She's used to the looks by now. The judgment. The sideways glances and giggles behind hands and whispers that stop whenever she enters a room. It bothered her at first, but now that some time has passed, it's all fewer and farther in between. She just minds her own business and takes solace in the fact that nobody will say a thing—not above a whisper, anyway—and even if they did, there's no proof to back up their words. Plus, she's pretty sure no one is brave enough to speak up. They all work in the palace, after all, and with the Crown Prince at the center of the rumors, nobody wants to take that risk.
It does make her feel a little bit powerful, though. Everybody in the palace, from the cooks to the other maids she works with to the King and Queen themselves, knows the rumors are true. But with no hard evidence and the King and Queen's out of sight, out of mind response, they can't do a thing. Sure, they could come after her personally, but they're all too worried about what the prince would do if he found out.
Also, most of them just don't care enough. New members of the staff always do, and there are plenty of people who are just jealous. But for the most part, everyone just has fun with the gossip and teasing her good-naturedly about it.
Overall, everything could be a whole lot worse. A little gossip and teasing and a few people judging her from a distance isn't too bad, considering the big scandal is that she's sleeping with the prince.
"—and Prince Austin's laundry needs to be put away," their manager finishes reading from her tablet. "Ally, I assume you'll be volunteering to take that one." Her tone is passive aggressive—she's one of the jealous ones—and a group of the meaner girls snicker.
Trish, Ally's best friend, glares at them until they fall silent again.
Ally smiles at her manager and stands up. "Well, if you insist. I'll even clean his suite while I'm at it."
A few of her friends giggle as she starts walking out of the room. Someone whispers "Whore," and she turns to face everyone again.
"Did someone say something?" she asks innocently. Of course, no one speaks up, and Ally's smile doesn't waver. "Hm. Must've been my imagination. See you guys at lunch!"
Once she loads a big cart with cleaning supplies and Austin's clean laundry, she heads to his suite and knocks on the big double doors. Then, when he doesn't respond, she tries the door handle. He only really locks it when she's there, and, as expected, she's able to open the door and push the cart inside.
"Austin?" she calls, against protocol of course. But she lives by her own personal protocol: if she has seen a man's penis, she will not refer to him by any title of respect or dignity ever again. It's a recent rule, but one she lives by nonetheless.
She looks around the apartment-sized suite as she pushes the cart to Austin's massive closet. His bed is empty and the bathroom door is open, which means he's probably still eating breakfast with his parents.
Ally has always liked cleaning. The repetitive actions help her destress, and she's able to get lost in her thoughts. So she doesn't realize how much time has passed until a door slams and startles her as she finishes putting away the last of the laundry.
She peeks out into the main area of the suite and sees Austin leaning against the back of the couch, glaring at his phone and scrolling every so often. His hair is messy, like he's been running his hands through it, and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone.
"Austin?" she asks hesitantly, stepping into the room.
He looks up, and the tension in his face melts into a soft smile as his eyes brighten. "Hey," he says, standing up a little and shoving his phone in his pocket. "Didn't see you there."
She walks over, frowning. "Are you okay? You seem upset."
"I'm better now that you're here." He takes both her hands and pulls her closer before wrapping his arms around her and clasping his hands behind her back.
She smiles a little, this morning's events with the other maids already slipping away from her mind as she drapes her arms around his neck. "C'mon, you know you can talk to me."
He kisses her softly, and her heart flutters. "Later, okay?" he says quietly when they pull away. She meets his eyes, and all she can see is pain. But he clearly doesn't want to talk about it right now, so she purses her lips and nods.
He searches her eyes for a moment, bringing a hand up to her cheek. "You know how I feel about you, right?" he asks.
She smiles a little and nods, leaning into his touch. "I know," she tells him. And she does, more than she thinks he knows. He always says it softly, whether it's early in the morning when he thinks she's still asleep next to him, or when he's kissing every inch of her and she almost doesn't hear him. He's never said it directly to her face before, which leads her to believe she isn't technically supposed to know. But she does.
