The Princess Pose (The Modern Royals Series Book 2)

by Aven Ellis

  The dinner lasts for an hour-and-a-half, the time crawling by, and with each course, my anxiety increases over what Roman is thinking. I wonder how he is handling the rude and degrading comments that my grandmother and India are no doubt saying to him.

  Finally, Arthur finishes his dessert, and the staff immediately begin sweeping plates away. While we’ve been dining, more desserts and tea have been set up in the Picture Gallery, and guests begin making their way out. I leap up, wanting to get to Roman as soon as I can, but once I’m out of my chair, I’m stunned at the sight before me.

  It’s my father.

  I watch Arthur greet him. They talk, with their blond heads bent together in a sibling confidence. I turn around in time to see Roman walking quickly past me, straight out of the State Dining Room.

  Wait, what is he doing? Is he going to leave me here?

  “Roman,” I call out.

  He stops, and the expression on his face sends me into a fully-fledged panic. The face I know every trace of, the face that is so expressive when he tells me he loves me, is one of agony. My throat swells. My heart begins hammering.

  He’s already had enough of this.

  He comes over to me. “I need to get some air. I… I’ll be back, all right?”

  “I’ll go with you,” I say.

  “No, give me a few minutes alone. Please.”

  Roman quickly moves out of the room before I can argue with him.

  I begin to shake. I’m not worth this. No man should suffer the abuse he has simply by choosing to love me. He’s dealt with the press and social media, and that was bad enough, but now this? My own family treating him like rubbish?

  I glance at my father, who is now talking to Bella, Christian, and Clementine, but my brain is too worried about Roman to wonder what they are discussing. Does he want to be alone so he can figure out how to break up with me? Is that why he tried to slip past me unnoticed?

  No. I need to follow him. I need to talk to him.

  “Liz!” I hear my father call out.

  No, no, not now! But there’s no escape.

  I make my way over to my father, who gives me a hug. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he whispers in my ear. “But you know I wouldn’t miss meeting Roman for anything.”

  I quickly blink the tears away before I step back from him. “I’ll have to introduce you in a bit. I honestly didn’t think you were coming.”

  My father exhales and pulls me aside from the group. He lowers his voice so only I can hear him. “I had to calm down. I didn’t want to meet Roman when I wasn’t myself. I had a bourbon. Sat in solitude for a bit. Let go of the feelings I had so I could come here tonight and give him the reception he deserves. Knowing he is important enough to come to Buckingham Palace for us to meet him tells me how much he matters. It tells me Roman,” he continues, with a twinkle in his eyes, “is different.”

  It takes everything I have not to burst into tears.

  “Yes,” I manage to get out.

  “So, where is he?” my father asks.

  “He went to get some air,” Helene says from behind.

  I quickly turn around to find my aunt with a knowing expression on her face.

  “W-where did he go?” I ask, my voice coming out in a strangled sound.

  Helene focuses all her attention on me. “I followed him. He was in a hurry. Heading down the Grand Staircase.”

  I can’t breathe. The room begins to sway around me, my heart and mind making the connection I don’t want to make.

  He didn’t simply step out into the hallway or the Picture Gallery for air.

  Roman is leaving me.

  “I didn’t like his expression after dinner. Lord knows there wasn’t enough wine served to get me through sitting between those two. I followed him and introduced myself. My darling, the boy is visibly upset. He said he needed to clear his head and begged my forgiveness.”

  No. No. I shake my head. This isn’t happening. Fear renders me unable to move.

  “Go,” Helene commands. “Liz, go now. You need to catch him. Go!”

  I bolt from the room, hitching my dress up to make running in heels easier. My worst nightmare is coming true. One night with my family was enough to break him. I know he loves me, but that isn’t enough.

  I was delusional to think it was.

  I hurry through the rooms, cursing the design of the palace that forces me to go in the most indirect route possible, and finally reach the massive staircase. I run down the flights of red carpeting, finding myself alone as everyone continues to celebrate upstairs.

  As I reach the last little flight of stairs, pausing on the landing to catch my breath, I find Roman seated on a mahogany bench, his head in his hands. I gasp. My strong, silent man, who told me he didn’t care what anyone said about him, has never appeared more vulnerable than he does to me right now.

  I can’t move. I can’t.

  Because I know what he’s going to tell me as soon as he lifts his head.

  That no love is worth living in this prison.

  Even mine.

  I stare at him, rooted to the spot, tears swimming in my eyes. Roman must feel someone watching him, because he lifts his head. A shocked expression passes over his face as he sees me. He slowly rises.

  I take the stairs with wobbly legs and force myself to meet him, but as soon as I see the hurt look in his hazel eyes, I know what is about to happen.

  I’m about to say goodbye to him.

  Roman turns away from me, and I fight to breathe as he does. My heart is throbbing in anguish. My throat is full of tears. I’m trembling and cold, and I fear what is about to happen next.

  Because I know my heart won’t survive it.

  “I’m sorry. I… I had to get out of there. I was suffocating,” he spits out, the words tumbling out in an uncharacteristic fashion for him. “The things that were said to me, no man should ever have to hear. Ever.”

