“Holy shit.” My sister flattens her hand over her heart and staggers back, her gaze fixed on the television screen, where Kapria’s public broadcasting network is documenting the signing ceremony in the palace’s throne room. “He’s smiling. King Maximilian is smiling! Do you think he’s possessed by demons?”

More likely, he exorcised a few of his demons when he signed the trade agreement. But I know better than to encourage Liz’s dramatics. If I play along, within a few minutes she’ll be dressing up in horns and a tail, then find a pitchfork that she’ll use to exorcise my demons.

Besides, I can’t stop looking at Maximilian’s smile. I’ve seen thousands of photos and watched hundreds of hours of video footage featuring Kapria’s king, and this is the first time that particular smile has ever appeared: broad, genuine. Beautiful.

He’s beautiful when he’s not smiling, too—but in an intense, razor-edged way. I’ve never seen him so…at ease.

Already bored by the public broadcast, Liz sidles closer to the sofa where I’m sitting—and closer to the lunch of cheese and fruit that I’ve placed on the table beside me. Without taking my gaze from the screen, I reach for the two fat strawberries that I’m saving for my dessert, lick them both, and put them back down.

“Damn it,” she pouts. “You can’t share?”

“You can’t get your own?” I retort. “There’s more in the kitchen.”

“They taste better when they’re stolen. But not when they’re contaminated with your germs.” She feigns a horrified shudder. “A good sister would share.”

“Mmm-hmm,” I agree. “But I’m not.”

Though I am. And we both know it. So she narrows her green eyes at me in mock anger and threatens, “You’re going to regret this,” before flouncing from the conservatory with her long auburn ponytail swinging behind her.

I probably will regret it. No doubt I’ll wake up with toothpaste in my hair or raw eggs in my running shoes. My little sister has more energy than a sack full of cats, but ever since she graduated from university last summer, she hasn’t applied that energy toward anything. Before her graduation, our brother James—her twin—was at home during the same holidays that she was, so he was the focus of her attention. But with James serving two years as a volunteer in the Kaprian militia, she’s dedicated her many free hours to—in her words—livening up my staid, boring life.

Maybe my life is a trifle staid, but that’s the way I like it. And it’s not boring. Not to me, at least. I can see why Liz thinks so, though. She’s the kind of person who always needs to be entertained, so she bounces around until she finds something interesting to do or until someone provides that entertainment. But I don’t need constant external stimulation. If nothing’s happening around me, I’ll still find ways to occupy myself.

But it’s not often that nothing’s happening around me. I’m always busy. Today is one of the rare days I have to myself, so I’m determined to do the things I love best. That’s why I’m in the conservatory, relaxing in the sunshine streaming through the giant windows and watching the most beautiful man in the world smile as he secures Kapria’s future.

“Vic!” Liz’s shout echoes down the manor house’s ancient halls. “Can I borrow your turquoise sweater?”

I’m not yelling my answer back. Instead I text her. Yes.

I can share. Just not my strawberries.

Another shout rings out. “You’re the best!”

I know. But when my gaze returns to the handsome, smiling face onscreen, I wonder if my best is good enough for a king.

My chest tightens. Twelve years have passed since my father and the newly crowned Maximilian struck the deal that would change his life—and mine—forever. At sixteen years of age, I was quietly betrothed to a king. Two months ago, I celebrated my twenty-eighth birthday. And so much time has passed without a single word from Maximilian…maybe the king has changed his mind. Maybe everything I’ve been working toward and hoping for will never become a reality. Maybe he’ll want someone else. Someone he’s met more than once. Maybe he’ll fall in love with them.

Maybe he’s completely forgotten about me.

But I refuse to wallow in self-doubt—or self-pity. Determinedly I push up out of the sofa, grab my lunch plate, and head out to the garden. The early afternoon sunlight is too harsh for my purposes, so I spend the next hour leisurely searching for the perfect blooms before returning to the house for my camera and tripod. By the time the light has softened, I’m in position to capture a cluster of alpine wildflowers. At my request, our gardener has been carefully cultivating some of the endangered species that grow in the higher elevations of the Kaprian mountains. He once grumbled to me that a single garden won’t save the flowers, but saving them has never been my intention. Not directly, anyway. Instead I’m hoping to help raise awareness and capture the attention of nature enthusiasts.

“Are you out here, Vic?” Liz yells.

This time I won’t text the answer. Bent over the tripod, I call back, “By the north arbor!”

She shows up on the path a moment later, but she’s not alone. A man I don’t recognize strolls along behind her, his hands tucked casually in the pockets of his suit trousers.

Oh shit. I straighten, wishing she’d told me we have a guest. Then I could have sent her back into the house and changed my clothes before meeting him, instead of standing barefoot in the grass, wearing a pair of faded cutoffs and an ancient hooded sweatshirt. I have good reason to protect my image. I’m not always perfectly successful. I’ve had a few missteps, but those missteps were accidental. This could have been avoided if he’d been properly announced.

But Liz doesn’t know about the betrothal. Not really. Before our father died, I often said the king had promised to marry me and that I would be Kapria’s queen. But I haven’t spoken of that agreement for years, so Liz and James—who are six years younger than I am—only remember my claims as a teenage crush and wishful thinking. They don’t know why I protect my public face so fiercely. It’s one of the things Liz teases me about—that I never leave the house with a hair out of place. Which isn’t true. Not really. Sometimes the wind blows and I can’t do anything to stop that, so I don’t try. If I can control something, however, I will.

The only thing I can control now is my reaction to our unexpected visitor. In his mid-thirties, with dark blond hair and a medium height and build, he looks vaguely familiar in a nondescript way, but I can’t place him. “Good afternoon, Mr…?”