I love you, he'll murmur against her skin, where she can feel the words more than hear them. I love you, he'll whisper as the first rays of sunlight filter into his room in the morning and it takes all her willpower to pretend to still be asleep. I love you, he'll draw with his fingertip on her back in between lazy shapes when they stay up talking all night. I love you. It's in his eyes, in his smile, in everything about him.
He loves her quietly and from a distance, the way he's been taught to do most things. A good prince isn't loud, doesn't overemote—which, in the case of royalty, means emote at all. A good prince listens more than he speaks, always learning, always watching. A good prince hides his true feelings behind a mask of diplomacy and polite indifference, because the only thing he should be thinking about is how to be a good king to his people someday.
They've gotten better at the whole from a distance part. She's been working at the palace since she was sixteen, and it didn't take long for her and Austin to become friends. She was one of the only people his age around the palace, after all, so he often sought her out for company when his best friend Dez was busy and he was bored, back before his training got intense. Still, there was about a year after she got the inkling he might be interested in her that was just longing stares and nervous smiles and blushing cheeks before he kissed her for the first time. But after that, it was a bit of a slippery slope to where they are now. And now there's never much distance between them anymore if they can help it.
The quiet part has been a bit harder to crack. She's seen glimpses of who he really is, in loud bursts of laughter that radiate sunshine and grins that reach his eyes and the flirty, filthy things that come out of his mouth when they're making love, but it's much more difficult to retrain the mind than it is to retrain the body. All it took was one kiss for him to give up on keeping away from her. It's going to take some time to convince him that he's allowed to be human, with over twenty years of everyone telling him he's nothing if he isn't perfect.
But she doesn't really care how he loves her, just that he does. Because she's loved him for as long as she's known what love was, since before she actually realized it on her eighteenth birthday when he gave her a book of sheet music by her favorite composer. The original sheet music. The book sitting on her piano in her little apartment is worth more than she'll make in a lifetime, and he gave it to her without a second thought, watching her with a soft smile as she opened it and then holding her tightly and lingering when she hugged him for the first time ever. But he could've given her anything or nothing, and she still would've realized she loved him eventually.
She smiles a little at the memory and stands on her tiptoes to kiss him again. His arm tightens around her, and his thumb brushes softly over her cheekbone as he kisses her back.
"You know I feel the same way about you, right?" she asks in between kisses, still smiling because he already knows the answer. While another part of her own personal protocol is never telling a man she loves him before he says it first—intentionally and to her face—she still loves him loudly. Maybe not using those exact words, but she makes no effort to hide how she feels. And even if she did, he knows her just as well as she knows him, so he would know it anyway.
"Mmhm," he hums, a soft smile playing on his lips as he kisses her again. "How long do you have?"
"'Til lunch."
His smile grows and he deepens the kiss, backing her up to the bed. She giggles and puts her arm out to catch herself as she stumbles onto the mattress, and she pulls away to scoot back. He looks at her with dark eyes and a lopsided smirk as he unbuttons his shirt and takes it off before crawling on the bed and kissing her again. They pull away enough for him to tug her shirt over her head before he reconnects their lips. She runs her hands over his chest, and he leans over her until she's on her back.
He pulls away, hovering over her on his forearms, and she opens her eyes to look at him. "Ally…" he murmurs, his eyes sparkling. But then the pain returns to his eyes, and he sighs, pressing his forehead to hers. "You deserve to know." Then he rolls off her, lying next to her on his back, and she frowns.
"What do I deserve to know?" she asks, turning her head to face him.
He faces her too, searching her eyes, and swallows. "What happened at breakfast today. The reason I'm…off." He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his face towards the ceiling again. "I have to get married," he blurts.
She tries not to panic. Of course he has to get married eventually. They both know that. "Well, yeah, but…not for a while. A few years, at least." But even as she says it, she knows it's not true. He wouldn't be acting like this otherwise.
"No," he says, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. "Before my next birthday." Her heart drops. "I don't know why, I guess there's like three different laws about it. I stopped listening. But apparently the wedding is going to take six months to plan, which means I need to get engaged in—"
"Three months," she finishes, her voice sounding hollow even to her. She sits up quickly, sick to her stomach, and hugs her knees to her chest, staring at nothing.
