Chapter 26

Heidi

I ran around the flat for the fifth time. Liza was currently at a shoot, so I couldn’t enlist her help in this task, the “find what I’d forgotten” task.

It’d gotten to the point that this was a tradition of mine: forgetting indispensable items behind wherever I was leaving. When I’d come to London from the States, it’d been my cell phone. Now, here, I wasn’t sure what it was. But even after checking my bed, every last cabinet in the bathroom and kitchen, as well as all the trash cans, I was sure there was something I was forgetting.

Although I didn’t have much time to indulge in my obsessive-compulsive hunt. The plane tickets were ordered and the car had been arranged. I’d even said good-bye to Liza with a long, tearful hug she’d only drawn away from at the insistent honking of the car sent to pick her up for her shoot.

We promised to stay in touch, and we would. Liza was my best friend for life; no distance would change that. Besides, her contract was set to expire in a few weeks. Soon she be back home in the States with me, sharing our favorite sundaes at Dairy Queen.

On my way to the kitchen to check the oven, ridiculously enough, a knock at the door stopped me. I froze. That wasn’t…

“I know you’re in there, Heidi.” Charles’s determined voice fluttered through the door.

“Shit,” I muttered to myself. Maybe if I just stayed very still and didn’t move a muscle…

“Liza called me,” he said.

My hands balled up. How could she?

Sure, I hadn’t expressly forbidden her from telling anyone, but I had thought it was unspoken that I wanted to leave London in peace, without anyone, even Charles, interfering.

If we got to talking again, he’d start spewing out more of his logical “give me time,” and I wouldn’t know what to do. Right now, the best thing for me was, without question, going home.

“Please,” he continued. “Just hear me out, and then if you still want to go, you can go. Just give me a chance.”

Just give him a chance. Hell, why were his words so freaking tempting? I had been planning on sending him a long, apologetic goodbye text from the airport, but now it was clear there was no way around it. I would have to face him in person.

At the door, he was adorably rain-soaked, although that didn’t explain the sheen of tears in his eyes.

“You were actually going to do it.” He said the words like a condemnation. All I could do was nod. He swung the door shut behind him with one gusty heave. “You were actually going to leave without saying good-bye.”

Those words were even more damning than the last.

“What happened to giving me time?” he finally asked.

His entire face was a rain-flecked mask of rage. Even his long lashes were riddled with raindrops. He looked so heartbreaking that I wanted to…

“I gave you time,” I said heatedly. “Remember? You asked for a few days and I gave you three. What more do you want?”

“A little trust.”

Charles’s eyes bored into mine.

“I was going to tell you today about the plan I have for tomorrow, but then you up and leave without giving me the slightest indication.”

“I was going to tell you,” I shot back. “I was going to just before I left. I’ve made up my mind, Charles. Okay?”

He looked down at me as if I were a stranger.

“I don’t believe you.”

Shoving my hand in my coat pocket, I pulled out my phone and clicked on our message history that I had read through almost five times last night while I’d made my tearful decision and bought the plane tickets.

There, in draft form, was the message I’d debated sending to him last night but had sagely decided to save for right before I left.

As Charles scanned the message, his resolve wavered. Finally, his despondent gaze went to me.

“If you feel that way…if you care for me that much—”

I placed two fingers on his lips.

“Shhh, please. Just let me go. If you really care about me, then you’ll let me go.”

Charles’s eyes closed. His whole body shook with the pain he was feeling. But when he opened them, the resolve was back.

“This isn’t just about you and me anymore.” He thrust his open hand against my stomach. “This is about our child. I don’t want any child of mine to grow up without a father.”

His touch was electric. I could feel the baby rustle in response. I twisted away.

“Charles, please. The flight’s in a few hours. My car is coming—”

At the sound of a honk, our eyes met.

“That’s my car.”

Avoiding his look that I could feel burning into me, I went to my room and hoisted my bag’s strap on my shoulder. This was it. I was really doing this. It was the act my head and heart had been warring about for the past few days. My head had won out in the end, for better or worse.

A few steps away from the door, Charles stepped in front of me.

“Don’t.”

His word was half entreaty, half command. Willing myself not to look at him, I instead concentrated on his sodden boots.

“I have to.”

His hand found mine.

“You don’t. Just give me a chance tomorrow. We’re having a lunch with my mother.”

My gaze flew up. “We?”

He nodded. “You”—two of his fingers dug into my chest—“and me.” His fingers pointed back at himself.

“But the plane…” I said, trying to remind myself as much as anything.

Charles only waved his hand.

“I’ll have that all sorted. The owner of Heathrow Airport is an old friend of Father’s. I’ll get your money back and then some. And then, after tomorrow, if you still want to go—”

“That’s what you said last time,” I said quietly.

Taking my hand, Charles clasped it in both of his.

“Trust. Can you just trust me, just this last time, Heidi?” he asked, his sapphire eyes imploring mine. “Can you do that for me?”

With my whole body sinking into his grasp, I nodded.

My eyes were closed, and I was sinking farther and farther. When our lips met, it was no surprise to me. The kiss dissolved the last of my will. All of me flowed into all of him.

And then, unbearably, he broke away, looking as if he stayed a second longer, he would be unable to control what he did next.

“Tomorrow,” he said monotonously, as if rehearsing from a script, “a car will be sent here at 11 a.m. sharp. Wear something white. I’ll have it sent to you tonight.”

