by Amelia Wilde
Maybe he’s right.
Something has to change, and that something should be me. He can’t change what’s expected of him, so it’s up to me.
“Maybe it would be best if you went back to New York for a while,” I tell myself.
Yes. I’ll go back to New York.
Once I’ve made the decision, my body swiftly moves into action.
The motions seem familiar, somehow comforting. I’ve uprooted and changed my circumstances enough times over the years that I know the process as well as I know how to navigate my own room in the dark.
The first thing for me to do is pack.
I don’t have much to take back with me because, aside from my wallet and a few personal belongings, Alec bought for me when we arrived in Saintland. After a brief search through the closets and drawers—it’s hard to know where everything is when you have a staff not allowing you to lift a finger—I pull out a small duffel bag from the bottom drawer of an antique wardrobe. I stuff in a couple of pairs of panties, a plain t-shirt, and the yoga pants I wore on the flight here. I toss in the book I’ve been reading—they won’t miss it—my phone charger, and a pair of low-heeled, casual shoes. Another shirt. My hairbrush, toothbrush, and a small tube of toothpaste…I throw in a few other essentials and then zip the bag closed.
I decide to take a quick shower—it takes me under three minutes—and then pin my hair up into a bun on top of my head.
I pull out a pair of comfortable, somewhat dressy grey pants from the dresser, a silky light blue camisole top, and a navy blue exercise hoodie I haven’t had the chance to wear yet. I stuff the hoodie into the bag. It’s summer in Saintland, but I may need it on the plane.
I grab my passport, shove it into the side pocket of the duffel bag, and take one final look around the rooms, committing to memory the way the sun beams in around the curtains, the angles to the dark cherry finish of the headboard.
Then, I’m ready.
My heart feels numb.
I need to get out of here before a chink appears in the armor of pain and numbness that’s drowning me and I cave to the love hidden beneath it all and go after Alec.
I open the door to my rooms and step out into the hallway, duffel bag in hand, only to run straight into Claire.
“Oh!” she says, stumbling back.
“I’m sorry, Claire,” I say, stepping to the side before continuing down the hall.
“Jessica? Where are you going?” she asks, a surprised look on her face when she notices the duffel bag.
“I’m leaving.”
“To go where?” She hurries after me.
“Home.”
“What?”
“Alec—Prince Alexander and I—.” When I say his name, my throat restricts painfully. “We’re not going to be continuing our relationship. I have to go. I have to get back to New York.” I try to keep my voice level, but it dips and wavers.
“Jessica, wait,” Claire says, a note of panic in her voice. She reaches out and catches me by the arm. “Wait. You can’t just leave.”
“I can, and I’m going to. You can’t stop me, Claire. I’m going to the airport.” In spite of myself, my eyes are filling with tears. How goddamn embarrassing.
Claire runs her hand up and down my arm in long comforting strokes. “I understand,” she says slowly. “But listen to me, Jessica. You want a flight back to New York, right?”
“Yes.”
“You could be waiting there for hours, maybe even until tomorrow, and there will be reporters…let me make the flight arrangements for you.”
“You don’t have to do this, Claire. Any minute, I’m sure the prince will call and say your time with me is over.”
Her eyes are filled with determination. “Let me help you.”
“Okay.” I’m too tired and drained to argue.
“Come back to your rooms.”
“They’re not my rooms anymore.”
“They’re still your rooms. When did the two of you make this…decision?”
Claire puts gentle pressure on my arm, guiding me back to the doors of the queen’s rooms.
“An hour ago?”
“All right. Wait here,” she says, steering me to the table next to the window seat. “Sit here while I have breakfast sent up.”
“Okay,” I say, as she takes the duffel bag from my hand and sets it gently on the floor by the table.
“I’ll be back soon,” she says kindly.
Claire flits from the room, her face already buried in her tablet, leaving me alone again, my heartbeat pounding in my ears, the ragged sound echoing the agony that courses through my body.
I have to leave here, but first…
I have to wait.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Alec
You think you’ve changed, and then your old habits come rushing back to the fucking surface.
After Marcus died—Jesus, has it only been two weeks?—I fucking swore to myself that I was done with my raging anger, my bitter resentment, and these knee-jerk reactions that never get me anywhere.
With the exception of that one time.
There was only one time when anything positive resulted from expressing my anger, when I became so sick of the bullshit I was constantly facing at the hands of Marcus and my father, and that was when I escaped to New York.
Because I met Jessica.
And now, for her own goddamn good, I’ve destroyed all of it by telling her to leave.
I half expect her to come running after me.
To fight with me.
To fight for me.
To fight for us.
Even if it means she has to take drastic actions. Jessica has a fiery spirit. If she thought it was necessary, she’d go so far as to slap me across the face. I’m sure of it.
But she doesn’t come running after me.
Instead, I thunder through the third level of the palace, snapping at anyone who crosses my path. Phillip is only one of the many people who finds himself in that unfortunate position.
