Starting a career training horses was harder than becoming Queen.

Ella blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and paused, leaning against her pitchfork. She had ten minutes before her next riding lesson showed up, and that big draft stallion had picked just now to dump a huge load in the middle of the aisle for her to clean up. She knew it was part of the gig, and a month or two ago she would have attacked even the dirty parts of her new job at her friend’s stables with joy, but now all she could think about was whether it was too late to buy a one-way ticket back to Danovar.

She’d been working so hard to change herself into a Queen—and now that she’d succeeded, now that her old dreams no longer held their luster in comparison, she was condemned to a lifetime of them. She’d never get to help anyone on the global stage. Never get to fund Anna’s research, never get to save her home country’s natural resources.

Never get to stand at Phillip’s side again.

She bent back to her task and attacked the manure with new vigor. Best she not think about him. It was too late to buy a ticket back anyway—after she’d left him high and dry this close to his birthday, he’d have no reason to marry her. Plus, after the way he’d betrayed her she knew she would never come first with him, and she’d already lived that life and wanted no more of it.

But oh, Phillip. If only he’d been able to see her, understand that she needed to be important to him too. If only he’d come to her when that reporter confronted him, instead of making the decision for her. She scrubbed a hand across her face to get the hair out of her eyes, and was dismayed when her hand came back wet with tears. She didn’t even know what she was crying for. Phillip? Her lost life as Queen? Her new dreams, vanished to dust?

“Ella, your twelve o’clock is here!” the stable manager called. “Brand-new rider, I believe.” Grateful for the distraction, Ella stowed the pitchfork and went to retrieve the horses for today’s lesson. For the new rider, she chose their rock-solid old mare who never moved faster than a sedate walk and wouldn’t spook if a bomb blew up in her face. She walked out to the ring, mare in one hand and her assigned gelding in the other. The new rider in the middle of the arena turned. It took a moment for her brain to put together the puzzle pieces of him and assign a name.

Long, godlike blond hair. Smoky eyes. Broad, square, strong hands that had done delicious things to her—and then handed her letters over to a reporter to protect someone else.

Phillip.

Shocked by seeing him in the last place she’d expected, she turned, thinking only that she’d need to trade out the mare. Her twelve o’clock was, in fact, not a new rider.

A hand curled around her shoulder. “Please, wait,” he said in that accent she’d been longing for, and it was like taking a long drink in the desert. “Don’t walk away from me again.”

She stopped and turned.

He scanned her face like she, too, was an oasis in the hot sands. “I know what I did was terrible,” he said. He took a deep breath like he had to steel himself for whatever he was about to say. “And I can only plead my own arrogance. I never dreamed I’d be so lucky as to fall for one of the eligible maidens, but even after I did, I don’t think I ever shook the notion that my wife would be a state employee—because that was the way I’d been treating myself, too. Like my only function in life was to fulfill duties and be whatever my people needed me to be. It was only after you left that I realized what you’d been trying to teach me. Serving my country doesn’t always have to be a burden. The way you served your stepfamily—out of love and a genuine desire to help, with such kindness and generosity even when they overlooked you—that was what finally showed me that there is room in my life for both duty and love, and that serving my country can be even more fulfilling when it’s done with joy, and with someone I love at my side. I learned that I am more than a king. I’m a man. One who has made terrible mistakes, and one who is now begging your forgiveness, and promising to put you first for as long as we both shall live. If you’ll still have me.”

He dropped to one knee, fumbling for something in his pocket. Ella covered her mouth with one hand—everything was happening so quickly—but instead of the royal engagement ring she’d left behind, he pulled out…

A silver glitter heel.

“Marry me here in secret,” he said, staring earnestly up at her. “I want you to wear these down the aisle, no matter where that aisle is. If you want, we can even wait until after the deadline passes. Anything to prove that I mean what I say. Anything to be with you.”

Tears were rising in her eyes again, but for a new and much better, more impossible reason now. “What about your duties?” she asked around the hand that was still covering her mouth.

“Fuck duties,” he said, so earnestly that it startled a laugh out of her. The stable hands who were readying the bleachers for the upcoming show paused to give them a dirty look, but she didn’t even glance up. This man. Oh, this man—this king, who was offering to forego everything he’d ever considered his life’s purpose to get her back. If she would have him.

“I’ll let Eric inherit if that’s what it takes,” Phillip said, then had to pause and swallow hard. He didn’t take it back though, just let the offer sit there even though she knew how much it must be costing him to offer this.

She dropped her hand, dropped the reins. The horses she’d been holding, less well-trained than those at the royal stables, wandered off to investigate some hay in the corner. “That’s not what I want,” she said.

He looked up at her, worry and hope warring on that incredible face.

How to say what she meant? She waved a hand at the arena, at the horses in the corner. “Before I met you, this was all I ever wanted,” she told him. “I thought it would mean freedom. I thought that was what I wanted: never having to serve anyone again. But I was wrong. Everyone I ever talked to about my life assumed that serving made me somehow lesser, so I’d started to believe that too.” She knelt down in front of him, and, unable to restrain herself any longer, took his face in her hands. “You taught me something too, Phillip. You taught me that serving others can be one of the most noble and fulfilling pursuits anyone could be lucky enough to pursue. And in comparison to being your Queen, this old dream of mine looks shabbier with every passing minute.”

That glorious, adorable smile started to tug at the corners of his mouth, but she wasn’t quite done.

“I want to spend my life at your side. And trust me, there will likely be plenty of times where I ask you to skip traditions and compromise with some of our obligations, but this isn’t one of them. Stay king, and let me be your queen.”

He leaned forward, took a stray strand of her hair between his fingers, tucked it behind her ear. “I would love nothing more,” he said, staring at her lips like he would also love nothing more than to kiss her.

In the corner of the ring, the stable hands applauded and wolf-whistled, and she smiled. “Vegas isn’t too far of a drive from here. Let’s go find a chapel right now. I don’t want to wait another day to be your wife,” she said, staring at his lips too. God, she wanted this man so bad, right now. She slanted him a suggestive smile. “Although… maybe the wedding can wait a few more hours.”

He scooped her up, and she laughed out loud. “A few more hours it is,” he said. “I most definitely have some ideas for ways we can pass the time.”

She grinned with delight, wrapped her arms around his neck, and finally, finally kissed him. He ducked his head to meet her, and she sighed with happiness. This kiss—it felt like life. It felt like a new dream.

It felt like Phillip and her, forever.