by Ann Omasta
“I’m so glad to hear you say that,” Sebastian turned to press his lips into her palms. With one final tender kiss on the lips, he said, “I have some things to take care of, but I’ll be back in time for the royal ball.” On that odd note, he left Tess alone in the kitchen.
23
Still reeling from Sebastian’s delightful kisses, Tess practically floated on air back upstairs to her room. His abrupt departure seemed odd, but it did little to lessen her emotional high, especially since he had promised to see her at the ball.
She tried to remember how many days were left before the gala, but her mind was absolute mush. Figuring that Mo would remember, she hurried to their room, but was disappointed to find that her friend hadn’t yet returned.
Tess was in bed, but still wide-awake when Mo came back. The woman didn’t even attempt to be quiet. Instead, she slammed the door, flopped on her bed, and wailed, “Pierce just broke up with me-eeeee.”
“What? Why?!?” Tess bolted up and immediately moved to her friend’s side. Her euphoria from Sebastian’s kisses felt like a betrayal when paired with her friend’s misery.
“I don’t know,” Mo snuffled.
Tess found a box of tissues and handed her friend a few. The loud honk when Mo blew her nose still startled Tess, even after all of their years of friendship.
At Tess’s wide-eyed stare, Mo’s face crumpled even further. “That’s probably why,” she whined. “I’m just not pr… prin… princess material.” The giant crocodile tears flowed down Mo’s cheeks in quick succession.
“That is simply not true,” Tess tried to reassure her. “He chose you. So what if you blow your nose like a goose in heat,” she tried to insert some levity, but Mo was too distraught to take note. Turning serious, Tess put a comforting arm around Mo. “You are a great catch for anyone, and if that silly old prince doesn’t see that, then that’s his problem.”
“He said he loved me. I thought he saw something in me,” Mo said, “But whatever it was must not have been enough.”
Tess hated seeing her friend so upset. It didn’t make sense for the prince to be so enamored with Mo one minute and then breaking up with her the next. She intended to give him a piece of her mind about that the next time she saw him. If she knew where his living quarters were, she’d march up there and do it right now.
She rocked Mo in her arms, doing her best to soothe the heartbroken woman, but it wasn’t until Mo said, “I want to go home,” that the full ramifications of this sudden breakup registered with her.
24
“What? Why?” It was a dumb question, but Tess felt shell-shocked by Mo’s announcement that she wanted to leave.
“I can’t stay here and watch him meet someone else.” Mo answered simply.
“Honey, I can’t imagine him finding someone else. He is all about you. I’m sure this breakup business is just a silly misunderstanding. We’ll get it all straightened out in the morning.” Tess inserted as much confidence as she could muster into her words. The thought of leaving the kingdom––and Sebastian––terrified her.
“No,” Mo shook her head vehemently. “He was perfectly clear about it. He wants to end things with me.”
Tess shoulders collapsed at this news. She didn’t understand how it could possibly be right. The prince had seemed so enamored with Mo. Had the prince brought them here as some sort of elaborate ruse? If so, what was the end game… to break Mo’s heart? It just didn’t add up.
She refused to allow the idea to surface that if Mo and the prince were broken up, there was very little chance that her relationship with Sebastian would continue to blossom. “Let’s get a good night’s sleep and talk to him in the morning,” Tess suggested rationally.
Suddenly getting a burr in her proverbial bonnet, Mo sprang into action. “No!” she practically shouted as she retrieved her suitcase and began throwing her belongings in it. “I’m getting out of here now. If you don’t want to come with me, that’s fine, but I’m not sticking around here to watch him find his pretty and appropriate princess at the gala.”
Tess could see that Mo was in one of her stubborn snits. There was no use trying to calm her down when she got like this. Tess had learned about Mo’s stereotypical, yet accurate, red-headed temper from her many years of experience of being Mo’s best friend.
Not seeing another alternative, Tess slowly brought out her own luggage. As she quietly folded and packed her own belongings, she decided that she would talk some sense into Mo once her friend had some time to reflect and calm down. Tess knew that Mo was most likely overreacting. This couldn’t possibly be the end of their royal visit. Things were too unfinished.
When Mo finished tossing her clothes into her suitcase, she tried to zip it closed, despite the clothes hanging out the sides. Tess walked over and calmly tucked the offending items inside, before securing the zipper and standing up the rolling bag for her friend.
Mo grabbed the handle and wheeled the bag around so quickly that it fell over on its side. The woman was so flustered by her flubbed attempt to storm out of the room that she fell to the floor and sobbed.
Tess had never seen Mo so upset. She sat down on the floor beside her friend, wrapped her in a loving embrace and rocked her back and forth while desperate sobs wracked out of her.
When Mo’s anguished cries finally slowed, she pulled back to look at her friend. Tess stretched over to grab a box of tissues to dry her face, which was now as red as her hair.
“Feeling better?” she asked Mo as she swiped the tears from her cheeks.
Mo shook her head before asking, “Can we go now?”
Tess valiantly kept the disappointment from registering on her face when she said, “Yes, sweetie, we can go.”
