The Nova Scotian air wasn't quite how I recalled it when I stepped out of the car at Hattie’s house. It was freezing. The end of January in Canada was hateful. My nose burned and my eyes felt like they didn’t have a drop of moisture left in them.

“Fin! Jess! My girls.” Hattie came hurrying out in her parka and the red hat she called a toque. She swore it was a real word but Jess and I didn’t believe her.

“Hi, Hattie,” Linna offered sarcastically.

“Oh hi, Linna. Didn’t see you there.” She waved her off and attacked Jess and I with excessive amounts of hugs, not just for any grandmotherly person, but for Hattie.

“Are you dying?” I asked into the puffy white parka.

“No, you little shit. I’m excited to see you. And I have some things I want you girls to do.” She turned to us and pointed at the side yard. “The wood pile needs to be moved. I shoveled it out but my back is killing me.” She started walking in. “I have toques and mitts inside.”

Peaches came rushing out with her ball, yipping at me. I threw the ball and prepared for a sore back and an aching arm.

By the time we finished, I was aching and cold everywhere.

“I thought doing work in the cold warmed you up.” Linna chattered.

“No. I’m frozen.” I hurried inside and stood at the fireplace with the roaring fire pumping out heat.

“Now that you’re all tired and weak, let’s have a chat, shall we?” Hattie spun from her computer, turning her office chair to face us with her computer glasses still on. Her genealogy was still going strong in the background. “Now I know you are not moving on with that Lucas fellow. So explain to me why on earth you were having dinner with him.” She narrowed her eyes, inspecting me.

“I honestly was having a meal, trying not to feel too sorry for myself. It was my birthday, and I just found out about the headlines everywhere. Everyone else was having a good time, I didn’t want to be a party pooper. I went and had some weird English comfort food. He’s a friend. Nothing more. Why?” I glared back at her.

“No reason.” She sat back, her eyes darting between me, Linna, and Jess. “What’s the plan for the evil queen? Mary told me about the ketamine.”

“Nothing.” Jess eyed me. “Fin’s taking the high road. We aren’t telling anyone. Aiden’s poor dad is too sick for that news.”

“And Aiden won’t take it well. Then you’ll be the girl who ruined a monarchy?” Hattie mused.

“The thought did cross my mind.” I folded my arms. “I’m not taking any high road. I love Aiden and I don’t want more bullshit for him or me.”

“Good!” Hattie smiled. “Get your boots on girls, we’re going to the home to play some bridge.” She shot up out of the chair and hurried to the front door.

“Is she always this crazy?” Linna asked quietly.

Peaches barked the answer before any of us could.

We laughed our way into the SUV.

“I should warn you, Marbles had a fall. She’s fine but you might notice her speech is even worse. We think it was another stroke. Everyone else is about the same since the last time you were here,” Hattie said as she strolled up to the retirement community and pulled open the door for us. “Try not to be annoying,” she said to Linna.

“I’m never annoying,” Linna defended herself.

Hattie rolled her eyes and followed us in. I left them all behind, rushing for the table where the ladies were.

“Fin!” everyone shouted and attacked, led by Mae. I was hugged and squeezed and pinched and slapped on the butt for a full minute and a half before I plunked into one of the chairs. My heart stopped when I saw who was across the table, someone the herd had blocked out. Maybe intentionally.

My throat felt like it was closing.

“The hell is he doing here?” Linna pointed at Aiden who sat calmly across from us, holding cards as if they were in the middle of a game.

I struggled to exhale which wasn't improved when he spoke, “Hello, Fin.”

My lips parted, I had words and excuses and pain. The pain won. I jumped up from the chair and ran from the dining room, out the front door, and kept running until I got to the huge snow-covered rock by the lake. The one he had found me at before.

I was gasping for air and struggling not to cry.

“Fin! Wait!” His crunchy footsteps got closer.

I spun, wanting to let him hold me and make everything okay, but there were things he didn't know, and I didn't know how to tell him or not tell him. And a small part of me hated him and I was unsure why. Maybe because he didn't call on my birthday or because he hated me, and I needed to hate him more to be less guilty. Which I was. I wasn't guilty of anything.

“Fin.” He stepped too close and smelled too good and my entire body ached with longing. It was conflicting. His gaze bore into mine, a sea of stormy emotion.

“Why are you here?” I asked bitterly.

“I need-needed to s-see you.” His little stutter warmed my broken heart. I hadn’t realized how badly I was doing until I saw him. A month of pretending I was fine all washed away, proving I wasn't. “I need to apologize.”

