No one was really sure what happened. Did the paparazzi boat try to get too close to get more pictures? In the dark, they would’ve needed to be close to get a photo of Nico at the wheel. Did they chase Nico and his wife? Were they going too quickly? The papers were quick to point out that alcohol and driving a boat were not a safe mix.
Or was had it been an honest accident?
No one ever found out, and I’d never know what Nico thought because it was far too painful a subject.
My hand was to my mouth, covering my sobs as I read the rest. The paparazzi boat had hit Nico’s. He and his wife and another photographer were thrown overboard. Nico, a strong swimmer, had frantically searched the dark waters Lisette.
He didn’t find her.
One or two of the paparazzi joined him in the water looking for his wife. The rest trained their cameras on him, documenting his anguish.
Her body wasn’t found until the next morning.
My eyes closed, and blindly I shut the laptop. I couldn’t read any more. I’d known it would be bad, but that… the image of Nico in the dark, in the water, calling for her… it was heartbreaking.
How had he even survived? Not the accident, but the aftermath. When I’d first met him, I thought he was closed-off and distant. Now I marveled that he wasn’t even more so. How could anyone recover from something like that?
But he’d been functioning enough to get himself and his children out of there. Out of the country that had robbed him of the woman he loved.
No wonder he vowed never to go back there.
I went to the sink and washed my face, my tears mingling with the cool water.
This was why.
I knew it with all my heart. He was pulling away from me now because of what had happened back then. Because I’d been hurt by those vultures whom he blamed for his wife’s death. My injury had reminded him of that terrible night.
But I wasn’t his wife. What had happened to her had been tragic. To have a beautiful young wife taken away from her husband, and a mother taken away from her children—it was the worst thing imaginable.
But Nico and the children had survived. They’d left the States and now they had a new life here. The past was over.
Surely I could make Nico see that? He’d been happy being with me in London. God, the memory of being in his arms… of him kissing me… of him being inside of me…. I’d never felt that close to anyone, ever.
It proved that he still had a future even though his poor Lisette didn’t. It proved that Nico could be happy again—that all of us could.
But I didn’t know how to make him see that.
Later that day, I couldn’t think of anything to say to him when he joined us for dinner, eating silently, making a token effort to participate in the conversation.
After dinner, I sat in my room, wracking my brain. There had to be a way to make him see that I was okay, that we were okay. That he shouldn’t pull away.
I sighed. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t even get him to talk to me, let alone really listen to what I had to say. But the former problem unexpectedly solved itself when I heard a knock at the door.
I looked at the clock—it was after ten. No one had ever stopped by this late.
With my heart in my throat, I pulled the door open. It was Nico.
I took a step forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my cheek against the strong muscles of his chest. His arms encircled me, and for a brief moment, all seemed well. I was in his embrace and there was no place on earth I’d rather be.
But then he put his hands on my shoulders and I stepped back, letting him into the room. He closed the door behind him and turned to me.
And said the worst words in the English language: “We need to talk.”
Panic filled me, my breathing speeding up. But okay, I shouldn’t assume the worst. Of course we needed to talk. Everything had changed in London. We’d slept together. We’d spent days together. Of course we should talk about it—it was normal. So why did my dinner suddenly feel like a lead weight in my stomach?
“About London?” I asked, my voice less shaky than my trembling hands.
“Yes.” He looked at the dresser beyond me, then the bed—everything but me. But that was okay, right? He was just marshaling his thoughts. “Being together in London was amazing. But it wasn’t real. That was Dante and Bianca. It wasn’t you and me because it can’t be. They have the freedom to start a life together. You and I don’t.”
Anxiety welled up inside me. I knew something was bothering him, but I’d thought it was about the paparazzi, not our relationship. “Their lives are simpler, of course, but who knows what the future holds…”
“I know what the future holds,” Nico said firmly. “I know in a way you can never understand.” He looked at me and his face softened slightly. “It’s not just you. No one who’s not in my position could understand. You have no idea, Cara, what it’s like to have your future planned out for you before you were even born. I’m part of an ancient line and my life is here. I don’t have the option to leave my country and work on the other side of the world like you did. I don’t have the option to go back to graduate school. I don’t have options—period.”
Moisture formed along my lower lashes and I blinked rapidly. “All this was true before we went to London. You wouldn’t be saying this if those awful vultures hadn’t ambushed us.”
Nico strode away from me and looked out my window into the night. “That was just a reminder that nothing about my life is normal.”
“It was scary, but we’re okay. My arm doesn’t even hurt anymore.”
“I’m glad,” he said. So why wouldn’t he look at me?