He sits up too, cross-legged and facing her, and looks down at his hands in his lap. "I fly out to meet the first girl the day after tomorrow." His voice is so quiet she can barely hear him, and it sounds just as empty as her own. She can't breathe, but she doesn't care, and she can feel his eyes on her. "Ally, I am so sorry."
Her vision goes blurry at the way his voice breaks, at the genuine pain she can hear coming from deep in his throat. She shakes her head and looks up at the ceiling, trying to blink away the tears without letting them fall.
"You have no reason to be sorry," she says, hating the way her chin quivers and her voice catches. She looks down as a tear catches on her eyelashes. She grabs her shirt off the bed and tries to covertly wipe her eyes while pulling it back on. "I mean, we both knew this was coming eventually. It just came a little sooner than expected. It's fine." Her voice is shaking now, and tears are falling freely down her cheeks. She starts to get up, but he catches her hand.
"Ally, don't leave." She avoids his face, but his voice is thick and watery with emotion too. "We need to talk about this."
She pulls her hand away. "There's nothing to talk about."
"Please look at me," he says, and for some reason she does. She lifts her chin and looks in his eyes and holds it together for about half a second, but then his arms are around her and she's breaking down, practically collapsing into his chest and sobbing.
He leans back against the pillows, his arms tighter around her than they've ever been before. He's sniffling and his whole body is shaking as he moves a hand into her hair and presses his mouth to the top of her head. She allows herself to be held by him for as long as she possibly can. Especially since after she leaves his room, she probably won't even be allowed in the same room as him again, much less alone. And even if she is, she isn't sure she could handle it anyway.
Avoiding him lasts approximately twelve hours. The next day, she finds herself standing slightly behind Austin in the throne room and trying to turn invisible while he grips her hand and argues with his parents.
Apparently, Austin needs a maid on the staff that travels with him to meet his potential brides, and the house manager didn't hesitate to assign that role to Ally with a maniacal glee in her eyes. So now, Ally has to watch from up close as Austin courts other women in his search for a wife.
"—bad enough as it is. The least you can do is override Melissa and send literally any other maid with me instead."
Queen Mimi inclines her head. "Ally will be going with you," she says. Ally winces at the sound of her name. The queen doesn't just know the maids' names—she only knows Ally's. Her cheeks heat at the reminder that her relationship with Austin isn't as much of a secret to those outside the maid staff as she likes to convince herself it is. "It would benefit both of you to remember your place."
"Mother, please don't make this any harder—"
"Austin, I will not hear any arguments," she interrupts, holding up a hand to stop him. His grip on Ally's hand tightens, and she brushes her thumb over the back of his hand.
"We understand, Your Majesty," Ally says softly.
"Actually, we don't," Austin says, glaring at his mother. "I'm doing everything you ask. Please, just…don't make me do this in front of her."
But the queen doesn't budge except to tell Ally to take the rest of the day off to pack. Austin all but drags her out of the throne room.
"I'm so sorry," he says, running both hands through his hair. "Ally, I…I don't know what to do."
"There's nothing we can do," she says with a defeated shrug. But then she forces a brave face. "This just means it's time to grow up. And your mother was right about one thing: I need to go home and pack."
Austin catches her wrist before she can turn around. "This isn't over," he says quietly. "And I'm going to have Trish come along too, say I need two maids to come. I'll have Dez with me, and you deserve to have your best friend to lean on, too. Especially since I can't be there for you the way I want to be."
She nods. "Thank you. I, uh, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then. Don't get into any more trouble."
He purses his lips, and she knows he wants to say more, but he just nods as she gently pulls her hand out of his grip.
He surprises her again that night. She's just about to get in bed, though she knows she won't be getting any sleep, when she hears a tapping sound. She frowns and pulls back her curtains, and sure enough Austin Moon is standing down below, tossing pebbles at her window. Her heart skips, and she rushes out to the living room and onto the balcony.
"What are you doing here?" she whisper-yells so she doesn't wake anyone up or call any attention to the Prince standing guardless below her.
"I couldn't sleep," he says. "Can I come up there?"
He's already climbing the tree next to her balcony by the time she manages to respond. "Don't get hurt," she says with a wince as he searches for his next handhold. But he doesn't seem too bothered, and within a minute he's climbing over her balcony railing and standing in front of her, a grin on his face.
