I caught Sonia wink at me from over his shoulder when she passed by and I shot her the best glare I could while he was telling me about a ski competition he won two winters ago in the Alps.
“If you’d like to dance,” he said, setting down his empty glass. “I’d be happy to show you how we waltz here.”
“Well we don’t do much waltzing in America—like, at all,” I said. “So that’d be—yeah, show me what you’ve got.”
He laughed and offered his hand. I set mine in his just after I also deposited my wine glass. His hand was soft and warm. It was the kind of hand that had never really done any physical work at all in his life. He pulled gently and I followed him as he got onto the dance floor, and I did my best not to think about anyone else’s eyes on me. Julius had rather mesmerizing dark pools of brown anyway, very easy to get lost in.
“It’s a three step dance,” he said. “It’s not that hard to follow because the music is set to three steps each bar too. So if you can keep up with the notes, it will be easy.”
“I’ll just follow your lead.”
“It will be easy.”
It actually was pretty easy. I felt kind of weird while doing it, but Julius assured me I was taking the steps perfectly. And I did manage to avoid stepping on him at all or tripping over my own feet. Had this been a romcom I would have landed on my butt already, for sure. But Julius’s hands were very secure and solid, one at my waist and the other holding my own. He chatted more, I assumed to distract me so I didn’t think too much while going over the steps.
Before I knew it, the song was over and we stopped. He released his hands from me and I did the same. He clapped for the band, as did everyone around us, and I joined in. He gave me a dazzling, toothy smile and I shrugged back with a small, red-faced one.
“You are a natural dancer,” he said.
“Well I don’t know about that, but you’re a good teacher,” I said.
That’s when I caught Nik’s eye for the first time that night. He was watching from across the room and did not turn away, even as my eyes met his and I caught him staring. His face was awash with tense anger. Even from this distance I could see the tendons of his jaw jumping as he clenched his teeth together. He’d been staring for a while, that much was clear.
I gave him one last, long, lingering look before turning away and back to Julius.
“Thank you for the dance,” I said.
“Any time,” he said. “I hope to see more of you. These parties are terribly boring, but you’ve managed to make it more fun than I’ve had in a while.”
I smiled and thanked him and he kissed my hand in a showy, European farewell. I stepped away from him and found immediate refuge in the orbit of my mother. I knew Nik might try to talk to me after that, and I was not looking forward to it. I hid with my mother for the rest of the night to keep him at bay before quietly slipping out and back to my room to sleep.
* * *
Being back home, in my own bed, in my own house with its worn and familiar smell was a huge comfort. The second I flopped down on my own bed, my collection of stuffed animals (kept on my bed for entirely decorative purposes, obviously) went flying on the bounce and I nuzzled myself into the familiar comforter.
Jess and Jennifer already had left me several text messages, which had gone unanswered up until now. I needed a solid few minutes of peace to myself. I’d let them drill me for info in a few hours, but for now I did my best to just ignore everything that had happened.
The morning after the party, we were sent off with a farewell breakfast. Sonia and her mother were already waiting for us at the table when we arrived. But when Nik entered, it was an entirely different atmosphere. Everything about his demeanor had changed. He entered the room and we were all instructed to rise and wait to sit down again until he was pulling out his chair to do the same.
It seemed so strange to see the little boy from my childhood command a room like that. He wore it with a hint of pride and a lot of grace, like a proper adult. It was unnerving. The immature boy from the tabloid photos was far off and gone, likely never to return.
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” he said, making small talk as we all finally dug into our plates of food.
Of course we had to wait for him. That was another thing that had changed too.
“I hope everyone enjoyed themselves at the reception last night,” the queen said.
She was the dowager queen now, or queen mother, depending on which member of the staff or which diplomat was addressing her. Either way, it was a demotion.
“Fantastic party,” my father said. “A good old celebration with a sprinkling of diplomatic chess. My favorite kind.”
He chuckled heartily and the adults joined him while Sonia looked at me and rolled her eyes with a smirk. I shrugged but smiled also. Nik seemed to be trapped in his own world, focused on his plate and fork though he was only really picking around his food. Once or twice he reached for his cup and took a sip, but for the most part, he wasn’t eating a thing.
“Did you book first class for your flight home?” the queen asked.
“Of course. I’d raise hell in the State Department if I couldn’t recline my seat for nine hours,” my father laughed. He was joking. Mostly.
“Looking forward to being home, Isabel?” she then turned and asked me. She had always been polite, but she was a hard woman to get to know.
“Yes, actually,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of school work to get caught up on and college applications to check obsessively every day.”
That earned more laughs, and all of this seemed easy. Making small talk, having fun, this part was fine. Nik’s solemn presence at the end of the table was starting to get suffocating, though. I knew he was watching me the entire time. I felt his eyes on me as I had felt them on me last night. The grumpy look and the lingering gazes didn’t make for a particularly comfortable combination. And on the few occasions I looked and met his gaze, it didn’t look kind.
