Page 94 of Heavy Crown

“I wouldn’t. You don’t know Rory.” My immediate instinct is to defend her.

“I do know Rory,” Julia counters. “She’s lovely. I just—” Julia throws up her hands and glares at Nick.

“I need to get some air,” Nick says. He rises and runs a hand down his face. “I think we all need some time to think this through. I’ll be back in a while.” He opens my office door.

When it clicks closed behind him, Julia and I stare at each other.

“Are you sure about this?” Jules whispers.

“The only thing I’m sure about is that I have to make a choice.” I rest my elbows on the desk and put my face in my hands.

“Hit pause with Simone.”

I let out a long groan of frustration. “What changes if I hit pause? Do we magically find a loophole for Rory? Do I suddenly get her and my country?” I push back my chair in a surge of frustration. I shove my hands into my pockets and stare out the window. “Pressing pause delays the choice. It doesn’t change it.”

“You’ll get a tremendous amount of pushback without a plan.” Julia comes to stand beside me at the oversized window.

“My plan is to let Simone down easy and rip up my contract with her. Get the lawyer here to prepare the paperwork for me to step aside in the line of succession. Everything else I can figure out after that.”

“Except as soon as you step away from the family, from being king, you’re supposed to leave the country. Where will you go? To Rory’s parents’ farm? The parents she hasn’t spoken to in a year?” Julia huffs out a breath. “What worries me about this decision is that you haven’t thought it through.”

“Rory and I are talking tonight,” I say, but there’s a sinking sensation in my gut at these home truths Julia is serving me. While I didn’t expect them to be delighted by the news, I didn’t anticipate so much resistance from her. “I won’t sign anything until she and I have a plan.”

Julia runs a hand through her long hair. “Be honest with her, Alex. Be honest about everything you’re giving up. She needs to go into this decision with her eyes wide open too.”

I nod. As much as I want Rory, I won’t force her into a situation she doesn’t want. We both need to be okay with the choices we make.

thirty-four

Rory

When my shift in the kitchen finishes, I sneak down the hallway where the royal offices are located. All day, Alex’s words and intentions have been playing on repeat in my head. This swing from “I cannot be with you” to “I’ll leave everything behind for you” has tipped me sideways. Tonight he’ll expect an answer from me, and I’m playing catch-up on the details. Since he’s never once led me to believe a future for us was possible, I don’t know how to process this change in him.

Part of me, a big, selfish percentage, wants to throw caution to the wind. Alex can quit the monarchy, and we’ll roam the globe together doing who knows what who knows where. It’s a romantic notion though, the kind meant to sweep someone away. It’s the kind of idea that led me here in the first place with Derrick.

I was lured by the romance.

I was met with the reality.

If someone is going to offer me a romantic vision again, no matter how much I want to seize it, I need to understand the reality. There’s too much at stake for me to go into my conversation with Alex without a complete picture.

At the king’s doorway, I raise my hand to knock. I haven’t booked an appointment, and I’m not sure if he keeps the same insane hours as Alex or if he’s likely to be upstairs in his suite of rooms in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

I knock.

There’s a shuffling behind the door, and when it’s pulled back, King George is standing there in jeans and a T-shirt. I’ve never seen him so casual.

“Oh, Rory,” he says, and he smiles. “I came down here to get something.” He shakes his head. “And I can’t—whatever I intended to get has slipped my mind.” He peers at me with the same hazel eyes as Nick. “Do you need something?”

“I was hoping to speak to you actually, if I can, if that’s all right. If you’re too busy, that’s okay too. It’s Sunday, and maybe you don’t talk to people on Sundays. I know I’m supposed to book an appointment, and I didn’t do that, so...”

He gives me a kind smile and steps away from the doorframe. “Enter at your own risk. It’s a mess in here. My wife and I have been sorting through old documents and papers.”

He closes his door, and I perch in one of the seats across from his desk. When he eases into his chair, he stares at me over a desk strewn with letters and legal paperwork. He wasn’t lying about the mess.

“So, Rory. Do you mind if I call you Rory? I took my cue from Alexander, but if you’d prefer Aurora, I can do that.”

“Rory is fine.” I give him a fleeting smile and try to gather my thoughts. How does the future king’s girlfriend go about telling the present king that his son might quit? It occurs to me I should have thought this through better.