  The anger he was repressing when I first approached is rising back up within him.

  “Your grandmother loathes me. She flat-out refused to speak to me after telling me she thinks I’m going to drag you down. I’m rubbish in her eyes.”

  “Then why wouldn’t you let me defend you?” I cry, finding my voice. “You were furious at me, don’t deny that!”

  Roman stares at me. “Because she is your grandmother. You have to respect her, Liz. I would have handled it. You needed to let me do that!”

  “I respect no one, family included, who acts like an aristocratic snob,” I say, my voice rising. “What happened to you liking fiery Liz? Does that disappear when I stick up for you? Does that threaten your manhood?”

  Roman’s brows shoot straight up. “What? Is that what you think? Don’t you know me? No, Liz. I didn’t want you making it worse.”

  “How much worse could it have been? Do I even want to know what India said to you?”

  Roman clenches his jaw.

  “You’re not even going to tell me, are you?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t mind protecting my honour to the paparazzi, so why can’t I defend you?” I point out.

  “This is different,” Roman insists. “This is your family.”

  “I don’t care who it is,” I say, my anger returning. “But none of this matters. Your face tells me everything I need to know.”

  “What?” he asks, his brows knitting together. “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t want this life,” I cry, my throat thickening again.

  “What?”

  “You don’t,” I say, the tears overflowing in my eyes. Now the words are coming out in spurts, as it’s hard for me to say them. “Roman, you were miserable up there. You deserve better than this. Y-you thought you knew what you were getting into with me b-b-but you didn’t! You were so upset you didn’t even want me to go with you. You were heading out of here, I know it.”

  Roman’s expression changes in an instant as my words tumble out. “Liz, no, no, you’re taking this the
wrong way,” he pleads. He grabs my arms and clutches on to me. “Don’t mistake my frustration for something it’s not. I honestly was trying to clear my head. I wasn’t leaving. I love you.”

  I shake my head violently. “You won’t continue to do so!”

  My voice is sounding hysterical to my own ears.

  “Lizzie, stop. I love you, do you hear me?”

  “You deserve better,” I sob, ignoring his plea. “It’s only a matter of time before you fall out of love with me because of this.” I gesture around at the columns and guild that have become my prison. “You will leave me. You will stop loving me. I can’t expect you to pay this price to be with me, Roman.”

  “No. You are overreacting,” he insists, his voice as firm as his grip on me.

  I shake free of him. “I’m not. You will miss your old life. Before you get sick of being snapped by photographers. I saw your face the other day, Roman, when you were reading an article. You were so hurt.”

  “You don’t understand,” he says, shaking his head. “Liz, th—”

  “You will eventually stop loving me, Roman. You will. You will resent the world I’ve trapped you in. Most of all, you will resent me, and this will end, don’t you see that?”

  His neck colours, and to my shock, he seems furious.

  “So you get to decide what I want? What I will or will not put up with? Because my first night was rough, you assume I want to end things?”

  I don’t know how to answer that accusation.

  Because his words are true.

  “You need to look in the mirror,” Roman says, his voice shaking with anger. “I’m not looking into the heart of the woman I love. I see a scared woman who is watching her father fall out of love with her mother. One who can’t see the man who loves her but the man she fears will leave her. Don’t blame this royal world for that. That’s the easy way out. You are afraid I will be disappointed or fall out of love with you. You’re afraid I will leave, like your father wants to do. Instead of trusting me, you are banishing me. How utterly royal of you.”

  I reel backwards from his words. My heart shatters inside my chest, and my body is crushed under the weight of my actions.

  “You should know what is in my heart,” Roman says, his voice shaking with raw emotion. “The fact that you don’t is more cutting than any insult I’ve heard this whole evening.”

  “You’re right,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

  I see the despair in his hazel eyes, and I know I have destroyed the love of the only man I will ever give my heart to. Roman will never trust me after this, not after I decided his future and pushed him away.

  With no trust, there can never be love.

  I’m about to be sick. I need to throw up. I need to bawl. I need to get out of here.

  I turn and pick up my dress, running back up the stairs.

  “Liz!” he yells after me, his voice echoing down the hall. “Liz, no!”

  I reach the first landing and turn around. “Words can never say how sorry I am,” I say, sobbing.

  “No,” Roman says, taking a few steps towards me.

  “Goodbye, Roman,” I tell him.

  Then I run as fast as I can, ignoring his anguished pleas to stop, and knowing my own self-imposed prison, not this royal one, has cost me the love of my life.

  And my heart, the one I smashed into a million fragmented pieces with my own actions, will never love again.

  Chapter 29

  The 1844 Room

  I seek solace in the 1844 Room. I hurry inside the famous room, resplendent in blue and gold silk-covered furniture. This room often shows up in the media, as it is where Arthur receives his most important guests. And now it will forever be the room where I went after shoving Roman out of my life.

  The torrent of tears I had somehow held from breaking now burst free, racking my body with heavy, crushing sobs. I drop to my knees on the carpet, pushing my hands out to hold myself up, and cry for everything I have lost—and lost because of one simple reason.

  I decided everything for Roman, instead of listening to him. To what he wanted. To his feelings, his concerns.