"How did you know where I lived? You've never been here before."
"I'm sorry," he says. "I just…I had to see you before things get crazy."
She sighs and leads him inside. "Austin, we should be trying to move on."
"I don't want to move on," he says as they sit on the couch, too close for friends, too far for lovers.
"Well, what choice do we have?"
She looks up at him, and he seems conflicted. "I've been thinking." He's speaking slowly, which usually means he knows she isn't going to like what he has to say. "What if…what if we just stay together?"
"You're getting married," she reminds him. "We can't."
"But we could," he says, turning his body towards her and pulling a leg up under him on the couch. It's seems too casual a position for a prince. "Most royal marriages aren't for love, so a lot of the time they'll have lovers on the side, you know? Especially at the beginning."
"I just know you aren't seriously suggesting we solve the problem with a harem."
"A harem would imply multiple women. This would just be you."
"Austin," she says slowly, clenching her jaw in frustration, "I will not be your mistress."
"It wouldn't be as bad as it sounds!" he says, taking one of her hands. "You are the person I want to be with! I just have to marry a woman with a title for legal reasons—it's basically a business partnership!"
"I'm not going to sleep around with another woman's husband!" she says, pulling her hand out of his grip and standing up. "Are you insane?!"
"It's normal for royalty!" he says, standing up as well.
"I want to get married too, Austin. I want to settle down, have a family. And I can't do any of that if I'm the King's mistress."
"We can do all that!" he tries.
She shakes her head. "I refuse to bring children into the world with someone who has to hide the fact that he's their father."
"I wouldn't do that. I'd be their father, and I wouldn't hide it. They'd have my blood—they'd be royalty."
"Will you have children with her?" Ally asks. He purses his lips and avoids her eyes. She pushes the thought of him sleeping with another woman out of her mind. "And would her children take precedence over mine because she'll be your wife?"
"Of course not—"
"Not just to you. To anyone."
He sets his jaw and shakes his head. "I'd make sure that didn't happen. I'll be King."
"Well, that doesn't change the fact that you and this woman will be connected in ways I can never even hope to match. You'll never be able to make me a priority because you'll be legally bound to someone else. You're asking me to dedicate my entire life to waiting around for you to find time for me and hoping you don't forget I exist." She steps close to him and narrows her eyes, though she's certain he can see the pain she's trying to hide with her anger. "I will not beg for your love, Your Highness."
A flash of surprise and hurt crosses his eyes before they go soft and pleading again. "You don't have to beg for something that is already yours," he says softly. "My love, my heart, my soul…it all belongs to you." Now he grabs both of her hands, searching her eyes. "I'm telling you, Ally, I love you."
She clenches her jaw, hating the way her chin is quivering, hating the way her vision goes blurry with unshed tears. All she's ever wanted to hear from him, and it had to be the night before he begins searching for a bride.
"I love you, too," she squeaks, because it's all she can manage to force out without completely breaking down. She sniffles, tries to gather her emotions and tuck them away in a neat little box and shove it to the back of her mind. "And that's how I know that whoever you choose to marry will fall in love with you, too. Which is why this is the last time."
He holds her gaze as she slowly leads him into her bedroom. She knows there's more he wants to say, but he doesn't for her sake. A part of her is withering up and dying with every aching breath she takes as she starts to mourn the future they could've had if things were different, but she pushes that to the back of her mind too. Right now, all that exists are her and Austin and the darkness that surrounds them as he shuts the door of her room. His lips find hers and in her mind, she violently shoves the intrusive thoughts away so she doesn't miss a single moment.
He's gone when she wakes up in the morning, which isn't surprising. He had to get back to the palace before anyone realized he was gone and started a panic. But he made his side of the bed, and when she walks out to the kitchen, she finds a note on the counter in his curling, almost artistic handwriting.
Good morning, my love. I'm sorry I couldn't stay, but there are eggs and pancakes in the fridge and I put a pot of coffee on that should be done by the time you wake up. I'm sorry things ended up like this, but just know that I'll be thinking about you all the time, no matter who I'm with. I am forever yours.
