Page 24 of Some Like It Scandalous (Going Royal #2)

“It sounds simple, but it’s not.” Charlie leaned forward and caught her hand.

Stroking his thumb against her forefinger, he blew out a long breath.

“I wanted to tell you—but I was torn. Did I want to tell you because you deserved to know? Or did I want to tell you because I wanted to shout to the world, look what I have with you? I went to an American university to get away from my family, from being an Andraste. I liked being Charlie. You and Richard are some of the only people I know that I am certain liked me for me—not for my title, not for my parents, not for my wealth or my position. You didn’t want me for what I could do for you—” He laughed.

“Actually, you didn’t want me at all in the beginning.

I had to compete with your studies and your jobs and your commitments to get you to even notice me and I loved that challenge. ”

“You were too damn good-looking,” she muttered and swallowed two mouthfuls of wine in quick succession. Her idea or not, her nerves frayed. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to weep. She wanted to yell. She wanted to cheer. The conflict turned everything upside down.

“Yeah?” Charlie’s grin grew. “How good-looking?”

“Sex-on-a-stick good-looking.” She’d promised honesty and as hot as her face grew with that admission, she planned to hold herself to it.

“You with your sexy accent, modulated tones and cut body and your smile…” She glared at him.

“Your smile turned me inside out and all I wanted to do was see it again—and ten years later, here I am turning into goo because you smile.”

His grin grew. “I wish I were as eloquent—it was your breasts for me.”

“My breasts?” Her jaw fell open. Did he really just say that?

“Yeah. You wore this little T-shirt with a V-neck and it dipped just low enough to reveal the edge of that dark beauty spot on your right breast. It—it was provocative. That you were sassy, dismissive and altogether focused on everything but me, that had its appeal too.”

A shiver rippled over her skin and she couldn’t stop staring at him. “So you told Richard and what did he say?”

“That you deserved to know the truth, but I better be damn sure. Because if my life was as I described it, involving you in it might not be what you wanted. I could tell you the truth and lose you in the same breath.” His grin faded.

“I thought about it all that summer, tried to start the conversation a million times in my head. But when we came back to campus that autumn, I was so damn happy to see you, I didn’t want to spoil it. ”

She’d missed him that summer too. They’d talked every chance they got, but he was in Europe and she was home on the farm and their schedules conflicted more often than fell into sync.

“And once we moved in together…you really couldn’t tell me.” It wasn’t a question. She understood, the longer he went without telling her, the messier it became. “But why did you make plans with me? For the future?”

“Because I wanted that future with you. Anna—if my father hadn’t passed away, I wouldn’t have been tied to the family business or to the royal business.

I would have to make an appearance once or twice a year then I could have stayed away and been with you.

I thought I would tell you after we graduated—when we took our first vacation together.

I planned to whisk you away to this sunny little spot in the Mediterranean, hole up in an island paradise, confess all my sins and then make love to you until you forgave me and we worked something out. ”

Her heart squeezed at the description. He let go of her hand to refill their wineglasses. The half glass had already taken the edge of the jittery feeling inside her skin.

“But when my father passed so unexpectedly, my security had to get me home—they had to inform me—because my role changed.” He didn’t look at her.

“But you couldn’t forgive the deception, I think.

You never said it to my face and I honestly was very distracted—” He blew out a hard breath.

“But why did you leave that night? Why did you leave that way ? Why didn’t you talk to me? ”

“I always thought it was because you lied.” The fires of the past singed her soul, but it was the right question to ask.

“Because you didn’t have time for me. You were gone.

Tied up in meetings. You left. I waited for you to talk to me—to tell me all the things you just said.

” Licking the wine off her lips, she hunched her shoulders and shook her head slowly.

“But I think that was my excuse—and far from my proudest moment.”

A frown gathered between his eyes. “So why then?”

“I got scared. You didn’t seem to see me anymore.

Because I didn’t know what I really wanted.

I didn’t—when I started questioning everything we shared, I realized I didn’t have a lot of faith in it.

I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop—for us to grow up and move away.

Everyone said college romances don’t last and that first loves are first loves, because there’s a second or a third.

” She cringed at how this must sound, but bald honesty cut through the political correctness of it all.

“I couldn’t stop thinking that if you didn’t want me to know who you really were, what else didn’t you want to share with me and what did I want?

Did I even want to be a princess? Not that you ever asked. ”

“I think I understand. But why not talk to me? Why not come and tell me what you were feeling? Why didn’t you trust me?”

“ You didn’t have time. You were always rushing somewhere else.

I didn’t even see you at night and because dammit, you’re that guy.

