Royally Wild (Crazy Royal Love Romantic Comedy Book 2)

by Melanie Summers

  Arabella smiles. “Wonderful. Very challenging, lots of work, I love it.”

  And I still love you. “Did they go with your motto in the end?”

  “Not as such,” she says with a chuckle. Her cheeks redden a bit and oh wow do I ever want to kiss her. “They went with unstoppable, united, uplifting.”

  “Yours is better.”

  There’s another knock on the door, and Rainy pops her head in. “Are you ready?”

  Well, that’s the question of the day, isn’t it?

  Okay, I made it through the introduction, and I’ve gotten the lay of the land here. And it’s not good—Arabella and I will be sitting on stage on that stupid red loveseat from the game show while the finale plays. Oh, and there will be cameras on us the entire time, filming our reactions, so that’s great, isn’t it?

  I kind of wish I had taken acting classes when Dwight suggested it because I don’t know how I’m going to get through this, especially considering that there is a serious lack of boozy smoothies here.

  Urgh. I’m sitting so close to her I can smell her perfume and feel the warmth of her arm next to mine, but I can’t reach out and cover her soft hand with mine. I can’t lean in and give her a gentle kiss on her temple or lean back and put my arm around her shoulders. Instead, I have to sit here with this stupid smile frozen on my face for the next hour and a half while I watch myself fall in love with the woman next to me who suddenly stopped loving me.

  The theme song starts up, and the audience breaks into wild applause. I should be enjoying this moment. My career is finally taking off. But every second of this evening will be fake nails on a chalkboard.

  Footage of her passed out in front of the tent, looking half dead, starts up. I hear myself pleading, “Do not die, Arabella! You can’t die.” And everything comes back to me—the knowledge that I am absolutely in love with her and the terror of losing her were all there in that moment.

  “Wake up, okay?” I beg, my voice breaking. “Come on, Arabella! Wake up!” I shout.

  Her eyes flutter and she whispers, “Don’t be mad.”

  “Never. I could never be angry with you.”

  She gives me a weak smile, even though her eyes are still closed. “Thank you. I love you, Will. I did it for you.”

  “Did what, Belle? What did you do?”

  Then a shot of the satellite phone smashed with a rock on top of it and my voice again. “No, no, no, no, no. Tell me you didn’t.”

  “We can make it. I just need a bit more time.” Her head lolls to the side and she passes out again.

  The audience gasps, even though clearly she’s fine because she’s sitting right in front of them, and I’m forced to relive one of the scariest moments of my life—the fear of losing her. It’s sort of ironic because she’s not dead but I lost her anyway. I’m not even pretending to smile anymore. Fuck it. This is too hard. The camera man moves in for a closer shot, and I have the urge to swat him away, but I do nothing. I just sit here with one hand on each knee wishing this was already over.

  Oh crap. We’ve just watched the big fight on the raft after Arabella ate the berries. I definitely come off sounding like a real arsehole in that one, but honestly, after spending an entire night trying to keep her alive while navigating our way down the river in the dark? I had a right to be angry.

  Blech. Now we’re at the river’s edge in Wasapi, the town where I was going to take her to the hospital and call it quits. I’m telling her there’s no way we can make it to the finish line, not with her in her weak condition.

  She lifts her chin at me. “You’re such a coward.”

  I bark out a nasty laugh. “I’m a coward?”

  “Yes. Sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but you are. You think you’re so BEEPing brave out here doing manly things in the wild, but the truth is, you’re just hiding from any real type of life and responsibility. You have set it up so you have the perfect excuse for never getting attached to anybody. You’re a crap brother, you’re a crap uncle, and you’d be a crap boyfriend.”

  Her words hit me hard as the reality of how I’ve spent the last few weeks of my life sets in. Maybe I have been running.

  “Fine. You quit. Do what you want, but I’m not giving up.” She stands, looking strong now as she steps off the raft.