The note gets her through the morning, and then she finds herself sitting next to Trish on the Royal Family's private plane as they fly to their first destination. Besides the two of them, Austin is also bringing his best friend Dez and two personal guards—a pretty small staff by royalty standards. Austin's parents are naturally too busy running a country to join him, but all the women they're visiting were chosen by Austin from a list of potential candidates preapproved by the King and Queen.
She jumps at a hand on her leg and realizes she was bouncing it. "Sorry," she mutters to Trish.
"How're you doing?" Trish asks quietly, but both of the guards are sleeping at the back of the plane, and Austin and Dez are focused on a video game with their backs to the girls.
Ally shrugs. "Not great," she admits, playing with the zipper on her jacket. She glances at Austin as he turns his head slightly to talk to Dez, and she catches sight of a red mark under his jaw. Oops.
That ends the conversation, and Trish falls asleep within minutes. She's about to try to get some sleep too, when suddenly Dez walks over and sits in the seat across from her.
"Hey," Dez says softly. "I wanted to talk to you. Austin told me about your conversation last night."
"I hope you're not about to try to tell me I should reconsider."
Dez shakes his head. "Not exactly. But I just wanted you to know that he really does love you, more than anything." He nods in Austin's direction, and she glances at the prince. His chair is fully reclined and he's curled up with a big blanket, fast asleep. "He considered abdicating, actually." Her heart pounds. "The only reason he isn't is because that would make his cousin next in line for the throne, and he's is already a terrible person drunk with power as it is. Austin said abdicating would be too selfish and he can't ruin the lives of his people for his own happiness." He smiles a little. "And he knows you would feel like every bad thing his cousin did as King was your fault, and he would never put that burden of guilt on you."
"He'd also be ruining his own life, which I would never let him do," she adds.
Dez tilts his head. "I disagree." He shrugs. "Anyway, I just thought it might help to hear it from someone else. I'm not saying you should do his idea, but I don't think you should give up. Anyone who knows you guys can see how in love you are, and love always finds a way."
She forces a small smile and a nod. "Thanks, Dez." Then she lets the smile fade as her gaze returns to Austin. She sighs and leans back against her seat. "This is gonna suck."
Dez leans forward and squeezes her hand on the armrest. "If there's anything I can do…"
She glances up at him. "He's going to act strong around me for my sake. Just…take care of him? Make sure he doesn't keep it all bottled up."
Dez nods back to her. "I'll do my best. You take care of yourself too, okay? I know Trish can be…" He glances at Ally's sleeping friend.
"Difficult to talk to?" Ally offers.
"I was gonna say impatient and mean, but sure, let's go with that," Dez replies with a small smile. "Just remember I'm here for you too, if you ever need someone a little more sympathetic to talk to."
She smiles just slightly. "I appreciate it."
Dez nods and squeezes her hand one more time before returning to his seat next to Austin. Ally sighs and reclines her seat, closing her eyes to try to get some sleep.
Their first stop is the home of a noble family on the other side of the kingdom. She's able to handle it better than she thought, frankly, until the welcome ball that night. When she and Trish attempt to enter the ballroom—a normal occurrence at home, where most maids attend balls and other events to assist the Royal family and their guests—they're denied. Apparently, they do things a little differently here.
While the guards at the entrance berate them for having the audacity to try to do their jobs, Ally's mind trails off to a memory from earlier, when Austin stopped at the room she and Trish are sharing to check in on them. She hadn't been able to look at him, but he'd said she owed him a dance at the ball. A joke, of course, because it would be completely inappropriate, but his tone had been sincere. Despite knowing it wouldn't have happened anyway, she feels the disappointment as a sting in her throat.
Trish doesn't say much as they take the opportunity to unpack Austin's luggage in his room while he's gone, and Ally is grateful for it. But then, as she turns down the bed in preparation for him to come back late for the party, she shifts his pillow and finds something underneath. And when she picks it up and sees what it is, she sits down heavily on the bed.
