Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ELLA
I blink. I pinch myself. I squint.
The PA system makes some sort of announcement about watching out for unattended baggage. Some people shove past me, probably in a rush to get past security. Most people stop in two neat crowds to my right and to my left. Watching. Waiting.
I pinch myself again.
Somehow, he’s still there.
He hasn’t bothered to change his clothes, so he’s still in the same sweater and jeans that he picked me up in this morning.
It’s not the sort of royal regalia that shouts ‘prince’ with every golden stitch.
But, if anything, it just makes him look more real.
If I were to hallucinate Archer coming after me, he’d probably be in one of those suits of armor we saw this morning, riding a large white horse.
But he’s not.
In fact, if I didn’t know him, I might not even ever think that he’s a prince.
He’s just Archer.
My heart thunders anyway.
“Ella.” He rushes forward. I clutch my bag strap tighter. “There you are.”
I swallow. I can feel the cameras, the undivided attention of an entire airport. There are a hundred other things I could look at, but Archer demands all of my focus. Everything else is secondary.
“I—” He seems to pause to think for a moment. He takes a visible breath, and the panic that was all over his eyes earlier eases a bit. “They told me you left.”
I nod at such a minuscule angle that it might just all be in my head. “I did.”
“Why?” There’s genuine anguish in his voice. It’s very confusing.
“I—I just thought that you would want me to.”
“You thought wrong.” He takes another step.
He’s so close that I have to arch my neck up to meet his eyes.
The panic might have subsided a bit, but a million other emotions still swirl in his gaze.
His words come out in a rushed whisper. “Whatever it is—any sentence that ends with you leaving is 100% wrong.”
I try to blink away the tears. A few come anyway. I whisper, hoping that no one’s phone camera is sensitive enough to pick up my words. “Archer, look, you have Kya back. She’s the one you were meant to marry all along. I know that.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I go on.
“I know it’s probably hard to untangle everything, but I just thought that if I were out of the picture then—”
“But you shouldn’t be.” He takes my hand. My heart doubles its already barely-sustainable pulse rate. “Ella, I want you in the picture. I want you to stay.”
I sniff. “Arch, I’m not even a real princess.”
“Then I’ll make you one! I mean, if you want to.”
If that’s a marriage proposal, it’s probably the most bizarre one in the world.
I try not to think too much of it. If he’s not making sense, then maybe I should.
My eyes, and my thoughts, dart all over.
“Arch, I was just helping you, alright? I—these two weeks—they’ve been great, and I loved it, and I think I will cherish it all forever. But you and I, we—”
I glance up and stop mid-sentence.
Because the one and only Prince Archer, a man who can probably have any girl in the entire free world, looks devastated.
“Archer, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”
“Ella.” He lifts our joint hands and presses my palm against his chest. His heartbeat burns under my fingers. I can’t breathe. “What do you mean?”
My mind, like my heart rate, is utterly scrambled. But I take a deep breath and I manage to say, “I thought I had to go.”
“Why?”
“Because—because—” All my other reasons feel like excuses. It’s hard to think clearly when the stakes are a lifetime of happiness versus a lifetime of regret.
“Do you want to go, Ella?”
The way he says my name is so tender, so sweet, that I just want to melt into a puddle on the floor and be mopped up by the next overworked airport janitor. But I draw the courage from some part of me that I didn’t know existed, and I manage two words.
“I don’t.”
For the first time since this conversation started, Archer smiles. The squeals I hear in the background remind me that I’m probably not the only one swooning over his smile.
“Then stay, please,” he says. He squeezes my hand over his chest. Goosebumps spread like wildfire all over my skin. “Because there is no universe where I would rather have things any other way.”
“Arch.” The tears tumble. I’m probably going to go viral for this. But suddenly, I don’t care as much about all that. “If you want me to stay—”
“Yes.”
“And if it can be arranged that we—”
“Yes.”
“I might have to—”
“Yes.”
No hesitation. No conditions. Just yes. Just unconditional yes.
“I want you with me, Ella,” he says, “and I will do anything I can in my power to make that possible.”
Days, weeks, months, and years of longing—that unrelenting void for the longest time of being entirely alone in the world—crash against the promise of a different future.
“You mean that?” I whisper.
“Yes.”
I throw myself into his arms. And he catches me. Effortlessly. Securely. Unreservedly.
Here, in his arms, the heartache of the last two hours feels a lifetime away. In his arms, the idea that we could ever have lived without each other suddenly feels hilariously impossible. He hugs me back, his grip tight and strong.
And then, slowly, he lowers me to the ground until we’re face-to-face once more. But he stays close, our noses brushing. “Ella Langford, will you stay? For me?”
“Not for Northandria?” I chuckle.
“I suppose if it helps, I am not above throwing the kingdom in as a bargaining chip.”
I laugh. And I kiss him. One, small kiss. “I’ll stay.” The tears come like a waterfall, but I can smile through them now. “I’ll stay—for Northandria, for your family, but mostly, really, just for you.”
This time, he kisses me fully on the mouth, tipping me back just the slightest bit. There’s cheering and squealing. There’s shuffling in the background. All of it is a blur.
We couldn’t possibly have been more convincing if we were trying to sell this relationship.
But we aren’t. Not anymore. There’s no need to sell something that is entirely true.
And even if the engagement did start accidentally, Archer’s lips chase away any possible lingering doubt that this could be anything but real.