An hour of dozing was brought to a halt by Henry’s phone ringing on his bedside. He groaned and rolled over, answering it without opening his eyes. “Hallo?” He tugged Ella to curl around his body, his arm under her head, and her hand atop his chest. “Yes, Dad. I’ve got it noted in my schedule. I’ll be at Remus’ for a few days, so I won’t see you for a bit. I know, I know, you’ll miss me terribly. I don’t blame you; I’m quite adorable.”
Ella loved the way his chest vibrated when he chuckled. She stroked the space over his heart, wondering if there was any better place in the world than this bed, in Henry’s arms.
“Now, now. Don’t say, ‘That’s fine, Son.’ I want to hear your anguished cries at not being able to see my handsome mug for several days.” He paused, and Ella giggled silently that King Hubert himself indulged his son in a few dramatic sobs, begging him to come home that instant. “That’s much better. Next time, if you could work in the phrase, ‘Henry, you’re the light of my life,’ that would also be acceptable.”
When the king started going over details for the upcoming royal ball, Henry’s smile faded as his eyes opened, his mind kicking into full gear. “I told you, I don’t want the charade of a ball. The whole thing is barbaric and unnecessary.”
King Hubert’s voice left no room for arguing. “The kingdom has gone through too much, what with Malaura finally being killed, and now this whole Lethal vote coming up. The fact that she was queen before me makes everyone wary of anyone in power—no matter how tight of a job I’m doing. The people need something fun to distract them from the fact that no one can agree on anything. It seems the only thing the majority agrees on is the one thing I won’t give them.”
Henry groaned. “Don’t tell me there are still people on the council who are insisting on installing the Lupine trackers. We voted that down last year.”
“The Baron’s trying to go over Stefan’s head, insisting it shouldn’t be a matter for the council to decide, since the Lupine aren’t technically citizens.”
“Whatever you need me for, count me in. Unless, of course, you want me to actually attend this ball where I’m to be auctioned off.”
“It’s hardly that dramatic. You’ll merely select someone to spend some time with. If it doesn’t work out between you and your date, then we can revisit the idea of auctioning you off. Might be able to slash the budget considerably if we did that.”
“Hysterical. I’m simply rolling on the floor over here. What if I told you I was seeing someone? It’s serious, too.”
Ella picked out the king’s measured reply. “I was wondering when you would tell me.”
“You knew?”
“Perhaps it’s time you were introduced to women who aren’t so…” She could tell he was sensoring himself, fishing around for the right words but coming up empty.
Ella’s stomach churned with sudden anxiety at the king’s obvious disapproval.
Henry shifted, his brows pushing together. “Are you implying something, Dad? Do you know more about my love life than I do? Who do you imagine I’m spending my nights with? Remus is sexy, but he’s hardly my type.”
“Hilarious. It’s not a secret if I’m seeing photos of you with that girl on Royal Watch. I do wish you’d confided in me first. That girl is… Well, she’s not who I would’ve chosen for you. Though, kudos to you on picking her up from her house. I know what a serious gesture that is for you.”
Henry sat up in the bed, taking the call away from Ella, who shrank under the covers. She’d been so content and peaceful mere minutes ago, but now she was awash in shame, wondering when it was that she’d allowed herself to entertain fantasies that anything could ever work out between her and Henry. The king hadn’t even met her and he already knew what she understood to be glaringly obvious—that Prince Henry could do lightyears better than her. She knew it was childish, but she pulled the comforter over her head, hiding from the world so she could be alone to wallow in her rejection.
When Henry came back into the bedroom fresh from his phone call, a shower and getting dressed for the day, he sat on the edge of the bed, feeling around for her knee to give her a little squeeze. “Any chance you didn’t hear a lick of that?”
Ella’s voice was small under the covers. “Your father hates me. The King of Avondale knows I’m not good enough for his son. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time.”
“He’s never even met you. I don’t know what his deal is. He’s rarely so sharp with his opinions. Apparently there was some photo of us on Royal Watch, but our press agent had it taken down before I could see what got him all worked up. Who could’ve taken our picture?”
Ella bit down on her lip to keep her heartbreak tucked away. “Let’s just hope not too many people saw you with me. It won’t do well for your reputation.”
Henry ripped the covers off her in a burst of temper, his brows squeezed together in consternation as he stared down at Ella, who squeaked at being suddenly revealed. “Do you think I care about any of that? I’d take a picture right now and post it myself, if you’d let me. I’m upset because my dad’s acting out of character, and you made it clear you wanted things private, which now might not be the case. I’m trying to do everything I can not to spook you, so you don’t disappear on me. It took me an entire week to get your first name out of you! Don’t you know that I understand you? I see that this whole thing scares you. I just need to know how much.”
Ella sat up against the headboard, holding her flannel tighter around her as she shivered. “I don’t know,” she admitted, feeling lost.