It's a photo, well-worn and riddled with wrinkles and creases from being folded and unfolded over and over again in various ways. The picture itself is one he took of the two of them, judging from the positioning of his arm in the photo and the angle of the camera. The background looks like the headboard of his bed, and their plain, comfortable clothes further support that. In the moment he captured, she has her arms thrown around his neck and is pulling him to her, pressing a kiss to his cheek with her eyes closed and a smile still visible on her face. He's laughing, teeth and dimples on full display, and it actually reaches his eyes. The photo is a little blurry, which probably means it wasn't planned or posed—it's just a genuinely happy moment in time they shared together, and he was able to capture it. She doesn't even remember it.
Judging from the wear on the photo and the fact that it's under his pillow, he must keep it with him almost everywhere he goes. How often does he look at it? What goes through his mind when he does?
She's pulled out of her thoughts before she can spiral by the shift of the bed when Trish sits down next to her.
"What's that?" she asks.
"I found it under his pillow," Ally says.
Trish sighs and wraps an arm around her, rubbing her arm, and Ally rests her head on her friend's shoulder. "You guys look happy," she says softly.
Ally brushes her fingertips over their smiling faces in the photo, barely recognizing them. "We were."
Trish takes a deep breath before gently taking the photo from Ally, folding it back up, and replacing it under Austin's pillow. "C'mon," she says, "since everyone's at the ball, we can explore the estate after we finish in here."
Ally sighs and nods, and she and Trish finish unpacking Austin's luggage and preparing his room for his return. Then she begrudgingly follows Trish around the grounds, finishing their tour in the kitchen, which is a hive of activity due to the party. They stay out of the way as best they can and only steal minimal hors-d'oeuvres while they hunt for dinner. And here, minimal means they stuff their faces with hors-d'oeuvres until they can't eat any more—and the staff is happy to supply them. Each tiny serving has to look perfect to be served to the guests, which means all the imperfect rejects are fair game.
Once they're practically bursting at the seams with tiny kebabs, finger sandwiches, and the like, the girls return to their room and get ready for bed. Trish, who can already sleep anywhere, starts snoring almost as soon as her head hits the pillow after such a long day. Ally, on the other hand, stares at the ceiling and gets lost in her thoughts.
Why did Austin bring that photo of them with him to meet potential brides? Didn't they agree they both need to move on? A great way to not do that is sleep with a picture of the two of them under your pillow.
Then again, they didn't really agree on anything, did they? She said it, and he eventually just stopped arguing about it. And if Dez is to be believed, Austin doesn't seem to have any intention of moving on at all. If he was considering abdicating to be with her—giving up the crown, the title, and the life he's grown up training for—he might not even think he can move on. Especially if the only thing stopping him is the guilt of leaving his people with a poor ruler and the burden it would place on her.
She's pulled out of her thoughts by a soft knock at the door. Trish doesn't stir, and she thinks maybe she imagined it. She's so desperate to talk to Austin, she could be making up sounds in her head to pretend he's here. So she turns over in her bed and closes her eyes, trying to think about anything besides Austin.
Then she hears the knock again, and she sighs and gets out of bed. Maybe if she sees that it's nothing, her mind will stop playing cruel tricks on her.
But it's not nothing.
When she opens the door, Austin is standing behind it in the dimly lit hallway. He's still in the clothes he wore to the ball, but now his tie is loose around his neck, his suit jacket is open, and the top two buttons of his white shirt are undone. It's unfair that he looks this good after probably dancing the night away with who may be his future wife.
He looks exhausted, but his eyes immediately brighten and his shoulders visibly relax when he sees her. She smiles a little and steps out into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind her, despite her brain's protests that this is not moving on.
"Ally," Austin says softly. She can smell the champagne on his breath. "I didn't get to see you at the ball."
"We, um, weren't allowed in," she says. He frowns. "The guards thought we were trying to sneak in pretending to be guests and didn't really listen to us when we tried to explain." She shrugs. "We figured you wouldn't need us, and it wasn't worth the fight."
"I wish you'd texted me or something," Austin says. "I missed you. And Dez got lonely when I was with…well, you know." She purses her lips and looks away, and he clears his throat. "Right. Anyway, you owe me a dance."
She looks at him and raises an eyebrow in spite of the flutter in her heart. "Says who?"
He smiles. "Your prince."