“I still think you should look at schools here,” Sonia said. “Our tuition system is much fairer than yours back in the States, and the education is also world class.”
I nodded politely. The last thing I needed was to be stuck in Nik’s orbit, thousands of miles from home, for four years of my life. As impressive as a European diploma might be, it wasn’t worth the tax on my mental health. Besides, most of my applications were in already.
There was more mumbling small talk over the sound of forks and knives on plates and the clinking of glasses as they were lifted and set back down. The entire time, Nik said nothing. Or if he did grace us with his voice, it was a word or two at most, and it was only when he was spoken to. Totally and completely pleasant.
After breakfast, hurting and feeling hollow, I decided to take one last stroll through the gardens. I wanted to capture the quiet and the calm so I had something to think about in the honking horns and busy life of being back in DC and neck deep in school. The gardens were always my favorite part of this place. I took a few photos to keep in my phone, and when I heard footsteps behind me I recognized the heavy gait before I even turned around. I should have known he would follow me.
“How are you?” he asked, before I could even turn around. The tone didn’t sit well with me. It was unfriendly, commanding an answer. I didn’t put up with that.
I turned around slowly and gave him a long smile, waiting to answer. I’d talk on my own terms. His hissy fit wasn’t going to force me into playing some game by his rules. He looked more agitated the longer I took to answer, and the sweeter my smile became.
“Excited to go home,” I finally said.
It wasn’t the answer he wanted, because he glared off at one of the pear trees a ways down the path.
“You sure your friend from last night won’t miss you too desperately?” he asked.
I knew that had been boiling under the surface, but hearing it now practically made me see red. He didn’t get to be mad about that, not after everything he had d
one.
“He might,” I said. “He did say I was the best part of the party. Maybe he’ll invite me to some more.”
“I just never thought you were the type to go for strangers,” he said. “You’ve always been shy.”
“Yeah well, growing up changes us all, right?”
I hadn’t intended to be bitter about anything. Nik and I were actually in the least agitated state we’d been in for a while toward each other. But if he was going to come in with is guns blazing, then I was going to throw it right back at him.
“Will you be speaking with him again?”
“First of all,” I said, wheeling around to face him. He was closer than I thought he was going to be but I didn’t let the intense gaze get to me (even if my cheeks were catching a tiny bit on fire). “You’re in no position to be complaining to me.”
“For God’s sake…”
“Second of all, it’s none of your business.”
Nik snorted and I shook my head and turned to stamp away. That seemed to break Nik’s vicious streak because suddenly he was trotting after me and the hand that wrapped around my wrist and pulled was light and warm.
“Isabel, wait,” he said, much softer and kinder than a moment ago.
I was afraid to turn around. I was afraid to see his eyes, to feel the heat there, and to have less than pure urges I just might be tempted into acting on if he stared at me long enough. I stopped, but didn’t turn. So he stepped to walk in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m out of line. I’m just stressed and didn’t expect to look over and see…”
“So I’m supposed to make sure all my choices don’t somehow set you off?”
“No. That’s not what I meant. This is me. My fault. Mea culpa.”
I felt the tightness in my chest deflate a bit. He smiled, embarrassed and small, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Twice you’ve got a king begging forgiveness,” he chuckled.
“Are you going to keep harping on this king thing?” I half teased, and he smiled a little brighter.
“So you don’t hate me?” he asked, reaching for my hand.
“No,” I said. “I don’t. But…”
I watched as all the hope drained out of his face like soapy water from a sink. His eyes got that boyish, vulnerable look again and his demeanor sagged. He could seem like the biggest of men sometimes, or the littlest child. That was something endearing I’d never be totally immune to. So I tried to push it out of my mind as I gently took his wrist and pulled him over to the stone bench. We sat down, facing each other and I felt like kicking myself for what I was about to say but someone had to be the mature one here.
“Nik, right now we’re obviously in a mess,” I said. “You’re a—you’re a world leader. I’m just trying to get my SAT grades in order. I won’t lie and say I wouldn’t kiss you again—not that that’s an invitation to try it—but someone needs to be the mature one here. And right now, I think it’s best if we just—if we just keep things to our letters for a while.”
He nodded, solemn and sad. There wasn’t an ounce of fight there but I could feel the spark of a fire waiting below. I knew what he felt for me was real and lasting, no matter how many girls he met up with in sleazy Paris bars. But we needed distance from everything that happened and everything we were feeling, good and bad. He was aware enough to understand that.
Maybe that crown was helping him grow up after all, even less than 24 hours into wearing it.
“As long as you promise to write back,” he said.
“Me?” I scoffed.
“Okay, yeah, I deserved that,” he laughed. “But I’m promising to write back. As a king. I’ll ‘harp on the king thing’ one more time and swear on my ancestors’ graves that I’ll write back after every letter you send me. You don’t have to do the same, but a letter once a month might be nice?”
This is what people meant when they said ‘charming to a fault’. He was dangerously charming and he honestly wasn’t even really aware of it. But things had to be this way for a while. So I nodded.
