Felix and the Prince (Forever Wilde 2)

I looked around the room and decided to say one more thing before moving on to the technical part of the presentation.

“The intersection between art and recognition has always been fascinating to me. Is the art less valuable because we didn’t know who created it? Is it more interesting to us now that we may know who’s responsible for it? If DesMarais had been credited with the glass all along, would people have revered him, studied his work, had their own art influenced by his styles and techniques? Would he have had an impact on the future of glassmaking? We’ll never know. Had it been acceptable then to out himself as the king’s lover, he might have left an incredible legacy like da Vinci did. Instead, he left the glass at Gadleigh and a simple gravestone marker in an enclosed courtyard on the estate.”

I advanced the slide deck on my laptop to show the photograph I’d taken outside of the treasury room at Gadleigh when I’d discovered the tiny, almost hidden stone marker.

I had translated it from the French:

My Etienne - whose heart shined like colored glass in the sun.

The following day, I had to admit to myself I wasn’t ready to go home yet. I wanted to stay longer in Paris, maybe even visit the stained glass I’d studied in textbooks. I thought about the stained glass at nearby Chartres Cathedral, and I realized it was a shame to be so close to some of the most famous glass in the world and not get to see it. Paris was the city of art, after all, and art was what restored me.

After an overly vague call to Doc and Grandpa about taking some extra time in Paris, I extended my hotel reservation. But instead of getting out and seeing glass, I spent the next forty-eight hours drowning my sorrows in French wine and baguettes and watching stupid French-dubbed American movies in my hotel room.

Clearly I wanted to keep hiding—keep avoiding my real life. The one without Lio.

It only took two days of wallowing in self-pity before I opened the door of the hotel room one morning and saw Doc and Grandpa in the hallway.

They’d come to knock some sense into me.

Chapter 29

Lio

By the time the official announcement of my father’s retirement came, I’d begun to feel like maybe I could do this. I’d gotten a handle on the most pressing issues that would need my attention when I took my new position, and the idea of being the king was beginning to sink in. If this was what I was born to do, I would embrace it with my full focus, including allowing my parents to help me select a wife.

That attitude lasted a good four or five days until my date with Sabine.

Jon and I picked her up from her parents’ house and drove her to the Salle des Etoiles for the Save the Children Winter Gala. The event was one of my favorites because it raised significant money for youth aid programs around the world. I had spent two months during high school working on one of their volunteer projects in Indonesia to help register some of the thousands of children displaced by the tsunami there. Ever since, it had been a charity I volunteered for and donated to as often as I could.

Sabine was breathtaking in a royal blue ball gown that seemed to float in the night air. Sparkling jewelry winked from her ears and throat, and her dark hair was swept up, leaving only a few curled tendrils to fall along her slender neck. I was taken aback by how regal and elegant she looked. I’d always known she was beautiful and graceful, but there was something about her demeanor that night that instantly affirmed why my parents had given me such pressure to give her a chance.

She would make a lovely queen.

I kissed her on the cheeks and offered her my arm. “Thank you so much for agreeing to come with me tonight,” I said politely.

“It’s my pleasure. I’ve really been looking forward to it, Lior,” she said with a bright smile.

“Ah. It’s taking me some time to get used to the new name,” I admitted. Even though the news was out about my father stepping down, I couldn’t get used to the new deference in public just yet.

We made our way in the town car to the event venue and entered along a red carpet through throngs of photographers. Luckily, the truth about the reason for my father’s retirement hadn’t come out yet. He had given the press a half-truth, saying only that he and my mother were divorcing and he’d decided that it would be a good time to transition the throne to me so that the focus could remain on Liorland’s strong future rather than the personal life of the king and queen.