16. Cataleya
The binder of wedding invitations is heavy, and I try my best to maintain composure as I try to heave the thing onto the vast oak table in the royal castle sitting room. I wish I could say this is the first of these binders I’ve had to lift today, but it’s the third. As much as I’m enjoying planning this wedding, my arms are getting tired.
“Here, let me get that for you,” Christian says gently, flashing me a warm smile.
I’m touched by how attentive he is, and he lifts the binder effortlessly for me.
“Thank you,” I reply, and when I catch his eye, I feel something stir in me momentarily.
It’s fleeting and is almost immediately washed away in the flurry of planning we’re in the midst of, but it leaves me with a warm feeling in my chest.
“These are, of course, all the designs approved by the royal advisor for correspondence,” Aurora, the royal advisor, mentions.
Her voice rests somewhere between bored and sycophantic, something I’ve had to listen to all morning. Luckily, Christian and I are having enough fun together that even that hasn’t dampened our spirits.
“You know, these are lovely,” I say hesitantly, casting a glance at Aurora. “But I thought, seeing as it”s our wedding, we might do something a little more…”
I shift my eyes to Christian, hoping he’s able to catch my drift. His eyes light up immediately, and I see a mischievous smile pass over his face.
“...Personal?” he finishes.
“Exactly.”
I can feel Aurora practically bristling at the thought, and the last thing I want is to cause trouble for Christian. But all this wedding planning… Well, it’s starting to feel like a real wedding. Like our real wedding.
“What did you have in mind?” Christian asks with genuine curiosity.
“Well, obviously we should keep the royal crest,” I assure him, and even the advisor seems to relax a bit. “But I thought maybe we could use calligraphy instead of print. I’m sure you have a calligrapher on hand somewhere, right?”
Christian grins, and I can tell he loves the idea. In fact, the rest of the day, every decision that needs to be made, we end up agreeing on. He suggests tulips, which just happens to be my favorite flower. I suggest white chocolate for the cake and Christian shoots me a look that tells me I’ve picked his favorite flavor.
Much to Aurora’s distaste, we spend much of the day joking and laughing. It’s more than I could have hoped for but it’s almost too good. After an entire day of planning our dream wedding together, I’m left reeling from it all.
Am I supposed to be enjoying this so much?I wonder as Christian and I finish picking out the menu.
“Very good, you two,” Aurora says as the meeting finally comes to an end. “You both have exquisite taste.”
I’m not sure if that last part is a dig, but I don’t even care if it is. I’m feeling exhausted all of a sudden and the moment it’s appropriate to do so, I excuse myself.
Stepping outside, I take a deep breath, letting the cool air calm the heat of desire that’s suddenly coursing through me. I almost feel as though today was some sort of elaborate foreplay, tantalizing me with the prospect of entwining my life with Christian’s.
I have to keep reminding myself this is an arranged marriage, that it doesn’t mean anything. But then I remember the lilt of Christian’s laugh, the warmth of his smile, the brush of his hand on mine as we flipped through the invitations.
The surge of longing that comes from those thoughts is enough to propel me on a long walk through the castle grounds. As I walk, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be able to resist succumbing to the yearning that’s been growing inside me over these last months.
I barely cast an eye on the elaborate gardens and exotic plants that surround me. Instead, all I see is Christian, though our future together emerges as an image that never quite comes into focus.
It’s growing dark by the time I finally make it back to the castle.
“Cataleya,” a familiar voice comes from the dusk-darkened staircase.
“Christian,” I reply, a little startled. “What are you doing out here?”
Even through the dim light, I can see his warm smile.
“I wanted to check on you,” he explains. “You’d been gone a while and I was worried.”
His words somehow speak volumes, and for a moment something hangs in the air between us—a tension that has been building for such a long time.
I can feel it growing in my chest, and suddenly, I feel the need to speak it into existence. The moment I open my mouth, Christian does the same and we end up muttering stilted half-sentences over each other.
“You go first,” Christian offers with a laugh.
I pause for a moment and find that the courage I’d had just a moment before has dissipated.
“I… uh… I forgot what I was going to say,” I lie.
The moment has passed and we both laugh it off as if nothing ever happened. I don’t bother to ask what Christian wants to say. Instead, we wander back into the garden together, casting soft glances at each other as we move in silence through the manicured paths.
“This is my favorite spot,” Christian says finally.
He gestures to our right and I see a gnarled old olive tree rising up from the soft grass. Without another word, Christian touches the curve of my back, guiding me gently toward a bench nearby.
“This is lovely,” I say as we settle there together. Above us, the stars are beginning to emerge, and we sit in silence again, gazing at the night sky for a while.
“I used to come here a lot when I was young.”
Christian’s voice is soft, laden with nostalgia, and I can’t help but grow curious. I find that I suddenly want to know everything about him, and to my relief, he continues without me having to ask.
“I used to look up at the stars, exactly like this,” he says, glancing at me with a knowing smile. “And watch the stars, wondering if the great kings before me had done the same.”
“It must have been a lot of pressure knowing you’d one day be king,” I tell him, touched by the way he’s opening up to me.
“You’d think so,” he replies with something of a smirk. “But honestly, I always knew I was destined for this. I was raised to be a future king, and everything in me loves Solvaria. I’ve always known that when the time came, I’d be ready.”
“Yeah. I figured as much,” I say, a little awed by his matter-of-factness. “I can’t imagine that being my childhood dream. I admire it, though.”
At this, Christian shifts his whole body, his eyes no longer on the stars but on me.
“And what was your childhood dream? Besides becoming a lawyer, of course.”
I smile, struck by his penetrating gaze. Once again, I feel that he really sees me.
“Well, I always wanted to help people. And I wanted to travel,” I tell him, remembering the maps I’d drawn as a kid. “I wanted to see the world beyond Solvaria and figure out what else the world had to offer.”
Christian nods thoughtfully. “And do you feel like you’ve fulfilled that dream?”
I ponder for a moment, silently recounting all that I experienced in America.
“Yeah, I guess I have,” I reply, and the answer almost comes as a shock to me. “I have big ambitions, I always have. I’ve always been in search of something more meaningful.”
My own honesty surprises me a little bit. I hadn’t expected this conversation to go so deep, and I almost look away. But there’s something in Christian’s eyes that stays with me.
His gaze is unwavering, seeking something in me that I didn’t even know was there.
“Am I finally speaking to the real you?” he asks.
The way he says it is so gentle, in a way that’s so caring that I almost can’t believe what I’m hearing. No one has ever spoken to me like that. No one has ever even tried to look past my fa?ade, let alone coax any real vulnerability out of me.
But with little more than a few divulged secrets, Christian has seen parts of me I didn’t even know were there.