CHAPTER 13 #2
The first course arrived, a seafood dish that made me temporarily forget about snipers and security details and the absurdity of my new life. It was that good.
"So," I said once I'd recovered the power of speech, "tell me something about yourself that doesn't appear in any official biography."
"Like what?"
"Something real. Something you don't tell people at diplomatic functions."
He was quiet for a moment, twirling his wine glass. "I used to have panic attacks before public appearances. When I was younger."
That surprised me. "Really?"
"Fourteen to about eighteen. The pressure of performing royalty while everyone watched and judged... it got to me. I'd lock myself in bathrooms and try to remember how to breathe."
"What changed?"
"I learned to separate myself from the role. When I'm doing public appearances, I'm not really Archie. I'm playing Prince Archibald, who has no feelings and never makes mistakes."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It was. Still is, sometimes." He met my eyes. "What about you? Something real."
I thought about it. "I was afraid of the dark until I was nineteen. Like, genuinely terrified. I had to sleep with a nightlight through most of college."
"What happened when you were nineteen?"
"My roommate's boyfriend stayed over one night and unplugged my nightlight because he thought it was childish.
I had a complete meltdown. Crying, hyperventilating, the whole thing.
" I shrugged. "My roommate was amazing about it.
Helped me realize the fear was connected to something deeper, though we never figured out what.
I started therapy that semester, learned some coping techniques. "
"Did therapy help?"
"Eventually. I stopped needing the nightlight, at least." I traced the rim of my wine glass. "The funny thing is, I never understood where the fear came from. I had a happy childhood, loving parents, no trauma that I could remember. It was just this irrational terror that lived in my bones."
I looked up at him. "And then a few weeks ago, Captain Steiner told me I was kidnapped from a palace garden when I was two years old. Suddenly my whole life made a different kind of sense. All those years of unexplained fear, and it turns out my body remembered something my mind couldn't."
Archie was quiet for a moment, his expression unreadable. "That must have been strange. Learning that about yourself."
"Strange is one word for it. I spent twenty years in therapy trying to understand why I was scared of things I couldn't name, and it turns out the answer was international kidnapping." I laughed, but it came out a little shaky. "My therapist is going to have a field day when I tell her."
"You haven't told her yet?"
"I haven't had time. Being a princess is surprisingly demanding." I met his eyes. "You're actually the first person I've talked to about this. The connection between the fear and the kidnapping, I mean."
Something shifted in his expression. He reached across the table, his fingers brushing mine, and the touch sent warmth spreading up my arm.
"Thank you for telling me," he said. "That means something."
"Thank you for listening without making it weird."
The main course arrived, and I lost the ability to think about anything except how good the food was. We talked about lighter things: books we'd read, places we wanted to visit, the differences between American and European coffee culture.
"American coffee is a war crime," Archie declared. "That watery substance you call drip coffee should be classified as a human rights violation."
"Excuse me, I was a professional barista. I made excellent coffee."
"Espresso-based drinks, yes. But regular American coffee? The kind you get at diners?"
"Is delicious and comforting and I will die on this hill."
"You'll die alone on that hill. No European will join you."
"Your loss. You've never experienced the joy of unlimited diner coffee refills at 2 AM."
By the time dessert arrived, I'd almost forgotten about the security detail scattered throughout the restaurant.
Almost. One of them had shifted position during the main course, and I'd caught the movement in my peripheral vision.
But it felt less intrusive than I'd expected, knowing they were there to keep me safe.
"Can I ask you something?" I said, pushing tiramisu around my plate.
"You've been asking me things all evening."
"Something more serious."
"Go ahead."
"Why are you being so nice to me? A week ago you were cold and dismissive. Now you're taking me on romantic dates and investigating saboteurs on my behalf. What changed?"
He was quiet for a long moment, and I thought maybe I'd pushed too far.
"I was apprehensive," he said finally.
"Of what?"
"Of you. Of what you represented." He set down his fork.
"My whole life, I've known exactly what was expected of me.
Marry strategically, produce heirs, maintain the monarchy.
It was all very clinical and predictable.
Then you arrived, and suddenly I was supposed to spend my life with someone I'd never met.
Someone who might hate me, or whom I might hate. The uncertainty was terrifying."
"So you decided to hate me preemptively?"
"I decided to keep my distance. It seemed safer than getting attached to someone who might be miserable here." He met my eyes. "I was wrong. About all of it."
"What made you realize that?"
"Watching you handle impossible situations with humor and grace. Seeing you care about healthcare programs you invented on the spot. Learning that you thank the serving staff even when protocol says you shouldn't." He smiled slightly. "You're not what I expected, Betty. You're better."
I didn't know what to say to that. So I did something that might have been a terrible idea.
I reached across the table, took his hand properly, and held it.
"This is complicated," I said.
"I know."
"And political."
"I know."
"And there are snipers on the roof right now making sure nobody assassinates us during dessert."
"Also true."
"But I'm having a really good time."
"Me too."
We sat there for a moment, hand in hand, while somewhere outside Captain Steiner's team maintained their perimeter and Giuseppe pretended not to notice that his VIP guests were having a moment.
"We should probably head back," I said eventually. "Before the security detail stages an intervention."
"Probably."
Neither of us moved.
