“I think that’s a great idea,” I said.
Lucas squeezed my thigh under the table and I wasn’t sure if he was telling me to shut up or whether he was lending his support. I looked up at him and he smiled at me, his eyes adoring. My heart might have melted into a puddle of goo at the sight. I swallowed and tried to remember what I was saying.
“I, ah, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the village and it’s amazing what people are doing. In fact…” I reached for my phone and opened up Instagram, searching for a particular account and then handing it over to Meredith to see. “Maybe we could talk to this woman. She and her daughters have this amazing Etsy shop—”
Elena snorted.
“Hey, don’t knock Etsy. You might still have your squillions, but not everyone was as lucky as you,” I said. “These women are making great clothes and they have an amazing business that they built from nothing. These are the types of people we need to be championing. The innovators and the ones who know how to pivot when things go in an unprecedented direction.”
“Frankie’s right,” Jamie said, and I flushed.
Shoot. I probably shouldn’t have just barked at Lady Elena who was ranked far above me and I most definitely shouldn’t have done it in front of the king and queen.
“We need to be supporting our citizens in any way we can. It’s the only way we’re going to grow our country back into what it was before,” Jamie continued.
“And you think dressing in country bumpkin clothing will make people want to do business with us?” Lady Elena asked with a raised eyebrow and a haughty smirk.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t call this country bumpkin clothing,” Meredith said, still scrolling through my phone. “These designs are exquisite.”
“I have my own tailor,” Dorian said, adjusting his cuffs. “I think I’ll be sticking with him.”
“Is he from Kalopsia?” Jamie asked with a pointed look.
“Not yet, but he can be,” Dorian shot back with a wolfish grin.
I rolled my eyes. Yes, Dorian would ask his tailor to move to Kalopsia if it meant he could wear his bespoke suits to all royal events.
Jamie shook his head with a smirk.
Sophia sighed. “A ball.”
“A ball,” Meredith repeated with a grin at Jamie.
“A ball,” I whispered to myself. I’d never been to a ball. I’d been to charity events, but that wasn’t quite the same as attending a royal ball with all the dresses and food and dancing and…
And I wouldn’t be here. In six months' time I would be far, far away and Lucas would be here, probably dancing with someone far more appropriate to have as a wife than me.
I pushed my plate away. Suddenly I wasn’t very hungry anymore.
Lucas
Frankie had gotten really quiet about halfway through dinner, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t like it. I also didn’t like not knowing why she was sad, and yes, I knew she was sad. Had Elena’s or Dorian’s comments upset her? I knew she’d made a lot of friends in the village and maybe hearing the way Elena and Dorian talked about the residents upset her?
I just prayed to whatever god would listen that it wasn’t something I did to put that sadness in her eyes.
“Feel like a walk?” I asked as we stepped out of the dining room.
She turned her face up to mine and smiled. My breath hitched. It wouldn’t take much, just a slight dipping of my head, and my lips would be on hers. My own lips tingled with the thought.
“Sure,” she said, hooking her arm through mine and turning away from me.
I held in my sigh and took heart in the fact that she was touching me and not pushing me away. That had to count for something, didn’t it?
We walked out of the palace and down into the gardens. In the two years since Jamie had returned to Kalopsia, a lot of work had been done to restore the palace gardens, but they were not yet back to the splendor they once were.
“They’ve done a lot of work,” Frankie murmured, reading my mind as we wandered along the flagstone path.
“They have,” I replied. “Have you seen photos of before?”
Before. Before the troubles. Before a madman thought he could just come in and take. Before my parents up and left the country to its fate with barely a look over their shoulder.
Frankie shook her head. “No, but Meredith showed me what it looked like when they arrived.”
We walked along in silence. The sky was slowly turning to night and was showing off with streaks of gold and purple and even pink. The soft shushing of the waves far below us and the gentle fragrance of the plants we brushed past gave the evening a magical and romantic feel.
I took another look around the gardens and considered just how much work had been done in the intervening two years. If my own family’s estate was anything to go by, the palace gardens would have been an absolute wreck. So while I might remember the gardens as they were before, I could certainly appreciate what they were becoming now.
It was a cheesy, but no less poignant metaphor for my life. Who knows who I might have become if we’d stayed in Kalopsia. Fleeing to America had been good for my parents and for their business (and their bank account) but it hadn’t been so good for me. I’d lost myself in the huge, scary move. I’d lost the people who had been friends and my support network. God knows, my parents hadn’t been any sort of support network for me. And while Effie tried to fill the gaps, there was only so much a sister could do. Coming back to Kalopsia was a rebirth for me and I was slowly finding myself again and I had the woman walking beside me to thank for it. Without Frankie by my side, I would still be the shy, cowed man who I’d been for all the years I spent in America. If I’d come here with Clarissa, there was no way I would have grown and stretched into this new person. Frankie was right, I was growing into my skin at long last and I liked the man I was becoming and I knew I couldn’t have done it without her. I still had a way to go, not unlike the garden we were currently strolling through, but I could feel the new shape of myself and the potential of what I could become and it gave me hope.
We reached one of the small seating areas sprinkled throughout the terraced gardens. We were still on the top level and this particular area looked out over the ocean. The breeze was heavy with salt and the unmistakable freshness of the sea. I breathed it in, letting it fill my lungs. I had missed this. I hadn’t even known I’d missed it until I came back here.
I looked down at the woman beside me, the woman who had made all this possible, and I knew I couldn’t let her slip away. I needed Frankie in my life, but more than that I wanted her in my life and I wanted more than just a friendship with her.
The ring on her finger glinted harshly in the moonlight. The ring was all wrong for her, but seeing it on her finger and knowing I was the one who put it there just felt…right.
Frankie stared out across the sea, the soft wind playing with her curls and sending her chocolate chip cookie scent toward me. I didn’t think anything or anyone had looked lovelier and I wanted to remember her just like this for the rest of my life.
“Frankie,” I said, my voice rough with the onslaught of emotions I was feeling.
She turned to me and tilted her face up to mine. Whatever I had been going to say died in my throat and I lowered my lips to hers. It was a soft brush of lips at first until my hand slid around her waist and tugged her gently toward me as I deepened the kiss. She melted into me and everything went soft and fuzzy around us for a moment, and then…