“Your highness,” he says to me when I burst into my rooms, half-dressed from last night and filled with fury at myself for what I’ve just done.
“Not now, Phillip,” I bellow, heading for the bathroom.
“But you have a meeting with—.”
“I said not now. Goddamn it, if you want to keep your job, you’ll find somewhere else to be until I tell you otherwise.”
By the time the last words escape my mouth, my voice has reached a ragged roar, and Phillip’s eyes are huge and round in alarm. He opens his mouth, thinks better of whatever he was going to say and closes it, before bobbing his head and making a dash for the door.
In the shower, the almost intolerable heat of the water does nothing to soothe me. It only further stokes the fire of my rage and heightens the shame of my sadness. I turn the water to cold and let it pummel me. I’m shivering almost instantly, but force myself to stand under the deluge.
The cold blast against my skin reminds me of a fishing trip I took with my father and Marcus years ago, before he was crowned king, before we moved into Sainthall Palace, and maybe even before my mother died.
We had just dropped anchor, far from shore, when my attention wandered just long enough that I failed to notice a rolling wave coming our way. I lost my balance when the wave hit our boat, and I plunged into the frigid water, the cold driving the air from my lungs. I’d already taken off the life jacket my father had insisted that both of us wear while we were underway. The water instantly soaked my clothes, their weight dragging me down.
It all happened so fast and I was only underwater for a few moments at most because Marcus, always the stronger swimmer, jumped in after me. How old could he have been? Eleven, maybe twelve? Yet he shoved my father out of the way and was in the lake coming to my rescue before my father had time to react.
Marcus hauled me to the surface as he fought against the rough surface of his own life jacket—he was still wearing his; leave it to Marcu
s to follow the rules long after their parameters had expired—and together the two of them dragged me back over the side of the boat to safety.
Within a few minutes, we were all laughing at the fact that I’d managed to go over the edge with barely any encouragement.
My father, a wide smile dancing on his face, clapped Marcus on the shoulder. “You’re going to be just fine, aren’t you, son?” he said, another guffaw rising up from his broad chest. “You never have to think—you just know the right thing to do.”
Marcus beamed with pride as I shivered under the scratchy blanket my father had pulled out from the boat’s storage compartment to wrap me in.
“Fuck,” I say out loud, my body shuddering from the chill of the shower. “Fuck.”
When Jessica’s face drifts into my mind, her eyes filled with tears because of my asshole decisions—never mind that they’re for her own good—I turn off the water with a shout of anger and disappointment.
Dried off and back in my rooms with a towel still wrapped around my waist, I slam my way through my dresser drawers, pulling out the first clothes I see. I quickly get dressed, stopping long enough to send Nate a message. I know he’s been antsy lately—now that I’m stuck inside the goddamn palace from dawn until dusk attending these endless meetings, there’s not much need for him to be driving me anywhere.
But I need to get out of here right now.
“Ready in two,” he writes back, and as soon as I read his response, I shove the phone in my pocket and leave the room.
My jaw is clenched tight as I make my way to the private entrance. People hurry out of my way as I stalk down the palace corridors. At one point, I see Phillip standing at the end of a hallway, but when he catches sight of me, he disappears around the corner, whispering quickly out of the corner of his mouth to the member of the staff with whom he was conferring.
Outside, Nate is waiting. I open the door of the town car and slide into the back seat without a word. I catch a glimpse of his eyes in the rearview mirror, noticing the furrows denting his forehead. To his credit, he doesn’t say a word about my disheveled hair, my hastily chosen outfit, or the fact that we are not scheduled to be going anywhere. He just says, “Where to?”
“Just drive, Nate. Just go.”
He nods curtly and steers the car away from the Palace. As the Palace gets smaller out the back window of the car the farther we drive, another wave of sharp, aching grief slams into me like a tidal wave. I slam a fist against the car door, then bury my face in my hands, a painful lump catching in my throat.
What have I done?
What am I going to do?
It’s more fucking clear to me now than it’s ever been. I’m no Marcus. I don’t automatically know the right thing to do.
Go back to the Palace and apologize to Jessica.
The thought keeps echoing in my mind, and it’s coupled with what feels like continual stabs of guilt into my heart like a knife. I need to get my fucking head on straight before I do anything else.
Before I ruin anything else.
Although I’m pretty sure I’ve already ruined the most important thing in the world to me.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jessica
The minutes crawl by while I wait for Claire to return, every moment expanding into what seems like an hour.
The breakfast tray arrives after twenty minutes. I don’t feel like eating. I feel sick to my stomach over what happened and what’s likely going to happen, but I need to do something to stifle my urgent need to get out of here. I need to leave the palace, just get away, I need to go, go, go. So I force myself to eat what I can on the tray, taking small bites, eating deliberately.
I try to enjoy it.
Even what’s considered a simple breakfast at Sainthall Palace is of superior quality and presented magnificently. You think you know all there is to know about English muffins, for example—I mean an English muffin is an English muffin, right? —and then you find out that there’s a “royal” version that makes any English muffin you’ve ever tasted before taste like cardboard toast.