  Why did I do this?

  Because I didn’t think I was worth him going through all this hell for. I thought there was no way he wouldn’t hate this life, and eventually hate me for it. I was certain he would fall out of love with me.

  In an instant, I see the look in his eyes when he said I had banished him. Those eyes were a mixture of fury and hurt as I decided not to trust his heart, not to even let him speak, and, instead, decided our future out of fear.

  Fear.

  A word that has never been associated with me. I’ve been known as strong. Brave. Confident. Fiery.

  But nobody knew of the inner turmoil that ran under the surface. I was so afraid of Roman being disappointed in this life, of being harassed by the media, of stupid rules and constraints and archaic policies, that when I saw glimpses of his frustration, it brought this buried fear right to the surface. Because of this, I was sure his frustrations were the beginning of the end.

  The beginning of Roman falling out of love with me.

  The tears subside, as I don’t have any left, and I drop my head on to my knees and draw a shaky breath. I kneel on the floor for a long time, with only the light from the garden terrace illuminating the room, wondering where Roman is. I remember how he begged me to stay, but how could I? I didn’t trust him. I didn’t believe in his love. I didn’t give him a chance to vent his frustrations as I should have. He said that cut him more than any of the atrocious behaviour he was on the receiving end of tonight.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. How do I live now, without Roman? Without his smile, his passion, his gentleness? My stomach wretches at the idea of never seeing him again. Of never hearing his voice, his laugh. Never again hearing him tell me how much he loves me…

  Oh, I’ve made the biggest mistake! I was so afraid of losing him that I didn’t see that he was here, willing to live this life because he wanted to be with me.

  I was so afraid of the future, I lost sight of the present.

  And lost Roman because of it.

  Fresh tears swell in my throat, and another sob escapes me. Then another. The pain I feel in my heart is unlike anything I have ever known.

  Suddenly, a light comes on, startling me. I whip my head around and find Christian standing in the doorway.

  “Christian,” I gasp, rubbing my hand across my face.

  “I knew I’d find you here,” he says, shutting the door behind him and walking across the room. He sinks down onto the floor next to me, as if it’s totally normal to find me a hysterical mess.

  “How?” I ask, sniffling.

  Christian arches an eyebrow. “I remember you telling me when we were kids that someday you were going to have meetings with important people in this room like Grandfather used to do.”

  I manage a small laugh. “I was bold.”

  “Well, I might not be an important person, but I’d like to have a meeting with you here,” he says gently.

  Christian blurs in front of my eyes. “You know.”

  “Roman came looking for you,” he explains, his blue eyes holding steady on mine.

  “He did?” I ask, swallowing hard.

  “He was desperate to find you. He said you two had a row, and he didn’t know where you were. Roman was worried, Liz. Really worried.”

  “Roman’s kindness after I broke his heart is more than I deserve,” I say, my voice shaking.

  “Liz, I don’t know about the row you had, but he didn’t act like a man who was only worried about your welfare. Roman was stricken. Helene ordered her driver to take him home, and that took a lot of convincing. If we would have let him, I think he would have searched every single one of these seven hundred and seventy-five rooms until he found you.”

  I feel my breathing pick up with Christian’s words. My heart begins to beat with a tiny, fragile stirring of hope.

  “Roman loves you
,” he says. “For him to come back upstairs, to tell us you had a fight and he absolutely had to find you, when he knew all of Mum’s spies and palace allies were watching him, is proof in my eyes.”

  “Christian,” I say, my voice thick, “I shoved him away tonight. I saw what this life, this gilded prison, was doing to him. He was anxious about being here. Then the insults he suffered from—”

  I stop short, not wanting to put Christian in the position of hearing things about his own mother.

  Understanding flickers across his face. “Mum. I know. She did it to Clementine, remember?”

  I nod. “Grandmother was rude to his face. He wouldn’t even tell me what India said.”

  “Cow,” Christian snaps.

  “All I could think,” I say painfully, “was that I was doing this to him. Roman loves me now, but how could he not grow to hate me because of the circus that has now entered his world? I’ve never seen him so unsure, so shaken, and I brought him into this. All I could see was that this,” I wave my hand around the room, “would make him resent me. His love would die. And he would leave me.”

  Christian contemplates my words for a few moments and then speaks. “I understand this more than anyone. I was terrified to bring Clementine into this world. I tried to protect her, and that led to some rows between us. I hated myself for what my position did to her.”

  “You’re the only one who understands this,” I say, blinking back tears.

  “I do. So I want you to listen to me when I tell you this. Roman loves you. Living in this life is hard. People never understand what these walls are like until they are on the other side. They can’t comprehend what it’s like to have the media love you and praise you and then take square aim at the pedestal you are on and find happiness in kicking you down to the ground. Yet, Clementine’s love for me is greater than all of that. She will wear the uniform and play the part, suffer through attacks in the press, deal with social media trolls, and give up a job she loves and find new passions through our foundation. She would do this a million times over because, at the end of the day, when it’s us and the dogs and we’re watching a quiz show on TV, we are together. Her love for me is greater than the monarchy. And from what I saw of Roman tonight, I’d say his love is the same for you.”