“I can certainly manage that.”
“Good.”
We sat there awkwardly for a minute, arms twitching, trying to figure out whether a hug was out of bounds or a handshake was way too formal. Ultimately, I leapt in and went for it. Who knew the next time I’d get the chance to hug him? I might as well. So I did, and separated myself quickly before we could do anything crazy cliché like have him smell my hair or kiss my cheek on the pull away.
“Have a safe flight, Isabel,” he whispered. “Write to me when you’re home.”
Chapter 8
And now here I was, incredibly romantically (and, honestly, sexually) frustrated on my own bed back home, debating about how I was going to be able to explain any of this to my friends or mentally deal with any of it. Why couldn’t I fall for a normal guy, like the paper boy or the hot barista? I had to go for literally the most unavailable person on the planet besides, like, the Pope.
I decided a pint of ice cream was the way to go. So I dragged myself downstairs and dug into the last of the cookie dough container with a giant pie server and tried not to think about how pathetic I looked. The face of a girl who had a prince—now a king—swooning over her, digging into a tub of ice cream with gusto. Attractive stuff.
I was looking forward to the distraction of returning to school the next day, however. I’d take even the most brutal pop quiz if it meant I could put the image of Nik’s eyes out of my mind.
There were no brutal pop quizzes, but there was, however, a boy I’d never seen before, who plopped down right across from me at the lab desk in second period.
“Uhhh…”
I was always good with the opening lines.
“Hi, sorry. This is organic chemistry, right?” he asked, ripping open his binder to sift through papers.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Okay cool. It took me like a solid 10 minutes into my first period to realize it wasn’t AP English,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief and roughly shoving his things back in his bag.
“And you are…?”
“Oh, sorry, my bad.”
His name was Peter and he was from Florida and this was only his second time being “so far north” before. He was jumpy and talked a little too fast for me to keep up sometimes, but he smiled a lot and offered to dissect the cow’s brain so I didn’t have to.
I talked about random things and it was kind of nice, having a total stranger right there. He was someone who didn’t know about all of my relationship bullshit and crazy excuse for an almost-boyfriend. Maybe that’s why some people kept to themselves all the time—it was easier to talk to a stranger about surface stuff, than let someone in and let them see it all. Maybe that’s why I wanted to keep to only letters for Nik. Maybe making him a stranger again would make things easier.
Because that was going to work out well.
“I’m an army brat,” Peter said.
I’d invited him to our lunch table since I was positive he had nowhere else to sit. Jennifer, who had taken to sitting with me at lunch now, shrugged and gave him a hello and occasionally asked him a question. She was burning to ask about the coronation, I could tell. But having Peter here as a buffer was keeping her at bay. I felt bad using him like that, but he was getting some friendship time out of it too, right?
“We mostly moved around Florida and the south,” he said. “My dad took a job as a drill sergeant at some camp around here though, so I think we’re here for good now.”
“So, you’re cool with the whole new kid thing?’ Jennifer asked.
He nodded and shrugged and sucked down the rest of his iced tea. He was nice and had got Jennifer’s own weird version of an approval. He was a typical guy, not exactly “spill my deepest secrets to” material.
When I got home, of course, a letter from Nik was waiting for me on the kitchen table.
Hey Isabel,
I wrote you first. You knew I would, bec
ause we both knew you wouldn’t be the first one to pick up the pen. Which I get. But I wasn’t going to let everything just kind of fade away until we were complete strangers again because you take forever to make up your mind. You’re fuming right now, right? I can tell. Your face gets red so easily. Anyway, I just wanted to say hi, see how you were doing. Respond whenever you want but I’m going to put a statute of limitations on here and reserve the right to write back if you don’t do it in time.
Until then…
Nik
I hated that he still had a way of making me smile. Well, I didn’t hate that, actually. I was so beyond hating him that it was awful. But still, I kind of wanted to see him squirm, just a bit. So I filed the letter away for a while and decided I’d get to it when I got to it.
That’s when there was a knock on my door and I dragged myself and opened it, already guessing who would be standing outside.
Jennifer and Jess were red-nosed and shivering a bit in the October air but looking as determined as ever.
“We have been patient,” Jess said, bustling past me into the house with Jennifer in tow. “Spill. Now.”
I sighed and closed the door.
“Hi to you too.”
“I didn’t say anything in front of Paul or whatever,” Jennifer said.
“Who’s Paul?”
“His name’s Peter—“
“So let’s hear it.”
After I got them calmed down and situated on the couch (and made sure my parents were nowhere nearby to overhear all the sordid details of my messed up relationship with Nik) I told them everything. Somehow, they managed to stay quiet, and they kept their questions until the end, but when they came, they came out like a waterfall that wouldn’t stop.
I decided it was best not to tell them that he’d already managed to get me a letter, filled with snark and his off-brand of flirting.
Letters from a Prince: The Royals of Heledia (Book 1) Page 12