I know the food served here is excellent, unbelievably good, but it’s just tasteless and bland to me right now.
When I’ve finally eaten about half the food on the tray, I push it away from me and stare out the window.
I have no desire to flick through social media profiles on my phone like I usually do in the morning. The book I’ve been reading in the evenings while I wait for Alec has no appeal to me either. I’m hollow and numb.
It’s not that I want to dwell on the fight Alec and I had, the way he turned and stomped out of the room without looking back, the horrible, and aching pain that is crushing me beneath its veneer of numbness. It’s just that I can’t force myself to do anything else.
Alec was the one.
It sounds fucking stupid, doesn’t it? But he was.
I squeeze my eyes shut to keep from crying.
I wish none of this had happened—coming to Saintland, meeting Alec, deciding to open that damned dating app in the first place.
If none of this had happened, I’d still be in New York with my friends and my job and my independence, and not sitting here in Saintland waiting for Claire to book an escape route for me that won’t cause an embarrassing ruckus for the royal family.
I wonder if she can pull it off.
I’m still staring out the window, lost in thought, when she returns some time later—it may have been minutes or hours, I’m not sure.
“Jessica,” she says, startling me from my thoughts. “I have a plane ticket and a plan.”
The plan involves getting me to the airport using something other than a vehicle from the royal fleet. It involves me leaving via the palace’s private back exit and meeting a taxi three blocks away.
She hands me an envelope containing my airplane ticket and a pair of dark sunglasses. She puts her hand on top of mine and looks me straight in the eye. “Do you need anything else? Truly, Jessica, is there anything else I can do for you?”
I’m going to miss Claire. She’s the only friend I have in Saintland, and how she has helped me so selflessly today has proven this is more than just a job for her.
I shake my head. “No. You’ve done so much.” Her kindness is making me a little choked up.
She gives my hand a brisk pat and stands up from where she’s been sitting beside me. “Let’s be on our way, then. The flight leaves in an hour and a half. It’s a small airport, so you should still have plenty of time for customs.”
Claire accompanies me to the back entrance, then surprises me by giving me a quick hug. “Three blocks that way,” she says, pointing in the correct direction, and I nod in understanding.
“It’s been really nice knowing you, Claire,” I say as I slip on the sunglasses. “And thank you…for everything.”
A small smile flashes across her face. “You know where to find me if you ever want to chat,” she answers, a hitch catching in her usual perky voice, and then she quickly disappears back into the palace.
I probably won’t see her—or Saintland, for that matter—ever again.
My heart heavy, I set off at a brisk pace in the direction Claire pointed.
As I near the end of the second block, my heart starts to race.
Not one but two photographers are heading in my direction down the block on the other side of the street. They look like they’re heading toward the palace to cover some event or another, but I know photographers—they’ll stop if they recognize me.
I adjust my dark glasses and keep my gaze looking forward. I don’t want to appear to be in hurry either and possibly attract their attention.
Still moving forward, I steal another glance in their direction. The taxi is only half a block away. My heart is pounding and it’s not fucking easy to keep my pace purposeful and not rushed. “You’re just an everyday citizen walking down the street in Saintland,” I think to myself. “There’s no need for them to notice you.”
&
nbsp; I’m only ten feet away from the taxi when one of them stops in their tracks across the street, staring in my direction.
The photographer he’s walking with comes to a halt beside him. I notice the one saying something to his colleague and he points discreetly in my direction. My instinct is to stop, to freeze, but I keep moving toward the taxi, my heart pounding so hard against my rib cage that I’m worried it might burst out of my chest.
There. I’m fucking there. My hand closes around the door handle to the taxi as prickles of sweat bead on the back of my neck. I open the door and slide into the back seat, struggling to catch my breath.
I just want this to be an uneventful escape.
I don’t want another goddamn media frenzy about me and Alec.
The gossip sites, after all, exploit their stories internationally, and I really don’t want anything more to do with this whole thing once I’m back in New York.
Safe in the taxi, I whip my head around to look out at the photographers, my eyes locked in panic on their faces.
“Miss?” says the driver.
“What?” I say, my voice sharp. I cut my eyes toward him and see that he’s looking at me cautiously. I probably seem like a crazy lady.
Maybe I am.
I smile at him and take in a deep breath.
“Where to?”
“I’m sorry,” I answer, trying my best to cover up the awkwardness that’s fallen over the car.
“Airport, please. I have a flight to catch.”
“We’re on our way.”
He returns his attention to driving, and shifting the car into gear, he signals to pull out from his parking spot.
As he pulls away from the curb, I look back one more time at the photographers, dreading what I might see. If they have their cameras…
But they don’t. The one who was staring at me from across the street is now rifling through his bag, a worried look on his face. The other man comes around to his side and peers into the bag, too. They’re clearly missing a piece of equipment or experiencing some other difficulty.