  The studio audience cheers, and I feel like a total schmuck.

  Arabella holds her hand out to me and says. “Give me the BEEPing map. I’m going to go take a piss, then get back across this river and through that jungle to the finish line. If you want to go into town and cry in your beer, you be my guest. I don’t give a BEEP what you do. But I’m going to prove that I can finish what I started.”

  “You cannot do this alone.”

  “Then I’ll gladly die trying, because I refuse to be the reason that your friends lose their jobs or your brother loses his boat,” she says. “And there’s no way I’m going home with my tail tucked between my legs so everyone I know will say, ‘Yup, we were right about her. She’s so delicate she can’t even eat some berries.’” Leaning in, she tries to look menacing. “So, either get your weak arse out of my face or be a man and come with me. I don’t care what you choose, but you are giving me that map.”

  And cut to commercial. The audience breaks into applause with some scattered shouts of, “yeah, girl!” and “you told him!”

  I glance over at Arabella and she gives me a sheepish grin, clearly not knowing that that was the moment I knew without a doubt that she was the one for me. I fight the urge to ask her if we can give this another try, but I do let myself lean in and whisper, “Tiny but fierce.”

  Her eyes soften and she glances at my lips for a second before a makeup artist swoops in to powder her forehead.

  And now…the bit when I fall in the ravine and break my ankle like a complete moron. It’s dark, so there is only audio, for which I’m glad because I know I was wincing a lot down there.

  “What do I do, Will? You’re the guy who knows how to get out of these situations. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Do I go back for help? Or is there some way I can get you out of there? Just tell me and I’ll do it.”

  “Just stay put. It’s the safest choice,” I answer. “There’s no possible way you can navigate your way out of here. Not at night, anyway. Cover yourself with a sleeping bag and try to get some sleep. At first light, you start walking.”

  “I’m not leaving you here.”

  “You’re going to have to. It’s my only chance of making it out of here alive. Yours, too.”

  There’s a long pause, then I speak again, sounding calm and quiet. “Arabella?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m probably going to pass out, so if I do, I want you to promise you’ll leave as soon as the sun comes up. Just go. Do everything I taught you so you can get out of here.”

  “No, I don’t want to leave you. There must be a way to lift you out of there.”

  “There isn’t. I can’t walk and you can’t carry me. You’re already defying the odds to have made it this far after being so sick.”

  The scene cuts, then a new one starts up again. The sound of the birds tells me it’s early morning in this part.

  Arabella’s panicky voice is heard. “Will?!”

  “It’s time. Get going, okay?” I say.

  “Can’t I—?”

  “No. If there was a way, I’d have thought of it by now. But, there’s still a chance that you can make it back and someone will find me in time.”

  “But—”

  “You can do this, Belle. I know you can. Forget all that BEEP I said to you yesterday. I was just angry and hurt and … being a BEEP. I didn’t mean any of it.”

  “I’m so sorry, Will. I didn’t mean anything I said, either. Well, that’s not entirely true because I do think you have commitment issues…”

  The audience laughs, and I feel my entire head heating up with embarrassment.

  When they quiet down again, I hear my voice. “…It’s a
bout a five-hour hike from here straight east. Do you remember what I said about how to make sure you’re not going in circles?”

  “Yes,” she says, sniffling. “Pick an object in the distance, keep my eyes on it, and when I reach it, pick a new one. And then keep turning back to make sure the last one is behind me.”

  “That’s right,” I say. “You’ve got this, Belle. I know you do.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I know so. You can do this. Just think of everything you’ve done over the last nine days. You’ve rappelled from a helicopter into the jungle, swung from vines into a lagoon, free-climbed down steep cliffs, you’ve hiked for over ten hours straight at night. You made it this far. You’ll make it out.”

  “Okay, I’ll go, but you have to promise me you’re going to survive until I get back with help.”

  “No problem,” I say.