After standing and holding out her hand to help Mo up, Tess righted Mo’s bag and went to grab her own. The two remained silent as they wheeled their suitcases out of their room in the castle.
Tess considered leaving a note for Sebastian, but decided that her friend needed her attention more than he did at the moment. She would reach out to him to explain once they were safely home.
Tess detailed their plans to the night butler and requested a car before turning to Mo with one last glimmer of hope. “Are you sure we can’t talk to the prince in the morning and see if we can straighten this out?”
“It’s not a misunderstanding,” Mo’s voice sounded flat. “Pierce and I are finished.”
25
After one of the castle limos dropped them at the island’s airport, they quickly realized that their royal treatment was finished. The tiny airport only had a few terminals, but it was overfilled with people.
The frazzled ticket agent informed them they were lucky to get seats on the morning flight to the United States at all when they complained that they weren’t seated in the same row. Pricing for the last-minute tickets had been exorbitant, but Tess charged it on her credit card. She was willing to do whatever it took to help wipe that heartbroken, hopeless look from Mo’s face. If that meant running as far from this island paradise as they could go, then that is exactly what they would do.
When they went to wait for their flight to begin boarding, they quickly discovered that there were no seats left in the gate area. “Great,” Tess muttered as they both flopped on the floor in front of a large window overlooking the airport’s single runway.
It wasn’t lost on her that just beyond the runway was a seemingly never-ending expanse of aquamarine-colored sea. Despite being in one of the loveliest locations she had ever encountered, they were sitting in a crowded airport getting ready to leave. She wanted to be angry with Mo for forcing them to leave this place––and Sebastian, but when she looked into her friend’s bloodshot and devastated eyes, she couldn’t even muster irritation.
The boarding seemed to go on for eons, but their rows were eventually called. While they stood in line to show their boarding passes, Tess couldn’t resist saying, “It’s a little different than the private jet we brought here,
huh?”
Mo responded with a sad smile, and the woman in front of them in line turned to roll her eyes and say, “Just wait until we get inside.”
Tess didn’t want to sound like a spoiled brat, but the last thing she wanted to do was get on that stuffy, overcrowded tin can. The prince had offered to have his jet on standby for their return, but she knew Mo wouldn’t want to take advantage of his generosity.
A devastated best friend was the only thing in the world that could have convinced Tess to leave their little slice of island paradise. Looking at Mo’s hunched shoulders, she realized that she needed to stop pouting because Mo was truly heartbroken.
Tess secretly hoped that Pierce and Sebastian would hear about their departure and come make a dramatic scene on the airplane to get them to come back to the castle. But her fantasy was dashed when the filled-to-capacity plane lumbered down the runway and lifted off, just before the pavement ended at the ocean’s edge.
With a sigh, she peeked around the large man sitting in the window seat, and said a silent goodbye to the pristine island kingdom, and the royal steward, who had somehow won her heart. It felt so wrong to be leaving, but she couldn’t let Mo leave heartbroken and alone.
Turning back to look at Mo across the aisle and one row behind her, Tess grimaced at the shattered look on Mo’s face. The sudden realization that her friend’s despair meant that Tess’s relationship with Sebastian would never blossom swept over her and made her feel like screaming in frustration. This was not at all how things were supposed to go… it couldn’t possibly be right.
Both women tried to rest during the long flight, despite their noisy surroundings. Tess didn’t think she would be able to nod off, but realized she must have been successful when the announcement was made to prepare for arrival.
By unspoken agreement, the women retrieved their luggage and hailed a cab to take them to Tess’s apartment. Tess sensed that Mo was not in the emotional state to be alone right now. The taxi driver tried a couple of times to make small talk with them, but neither woman could drum up the interest to take the bait.
When they arrived at Tess’s condo, Mo left her bags just inside the door, shuffled to the sofa, and flopped down face-first. Tess scuttled about the apartment putting away things and making Mo some tea. When her friend failed to acknowledge her, Tess decided to give her some space and quietly went to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
Finally able to check her phone in private, she was stunned to see that she hadn’t missed any calls or messages from Sebastian. Had their relationship not been as important to him as it had been to her? Was he going to just let her leave, since Mo and the prince had broken up?
When the burning lump tickled at her throat, there was no denying that she had secretly been hoping that Sebastian would find a way to be with her, despite their friends’ troubled relationship. The knowledge that he might truly have only been entertaining her at the prince’s behest made scalding tears sting behind her eyes.
After firing off a quick text to both of her brothers to let them know she was back in the States, she decided to go back to sleep in the hopes that things would look better when she awoke.
26
Rays of sunshine slashed through Tess’s curtains, making tiny flecks of dust appear to dance in midair. She considered hiding her head under her pillow and sleeping the day away, but decided that she needed to get up and try to be strong for Mo.
She was surprised to find that Mo was awake, but quickly discovered that her friend was practically comatose with grief. Mo stared blankly into space, her face devoid of any expression whatsoever. Tess realized that she would have much preferred having her friend ranting and throwing things across the room, than this bereft-of-any-animation shell.
