Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
“What about everyone else?”
“Everyone else? Maja? She’s my aunt and she’s your friend. I doubt your past has any role in her life or the way she thinks about you. Same goes for Stella. The people closest to me aren’t the types to be easily swayed. They’re human. They get it. They’ve all made mistakes.”
“But the people.”
“The people are the people and they can think what they want. I’ll issue a statement, we both will, and if they want to go on with it then they can. Look, the people, the press, they all ran with a million stories about me, about Helena, about my parents and about their parents. That’s the price you pay being a royal. But I’m not going to let you go and walk out of my fucking life just so they won’t say anything bad about us. Fuck it. Fuck them.”
“I’ll just feel so guilty.”
“And I feel guilty too. About so many things. I have been drowning in my guilt over Helena for the last two years and I’ve felt like I didn’t deserve love and I certainly didn’t deserve you. But you, you had a way of making me better. Your love, your kindness, your devotion helped heal me and I couldn’t have done that on my own.” I pause, studying her face, hoping I’m getting through to her. “We’re all just broken children covering our guilt with adult clothing. We make peace with our guilt or we don’t but either way, we keep moving on. The only question is, will you move on with me?”
She averts her eyes, a single tear rolling down her cheek and in that one tear I feel my heart going with it. There’s nothing in my chest but a hollow and empty space.
“Please,” I say, breath ragged, trying to breathe through the void. “Please, Aurora, move on with me. Be with me. I—I can’t do this without you.” I press my hand to her chest. “I have a home in your heart and a love that won’t stop bleeding. I need you in my life, you are my life, you are my sun that I’ve waited too many winters for.”
I watch her swallow, the pain around my chest is closing in, tighter and tighter, and I wonder if in the end, I’ll just collapse, if it’s possible to hurt this much.
She looks at me.
And in that look, I see that sun. I see her light. I see it breaking through the clouds and the darkness that almost took her away from me.
“I love you,” I tell her again, hands going to her cheeks, cradling her face as the tear rolls over my finger. “I love you. Tell me you love me. Tell me we can move on together. Tell me I’m yours, now and forever.”
She blinks and more tears spill. She wraps her hands over my forearms. “I love you,” she says. “I love you and I’m scared. I’m so scared. I don’t want to be the person that I was.”
“You aren’t.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t.”
“I don’t want the kids to be hurt.”
“They won’t be.”
“I want to deserve you.”
“You do.”
She closes her eyes and I let go of her face, pulling her into an embrace. She wraps her arms around me, holding me tight, crying into my neck.
I put my hand at the back of her head, holding her. Letting her know that her fears have no place here.
We’ll deal with the tabloids. We’ll deal with her past. We’ll deal with everything.
None of it matters so as long as I have my queen.
* * *
The flight back from St. Croix is long. Even on a private jet, I don’t like being up in the air and I especially don’t like it when I feel like my country is imploding on itself from too much gossip.
But that’s exactly what’s happening.
After Aurora’s past came out in the limelight early in the morning, several other tabloids started running with it until it was plastered all across the world. I spent the morning packing and dealing with the PR nightmare of the century, fielding calls from my staff and even the Prime Minister, telling everyone I would have a press conference at the palace tomorrow.
But since there is no wi-fi on this jet, I can’t answer people or check my emails and it’s probably for the best.
Clara and Freja are sitting in the row across from us, busy on their iPad games, while Aurora sits beside me. We’re holding hands, which doesn’t seem to invoke a reaction from the girls, but it does seem to get it from the royal attendants at the back of the plane. I saw a few raised brows as they passed our seat heading toward the lavatory but of course they wouldn’t dare say anything.
“You know what?” Aurora says as she leans in to me, her voice low. “I was thinking about all the stuff they’re saying about me…”