Page 39 of Desperately Yours

A smile slipped across his features like a sigh of relief. “Because missing out on the love of my life is a fate I simply cannot bear.”

My brow rushed inward, trying to understand him better. “The love of your life?” Was he saying…

“I love you, Michaela.” His warm fingers trailed over my cheek. “I have fought it as hard as I could, and yet it remains true. I love you deeply and undeniably.” Fitz pressed a kiss to my lips. “Desperately even.”

Time stilled in that moment. My heart knew the pain that could wait on the other side of his confession, understanding that we could never be together, and yet, I couldn’t help but hold my breath and make this perfect sliver of time last as long as it could. “I loveyou, Fitz.” Emotion rose in my throat. “Leonidas. My prince.”

As quickly as the moment descended, reality dispelled it again. I watched the pain enter his eyes and I felt sure that he had landed on the same awful truth that I had.

It didn’t matter how much we loved each other. He couldn’t be two people at once. Fitz had to choose.

It was either me or his kingdom, and I refused to be the one to doom an entire nation because of my selfish desires.

“I would be ready, you know?” He blinked away the faintest glistening of tears in his eyes. “In the coming years, like we’d planned.”

He spoke like I was supposed to understand him, but I didn’t follow his reference. “What do you mean? We never—”

“My father,” Fitz corrected, “before he became sick. We had a plan set in place. A smooth transition. I was to take over completely in ten years, and by then, I would be ready.”

My heart ached for the words he wasn’t saying. It was another lament for more time. But with the ball less than a day away, we didn’t have that luxury.

Fitz took my hand in his. “If we had more time, it would all be different.”

“I know, and I understand what you have to do.” His reasoning for this date became all too clear. Fitz wanted to say goodbye. One last moment together before he chose Sadie tomorrow. “I won’t hold it against you, I promise.”

But instead of relief, his expression collapsed into confusion. “You don’t understand.” Fitz shifted from my side and knelt facing me. “Irefuseto lose you.” Taking both of my hands in his, he exhaled slowly. “I have a plan.”

I eyed him, unsure of what he meant. “What do you mean you have a plan? Are you overthrowing your own government or something?”

“If I thought it would help, I would consider it.” He shook his head and leaned closer. “The way I see it, my parents, the government leaders, they all want me to take the throne. The idea of pushing it down the line to my uncle or Bishop or beyond the Fitzborough line to my distant cousins is positively abhorrent to them, which tells me I should capitalize on it.”

“And here I thought you were just going to suggest we run away or something.” I tried to make it a joke, but it fell flat.

“That was my first plan, but during the interviews, I started thinking about how all of this revolved around making me happy, or at least as happy as I could be in the circumstances. After all, the original plan was to force me to marry Esmerey, at least until I threatened to abdicate. It was only in her hopelessness that my mother suggested this competition.” His thumbs rubbed over the back of my hands. “I plan to force their hand again.”

“By doing what?” I still wasn’t following him, and the crazed look in his eye wasn’t helping things.

Fitz swallowed hard, as if he were gathering all of his strength to say the words. “By choosing you.” He waited for me to process what he’d said. “If they want me to be king, they’ll either accept you or I’ll step aside for Bishop to take the throne.”

I stared. What more could I do? Was he really willing to risk his entire future for me? For the risk that would be to our relationship? It was crazy. Wasn’t it? This wasn’t like choosing to move to a new job or a different city. This was giving up his birthright. People weren’t willing to sacrifice these kinds of things to get a new girlfriend.

My thoughts hitched on that thought.

No girlfriend.

Wife.

As if sensing that I had finally arrived at the same destination of thought, Fitz shifted to kneel on one knee. “Michaela, I have loved you since I knew what love was. My heart has been yours from the first moment you smiled at me. I have sought you out even when I didn’t know what it was I had been searching for. You make me a fool willing to do anything to have you, and I would be a fool all over again to ever let you go.” His grip on my hands tightened. “Do me the honor, pay me the privilege, that is, grant me my fondest wish, and say that you’ll marry me, please?”

Branches cracked as the horses shifted where they were tied. The hay bag rustled as one of the horses wrestled more alfalfa from the net. My nose felt like an ice cube, but my cheeks burned like an inferno. Seconds stretched out as if time and urgency had started a tug-of-war match. Each one felt the need to prevail, but there I was, stuck in the eternity of the moment with Fitz watching me, expectant, concerned, and once more desperate.

“If we had more time,” Fitz pressed on, “we would date for a year or two. We would spend time getting to know each other all over again, but time,” his face pulled in pain, “isn’t something I have any longer. And really, I don’t have to look any further than you. You are the perfect woman for me.”

“So says the prince who has dated fourteen women in the last month.” I pressed my lips together, caught somewhere between talking him out of this and blurting out: Yes, of course I’ll marry you. But I couldn’t act impulsively, not for a choice like this one.

“But that’s it, don’t you see?” Fitz pulled closer still. “Everything I saw in them, every attribute that caught my eye in all the other contestants, you have it all in spades.” A shaky smile took hold for a moment. “You are fiercely intelligent like Blair. You are incredibly beautiful, more so than Esmerey could ever hope to be. There is more kindness in your heart than even Sadira and her gentle ways.” His lips trembled slightly. “And you are a truer friend than Gwendolyn and all my other friends combined. You are the perfect woman for me and dating you for another year or two would only deepen my conviction on the subject, so why not cut to the happily ever after now?”

“Because of what you’re giving up,” I answered, unwilling to concede.

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