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CHAPTER 4

TRISTAN

One of my least favorite parts of being in the public eye is having to do events like these. While they are important, I often feel as if they take away from the magnitude of what my constituents and I are trying to do. Everyone gets caught up in the pomp and circumstance, all the glamour. Unless faced with it every day, they seem to forget there’s a percentage of Haldonia who can’t put food on the table or a roof over their head.

At that same time, I have to admit—I’m still a red-blooded man. The best part about these events is seeing Lia dressed up the way she is. Since our marriage was arranged, and we spent most of our time at the beach house, I never got to see her dress up for a date and surprise me like other couples do.

There’s been a few nights similar to this one, where we’ve gotten dressed separately, seeing each other for the first time when we’re wearing our adult clothes and me being surprised by how beautiful she is.

These nights out are the equivalent of those dates. The ones where we knew nothing about each other and learned to get along while having our disagreements.

We sit in the back of a chauffeured bulletproof Range Rover, Parker driving directly behind us. All around, standing on the sidewalks and lining the streets, are large groups of citizens, watching and waving as we make our way to the hotel hosting our event tonight. Reaching over, I grab her hand in mine, rubbing against the back of her palm. “You look amazing,” I whisper for her ears only.

“Don’t look bad yourself there, King.” She grins.

Something about the way she says my title gets to me. The sides of my mouth tilt in a sardonic smirk. “I can be your king later.”

She giggles, hiding her mouth behind her hand in case someone is to take a picture and wonder what we’re talking about. Yet another invasion of privacy we’ve both had to get used to. Not only paparazzi, but average citizens taking pictures of private moments, thinking they’re invited into our world.

It’s been hard to set boundaries, almost impossible really, but we have to if we want to make our marriage work.

“How long do we have to be here tonight?” she asks, leaning into my body.

I sigh, tilting my head back against the seat, tired from the day I’ve already had. Honestly, not looking forward to having to schmooze for the rest of the night. “Hopefully no more than a few hours.”

She groans. “That means it’s going to be at least three.”

Slinging my arm around her neck, I pull her in closer. “We gotta do what we gotta do, babe.”

“Can I give you a sign when I’m ready to go?”

A chuckle works its way out of my throat. “You can, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to accommodate you.”

She turns half sideways in her seat, causing me to move my arm from around her shoulders.

Her fingers clench about my bicep, leaning into my neck and dropping a small kiss against the flesh. “I can’t wait until this weekend,” she whispers. “I cherish our time up north, and it’s nice to have it alone.”

“That we do,” I agree with her. Privacy has been hard to come by lately, especially with us trying to get our initiatives set up. The inquisitiveness about our marriage is overwhelming. The number of interview requests has been daunting, not only for me but for her as well. “Speaking of, how did your interview go today?”

She snorts, pulling at a piece of lint on her skirt. “Something tells me you may have slept with that interviewer before. Because she asked me if the arranged marriage was my decision, and then I told her you’re one of the best men I’ve ever met, and she said others may disagree.”

I adjust in my seat hoping to not show how uncomfortable this makes me. There were a lot of things I did before I met Amelia. Dated women I shouldn’t have, left them in the middle of the night without an explanation, but all of that was me trying to come to grips with who I was. The truth is, I didn’t know until I met Amelia. She gave me that sense of purpose no other woman ever gave me. “What was her name?”

Amelia looks as if she doesn’t want to tell me, like she’s afraid I had a relationship with her at one time whether it be one night or longer.

“Philippa Becker,” she answers, naming one of the most popular journalists in Haldonia. She’s the head writer of one of the biggest gossip rags.

“Why did you even take an interview with her?”

“Shannon set it up,” she defends herself. “We do our best to say yes to everyone who applies. None of us want to be accused of playing favorites. That’s one of the biggest issues we face,” she explains like I don’t understand what she deals with.

“Still, you shouldn’t have given her the time of day.”

