‘And what was your way of handling it?’ she murmured.
He flexed his shoulders. ‘I didn’t have one really.’
‘No?’
‘You’re thinking my social life?’ he asked—feeling weary and oddly hurt at the suggestion. ‘Maybe. It didn’t mean anything.’
‘Maybe that was the point,’ she said lightly. ‘If it didn’t mean anything, then it couldn’t hurt, right?’
‘Not gonna lie—it felt good, Hester.’
‘Well, wouldn’t it suck if it didn’t?’ She smiled. ‘And when things really hurt you’ll do almost anything to feel better even for a little while, right?’
He felt raw. Maybe she was right. Maybe it had been more than escape. He’d been burying frustration and grief. But he’d liked being the Playboy Prince. He’d liked encouraging zero expectations of him settling down. Only then his father had died. And then that stupid requirement had come into play and he’d been forced to create a relationship he’d never wanted. That he still didn’t want—right?
‘You don’t need to apologise for it,’ she said. ‘It just was what was, right? I locked myself away. That was my choice. Neither of us were right or wrong necessarily, it was just how we each coped with a really crappy time.’
‘Yeah.’ He’d not stopped to think about what a really crappy time it had been in so long.
‘So now you run the stud.’ She looked across the grounds. ‘And that was the other way of handling it—building on her legacy. Keeping something that she loved very much alive.’
He swallowed, unable to reply.
‘And you freed Fiorella from that royal burden.’
‘Of course I did.’ He could breathe again. ‘That was easy. She didn’t need to be stuck in Triscari the same as…’
‘The same as you.’
‘It’s just fate.’ He shrugged. ‘An accident of birth. I just have to do the best I can.’
‘Do you worry about your ability to do the job?’ She stared at him. ‘Seriously?’
‘What, you have dibs on feeling insecure?’ He half chuckled. ‘Of course I worry I won’t be good enough. Being the firstborn Prince means you’re going to end up King. It’s a full-time job that starts from the moment you’re born and it takes up every minute. I’m not saying that to summon your sympathy. I know how privileged I am and I want to do what’s right for my country.’
‘And you do. They love you. They ask for your thoughts all the time and they trust your answers. Everyone loves you. Everyone knows you do what’s best for the country because you care. And as long as you keep caring, then you’ll do what’s right for Triscari. You’re not selfish, Alek.’ She paused. ‘You’ve given your life for duty.’
He shot her a look. ‘I thought I was a rapscallion playboy.’
‘Maybe you were when you could snatch a second to yourself, but mostly you’ve done the job forced upon you. And the job you wanted to do for your mother.’ Hester realised he couldn’t separate his role as Prince from his self. It was a career like no other—too enmeshed with his very existence and it brought with it a kind of pressure she’d not stopped to consider. ‘You’re building on your father’s legacy too, by being a good king. But you’re more important than just your crown, you know—’
‘I know,’ he interrupted and reached out to stroke her hair back from her face. ‘Don’t worry too much, my ego is perfectly healthy.’
She actually wasn’t so sure about that. ‘But it’s isolating, isn’t it?’ she said passionately. ‘Living with grief.’
His eyes widened. ‘I’m not—’
‘Yes, you are. For your mother. For the life you’re never going to be able to have.’
And somehow in the course of this conversation her own loneliness had been unlocked. ‘I grieve for the life I might’ve had if the accident hadn’t happened,’ she confided in an unstoppable swirl of honesty. ‘I was at the library, happily reading and waiting for them to pick me up. They never did and I never got to go home again. I was taken to the police station and after a few hours my uncle arrived and took me. Five hours of flight time later I landed in a place I didn’t know, to meet people who didn’t want me.’
Alek just stared at her, and this time his eyes were so full of care and compassion and she wanted to share with him—because it wasn’t all awful. She’d been so lucky in so many ways.
‘My parents were a runaway love match.’ She smiled impishly, delighting in the romance they’d had. ‘He was the second youngest, destined to uphold their place in society, right? His family were snobs. My mother was new to town, moved into the wrong suburb…she totally wasn’t from the right background. They met at school and it was true, young love. But when she got pregnant his family came down so hard and they ran away—living transiently, working seasonal jobs, barely keeping themselves housed and fed, fighting hard to stay afloat and keep me with them. But they did it. They loved each other and they loved me. They decided they couldn’t afford more so there was just me and…not going to lie, Alek…’ she smiled cheekily at him ‘… I was spoiled too.’
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he said huskily. ‘I’m so glad to hear that.’
‘Yeah, we had nothing but we had everything, you know? And we certainly never visited his home town. So after the accident when I turned up, all that old bitterness was still real. I didn’t fit in—I looked more like my mother than my father. I had her vixen eyes. I was part of who and what stole him away and that made me bad. But they were determined to “do the right thing”. Except they had nothing good to say about my mum and they went on about my father’s selfishness and weakness. I couldn’t tell them how wonderful they really were—they didn’t want to listen and
