Page 52 of Royally Knocked Up
Enzo certainly knew the politics of royalty better than she did. Maybe there had been no hope. Maybe the position had been impossible. And if Enzo had truly believed there was no hope and no way forward, maybe it made sense for him to retreat, emotionally, into what he knew. Maybe it really was easier for him to believed that she had lied to him about everything.
She could empathize, she decided.
But she couldn’t stand the thought of leaving things that way. If she was never going to see him again, if there was never going to be a chance to clear the air in person, the least she could do was make sure there was a chance he would get to hear how she really felt.
“Romano?” she said as the car pulled up in front of the hotel.
“Yes?”
“Would you come upstairs with me?” she asked. “I’d like to write Enzo a letter. Would it be too much to ask for you to deliver it to him?”
Romano was quiet for a moment.
“No,” he said at last. “No, that wouldn’t be too much.”
“I don’t want to get you into trouble,” she said quickly. “If you think the king would do something in retaliation if he found out… I don’t want you to lose your job.”
“I care for His Highness too,” Romano told her. “I think it would benefit him to hear some last words from you. He might not be ready to absorb them or believe them just yet, but to have a letter that he can look at when his emotions have calmed, when he’s ready to think about all this logically — I think that would be good for him. I’m willing to take the risk to get it to him.”
She sighed. “Thank you,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
“I don’t want to give you false hope,” Romano said. “Even if I do give him this letter, it’s very unlikely you’ll hear from him again. I think he might read it in a few months and come to realize that you never meant him any harm. I think he might be able to look back on your time together fondly. But for him to go against thecrown and try to return you to Monteverde over the wishes of his father — that would be something else entirely.”
“I understand,” Hailey said, her heart dropping. She hadn’t really believed that a letter would bring Enzo back to her, but to hear it confirmed that it wouldn’t still hurt.
Still, she would try. She would let him know that she hadn’t meant to hurt him. And if she could leave him with that, maybe one day he would be able to look back on her with fondness — if not love.
Whether she would be able to look back on him that way remained to be seen.
Romano parked the car and they went up to her room together. Hailey looked at her suitcase, which lay open on an armchair near the bed. “Never got around to unpacking,” she murmured. “I suppose that’s for the best.”
“There’s a ticket waiting for you at the airport,” Romano said sympathetically. “The king gave me orders to take you there this evening. But if you’d rather wait until morning, I don’t think it will be a problem.”
“What would I gain by waiting?” Hailey sighed. “But I guess I will. It just feels so… wrong to fly out of here that quickly. It feels like admitting guilt. I think I’ll feel better about it if I leave on my own terms.”
“I can understand that.”
“You won’t get into any trouble if I delay my departure?”
“I’ll just tell the king you weren’t ready to go tonight,” Romano says. “He doesn’t expect me to toss you over my shoulder and drag you to the airport. He’s a strict man, but not a cruel one. Hewon’t find out about the delay until after you’ve gone. He won’t like it, but he will accept it.”
Hailey nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Truly, Romano — thank you so much for your kindness. This would have been so much worse without you.”
“Write your letter,” Romano suggested. “I’ll step outside, if you’d like, so that you can be alone with your thoughts.”
Hailey nodded. “I would appreciate it.”
He gave her a sympathetic smile and moved to the door.
Hailey found a notepad and a pen next to the phone. It made her feel worse that her final words to Enzo would be on hotel stationery — perhaps a reminder that she had stayed at the hotel that his father had booked for her instead of the one he had tried to get her himself. She wondered whether he had put that little detail together yet. If he hadn’t, he surely would, and it would add another layer to his feelings of betrayal.
She sat down at the table and held the pen over the paper. For a moment, she pondered what to write — and then the words began to come.
Dear Enzo,
I cannot possibly tell you how sorry I am.
I’m so sorry for the way things are ending between us. This was miles away from what I wanted, and wasn’t what I believed would happen. I had faith that we might be able to make this work. I wish we had.
