“I know that.” I suck in a sharp breath. “I just didn’t know how hard it was going to be. How much I’d want to reach out to him.”
“Love doesn’t go away simply because you put a national border through the middle of it.”
“Will it ever get easier?”
“Do you want the honest answer? Or the one that will make you feel better?”
“Honest.”
She’s silent for a long while, gathering her thoughts. When she finally speaks, her voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it.
“In a lot of ways, I think walking away from true love is like being an addict in recovery. The craving — it never fully dies. Not with space. Not even with time. No matter how over it you think you are, no matter how much you’ve moved on… once you’re hooked on someone, you’ll never be free again. A lifetime might pass without seeing them, but then… you bump into them in a coffee shop or on a street corner, and suddenly you’re right back where you started. Desperate for the fix of their touch. Aching for just one hit of their company. Addicted all over again.” She shakes her head sadly. “There isn’t a twelve-step program in the world that can cure you of true love. That kind of soul connection… it’s a life sentence.”
* * *
The following weekend,Alden and I make our first public appearance as an official couple, attending the Easter Sunday services at Windsor Abbey — along with what appears to be half the kingdom. When our limo rolls to a stop at the curb, I’m taken aback by the size of the crowd. There must be three hundred people huddled on the sidewalks, pressed up against the crowd-control barriers my security team has erected.
Quite the turnout, even for Jesus.
Come to find out, most of them are there to snap photos of the new royal couple making their entrance rather than actually attend the sermon.
“It’s them!”
“Queen Emilia!”
“Lord Sterling!”
“Over here!”
They swoon and squeal when Alden offers me his arm to lead me out of the car, cheering for us with unabashed enthusiasm. Stepping onto the sidewalk, I slide my hand over his tailored blue suit sleeve and attempt to smile naturally as cameras flash at us from all sides.
“Ready?” Alden asks, arching blond brows at me.
I nod. “As I’ll ever be.”
My guards form a tight perimeter as we make our way up the abbey steps. One at a time, a slow march upward, stopping periodically to wave and nod to our supporters. I’ve grown so used to doing this alone, it’s odd to have a partner by my side — someone else to bear the brunt of public attention.
Welcome to the new reality.
The ornate Windsor Abbey spires jut upward into a robin’s egg blue sky. It’s a beautiful building — one of the most renowned cathedrals in the entire world. Tourists travel from all over the globe to see its stunning stained glass windows and domed roof. They wait in line for hours to take guided tours of thefrescoceiling murals, to light a prayer candle, to breathe the holy air that saturates the inner sanctum.
No one has been married here in a generation — not since King Leopold and Queen Abigail tied the knot nearly three decades ago. According to Chloe, that was always a bone of contention with her mother: the fact that she and Linus were not permitted to put their union on display in this grandest of chambers.
If not for the fire, it would’ve been Crown Prince Henry and Ava Sterling exchanging rings this summer — rather than her brother and me. The next time I’m walking up these steps, it will be in a wedding gown, on my way to say ‘I do’ to the man walking by my side. The thought is startling enough to make me stumble on the steps.
Alden steadies me instantly, his hold tightening on my arm. “Are you all right, my dear?”
“Fine,” I lie weakly. “Just these new heels, tripping me up.”
But I’m not fine.
Not at all.
Images of white veils and flower bouquets are flashing through my head as camera flashes go off around me without reprieve. I try to breathe through the sudden sensation of panic overriding my system, but now that I’m here — climbing the same steps I’ll traverse on my wedding day, just four short months from now — my heart is slamming against my ribcage like a battle axe.
I am getting married.
To my wedded husband.