  “Will, I’m going to go now. But before I do. I just wanted to say…thank you.”

  “Buy me a beer when we get to town.”

  “Okay,” she answers, letting out a small chuckle. “I’ll be back for you before you know it.”

  “Yes, you will. You can do this, Arabella.”

  “How are you so sure?” she asks.

  “Because you’ve always been able to. You just needed a reason to try.”

  A resounding “awwww” is heard around the studio, and I glance down at Arabella’s hand, very much wanting to reach for her. When I look up at her, she’s staring at my hand too and I know deep down, she’s not over me.

  Bugger. They’re playing my stupid sappy ‘goodbye to everyone I love’ recording. I knew it would happen, but honestly, it’s just so awful to have to sit through this.

  “…Arabella, if you see this, I didn’t mean all those BEEP things that I said. I lied to you when we were playing truth or dare. I do have a fear and you already know what it is. I’m afraid of letting anyone get close to me. I am a complete coward and I’ve done exactly what you said I did, which is to set my life up so I could sidestep love completely. When you were sick, I thought for sure I was going to lose you and the pain of it made me even more certain that I don’t have what it takes to go the distance with anyone. I can’t do it because you never know how long you’ve got with someone, and I can’t be the one left behind. You were right. I’m too weak for that.

  “But I want you to know these past days out here with you have been the greatest of my entire life. I have never felt anything close to what I feel for you, and if I had made it out of this alive, I would sweep you up into my arms and never let you go. For what it’s worth, I love you, and I want you to go on and be the totally kickass version of yourself I watched come to life out here. Don’t let anyone underestimate you. But if they do, you show them who you really are. You’re fierce. You’re brave. You are a warrior. Thank you for trying to save me. Please don’t spend a moment feeling guilty for how things ended up, because there is nothing you could’ve done.”

  Arabella’s voice is heard. “Well, that’s a little insulting. You assumed I’d fail.”

  A cheer erupts, filling the room and making Arabella laugh. She looks adorably thrilled by their reaction. You know, for a total harpy.

  I’ve almost made it now. We’ve been watching her drag me through the jungle and down the road, all set to inspirational classical music for about three minutes. Oh God, now we’re at the part where I tell her the time already ran out. This is so hard to watch because all the feelings come rushing back and I’m overwhelmed with an incredible sense of pride and love for her. I can feel my heart breaking for her, just like it did that day, and I want to wrap her in my arms and tell her it’s okay, even though it’s in the past and the very last thing she wants is my arms around her.

  I want to whisper that I’m proud of her. I want to whisper that I’m still in love with her. I feel a shift in the emotion between us. It’s the closeness that we shared out in the Congo and the closeness we had until a few weeks ago, when everything felt possible and perfect. But what if it’s all in my mind?

  Almost there. It’s the dramatic ending, where she pulls me over the last hill and the reporters and medical staff all start rushing toward us. It’s pouring rain and she is a force to be reckoned with, while I am pretty much dead weight. She’s yelling for an ambulance for me, and I feel a lump in my throat while I watch her. Forgetting everything that’s happened in the last few weeks, I reach out and take her hand in mine and squeeze it. “Thank you,” I say to her.

  She smiles up at me and squeezes my hand back, tears filling her eyes.

  But then I remember and pull my hand away, digging my nails into my palms to stop myself from telling her I still love her. Finally, the theme song starts up, and the audience bursts into applause, rising to their feet for a standing ovation. I stand and hold both hands out toward her for the audience to cheer for her. She bows and then does the same for me, as though we’re just two actors who have wrapped up a Broadway play.

  Okay, the worst is over—I hope. Now we just have to get through the after-show and I’ll be fine. One more hour. Then, I get to spend the rest of my days trying to forget her. Wunderbar.

