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“Wow.” She let out a small laugh and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I don’t really know what to say to that.”
“I’m even suspecting he had a part in us seeing one another that night.” He cast a quick look at the crowd, leaving off any detail of how or where.
Her jaw dropped. “Now that you mention it…I got a flyer slipped under my door, with a ticket for free entry and some free drinks. I thought it was just a complimentary hotel thing.”
He let out a small laugh and rubbed his jaw, coming one step closer. There were only ten rows between them now. Every time he passed one, the people in it stared at him with awe—even the Americans. She didn’t blame them. He was a prince.
A king, actually…
Even if they didn’t know that yet.
“Well, then, that confirms my suspicions.” He smiled sadly. The emotions inside of him had to be even more messed up than hers were. His father had lied to him, hid things, and then tried to make it right…but had died before doing so. If that wasn’t enough to make a person want to scream, she didn’t know what was. “He brought us back together, the best way he could, because he regretted his actions. It doesn’t excuse him, or make it okay, but I wanted you to know.”
She swallowed, blinking rapidly, because all this information was a lot to take in. And because this was a good-bye. A real good-bye. “Thank you for letting me know. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. It’s…it’s been a rough few years, and I’m not saying it makes my actions okay, or anything, either. But…it’s hard for me to trust. To leap in with both feet. I’m not that girl who introduces herself to the cute boy at the skating rink anymore.”
He smiled and came another row closer. “And I’m not that boy, either.” He froze, glancing around the plane, almost as if he’d just remembered where they were, and why. “We met before, you see. In America. We were what you Americans call High School Sweethearts…is that the right term, Alicia?”
Alicia laughed, impending tears making her throat ache. “Kind of, yes.”
“I loved her, you see,” he said slowly to the crowd, pressing a hand over his chest. “I loved her with all my heart. The type of love that you only read about in books. That was ten years ago, and I thought of her every day.” He turned back to Alicia and tapped his chest, shutting out the crowd again as he focused on her. “I thought of you every day, Alicia, and I just thought I’d let you know, before you go, that I loved you so very much.”
The woman next to him clutched her own chest and sighed, tears running down her cheeks. It took Alicia less than a second to realize that tears ran down her cheeks, too. It took all of her control not to throw herself at him and beg him to take her back to the castle with him. She didn’t want to go home. She wanted him.
He could still marry his princess, like he had to, and she could—
And that’s where the fantasy ended.
Sitting idly by, watching him marry another woman? Have children with her? Yeah, no. No way. She wasn’t that woman. She couldn’t be that woman.
Not even for him.
But, God, I wish I could.
“I thought of you, too.” She smiled, but tears still rolled down her cheeks. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. “Every day.”
Another row closed between them, and he stared at her with parted lips. “You’re crying. Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said, swiping her hand across her cheek. “It’s just sad, I guess. All of this is just…sad.”
“That we thought of each other?” he asked quietly.
She laughed uneasily, because she could feel at least a hundred pairs of eyes on her, and she swiped her hands across her cheeks, trying to dry them. It was pointless, because more tears came. “Yes.”
“Yeah…” He nodded. “You’re free to go, you know.”
Tears blurring her vision, she nodded, watching as he took another step toward her. The woman in the aisle seat touched his shirt in awe. “I know.”
“I won’t try to stop you or change your mind.”
Wrapping her ar
ms around herself, she nodded again. “It’s probably best if you didn’t. We both know how this ends, after all.”
Another row. There were only three left now. And that pull between them was stronger than ever. “And how’s that, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“With you marrying a princess.” She cast a quick glance around the plane. “One with lots of land and money. And with me going back to New York to my cat.”
“You have a cat?”