“Seriously, Nico, I know you’ve had bad experiences with them in the past, but—” The muscles of his back stiffened and I stopped talking. I wanted to go to him and touch him, but he seemed so closed-off. “I get now why you try to avoid those vultures, and in the future, I’ll be a lot more careful. But other than that, nothing’s changed—”
“Everything’s changed.” Nico’s voice was firm and final, and it scared me more than the press had. “Don’t you see? Pretending, even for just a few days, to be people who had options, people who could be together—that changed everything. It made me see how sneaking around, stealing kisses, perhaps a weekend away every so often—it’s not enough. It’s not a real future like Dante and Bianca had.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, my shoulders slumped. Part of me knew what he meant. People like Dante and Bianca were free to be together in ways that we weren’t. But that didn’t mean there was nothing for us. I tried to explain that to him. “Things between us can’t be as simple as it is for them, but that doesn’t mean—”
“It does.” Nico’s voice was so quiet I barely heard them, but it still sent shivers down my spine.
Finally, he turned, but he didn’t come to me. “Spending that weekend with you… it showed me what we can never have. And the longer we deny that, the more it’s going to hurt. We need to stop, now, before one of us loses their heart.”
Suddenly it was hard to breathe. He wanted to end things between us? Could that be what he truly wanted? My body shook and I placed my hands on the bed, leaning heavily on my uninjured side. I tried to speak but all I could do was to let out a long, halted breath.
“Cara? Does your arm hurt?” Now he sounded concerned, which seemed misplaced. His words were what hurt, not my injury.
He took a few steps toward me and then stopped, running his fingers through his hair in a distracted mannerism. “I’m sorry. I know this is hard. But we can’t keep sneaking around, spending a few minutes here and there together. It’s not enough—for either of us. You deserve more. You deserve a man who can be with you fully. That’s not me.”
It was only as I looked up at him that I realized tears were streaming down my face. “I know you have a huge responsibility here. That’s part of who you are.” I struggled to gather my thoughts. “That’s one of the thin
gs I like most about you. I know that you can’t offer me a straightforward path like Dante could Bianca. But you’re the one I want, not Dante. Whatever we can have together is enough for me.”
Nico’s face suddenly looked far older than his thirty years. “It’s not enough. It’s not a life.”
“It could be,” I rose and went to him. He stood his ground but didn’t reach for me, didn’t touch me. “I get it, we can never have anything normal. But the not-so-normal time I’ve spent with you has meant more to me than anything I’ve ever experienced before. Please, Nico, don’t give up on us. We can make something work, I know we can.”
“Like what?” His tone was bitter. “Should I abdicate the throne?”
“No,” I said, shocked. “I’d never want you to do—”
“Or should you quit graduate school and be a nanny for the rest of your life?”
“Not quit,” I said quickly, “But I could delay my admission. I could stay here for another six months or a year and we could see—”
“No.” He gripped me by the shoulders, looking deep into my eyes. “You can’t give up your life for something that can never be. I won’t let you.”
The hazel eyes I’d studied for so long looked foreign. “It’s my decision, Nico. If I choose to stay here with you—”
He let me go abruptly and strode away to the other side of the room, putting space between us. “You can’t throw away something positive in your life for this. Not when all we can ever have is stolen moments.”
“You keep saying that, but look where we started. Look how our relationship has grown in spite of the differences between us. Just let me stay longer, and we’ll see where it goes from here.”
“I know where it goes, Cara. It doesn’t go anywhere. I’m the crown prince, I can’t just casually date.” He backed away even farther until he was pressed up against the dresser. His eyes were on the floor, and it looked like he was thinking something over. I waited—praying that he wouldn’t shut me out. He cleared his throat, his face set. “The only woman I could officially date would be a woman that I’m planning to marry.”
I drew in a sharp breath, my brain racing in all directions. What did he mean? “Why are you telling me this?”
His eyes looked ancient when he looked at me. “Because I can’t marry you.”
My words came out in a jumble. “I never expected you to, Nico. God, the last thing I’d want to do is to pressure you.” I said the words but in the back of my mind, I knew that part of me did dream about being married to him. If he asked, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. “You’re thinking too far ahead, let’s just—”
“No. We can’t keep going the way we are and see what happens. Because I know what happens. You’re an American and I’m the crown prince of Falkenberg. There’s no future for us.” He hesitated. “My mother would never let me marry an American.”
A tiny bit of the tension drained from my shoulders. He was worried that his mother didn’t like me? That didn’t sound like an insurmountable problem. “You can stand up to her. If we get to that place, I mean. You stood up to her when she yelled at Elyse for cutting her hair.”
“You misunderstand,” Nico said. “This is not a disagreement between a son and his mother. She’s the monarch of this country and she has to grant permission for me to wed.”
I stared at him in shock. “That’s—that’s barbaric. She can’t dictate who you marry.”
“She can. It’s not uncommon. Queen Elizabeth had to write a letter of consent when her grandsons chose wives.” Tears flowed down my cheeks and I wiped them away. For a moment, it looked like Nico was going to come to me, to comfort me, but he stayed where he was. “I’m sorry, Cara. She would never allow me to marry an American. She told me that when I first left for the US and she’s never relented.”
I strove to speak through the pain. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I wanted to pretend that I’d never thought of marriage. I wanted to make him see that I could be fine with whatever he was willing to give me, but maybe he was right. Maybe it wasn’t enough—not if we could never truly be together.