“For what exactly?” I asked it like I wanted an answer, but I had them all and the moment I let my lips loose, they unleashed every thought and feeling I’d had, “For letting your mother treat me like garbage? For still having that Alex chick at your house while your mom parades her around and tells people you’re going to marry her? For taking on this stupid friggin’ role of being king and ruining both our lives forever? I mean honestly, Aiden, which is the worst for you? The fact I can’t take a piss without someone sneaking a photo of me? Or the fact I am the laughing stock of not just my school but like all the G7 countries in the world? How about the fact your mom—” I snapped my lips shut as my mind kept on screaming about being drugged and Sheila being paid and everything being his fault.

“My mom what?”

“Hates me,” I lied, though the words tasted like acid.

“Yes, she does.” He stepped closer, taking my hands in his. “And I don't care. More importantly, I am so sorry for all those things you said and more. And I know I don't have the right to ask a single thing of you, but will you please come with me for a quick drive, and after that, if you still hate me, I won’t b-bother you anymore.” He pleaded silently. He wasn't angry?

“Fine.” I pulled my mitted hands from his, deciding I was the one with the right to be pissed off so I was going to stick with it. “You have an hour.” You have my heart, was what I wanted to say, but no way was I letting him off easy. Not after the month I’d had. He might not have known I was silently suffering through a hell he couldn’t understand, but I didn't have to pretend to be cool with it.

“Okay.” He smiled and I died inside. He was too beautiful to stay mad at. Even if my broken heart argued that fact.

He slid his arm behind my back and led me to the car where a bunch of scary-looking guys waited. We got into the back of the limo alone. Aiden sat across from me, staring. I pretended to have nothing to say and forced my eyes to focus out the window. It was better than saying all the things I wanted to.

“I heard you did really well for the finals this semester,” he offered after several minutes of awkward silence.

“You’re still checking up on my grades?”

“The paper you wrote about the inequality and hardship young women face around the world was incredibly moving. My father was quite impressed.” He sounded proud.

“Why are you reading my papers? How are you reading them?”

“Your international studies professor posted the paper, surely he asked your permission?”

“He did, but it sounded like it was going into some dry-ass article that only other professors would read.” And I hadn’t been entirely listening when he discussed it, which I wouldn’t admit. The guy was terrifying and wordy.

“Well, that dry-ass article crossed my desk.” Aiden laughed but didn't smile. “Are you seeing him?” he blurted.

“My professor?” I gasped. “Have you seen him? He’s like fifty and it’s all city miles.”

“What?” Aiden lifted his gaze to mine, flashing annoyance and a savage storm in his eyes. “No, of course not him, Fin. The guy, the one from the photos in the papers.”

“Lucas?” I scoffed. “Lucas?” Rage flashed in me before I could stop it. “You honestly think I left your house on Christmas-fucking-Day, humiliated and heartbroken, and had a date by New Year’s?” Bile burned my words and my throat. “You think I’m so shallow that I’m seeing someone else already? Why—why would you think that? How could you think that? Are you? Do you need me to be over you and dating someone else so you can tell me something?”

“Sorry?” His anger matched mine.

“Do you have something you need to tell me?”

“Yes.” His gaze narrowed as he leaned forward, coming into my space. “You’re breaking my heart.” He spat his words but he didn't scare me.

“Well, then I guess we’re even.” I leaned in too, our faces an inch apart, his eyes lowered to my lips which trembled. In my mind, we were already kissing and they moved accordingly.

“I don't want this,” he whispered, killing my desire.

“Then don't worry. It’s already over and neither of us has much say in it.” I sat back, mourning the death of desire.

“No, you misunderstand me—”

“It doesn't matter, does it?” I turned and stared out the window again.

“We’re here,” he changed the subject as the car stopped in some weird forested parking lot. There was snow on the ground and a bleak and bare forest around us.

“Where?” I asked, scanning the area for a clue but there was nothing. If I didn't trust his inability to physically hurt me, I’d assume he brought me here to kill me. It was literally the middle of nowhere.

I climbed out, not waiting on ceremony and crunched along the cold snow to a sign. “A trail? You want to go hiking? It’s freezing?” Was he going to kill me in the woods?

“No.” He sounded like he might and stalked around the car, taking my mitted hand in his and dragging me to the trail. He walked fast, visibly pissed off.

He trudged through the forest for a minute, stopping in front of a pond. He sighed and let go of my hand, walking away from me slowly.