"Archie?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you. For negotiating with Steiner. For wanting to give me a normal evening even though normal is basically impossible for us."
"You're welcome. For what it's worth, this is the best abnormal evening I've had in years."
We drove back to the palace as the city lights sparkled below us, the Mediterranean a dark mirror reflecting the stars. Our fingers were still loosely intertwined on the seat between us, and neither of us seemed inclined to let go.
"I had a good time tonight," I said, breaking the easy silence.
"Past tense? The evening's not over yet."
"Isn't it?"
He turned to look at me, and something in his expression made my breath catch. "That depends on you."
The security detail maintained their professional distance, eyes forward, but I caught Captain Steiner's gaze in the rearview mirror once. She might have been almost smiling.
When we arrived at the palace, Archie helped me out of the car, his hand lingering on mine longer than necessary.
We walked through the corridors together, and I was acutely aware of how close he was, of the heat radiating from his body, of the way his cologne had become familiar over the course of the evening.
At my bedroom door, we stopped, facing each other in the soft light of the wall sconces. The hallway was quiet, the rest of the palace sleeping or at least pretending to.
"So," I said, my voice coming out softer than I intended. "Same time next week? Assuming no international crises or assassination attempts?"
"I'll have Roberto clear my calendar."
"Very efficient."
Neither of us moved to leave. The air between us had changed, charged with something that hadn't been there at the beginning of the evening. Or maybe it had always been there, and I'd just been too stubborn to acknowledge it.
"Betty." His voice was low, and the way he said my name made my skin tingle.
"Yes?"
"I should probably say goodnight."
"Probably."
"I should probably go back to my rooms like a proper gentleman."
"That would be the sensible thing to do."
"I'm finding it difficult to be sensible right now."
My heart was beating so hard I was sure he could hear it. "That makes two of us."
He stepped closer, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. This close, I could see the way his pupils had dilated, could see that whatever I was feeling, he was feeling it too.
"I'm going to do something that might be a terrible idea," I said.
"What's that?"
Instead of answering, I rose up on my toes, slid my hand around the back of his neck, and kissed him.
For a heartbeat, he went still, and I thought maybe I'd misread everything. Then his arms came around me, pulling me closer, and he kissed me back like he'd been waiting for permission.
It wasn't a polite kiss. It wasn't careful or restrained or anything like the performative peck we'd shared at our wedding.
This was real, his lips warm and firm against mine, one hand splayed across my lower back while the other tangled in my hair.
He tasted like wine and tiramisu and something underneath that was just him.
I pressed closer, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, and when his tongue traced the seam of my lips, I opened for him without hesitation.
The first real taste of him sent heat cascading through my entire body.
A small sound escaped me, something between a sigh and a gasp, and he smiled against my mouth.
"Terrible idea?" he murmured without pulling away.
"The worst." I kissed him again. "Absolutely catastrophic."
He walked me backward until my shoulders hit the door, his body a warm, solid presence against mine.
My head fell back, and he took the invitation, trailing kisses along my jaw, down the side of my neck.
When he found the spot just below my ear, I made a sound that would have embarrassed me if I'd had any brain cells left to feel embarrassment.
"We should stop," he said against my skin, even as his hands traced patterns on my waist that suggested he had no intention of stopping.
"We should definitely stop."
"Anyone could walk by."
"Captain Steiner probably has this hallway under surveillance."
He pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes dark and his breathing uneven. "That's not actually a deterrent for you, is it?"
"I'm discovering I have an exhibitionist streak I didn't know about."
He kissed me again, softer this time but no less thorough, his thumb tracing circles on my hip that made it very difficult to remember why we were supposed to be stopping.
"I should go," he said finally, pulling back with obvious reluctance.
"You should."
"If I don't leave now, I'm not going to leave at all."
"Would that be so terrible?"
His eyes searched mine, and I saw the war playing out across his features. Want versus propriety. Desire versus duty. Whatever he was feeling for me versus whatever complications he was still carrying.
"Not tonight," he said, and the roughness in his voice told me how much the words cost him. "When we do this properly, I don't want it to be in a hallway where anyone could interrupt."
"When?" My heart stuttered at his word choice.
"When." He kissed my forehead, a gesture that was somehow more intimate than everything that had come before. "I'm not going anywhere, Betty. We have time."
I wasn't sure I wanted time. I wasn't sure I wanted to be sensible or proper or any of the things I was supposed to be. But he was right, and some small rational part of my brain knew it.
"Goodnight, Archie."
"Goodnight, Betty."
He stepped back, and the loss of his warmth made me want to grab him and pull him back. But I stayed where I was, leaning against my door, watching him walk away.
He paused at the corner and looked back, and the expression on his face made my knees weak.
"For the record," he said, "that wasn't a terrible idea. That was the best idea anyone's had in a very long time."
Then he was gone, and I was alone in the hallway with kiss-swollen lips and a heart that wouldn't stop racing.
I slipped into my room and leaned against the closed door, pressing my fingers to my mouth where I could still feel the ghost of his lips.
I'd just made out with a prince. My husband. A man I'd been determined to resent, who'd turned out to be kind and funny and protective, who kissed like he meant it and looked at me like I was something worth wanting.
This was either the beginning of something wonderful or a spectacular mistake.
Given my track record, probably both.