Henry took pity on her chill and covered her lap with the comforter. Then he went to his dresser and pulled out his gray sweatshirt, threading her arms through it and zipping her up. He sat down on the bed facing her and gathered up her hands in his, kissing her knuckles as if they were the soft, untarnished skin she wished she had. “Ella, my life is public. My first haircut was televised. The girl I first kissed was interviewed the next day by dozens of gossip sites, all of which concluded I was a terrible kisser.”
Ella’s face pulled into a look of horror. “Are you serious?”
Henry pressed her knuckles to his cheek to warm them. “You guard your privacy, and that’s your right. However, if you’re to date me publicly, nothing will be private again. I need to know that if I make a stand for us, you’ll be by my side. I couldn’t take it if I made an announcement that I’d finally, finally found someone incredible, too many cameras flashed, and you vanished on me.”
“Why would they need to know about me?” Her wary expression gave away that she hadn’t considered this all that thoroughly before. She’d seen it all through the lens of government officials trying to snatch at her and control her for her abilities—not gossip sites clambering to know if Henry was a good kisser.
“Because no one’s ever captivated me the way you have. They’ll be obsessed.” He held her hands between them, looking down at her fingers with palpable sadness in his eyes. His voice was quiet with the urgency of a plea when he spoke again, his chin lowered. “I would give you everything you could possibly ask for. I would move whole kingdoms for you. Always and only you. But this one thing—privacy—I can’t grant you. So I need to know now if that’s a hard stop for you.”
Ella’s arms felt weak, and her whole body ached as she withdrew so she could cough into her sleeve. This wasn’t the way she’d imagined she would fall in love, but there it was, her heart beating in his open hands. Soon all the world would see her exposed organ for the vulnerable mess it was. “I might say the wrong thing.”
Henry’s head shot up, swelling with elation that she hadn’t immediately called the whole thing off. “Then you won’t have done anything I haven’t. And you don’t have to say anything. You can ‘no comment’ everyone until you’re blue in the face for the next sixty-five years.”
Ella’s intake of breath was followed by a stream of hacking into her sleeve. When her lungs finally settled, her eyes locked in on his, wide and filled with disbelief. “Sixty-five years?”
Henry shrank from her shock for only a second, and then leaned forward with a determined look. “Yes. And if that scares you, then I need to know how badly. I’m not in this for a casual date every now and then. I’m in it for the next sixty-five years.”
Ella tugged a tissue from the box on the nightstand and blew her nose. “You can’t say things like that to me when I’m sick and pathetic like this!”
Henry chuckled at her frustration and handed her another tissue. “I don’t need an answer now, and I’m not officially asking until I’ve got a ring, a flock of doves, a string quartet and the whole nine yards. And clowns. Proposals are supposed to have clowns, right?”
“Naturally. I won’t say yes without a slew of clowns.”
“I figured.”
Ella shook her head at him, a small smile playing on her lips. “Now I’m hurt. You only want me for the next sixty-five years? What happens after that? Planning on leaving me already?”
Though Henry was dressed for the day, he moved to sit next to her under the covers, tucking her slight body under his arm. “I figure you’ll start to grow tired of my jokes by then.”
“Never,” Ella promised. In that simple exchange, Ella knew that whatever frustrations and complications might come their way, at the end of the day, and at the end of sixty-five years, it would all be worth it if Henry was by her side. “Okay, then. Yes.”
“Yes?” Henry shot off the bed as if it was suddenly laden with an electric current. His eyes were wide with disbelief, and he held up his hands as if to tell her she should be cautious when pulling his leg or tugging on his heartstrings. “Are you having a laugh? Is this real?”
Ella raised her finger to pause his quickly inflating glee. “Yes to going public, but give me like, a solid month to work up to it, okay? I can’t go back to Lady Tremaine, so it’s all about to hit the fan anyway. It’s time. And the sixty-five years part? Let’s give that a minute to digest.”
“Finally! What tipped it?”
Ella held his gaze, muscling through to reveal a little of her raw underbelly to him. “When the Baron felt me up yesterday, Lady Tremaine looked the other way.”
Henry stilled as the best news and the worst news warred for which would get top billing on his face. “The Baron touched you?”
“I shoved him away, but yeah. I can’t go back there. Weighing a possible government-sanctioned lobotomy against the Baron’s boney fingers on my body? I’ll take my chances.”
They were quiet for several seconds as the waves of elation and agony rippled through the room. Neither of them spoke until the tension settled enough for them to feel their connection more than the oceans of trouble that threatened to rock them both.
Henry ran his hands through his hair, his eyes darting from side to side as he processed that the person he’d been chasing after was finally slowing down enough for him to catch. Then he scrambled back to the bed, kneeling beside her and scooping her face in both his hands, so he could feel the dream and be sure she was real.
The kiss wasn’t gentle, but neither of them needed it to be. Their lips crashed in a frenzy of elation as they finally were able to keep close what had always seemed so very far away.