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She’d managed a word then. “Yes.”
While that memory was bittersweet, it was the ones that came later that caused so much pain in Emma’s chest.
They’d dated for nearly a year, moving in together against her parents’ wishes the summer after her freshman year. Despite his having told her at the start that he’d signed some kind of medieval contract to eventually marry the niece of another country’s king, Kon had acted like he couldn’t live without her.
He’d been attentive and caring, always charming, and incredibly passionate.
Emma had built dreams of the future around his behavior, rather than his words.
Then the ax had fallen.
“What did you just say?” Emma couldn’t take in the words.
Kon couldn’t mean them.
“My father wants me to honor the contract now. We have to break up. You’re going to need to find somewhere else to live.”
“No. You don’t mean that.”
Kon looked pained. “Emma, you knew this was coming.”
“No.” She shook her head, screaming inside from the pain. “No. You want to make love every day. You want to talk to me all the time when you’re gone. You don’t want to marry someone else.”
He couldn’t.
She’d thought, when he’d asked her to move in with him, that the contract was a nonissue. He’d never brought it up again. Emma had simply forced herself to ignore its existence, choosing to focus on the here and now. She loved Kon, and while he’d never used those words with her, his actions made her believe she was just as necessary to him as he was to her.
“It is not a matter of wanting to marry her. I made a promise. I must keep it.”
“What? No, you signed that contract five years ago. You were just a kid.”
“I hope not. You were the same age when we started dating.”
She was twenty now, but not a lot wiser apparently. And he was twenty-four, also not a lot wiser if he was going to marry a woman he did not love for the sake of his family’s consequence and business.
The argument had devolved from there. Emma had cried, and she wasn’t proud remembering she’d begged him to reconsider. But Kon? He’d taken on his Prince Konstantin mantle, remaining aloof and cold, refusing to engage.
He’d offered her a year living in the apartment rent-free as a transition.
It had felt like a payoff and it was in that moment she’d known they were truly over.
Emma’s heart had disintegrated in an explosion of pain. She’d moved out that night, going home to her parents with her tail tucked between her legs.
That hadn’t worked out either, but those memories weren’t going to take hold now.
She wouldn’t let them.
Emma forced herself to stop playing the memory reel in her head and to focus on the present. The feel of her son’s hand in hers. The sounds of the other bank customers and tellers speaking. Paper shuffling. Pens scratching as people signed things.
Knowing what was coming next, Emma should look away first. For her pride’s sake. No way would His Royal Highness want to acknowledge he knew her.
She never considered he might not recognize her.
Even her ex-lover wasn’t that oblivious.
She couldn’t make herself look away though. Even after more than five years, her heart beat a mad rhythm at the sight of him and her eyes soaked him in like water to a thirsty plant.
But she was not thirsty. Not for him.