And then, with one final hand squeeze, he was gone, leaving me with a swirl of emotions, as uncertain as ever. All I knew was tomorrow would decide everything.

--

This time, I was pleasantly surprised to find Charles waiting in the limo that was to pick me up. Perhaps a part of him was worried I might not show at all, that I hadn’t meant what I’d said.

Or maybe part of him knew just how terrifying this all was for me and wanted to be there for me.

Whatever the reason, when his gaze stopped on my form, he smiled.

“Gorgeous,” he declared. “Knew it.”

Sitting beside him, but not close enough to be touching him, the corner of my lips smirked.

“Way to take credit for everything.”

Although Charles did have a point. The ribbed white dress with the perfectly fitting keyhole neckline was something. When Liza and I had gingerly accepted it from the posh deliveryman last night, we’d actually let out little shrieks of glee—more so than when our ball gowns had arrived, since we’d been in a rush and had hardly had any time to look at them, let alone enjoy how exquisitely made they were.

“So I have to ask you something…” Charles asked.

I could feel his questioning gaze on the side of my head, but I didn’t turn to meet it. Right now, I was a bundle of nerves and didn’t need to see the man I had come to rely on freaking out too.

“Yes?”

“Henry,” Charles said simply. “For this lunch, I think things would go a lot smoother if he were present. But if you’d rather have it be just me and you and—”

“He can be there,” I said quickly.

Although my pride wasn’t eager to have another witness to the debacle this lunch would probably prove to be, Henry was a hothead and would at least take some of the attention off me.

“Okay. I’ll let him know,” Charles said.

He typed on his phone and then returned his gaze to me.

“It’s going to be all right, you know,” he said. “I’m not going to let her say anything against you or the baby.”

“You already did,” I said quietly, my eyes finally meeting his.

He recoiled as if he’d been physically kicked in the knees.

“Sorry,” I added quickly, “but it’s true.”

Charles nodded.

“It is. Although I did defend you. I hope you heard that too.”

I only nodded. Charles went silent. He seemed to understand that there was no point in talking to while away the time. Nothing really mattered until the lunch took place and went how it went. I didn’t want to play make-believe and think things could work out with Charles when his mother was still a ticking time bomb. It would just make everything that happened later hurt that much more.

When we pulled up to Buckingham Palace, my heart was in my throat. I felt if I spoke or even tried to breathe, I’d just topple over. My stomach was growling, and I silently cursed myself for forgetting to chow down on a granola bar. I’d been so nervous this morning that my appetite had resembled an absolute negative. I’d felt bloated on nothing, so I hadn’t eaten and now hunger was coming to punish me dearly for it.

It was like that time back in twelfth grade. Exam time of course. That was when my stomach would always choose to go into a full opera mode. It was a bellowing alto tune that unleashed itself at the exact moment no one was shuffling their papers or moving their seats. I’d been forced to shift my chair in order to obscure the sound.

My lips compressed into a grim smile. If things came to it, at least I’d have a strategy to deal with my embarrassing stomach groaning when it was quiet.

Although something told me that whatever happened in the next hour or so, quiet would be the least of it.

Charles had to coax me out of my seat in the limo. Then his hand in mine stabled me.

It squeezed mine. It said “you can do this.” Unfortunately, it was wrong. Already, I’d lost my voice, and every step I took was shakier than the last. My whole body felt itchy, as if I were horrifically allergic to whatever material the dress Charles had sent me was made out of.

I forced myself to take a deep breath. In, two, three. Out, two, three. Just one foot in front of the other. That was all it would take. One foot in front of the other.

As we walked through the ornate entryway and through the ballroom, I kept my gaze glued to Charles’s tense face. There was a fierce fire there, one I trusted implicitly. I didn’t dare stray my eyes from it lest I get horrifying flashbacks of what had happened here just a little under a week ago. No, I was here with Charles and today was different. It would have to be different.

When he gestured his hand out into what appeared to be the most lavishly decorated dining room I’d ever seen, I felt like fainting on the spot.

Lavish was too weak a word in fact. The room’s walls and velvet floors, not to mention the velvet settings of the chairs, were rich crimson red. The candelabras and the chairs themselves were gold. On the walls were massive paintings that were as big as ten of me, and the ceiling looked like something out of an art book.

Charles put his hand on my back to steady me.

“Mother insists on having all meals, even family ones, in this mausoleum,” Charles said dismissively. “But don’t be intimidated. I don’t care what she says. I’ve made up my mind.”

I only nodded as he helped me into a cushy chair. Now wasn’t the time to inform him that I had made up mine, too, and that he wasn’t going to like what conclusions I had come to.

We sat there a minute or two before Henry strode in, looking as jovial as ever.

“Imagine seeing you two lovebirds here.” He threw his head back with a grin, which quickly sagged. “Yeah, this is some deep bloody shit we’re in, all right.”

“Tell me about it,” Charles said darkly.

Henry looked as though he were about to make another comment, but he clamped his lips shut. I followed his gaze to the far door. There, in a simple black dress that did nothing to diminish her regal glory, was Queen Mary herself. Her eyes stopped on me and she froze.

“What is she doing here?”

My furious gaze met Charles’s. He hadn’t told her? How could he? My eyes went to the door. I still had time to run out…