He sighed. “I didn’t want to prejudice you against my mother. I know she hasn’t been kind to you, but she’s had the weight of running a country on her shoulders for decades. She has to do what she feels is right for our people.”
His people. As in people who weren’t Americans. The distance between us suddenly seemed wider than just the space of the room.
“Don’t you see it’s better to stop now?” Nico’s voice was almost pleading. “We have no future, so we need to end this now before it’s too late. I could never forgive myself if I hurt you.”
“But—”
“I won’t do it. I won’t hurt you.”
I stared at him, and a small, perverse corner of my brain gave a sad little laugh. Did he really not see how much this already hurt? Did he really think he was staving off pain by ending things now? “There’s that word again,” I said softly, almost in a daze. “Won’t. I can argue with you—plead with you—but I can’t make you do something you’re not willing to do.”
Now he did take a step toward me.
“Don’t,” I said, turning my back on him.
I could feel his hesitation. Would he come to me and comfort me? Or leave? It didn’t really matter. The end result was the same. There was no future for us. He’d been telling me that all along, but now I knew with certainty. There was no happily ever after. No raising the twins together. No growing old together.
None of that would ever happen.
The sobs I was working so hard to hold back took so much effort that I didn’t hear the door open. But I did feel the cool rush of air from the hallway. I didn’t turn around until I was sure he was gone. I didn’t trust myself not to throw myself at him, to beg. But I knew it wouldn’t do any good.
Once I was alone, I nearly collapsed onto the floor. The knowledge that we could never have our happily ever after felt like being hit by a train.
I made it to the bed and fell on top of it, not bothering to get under the covers. The tears flowed freely and my breathing came in uneven gasps. At the very least, I thought we’d have two more months together. And in my secret fantasies, I’d hoped for so much more.
As devastated as I was, I knew he was right that we couldn’t spend our whole lives sneaking around. But I thought we’d find a way. I thought that somehow we’d make it work.
I was wrong.
But he’d been wrong, too. He said we needed to stop before one of us got hurt. Before one of us loses our heart.
But it was too late.
I’d already lost my heart to him.
And now he’d broken it into tiny little pieces.
35
Cara
After that, I tried to keep it together for Derrick and Elyse. I was miserable, and Nico seemed to be too, but that was no reason for the twins to be. Every day I played and laughed and joked with them. Did they ever notice that my smile never reached my eyes? Perhaps not… all those years of acting served me well.
When I wasn’t with them, the devastation returned and hit hard. I spent hours in my bed or looking out the window, bundled up even though it was no longer cold inside the castle. Somehow, it felt like wrapping myself in layers of sweaters and scarves could keep the bad feelings at bay.
But it didn’t work. If anything, those layers trapped them inside with me.
When I’d first started getting close to Nico, I hadn’t thought about the endgame. About where it would—or wouldn’t—lead. Instead, I’d been like any other young woman falling in love. I’d thrilled to each new experience. Rejoiced as we grew closer. I hadn’t thought ahead to what our future might hold.
Nico had.
He’d known all along that we couldn’t stay together. Anger would’ve been easier to handle than this overwhelming sorrow, yet I still couldn’t really hold that against him. When would he have mentioned it? At the beginning? As in: Hello, I’m your new employer and I ca
n’t marry you. That would’ve been absurd.
Maybe he’d just been taking it one day at a time as I had. Maybe he, too, had wanted to believe that we had a chance even when we didn’t. I probed my feelings, trying to muster up anger for that but I couldn’t. There was only sadness for what could never be.
Nico was clearly trying to maintain normalcy in front of the children, too. Fortunately, Derrick and Elyse were pretty preoccupied. Their eighth birthday was coming up, and Gretchen was determined to make it a special one. She’d been planning their party for weeks, and she’d involved me in every step. I think she sensed that it was better for me to keep busy when possible.
The invitation list was a bit of a nightmare. Gretchen was in charge of it in theory, but I suspected that the queen had spoken with her. A dozen children from town were invited. Gretchen said they were grandchildren of the queen’s friends whom the twins met with occasionally. It seemed a little odd, however, that in the four months I’d been here, I’d never met any of them.
That made me realize how isolated Elyse and Derrick were. However, after what happened to Nico and me in London, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Still… it was a shame. Now that they’d opened up a bit more, they needed friends who weren’t adults. Or falcons.
At my insistence, Von had been invited to perform a puppet show. I hadn’t seen him much lately. We’d gotten to the point where we could work on polishing his play online, and when I’d got more involved with Nico, I stopped going into town to meet Von in person.
Still, it would be great to see him. I just hoped that the queen—who would be attending the birthday party—wouldn’t treat him like some sort of court jester.
The morning of the party, Elyse and Derrick were so excited that I wouldn’t have been surprised if one of them hadn’t just burst into a million pieces. Gretchen was as amused as I was. “Princess Elyse, if you don’t hold still, I’m never going to be able to get your dress zipped up.”
Out of deference to the queen, Elyse had agreed to wear a pretty pale blue party dress, but we’d promised that after cake and presents, she could change into her Merida costume.
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