  30

  That’s All Folks…

  Arabella

  “Welcome to the Princess in the Wild After-show! I’m your host, Dylan Sinclair. Over the past five weeks, we’ve followed Will Banks, professional adventurer, nature enthusiast, and survival expert, as he first led, then was rescued by, Avonia’s own Princess Arabella, Duchess of Bainbridge. We’ve seen them make their dangerous and often romantic journey through the jungles of Zamunda,” Dylan stands in the aisle at the back of the theatre, the spotlight on her. “They’ve faced giant rats, bats, and amorous bonobos, but most of all, they faced each other.”

  She starts walking down the steps toward the stage, fanning out her hand, and I have to say I really hate this woman with a passion. “Two opposites from completely different worlds—completely different sides of the world, in fact—who had to learn to meet each other halfway. We’ve seen Will go from arrogant and condescending to patient teacher, and then finally, to patient in danger. We’ve seen Princess Arabella go from being a whiny, pampered debutant to becoming a true warrior who literally dragged her partner to safety to save his life.” She pauses to let the audience soak in her dramatic opening.

  “It’s been an emotional journey. It’s been funny. It’s been heartwarming and it’s been terrifying. But mostly, it’s been damned exciting, am I right?” she asks.

  The crowd enthusiastically applauds.

  “I want to thank everyone who’s been tuning in every Thursday night because each one of you has helped to set a record. We are happy to announce that this is the highest-rated show ABN has ever had.” Dylan pauses for a round of applause. “Better than that, the last three episodes have been the highest rated programs in their slot in the following countries: England, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, and of course, here in Avonia.

  “Over the next hour, we are going to bring you viewer reactions as well as hear from Princess Arabella and Will themselves to find out what were their worst and best moments out there—although I think we can guess that one!”

  The audience laughs and Dylan nods at them. “Oh, yeah, these two got busy, didn’t they?”

  Dear Lord, please make her stop. I really prefer to not have people talking about me getting busy, but then again, I suppose if I didn’t want people talking about it, I bloody well shouldn’t have done it. Truth be told, I could use a few minutes alone to splash some water on my face, cool down a bit, and get my emotions in check. I knew being around Will would be difficult, but I hadn’t thought about what it would be like to be in such close proximity or just how excruciatingly intimate this entire evening would feel. Why does he have to be so bloody handsome and smell so intoxicatingly delicious? Why?

  The combination has completely scrambled my brain, which is going to be a problem, because I’m ab
out to be asked all sorts of questions that I’d rather not answer. And for some stupid reason, I don’t really feel like telling the world that we’re not together anymore. Somehow, letting them believe the lie that what they witnessed was true love seems kinder than letting them down.

  “We’ve got a busy hour ahead of us,” Dylan says. “So let’s get started.”

  The screens light up again, and they show footage of me coming over the hill all sweaty and soaked from rain and covered in mud with my teeth bared like I was heading into battle. We hear one of the reporters, shouting, “They’re here!” and me screaming for an ambulance. They freeze the video there (with my mouth open as wide as possible, obviously) and Dylan turns to me. “What were you thinking at that exact moment, Your Highness?”

  I’d much rather tell you what I’m thinking at this exact moment. “Oh, so many things. Until we got to the top of that last hill, I wasn’t sure if we would make it, to be honest. I was almost out of strength and was terrified that because of the bad decisions I had made, Will was going to die. It was just such an emotional thing to bring him over that hill and see the ambulances and all the people there waiting to help us. It was probably the greatest relief of my life.”

  “Lovely,” Dylan says. “Now, some people have suggested that you were likely on some type of steroids or performance-enhancing drug to allow you to do what you did. Do you care to comment on that remark?”

  Will clears his throat. “I don’t think she should have to. That’s obviously a cruel fabrication, and quite frankly an affront to women everywhere to suggest that she wouldn’t have been able to step up and do what needed to be done in a life-and-death situation. It’s insulting really,” he says, then glances at me, his face blanching a little when he sees my deadpan expression. “Just like me speaking for her just now. Insulting.”