“Karl Sauer.” His gaze scans me from toes to head with a focus that’s both disinterestedly nonthreatening and strangely invasive. As if he’s measuring me with that one look but trying to appear as if he isn’t. He glances at Liz before returning his attention to me. His accent is distinctly American when he says, “I am here to deliver a personal message from my employer. Can we speak privately?”

Liz’s eyes flare wide. She purses her lips and shoots me a look brimming with irrepressible humor. As if she’s waiting for the day’s entertainment to begin.

Oh lord. I know that look all too well. Chances are, she’s either setting me up for a date or this is part of a prank. I’m not sure which is worse.

But I’ll play along for now. Lifting my chin, I say as regally as possible, “Liz, will you give Mr. Sauer and me a few moments of privacy?” You little snot.

“Sure,” she replies, then mouths something that looks like “ride that pony” before skipping away.

As soon as she’s out of sight, I ask Sauer, “And your employer is…?”

“Maximilian,” he says bluntly. “Your king.”

My heart thumps, hard. For a moment the edges of my vision turn black as if the blood has drained from my head. Then my brain cells start working again.

If this man is an emissary of the king, then I’m a dancing ostrich. For one, he’s American—and Maximilian makes a point of hiring Kaprian citizens. His staff includes some naturalized immigrants, but anyone who works for the king or in the palace has been tutored in etiquette and refers to him in a specific manner. They don’t just say “Maximilian.” Instead they refer to him as “His Majesty,” or at least append his title to his name. And if this man were a Kaprian citizen, Maximilian wouldn’t be “your king.” He’d be “ours.”

Maybe he’s new to Kapria. And maybe he does work at the palace. But if he’s a recent hire, would he be sent on this particular mission? No. Far more likely, this is Liz’s work. And he does look somewhat familiar. Maybe he’s an actor she hired. Or maybe I’ve seen him around the village or in the city, and Liz picked him up at a local café. With her, who knows.

But I’m particularly good at thinking one thing while emoting another. So I merely arch my eyebrows, indicating bland interest.

“Oh?” I question politely. “What message does he have for me?”

“That he wants to marry you.”

His reply is a punch to the chest, but I conceal that, too. “All right. Tell him that I’ll look for a clear space on my calendar,” I say easily, then turn toward my camera, because I can only pretend so far. With throat aching, I tell him, “Now I hope you’ll forgive me, but the sun keeps moving. If I don’t take these photos at the right moment, the shadows will be all wrong.”

From behind me comes a brief and palpably befuddled silence. Then, “You want me to tell the king that you’ll look for a clear space on your calendar?”

“Mmm-hmmm,” I hum the confirmation while I snap a few shots, then tug my phone out of my pocket and open the calendar app. “Let me see. It looks like…” I scroll through the months. And continue scrolling. “I have a few days free in October.”

He nods sharply. “I will inform him—”

“October of next year, that is.” With a shrug, I return to my camera. “I’m so very busy, after all. But I’m sure that His Majesty understands how it is, as he himself is so very busy that he could not even come here in person to announce our forthcoming wedding. Indeed, I’m astonished that he’s had time to think of marriage at all, since he has been working obsessively for months to negotiate this trade agreement, and that was only signed an hour ago. Simply astonished!”

“As am I,” Sauer says dryly, then offers a stiff bow. “Thank you for your time, my lady.”

I’m not a lady. My father was a baron—and now my brother is—so I don’t rate higher than a “miss” when someone addresses me. Someone who worked for the royal family would know that. And an emissary from the king would have been prepped before coming. Viciously I click the shutter again before smiling at him pleasantly. “You’re welcome, Mr. Sauer. Don’t forget to report to Liz and tell her how her little joke went.”

He hesitates for a moment, as if about to say more, then shakes his head and departs.

I stand in place, the viewfinder blurry and unfocused through my tears. Liz couldn’t know how this prank would hurt me. She teases me now and then about my girlhood crush on the king—and sometimes that teasing includes asking me if I never date because I’m still waiting for him to make me his queen. No doubt she believed I would be as unaffected by this joke as I am when she teases me.

Except I’m not unaffected, even by the teasing—I just pretend to be. And I am waiting for the king to make me his queen. Kind of. Because as the years pass, the possibility of marrying him seems to move further away, not closer. At eighteen, the reason for the delay was clear. My father had just succumbed to a brain tumor, and I was so young. At twenty-two, when I graduated from university, I was probably still too young—and Kapria was still recovering from King Leopold’s rule. It made sense that Maximilian wouldn’t want to indulge in an expensive wedding celebration while so many people in his kingdom were still struggling. And I don’t expect a fairy tale where Maximilian shows up and sweeps me into his arms, declaring his passionate love. But a little acknowledgment would be nice. In all this time, I’ve only received one message from him—congratulations for earning my university degree. But I’ve done so much more since then. And although I understand all of the reasons for keeping the betrothal secret, I’ve moved from feeling as if he’s being discreet…to feeling as if I’m invisible to him.

And I’m not too young to be queen now. Instead I worry that if he waits any longer, I won’t be young enough.

Because I can’t stop time any more than I can stop the wind. Or stop the Earth from turning. And while I’m wallowing in my hurt, the sun passes beyond the peaked roof of the manor house and the wildflowers fall into full shadow.

So much for waiting for the perfect moment.

But surely more than one perfect moment comes along in a lifetime. And it’s not as if I can change the past now. I just have to move on.

I pick up my tripod and begin scouting for another spot—and wonder whether it’s time to move on in other ways, too. Because I’m not Sleeping Beauty, untouched by time and unaware of its passing. I’ve been awake all these years, waiting for my king to arrive. But Maximilian hasn’t shown any inclination to come.

So maybe I should tell him that he doesn’t need to.