CHAPTER 25
Betty
The sign arrived at three in the morning, the installers working by floodlight to replace the old café logo with elegant gold script: The Latte Princess.
I had made the calls myself, invoking my new title with a shamelessness that would have made me cringe six months ago.
"This is Princess Bettina of Solmarina, and I need a rush order.
Yes, I'm serious. Yes, that Princess Bettina. "
Turns out royal clout could accomplish in a few weeks what normal people planned a year or more for.
The roses climbing the brick walls, the candles on every surface, the complete transformation of my former workplace into a wedding venue, all of it conjured from nothing by people who were suddenly very eager to help when they realized actual royalty was asking.
I stood behind the counter I'd worked at for three years, watching Petra arrange the last of the flowers while Captain Steiner conducted yet another security sweep of the parking lot.
Through the window, I could see Roberto stationed near the door, looking deeply uncomfortable in civilian clothes.
Even the head of security had to blend in when the venue was a coffee shop in suburban Oregon.
"You're sure you're ready?" Mom asked, appearing at my elbow with a cup of something that smelled like chamomile. My mother was wearing a lavender dress she'd bought specifically for the occasion, and her eyes were suspiciously bright. "Not nervous?"
"Nervous, yes. Unsure, no." I took the cup and let the heat settle my nerves. "There's a difference."
"There is." My mother touched my cheek. "I'm proud of you, sweetheart. For knowing what you want and going after it. Even when it's scary."
"You're the one who told me the best things usually are."
"I give excellent advice." Mom's voice wobbled slightly.
Through the window, I watched a black SUV pull into the parking lot. My grandmother's transport. They'd arranged for a medical team to accompany her, oxygen tanks and medications and everything else a dying woman needed to watch her granddaughter get married in an American coffee shop.
"She came," I said.
"Of course she came." Mom's voice was soft. "She's your grandmother."
"She lied to me about the marriage."
"She did." Mom set down her cup. "And I understand why you're angry.
But I also remember how worried I was when you were sixteen and wanted to drive to Portland with your friends.
I barely slept until you came home. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a child completely, to spend twenty years not knowing if she was alive or dead.
" She watched as Roberto helped the Grand Duchess into a wheelchair.
"It doesn't make what she did right. But I understand the kind of fear that makes people do desperate things to keep the people they love safe. "
The door opened, and the Grand Duchess was wheeled inside.
She looked worse than she had three weeks ago in Valdoria, her face drawn and pale, her hands trembling where they rested on the wheelchair's arms. But her eyes were sharp as ever, taking in the coffee shop with an expression that was half curiosity and half royal assessment.
"So this is where you made coffee," she said. "It's... cozy."
"It's a dump," I corrected. "But it's my dump. Has been ever since your security team bought it in my name to get my manager fired."
"A worthwhile investment, from what I heard about him."
The Grand Duchess's gaze landed on Mom, and something complicated passed between them. "Mrs. Montclair."
"Your Grace."
"Thank you for letting me be here. I know I have no right to ask for inclusion in Betty's life after what I did."
My mother was quiet for a long moment. Then she walked over to the wheelchair, bent down, and took the Grand Duchess's trembling hands in hers.
"You have every right," she said. "You're her grandmother. You loved her before I did, lost her through no fault of your own, and spent twenty years hoping she'd come back." Her voice cracked slightly. "I can't imagine that pain. I don't want to imagine it."
"I can't imagine the joy of raising her," the Grand Duchess replied. "Of watching her grow up, learn to walk, go to school. You had all the moments I missed."
"And you'll have all the moments we'll miss. The royal ones. The princess things." Mom squeezed her hands. "She needs both of us. Different kinds of family for different parts of her life."
I watched this exchange with a lump in my throat. These two women, from completely different worlds, finding common ground in their love for me. It shouldn't work. Nothing about any of this should work.
And yet.
"If you two are done making me cry before my wedding," I managed, "I still need to get dressed."
Petra appeared with a garment bag. "I have your dress, Your Highness. And Carmela sent specific instructions about your hair that I'm choosing to interpret as suggestions rather than commands."
