Of feeling pain again. Of opening himself up.
But he was open already. He was feeling already. Lost already. In Eva. In his love for her.
“I love her,” he said to his hated reflection. He felt something crack in his chest. Felt so raw and exposed, but alone with that exposure, he felt new. He felt that he’d been given another chance. That his heart had started again.
She was engaged to another man. But she didn’t love the other man. Maybe honor would have him stay away.
But love needed him to go to her. Now.
Freedom should feel more free than it did. It was the weight of missing Mak, that was what kept her from feeling total elation at her broken engagement.
It hadn’t been easy, and her father hadn’t been happy. But, for all his bluster, when she’d come in with confidence, when she’d laid out what she wanted, he’d told her he wouldn’t force her into it.
He also didn’t disown her. Didn’t tell her to hand in her tiara.
She’d also explained her bad behavior, that she’d been trying to stop the engagement from happening without taking actual responsibility for it. That, combined with her flat denial of her involvement with either of the idiots from the casino, relieved him so much his anger fizzled.
It wasn’t as though things were going to be perfect between them. He hadn’t hugged her, or anything. But it was a step. A start. She’d asked for respect and she was on her way to earning it.
Still, she felt a solid ache in her chest that wouldn’t go away. She missed Mak. Missed him more than she could express with words. It was awful. She wanted his arms around her at night, wanted to ride in the car with him when she went down to the city. Wanted to dance with him in the garden. Or just have dinner with him, she wasn’t picky. She just wanted to be with him.
She walked out of her room and headed down the hall, toward the doors to the palace. She was going in to town with another security guard today, getting coffee, making a plan. She had a charity idea brewing, and since she was no longer being sent off into marriage she had some time to think about it.
She wanted to make sure that people with loved ones who needed long-term care, people like Mak, would have some sort of help from the get-go, so that the responsibility wouldn’t fall all on them.
Thankfully, there would be no additional media circus today. At Bastian’s request they were delaying the announcement of the broken engagement. That suited her fine. She couldn’t handle being in the public eye. Not now. Not when she just wanted to hide away and lick her wounds.
Well, she wasn’t going to let herself hide completely. She was going to make herself count. She was determined to.
A man in a black suit rounded one of the corners and her heart stopped. It might be a vision. A mirage. She usually saw them in her dreams, but a waking one didn’t seem that odd. Which was telling.
“Mak?” she breathed.
His pace quickened. He was nearly running in the halls now and she couldn’t keep her feet still. She went to greet him, throwing her arms around his neck as he wrapped his arms around her waist.
“I missed you so much,” she said. She didn’t care that last time they’d spoken he’d rejected her. It didn’t matter now. Not in this moment. This was pure emotion, and she could feel it flowing from him too. Feel that his reaction was real, not something to keep from hurting her feelings.
He dropped to his knees in front of her and she looked over her shoulder, trying to see if anyone was walking by. “What are …”
“Marry me. Don’t marry him,” he ground out. “Marry me, because I love you. I’m not perfect. I’m not a prince. I’m a widower who spent too many years living in the bitterness life gave me. I let it change me. I let it harden me. I was afraid to love, afraid of what it would cost me. Cost you. But then I realized that all your love has ever given me was happiness. More happiness than I’ve ever felt. I think it had just been so long since I felt the emotion I didn’t recognize it.”
“But … but …”
“I can’t make you a queen, not in the eyes of the world. But I will treat you like one. I will give you everything I have to give.”