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)
He looks at me and nods.
In his eyes, I know he believes in me.
In his eyes, I know this is the right thing to do.
I step up to the microphone.
“My name is Aurora James, born Rory Jameson, and this is our story.”
I launch into it. Bold, brave, ready to shut the door on everything that I ever tried to bury. I brought my truth to the surface like fresh bones and I showed the world what I was hiding. I told them the whole experience, everything I told Aksel, maybe a little more.
All in all, it was a good fifteen-minute expose on my life, all the little details, all the things I never even thought were important but now know are.
It was cathartic.
It was freeing.
It was my chance to move on.
The irony is, having this public role let all this light into my life. If I had stayed in France, with the same old families, I would have never had to face anything.
I would have never started to live again.
When I’m done, there are tears running down my face, but I’m still composed. I’m sure some will say it’s all put on, but screw them. This isn’t a court appearance. I’m not pleading for them to forgive me. I’m just telling the world a very true story, all the bad and ugly bits.
I step back from the microphone and wait for Aksel to say a few words to conclude the press conference, and then we’ll head back inside, and I’ll collapse dramatically.
“Thank you so much for coming here and taking the time to listen to her,” Aksel says into the mic. “But before you all go, I have an announcement myself.”
Oh my god.
I thought we had done this already.
I didn’t think he was serious when he said we’d announce our love to the world and yet, here we are, reporters and cameras in our faces and hanging on to his every word.
“By now you all know Aurora James and her life story. But you don’t know our story.” Aksel smiles at them, then glances at me, softening before my eyes. “Aurora was hired to be the children’s nanny last year and she’s been wonderful. Truly. She’s kind and selfless and puts up with no shit, not even mine, if you can believe it.” He laughs, and the crowd laughs politely, on cue. “More than that, the girls have loved her so very much. But they aren’t the only ones to have fallen in love.”
More audible gasps. The last twenty-four hours have been just people gasping all around me.
I lick my lips, smiling shyly at him, trying to ignore everyone else. It is a little more embarrassing than romantic that he’s doing this but it’s important to him, so I guess I have to deal.
“I’m in love with Aurora and by some grace of god, she’s in love with me. We kept it private for as long as we could, and I’m sure we could have hidden it some more. But today is all about being truthful and while she shared her truth, I share mine. First, I share it with you, the public, the press, the people. And now, I share it with her.”
He reaches down and picks up my hand, cradling it between his as he pivots to face me.
“Aurora, I know I’m embarrassing you right now and I bet when you first met me, you had no idea that I would do something like this. But I like to keep you on your toes, just as you like to keep me on mine. And maybe love changes a person. I believe that. I believe that we need people in our lives and that it’s not a fault to need them. As long as that person is good, as long as that person makes you better, then it’s worth the need. We all want to be better than the person we were yesterday and there’s no more noble cause than that.”
Then he slowly, very slowly, drops to one knee.
Oh.
My.
God.
More audible gasping.
The press starts clamoring around the ropes and podium, trying to get a better view.
Of us.
Of Aksel, proposing to me.
Bloody hell, I know he mentioned it the other night, but I thought those were just fighting words.
Oh god, and I was the idiot who told him I wouldn’t have married him!
Shit. Shit. And he’s doing this now, not knowing what I’ll say?
I try to swallow, I want to cut him off and tell him YES, but I don’t want to interrupt him. I can’t get enough of his words and I think the public needs to hear them too. They need to know how he’s moving on.
“Aurora, we built our own world, you and I,” he says, gazing up at me with his haunting blue eyes. “A world where we helped each other, a world where we realized how damn good this life can be. The potential for mercy and grace, the potential to be reborn with love at your side. You, you, make me a better person. You healed the wounds. And I couldn’t have done any of it without you. I couldn’t have grown without you. I couldn’t be this king without you. Which makes me realize that I can’t continue being this king if I don’t have a queen.”