"Carmela would be horrified if she knew you were doing my hair instead of her."
"Carmela is currently in Solmarina making sure things are perfect for your homecoming.
" Petra unzipped the garment bag to reveal the dress I had chosen: simple white silk, knee-length, no train or elaborate beading.
A dress for a coffee shop wedding, not a cathedral.
"She said to tell you she expects photographs, and if your eyeliner is uneven, she'll never forgive me. "
I took the dress and headed to the back room that had once served as my break room. The same dingy space where I'd eaten sad lunches and complained about Derek and dreamed of a life that was somehow more than this.
Funny how "more" had turned out to mean something I never could have imagined.
I was halfway into the dress when a knock sounded at the door.
"I'm not decent," I called.
"I know. That's rather the point."
Archie's voice, low and amused. I clutched the dress to my chest.
"You can't see me before the wedding. It's bad luck."
"I thought you didn't believe in royal superstitions."
"I don't believe in royal protocol. Superstitions are different." I zipped up the back of the dress as best I could. "What do you want?"
"To give you something. Close your eyes."
“Fine.” I closed my eyes. The door opened, and I heard him cross the room, his footsteps careful on the old linoleum.
"Hold out your hands."
I did. Something cool was placed in my palms. I opened my eyes to find a delicate silver bracelet with a single charm: a tiny coffee cup.
"It was my mother's," Archie said. He was standing close enough that I could smell his cologne, see the slight nervous tension in his shoulders. "She collected charms from places she visited, things that mattered to her. This one was from a café in Paris where she had her first espresso."
"Archie..."
"I had a charm added." He pointed to a second piece I hadn't noticed: a horse, exquisitely detailed. "For Solmarina. For me. So you'd have both worlds with you."
"You're going to make me cry. I specifically told Petra no crying until after photographs."
"Then I'll leave before I do more damage." He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my temple. "See you at the altar. Or the espresso machine. Whatever we're calling it."
"We're calling it the counter where I used to work before I became a princess."
"Catchy."
He slipped out before I could respond, and I stood alone in my break room, holding a bracelet that represented everything my life had become. Oregon and Europe. Coffee and horses. The woman I'd been and the princess I was becoming.
Both worlds. Both lives. Both versions of myself, finally fitting together.
I fastened the bracelet around my wrist and went to get married.
* * *
THE CEREMONY ITSELF was simple. No cathedral, no thousand-year-old protocols, no fish forks to worry about.
Just me and Archie standing at the counter where I'd served countless lattes, with my father officiating because it turned out he'd gotten ordained online years ago for a friend's wedding and never let the certification lapse.
"We are gathered here today," Dad said, his voice only slightly wobbly, "to witness the marriage of my daughter, Betty, to Prince Archibald of Solmarina. Again. But this time for real."
Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd.
Petra and Captain Steiner stood on my side, while Roberto and Carmela's assistant Marco flanked Archie.
The Grand Duchess sat in her wheelchair near the front, Mom beside her holding a box of tissues they were already working through.
And in the back row, Mrs. Lawrence sat with a cup of dark roast, no room for cream, a permanent "free coffee for life" card tucked into her purse courtesy of the new owner.
"Betty and Archie have asked to exchange their own vows," Dad continued. "Betty, you're up first."
I turned to face Archie, this man who'd lied to me and fought for me and given me an escape route I'd already decided not to use. He was wearing a simple gray suit instead of his royal regalia, and his eyes were suspiciously bright.
"When I met you," I began, "you were Peter. A stable hand who taught me to ride and made fun of my attempts to speak Italian and somehow made me laugh on the worst days of my life. When I discovered who you really were, I wanted to hate you. I tried to hate you. You'd lied about everything."
I paused, steadying myself.
"But you hadn't lied about everything. You'd lied about your name and your title and the fact that you could probably buy a country with your pocket change.
But you hadn't lied about who you were. The person who stayed up all night with a sick horse.
Who made his own pasta because a chef taught him.
Who gave me annulment papers because he wanted me to have a choice, even though it might have cost him everything. "
I reached for his hands.