“Nina, what I’m trying to say is that you’re right. I shouldn’t have committed to Daphne, no matter the circumstances, not feeling the way I did about you.”
“Jeff…” Nina fell silent, unsure whether she was inviting him to continue, or begging him to stop.
“Please, just let me say this, and if you still hate me at the end of it, then I’ll leave you alone forever, I swear.” The words tumbled rapidly from his mouth, as if he needed to say them quickly, before he lost his nerve.
“I love you, Nina. I’ve loved you since we were kids chasing each other around the palace. I love you so much that when we did actually date, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I was afraid that all of it—everything that comes along with dating me—would scare you away. And it did scare you away,” he added mournfully.
Nina nodded, fighting back tears.
“When we became friends again last fall, I started to hope that maybe your opinions about my position had changed. That maybe you would give us another chance. Then Beatrice got in her accident, and I was under so much pressure, and Daphne—” He broke off, sighed. “I thought that getting engaged to Daphne was the right thing, the noble thing, but of course it wasn’t. It’s never the right thing to pledge your heart and not mean it.”
Jeff stopped in their walk and took both her hands in his. “Do you think we could try again? Start over?”
After everything that had happened, Nina wasn’t sure they were capable of starting over—if she were even free to.
She felt guilty that she’d let him make his grand declarations without saying this sooner. “I’m still seeing Jamie.”
Jeff’s hopeful expression crumpled. “Oh,” he breathed. “I didn’t read anything about it in the tabloids. Not that I’ve been stalking you in the press, I mean…”
“We’re keeping it very quiet.” She hesitated, then added, “And we’re taking things slow.”
She knew that by saying that, she was opening a door, ever so slightly.
The whole point of Nina’s coming to Oxford was to learn and grow. To explore what she was capable of—not as a prince’s girlfriend, but simply as Nina. She and Jamie still talked on the phone, and he’d come to Oxford several times, but she had put the brakes on things—commitment-wise, and physically. When Jamie visited, he stayed at the Canadian embassy in London, not in Nina’s room with her.
True to his word, he was wooing her, with a quiet, steady courtship that would have surprised the media, given his cheeky image. He sent Nina flowers and signed first-edition novels and the early screener copies of the new season of Kingmaker (which they had watched at the same time, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, staying on the phone throughout each episode). Another bonus of their low-key behavior was that their relationship had still, for now, escaped public notice.
“Would it be okay if we got a coffee, at least?” Jeff asked.
I’ve loved you since we were kids, he’d told her—and Nina knew that a part of her still loved him, too. Perhaps that corner of her heart would always love him, throughout all the years, no matter what mistakes either of them made, no matter where life took them.
Could she and Jeff possibly start again? As friends…or as something more?
There was only one way to find out.
“All right,” Nina told him, smiling. “Let’s get a coffee. I know just the place.”
She turned and started down the cobblestone path, letting His Royal Highness Prince Jefferson hurry to catch up with her—because they weren’t in America, where she had to let him walk ahead; they were on foreign soil, in her city.
Finally, it felt like they were equally ranked.
SAMANTHA
It was disorienting, being back at the palace. As expected, nothing had really changed: it was the same heavy drapes and echoing halls, the same crimson carpet being hand-brushed by a series of maids because it was supposedly too delicate for a vacuum, the same heavy oil portraits glaring down at her from the walls.
Perhaps she had changed, Sam thought, tugging at her gown: a pale peach one with a skirt that fanned out in a wide swan tail behind her. She hadn’t worn black-tie in months. These days she was exclusively in biker shorts or leggings—clothes that would never have been allowed in her former life, as a princess.
“You’ll be great today, Sam,” Marshall assured her, reading her mood. He reached for her hand and she laced her fingers gratefully in his.
“Thank you, but I won’t be doing anything except sitting there,” she pointed out.
“They’ll all still be staring at you.”
They’ll be staring at us, Sam thought. The famous ex-princess and her boyfriend, the prodigal son. And they both looked the part: Sam conspicuously not wearing a tiara, Marshall as excruciatingly handsome as ever in his ceremonial attire. The golden bear pin that had started it all gleamed on his lapel, echoing the glint of his deep brown eyes.
“I love you,” Sam told him, and Marshall grinned.
“Love you too, shortcake.”
Sam rolled her eyes, but it was nice hearing the old absurd nicknames again. At least that hadn’t changed.
“I should go find Beatrice. I’ll see you in the throne room, okay?”
When Samantha reached the Brides’ Room—where Beatrice was getting ready for today’s events, though of course she wasn’t a bride—a footman opened the door for her. Sam’s hands flew to her mouth in a very un-Samantha-like gasp.
“Oh, Bee. You look spectacular.”
Beatrice was surrounded by several fluttering assistants who fastened her bracelets and touched up her lipstick. The ivory satin of her coronation gown was embroidered with heavy gold thread. Sam realized the stitches made up a series of American motifs—a rose, a cascade of stars, and was that an ear of corn? The shapes were so soft and abstract that she wasn’t quite sure. Seed pearls and shimmering crystals were sewn into the overlay, and the ermine-trimmed robe of state hung behind her, ready to be pinned at her neck.
The Imperial State Crown, of course, wouldn’t be added until the ceremony itself.
It was such a monumental moment, the coronation of the very first queen in America’s history. Which explained why Beatrice didn’t look like Sam’s sister anymore. She didn’t look like a mortal woman at all, but like a goddess, or a painting come to life.
“Sam!” Beatrice flashed her a broad smile, and the illusion was broken. “I have something for you.”