My stomach tightened and the words how well do you really know anyone flitted about in my mind.

“Do you know what this place is?” he asked softly.

“No.”

“Once upon a time, well actually in the late seventeen hundreds, a prince lived in this very area. He was in love with a courtesan and he wasn't able to marry her. Not only was she already married, but she was also Catholic and French, and he was English and of the Church of England, obviously. They were together for years and, apparently, had a bunch of children. Everyone is quite tight lipped about it.”

“I love your Shakespeare,” I accidentally whispered into the frosty air at his back as he spun around. Fortunately, he didn't hear me.

“Anyway, he was fourth in line for the throne, so he lived with his courtesan and was a military man until he was fifty. An unexpected death and the fact no heirs were produced meant he had to return home, at fifty, and marry a proper bride and produce an heir.”

“A Prince of England lived in Halifax?” How had that not been in any of his tours before?

“Yes. And when he returned home, he married and fathered Victoria who would become Queen Victoria, possibly the best queen England saw, maybe ever.”

“Was this his yard?” I turned in a circle, letting him suck me in with his weird fascination with history, that somehow had become my weird fascination.

“It was. This manmade pond was called Julie’s Pond after Alphonsine Thérèse Bernadine Julie de Montgenet, Baronne de Fortisson, the courtesan he, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, was in love with. You can barely see it with the weeds and branches, but it was made in the shape of a heart. His heart. He left it behind for her.”

“A heart-shaped pond,” I tried to see the shape but the frozen pond was indistinguishable. “You can probably see it better from the air, I guess.” I eyed the trees overhead. “That’s a serious story?”

“Yes.” He stepped closer, seeming less angry. “Fin, he loved her for twenty-seven or twenty-eight years, depending on the historian you ask, and he chose his country over her. Marrying someone he didn't love to produce an heir of the right sort.”

“So the whore’s ring and now the whore’s pond?” I asked, almost laughing at how ridiculous this all was.

He smiled but his eyes were glossy as he produced the ring I’d left in my guestroom during my mad dash from the mansion. “Reconsider. Because I will not build you a pond and leave my heart wherever you are. I will not choose my country and a viable heir over you. I will never end up like Edward. I don't want all that remains of my love to be a shallow, weedy, and forgotten pond. Please forgive me and we will live how you choose and where you choose, and I will give up the throne if you need me to. I lov-love you.”

His words were a knife to the heart.

Tears flooded my eyes as I started to say yes. My lips parted with the intention of it, but different words came out. Words I didn't expect, “I can’t.”

“Please, Fin.” He stepped closer, towering over me so close his steamy breath warmed my cold face.

“Aiden, when you asked me to marry you last year, I was overjoyed at the idea of making you happy. I want you—I don't care about the marriage or the kingdom or the money. I just want you, as you are right now. A guy, standing in the creepy woods next to the saddest pond I’ve ever seen.”

“Then say yes.”

“I can’t. Because that would be lying to me, and that is where all this stress and craziness has come from these last six months. I said yes to make you happy and now I want to say yes when it makes me happy. I want to choose you as you are. I don't want you to give up anything. I love you and I would hate myself if it meant you had to give up your family or your country or anything. But right now, I’m nineteen years old. I’m way too young to make this choice. I don't know who would be saying yes, I don't know who I am. And when we met I didn't know who you were. When we got engaged, I didn't understand your role in the world. But now I do. I see who you are and the consequences of marrying you.”

“You’re so much smarter and braver and more perfect for the job of queen than you know.”

“Maybe. Maybe I’d rock it. Maybe not. I don't know. And until I do, I can’t say yes to that question.”

“Do you love me?” he asked, as if he had to.

“With my whole heart,” I whispered back, losing my hold on my tears again.

“Okay. I can live with that.” He took my other hand and slid the ring on the wrong finger, whispering, “We will wait until we are ready. Even if it takes thirty years and we’re fifty. I will wait if you will. I love you and you love me, and we don't need anyone else.”

“Aiden—”

“No, you said the most important day was my coronation, but that's not true. The most important day was when I met you. And nothing else matters to me if I don't have you. Even if it means we’re just this.”

“Okay.” I finally said the thing I desperately wanted to, “But it’s a secret. No more reasons for the media to stalk me. No more mean-mom antics.” I held my hand out for him to shake.

“Deal. The long courtship is yours.” He lifted my chin and sealed it with a kiss.

We didn't speak again. We couldn't. We barely made it back to the limo where we consummated our bargain, the old-fashioned way.