"Austin, it's one in the morning. I'm in my pajamas. Also, I can't dance."
"Well, I think you look beautiful. And believe it or not, I am slightly tipsy, and after a few hours of needing to be all proper and high-functioning, I probably won't be perfect either."
She rolls her eyes. "You're always perfect."
"Please?" Austin says, and that look in his eyes alone almost makes her melt. Then he runs a hand through his hair and looks away for a second before meeting her eyes again. "It's been a long day and a long night and I don't wanna be here and I just…I need something that feels like home." They're right next to one of the mounted lights in the hallway, so even though the lights are dimmed for the night, she can still see his cheeks and the tips of his ears tint pink. "Or someone, I guess."
Whether due to exhaustion or just the overwhelming relief and comfort being around him gives her, that statement almost makes her cry. She throws her arms around him, and he hugs her back.
"You feel like home, too," she says, burying her face in his shoulder.
He kisses her cheek as they pull away and then takes her hand to lead her down the quiet hallway. Since Austin's accompanying staff are technically guests here as well, his room is actually pretty close to the one she and Trish are in. One of his guards is standing at attention outside his door, and her cheeks heat as she follows Austin past him and into the room. It's not like anyone from the palace doesn't know about her and Austin, but admittedly they've never been this overt before and it feels even weirder being somewhere other than the palace. Especially since Austin just left a party held in honor of him considering the daughter of this estate as a potential bride. But the guard doesn't even acknowledge them.
She can't help but glance at Austin's bed—more specifically, at the photo she knows is folded under his pillow—when they get inside. But then Austin plays music from his phone and pulls her into his arms and she refocuses on him. He takes her right hand in his left, keeping his other hand on her back, as they sway to the music. She's silently grateful he doesn't try any fancy ballroom dance steps all the noble and Royal families know.
"We're really bad at trying to move on," she says.
He smiles a little, though the sadness behind it matches her own. "I don't want to move on," he tells her. "I can't. You're the only person who makes me feel like me."
She closes her eyes as tears gather behind her lids. "Me, neither," she manages, but her voice breaks and it barely comes out as a whisper.
He lifts his arm and twirls her halfway, then pulls her back against him. She rests her free hand on his forearm while he still holds her other hand, and she leans her head back against his chest. He kisses the top of her head, tightening his arms around her.
"I'm sorry," he says softly. "I didn't want to make you sad. I'm not trying to make this any harder than it already is."
She takes a deep breath and turns back around in his arms to face him again. His eyes roam her face, like he's trying to read her emotions. "I want to find a way to be together," she says.
His lips quirk up. "I've been thinking about that," he says. "Some of these women might be okay with approaching the marriage more like a business partnership, maybe even prefer it. I wouldn't tell them about you until I was sure, obviously, but I might be able to find someone who's okay with just being Queen and not really having anything else to do with me. I know it's a little more complicated than that, but if she knew about you and was fully on board with all of this…would that change your mind?"
She nods. There won't be a perfect solution, and a normal life together isn't going to be possible for them. But Austin is clearly trying his best to give her as close to normal as he can get. He's already sacrificed so much for her, and she knows he'd be willing to give even more if it meant they could be together, so she can sacrifice, too.
His smile grows and he kisses her, warming her to the bone. When they pull away, she stays close to him as they continue swaying to the music. He tilts his head down and rests his cheek against her temple.
"You will never have to beg for my love," he says quietly, referring to her initial reaction when he suggested they stay together even after Austin marries someone else: I will not beg for your love. "Everything I feel, everything I do, everything I am…it's all for you."
Her heart pounds, protesting at the statement. It shouldn't be true, and the pain in his voice makes her almost wish it weren't, if only so he wouldn't be hurting like this. But loving him means knowing him, and knowing him means knowing that statement is just as true for him as it is for her.
"We will find a way to make this work," he adds, determination replacing the pain in his soft voice. She allows herself to believe him.
this will prob be a two shot, maybe three depending on how long the next part is lol but anyway sorry it's been a while i was busy graduating college and now you prob won't see me again for another hot minute bc i'm busy but i will try to write when i can. also everybody wish umamah a happy birthday this is for her
