
"You," he says.
"Me?" I ask as I slide down his body and land on my feet.
My hands come to rest on his chest, but my eyes don't leave his.
"I didn't want to have to act like Prince Amadeus and worry about what people thought of me, but that didn't change the way I saw things. I still wanted the perks. But you didn't care. You didn't know who I was and didn't treat me like you did. Even when you found out, it didn't change anything. You weren't about to take my shit."
We laugh, and he pulls me a little closer. "And I can't get enough of you for it. Leaving Vidalia Isle would have meant walking away from you, and I wasn't willing to do that again."
"Again?" I ask.
"You don't think I missed you when we were kids?" he asks.
I shake my head. "It didn't seem like it would have mattered to you."
"We were too young for me to really know why, but that week I got to spend with you stuck with me. Every day I got in trouble for sneaking away from my nanny to be with you, and I didn't care. I didn't know I wouldn't see you again."
"Why didn't you ever get in touch with me?" I ask.
"I don't know," he says. "I guess the same reasons you never got in touch with me."