“Because of what she writes or because of who she is to you, Tristan?”

Her voice is annoyed, and this is definitely not how I want this night to go, but sometimes you have to have the hard discussions

“I do know her,” I confirm. “She and I had a relationship.”

“A relationship or a one-night stand?” she retorts.

“It was a relationship,” I groan. “One of the few I ever had before we met.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? That way I could have avoided the embarrassment.”

Now I’m growing irritated, and I do my best to keep my voice level. “Do I have to tell you about every relationship I had before we met? You haven’t told me about every relationship you had.”

“It’s not like there were many, Tristan. I wasn’t allowed to be like you.”

This pisses me off. I grind my back teeth together before I look at my wife. “Nobody ever said I was perfect, and I never claimed to be.”

“This isn’t about you being perfect, Tristan. This is about you giving me a heads up.”

“How am I supposed to give you a heads up if I don’t know who you’re meeting with?”

“Well, should I start clearing everything with you from now on? That way I know if I’m walking into something that’s bound to embarrass me.” She crosses her arms over her chest, running her hands up and down her bare shoulders. “Now I dread the article she’s going to write. I told her no one knows you like I do.”

My voice is soft as I explain. “No one does. You’re the only person who’s ever taken the time to get to know the real me. Everyone else wanted to know who was going to be the next king. But you, you wanted to know who Tristan was.”

“So I’m supposed to feel sorry for you because you didn’t let people in? Tristan, that was as much your damage as anyone else’s.”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m trying to explain is she didn’t care about who I was as a person. All she wanted was the title.”

“Can we not do this right now? I don’t want people to see us upset with one another.”

“I didn’t want to do this to begin with,” I remind her. “You’re the one who asked the questions. I have a past I can’t change. All I care about is the future.” My voice is getting slightly louder, but it’s because I want her to understand exactly what I’m saying. “I made mistakes, and there’s nothing I can do about them. I can’t change it now, and I don’t want to. The past brought me to you.” I finish up much softer than I started.

“But sometimes it feels like your past is way more important than our present.”

“My present is everything I’ve always wanted, Amelia. Everything. It took me a while to get here, but only because of the way I grew up. I’m all in with you right now. I don’t want you to think differently. You are the most important part of my life.”

The driver turns. “We’re almost there, sir.”

She makes a noise. “Which means we have to act like things are okay, even when they aren’t.”

“I want us to be good, not to be angry with one another. This is stupid, Amelia. I care about you more than I’ve ever cared about anyone else. You are my future in my present.”

“I know,” she says once and then again. “I know. It’s hard realizing you had a life before me, and I have to see it. You don’t have to see mine. There was only one other person.” She takes a deep breath, seeming to pull herself together.

“If I could go back and change it, I would. Please believe me. The only thing I can do is move forward.” I reach over and grab her chin between my thumb and forefinger, forcing her to meet my gaze. “I love you. You know it’s not easy for me to say, but I tell you every day, because I want you to know. I need you to know it.”

As we pull up, there’s a red carpet, and cameras are already flashing. I feel her change before me just as I changed before her. Gone is the annoyance with one another, and in its place are the masks we wear in public so that we’re not front page news with grumpy faces. The last thing we need are stories saying we’re not happy. It’s hard enough to be newlyweds, even harder when people make assumptions about whether we’ll make it or not.

“You don’t have to worry. No one will know we’re arguing.” She grabs hold of my hand.

“It shouldn’t be an argument,” I whisper in her ear. “I love you. Even if I wasn’t King of Haldonia, even if this wasn’t an arranged marriage, I think we would have met one another. I believe we were meant to be together, and I need you to believe that too.”

She smiles sweetly. “I do.”

As we step out onto the red carpet, we turn to wave to the people who have been captivated by our love story. And as we hold hands walking toward the front door, I know the two of us are supposed to be, and for once, I thank my father. This is the one thing he actually did right.