” She rose and gave into the urge to pace.

The wine took the edge off and loosened some of the tension in her muscles, but her brain and her gut remained in turmoil.

“You’re beautiful and amazing and the best guy and now you’re a prince?

I was there, Charlie—they were all bowing to you and Your Highnessing you and you were so calm.

So utterly patient with every single person.

You were with your mom, you were meeting with attorneys—you were focused and… ”

He rose and caught her arm, turning her around so she had to look at him. “And what?”

“And you weren’t Charlie. You were this Prince Andraste and they needed you.

And I knew even if I told you all these crazy thoughts in my head, all these questions, you would address them in the same calm way you were taking with everyone else.

Then I thought you would convince me to stay…

” Tears burned in her eyes, her voice hitching around the lump in her throat.

“I didn’t know if that was what I wanted.

So I left. I told myself it would be easier, simpler, and if you really wanted me…

as something more than a college fling…” She coughed and swiped at one of the tears escaping to roll down her cheek.

“I would come after you.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, she burrowed into the hug. God, she needed this.

“Yeah.”

“I thought if you wanted me, you would come back,” he murmured against her hair. “I didn’t understand why you left. I thought you might need time so I tried to give it to you and then…” He sighed.

“Life went on without us.” Pulling back, she rubbed her face and downed the rest of the wineglass. “Are we too stupid for a relationship or what?”

He chuckled softly and stroked her cheek. “No. We were young and foolish, not stupid. Why didn’t you come back?”

“I didn’t see a place for me there. You never—” She let go of that thought and rephrased it.

Bluntness needed to be tempered by wisdom.

“In all the times we talked about our future, you never asked me to marry you. We never discussed marriage. We never discussed what that… future …really meant. Why didn’t you come after me? ”

“Because I didn’t think that was what you wanted.

You left. You went back to the States, you moved out of our apartment—you closed the door.

I wanted you to open it again.” Anger edged his words.

“I waited for a long time. I followed your career, I watched where you went and what you did…and there was so much to do—a steep learning curve for the family. My younger brothers needed me to provide stability, my mother leaned on me and when I finally got tired of waiting…”

He stopped, but he didn’t bother to hide the tension locking up his jaw or the muscle ticking next to his eye.

“What?”

“You were engaged.” The frosty tone cut through her. He pulled away before she could, draining his wineglass and refilling it. He added more to hers. “You were engaged to marry a fireman. Chad…something.”

Her stomach sank.

“So, I assumed you moved on.”

Resentment—and regret—stewed in her gut. “Then you started dating every gorgeous model you could get your hands on.”

“Why not?” The flippant words, they weren’t his and they didn’t mute the anger and pain seething beneath. “You had a life. Why shouldn’t I have mine?”

She couldn’t fault him there. He paced around the coffee table. She walked over to the window. The physical distance mirroring the emotional hole in their relationship—the black pit threatening to chew them both up. “I didn’t get married.”

“Why is that?” He whirled to look at her. “Why didn’t you marry him? This fireman—the local hero. I saw the photographs, he was much beloved. The kind of man who dedicated himself to helping others—it’s what you always wanted…”

The vitriol underscoring his words lashed at her soul and found purchase, scoring little bloody wounds that bled inside.

“Or maybe you’d already met your police officer—that was a couple of years later, you were engaged to him. But you didn’t marry then either. So who left whom? Did you end the engagement?” The air around him buzzed with judgment and jealousy.

She didn’t drop her gaze or lower her eyes. She wanted this—all the Band-Aids ripped off, all their injuries exposed. She just didn’t expect the shame or the guilt gnawing at the jagged edges.

“I cared about them and when…and when they asked me to marry them, I said yes, because I thought it was what I wanted—what I was supposed to want. I thought, this is the life that I dreamed of. I finished my graduate studies in social work, I helped people—they helped people and I knew them. I knew what kind of men they were, I knew their devotion to their work, their dedication to their communities…”

“Yet you didn’t marry them. Why, Anna? Why didn’t you?” Charlie closed the gap and stood right in front of her, his dark eyes gleaming like lightning flashing in a black storm.

“Because they deserved better than me—they deserved better than a woman still in love with—” She couldn’t finish it, but Charlie was relentless. He set aside their wineglasses and caught her face in his hands. His gaze searched hers.

“Who are you still in love with?” The silken demand delivered in a soft whisper.

“I’m in love with you, idiot. I never stopped loving you?—”

His mouth crashed down on hers, primal, hot and filled with urgent need. She fisted her hands into his shirt, pulling him closer and surrendering to the dominant sweep of his tongue that invaded and took possession.

I love you.