When the knock sounded at her front door, Tess failed to keep the hope at bay. “Oh, it’s you.” The disappointed tone of her voice was not lost on her older brother, Trey.
“It’s lovely to see you, too,” he teased her. With a higher pitched, mocking tone, he added, “Thank you so much for taking time out of your super-busy day to come check on me. You’re the best brother ever.”
“Maybe the best one in the room at this very moment,” she quipped, truly smiling for the first time since leaving the castle.
With that, he pulled her into a bear hug.
“Can’t breathe… ” She smacked him on the back to get him to release her. He immediately let her go and sauntered into the room, like he owned the place.
One glance at Mo staring off into space on the couch told him that things hadn’t gone well on their trip. “What’s up with her?” He stage-whispered. “Did you steal the prince away from her?”
“No!” Tess smacked at him playfully, hoping he knew she would never do anything like that to her friend.
“Seriously, though,” Trey sat down in the chair next to Mo and waved a hand in front of her eyes. When she didn’t react at all, he asked, “Is she okay?”
“Not really,” Tess explained. “The prince broke up with her. It was completely out of the blue.”
Trey’s dark eyebrows slashed together and Tess got a glimpse of what her billionaire brother must be like in the boardroom. “Why would he do that?” He snapped, instantly furious.
Tess was touched that he was so fiercely protective of her friend. “I don’t know,” she told him honestly. “She hasn’t been very talkative since it happened.” To enunciate her point, Tess indicated the lifeless version of Mo reclining on the couch.
Both siblings startled and stared at the door after the firm knock. Tess chastised herself for getting her hopes up again when she flung the door open and saw her other brother, Trevor, on the other side. “Oh, hi,” she made a feeble attempt to keep the disappointment from dripping into her voice, but failed miserably.
“What kind of greeting is that for your favorite brother?” Trevor beamed at her.
“Favorite?!?” Trey scoffed from the living room. “Hardly. I was here first, and I got a much warmer greeting than you did. It included a thrilled hug upon my arrival.”
Tess shook her head at Trey’s ridiculous exaggeration. Not one to be left out, Trevor pulled her into another hug. “She loves me the most,” he aimed the words at Trey, over her shoulder.
“Right,” Trey responded sarcastically, as if that was the most outrageous claim he had ever heard. “You keep telling yourself that, Bud.”
Tess couldn’t help but smile at her brothers’ antics. They might both be incredibly wealthy, powerful men, but they were still competitive kids at heart.
Lifting Mo’s feet so Tess could sit beneath them on the couch didn’t faze Mo in the slightest. Trevor sat in the chair opposite his brother and angled a thumb in Mo’s direction. “What’s up with her? Did you somehow get the prince to choose you?” He held up a hand near his mouth while he spoke, as if that would somehow keep Mo from hearing him talk about her.
“No!” Tess said a little too vehemently. “Why is that the first thing that both of you thought?” She was peeved that they had both drawn that conclusion.
“You’ve always wanted a prince,” Trey raised his shoulders as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
Tess gaped at him. “Not if it means stealing him from my best friend.”
She looked back and forth between her brothers, stunned that they would honestly think she might do something so horrible to Mo.
When Trevor weighed in, he said, “We are Donovans, and we almost always get what we want.”
“Almost?!?” Trey seemed perplexed by their brother’s word choice. “Speak for yourself, dude.”
Even though Tess loved her brothers immensely, their competitive banter was grating on her nerves. Just as she was preparing to ask them exactly what they were doing at her apartment, her phone jangled with an incoming text message.
Staring at the screen, she almost couldn’t believe her eyes. When she looked up, she realized that both of her brothers were waiting to see what had made
her gulp in a surprised breath.
“Well?” Trey asked, impatient to know what had upset his sister.
“It’s from Sebastian,” she answered, looking from one of her brothers to the other, before landing on Mo and adding, “He’s demanding that we return to the island.”
27
Both of Tess’s brothers were immediately outraged on her behalf. Neither one of the men had ever taken kindly to anyone bullying or picking on their kid-sister. They reserved that privilege for themselves.
“What?!? He doesn’t get to order you around,” Trevor fumed.
Trey stood up and held out his hand for Tess to hand him her phone. “Give that to me,” he said firmly. “I’m going to call this fellow and outline for him how I expect for you to be treated––if he wants to continue breathing.”
It had always felt good to have two over-protective goons watching out for her, and today was no exception, but Tess did not want her brothers to frighten Sebastian. His harshly worded text was most likely sent out of fear of repercussions from the royal family, if he didn’t get the women to return to the castle.
Yanking her phone back and out of Trey’s reach, she informed them both. “You two need to stay out of this. Mo and I are grown women, and we can deal with our own problems. We don’t need you stepping in and making things worse.”
“I was going to help,” Trey pouted, making Tess wonder if she might have been a little too harsh.
Her tone softened considerably, “And I appreciate that, but we need to handle this ourselves.” She considered ushering them towards her front door, but she knew her brothers were both busy businessmen and wouldn’t stay long anyway.
“I want to go.” It was the first words Mo had spoken. Her tone was lifeless and she was still staring off into space, but at least it was something.
