Page 93 of Royal Fling
I stood up and straightened my shirt.
“You heard Nonny. If space is what he needs, it’s space I’ll give him.”
I turned and started to walk away.
“Where are you going?”
“To speak to Mama. It’s time the crown prince went home, don’t you think?” I said without looking at her.
I couldn’t. I hated this. I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to be with Luke. IwantedLuke. I didn’t want to give him space. I didn’t want to give him up. I want to give him my love.
But he needed space.
And I needed to give him what he wanted. Even if that meant he moved on without me.
Twenty-Five
Luke
There were two good things that came out of my summer trip.
The first one, of course, was that I’d found my birth mother. I’d spent so long looking for her, sometimes I still woke up not believing she was part of my life.
The second was the happiness Dad had found again. He’d been mourning my mom’s loss for so long that he hadn’t been able to sit in this house longer than a second before he was jetting off somewhere else again.
Was it weird that the person making him happy was my birth mother?
Fuck yes.
Did it stop me or the rest of the family being happy for him?
Fuck no.
Not only had Fisayo become part of my life, but she’d become a part of everyone’s life. You could feel the change in Dad the minute you walked into the room. And it was all thanks to Fisayo.
And Fisayo was different, too. She was smilier. She was chirpier. I imagined being in the palace for so many years raising six royals had done little to numb the pain of losing my birth father. She’d also found someone.
Everyone had but me.
Well, noteveryone. Melody, my sister, and my two nieces hadn’t. But then again, my sister was a workaholic—and betrayed by her fiancé—and my nieces were still young. Especially Summer. She was only eleven. Maybe I’d find someone to spend my life with by the time she turned thirty.
Here’s hoping.
Four weeks. Four weeks had passed, and August was still there, in my head, in my heart, in my entire being as if we hadn’t been apart a day.
Although if we had been together, I probably wouldn’t feel so… so hollow inside. As if I’d lost a part of myself.
Agh! I’m pathetic. I’d gone thirty-one years without him. How can I feel hollow after knowing him for barely two months?
Some nights I woke up with cold sweat running down my body, wondering if I’d made the right decision. If maybe I should have said yes to his proposal and discovered what kind of life we could have together.
But then I’d be compromising who I was and what I wanted. Even if I wanted August, I wanted more. I wanted a soulmate.
Some days I woke up imagining him waiting under my window on a white horse, serenading me, proclaiming his love for me.
But that wasn’t going to happen, was it?
No, this was it.
