A Princess For Christmas (Of The Dreams We Seek)

Forty- one

Avni was waiting for explanation of the words he just said. She didn't want to say anything until she knows all of the story. "Say something" He said finally. "What you expect me to say? I don't even know if I should say anything or what would I be saying against that statement of yours. If you are not their son how are you crowned king and how did you come here?" She was curious now.

 "Technically my father is King Richard but I am not the first born of Queen Grace, as everyone thinks me to be." He told her. She waited again for an explanation. And this time he had given her one.

 "My father King Richard never married my mother. When she found out about me, she called him, he said he cannot marry her because she wasn't of royal blood, but he will provide child support. My mother was a proud woman she declined. For she had just wanted one thing from him, his love. Something my father never ever learned to give." He sighed and walked towards the bench. 

She followed quietly. And sat beside him. "She visited this place once for the festival and it was a short fling over Christmas, not important for him, but for her she had found her true love." He remembered how beautiful she was, and the way she used to bake her Christmas cookies, and they decorated the tree every year in their small apartment in New York. She used to grow flowers and sell them. They didn't have much but they were happy. He wasn't very lonely. 

He had her. "She always smells like flowers and cookies. I have loved that smell on her." Avni held his hand and he placed it over his heart. "She made me happy Princess, like you do. That is why I resented you first time I heard about you. I thought it is not possible for someone to be that much selfless. 

Like she was, and I didn't want to give that place to anyone else." He said. "But then I meet you and I saw why, that moment I have to accept that I have met someone who is like her." "What was her name?" Avni asked. "Lily, like the flower" Avni smiled.

 "So, you aren't born here as well?" She asked. "No, I didn't, I was born in Manhattan, and then I spent my first ten year surrounded by her. She told me that she will take me here to the festival. But she couldn't, in her last year she lost herself to cancer, I lost her, I lost everything. I saw her grew weaker, and weaker, I saw her bedridden for days, and then one night she passed away silently in her sleep." She understood why he is determined to find her a cure. He refuses to lose her to the disease.

"Funny thing is my father never came to visit until he needed me. He needed me became his heir. He was already married and Sifi was born but she was too sick no one thought she would survive her first few years. He came to take me to WinterDell. So that I can become his heir. After five months living in orphanage, I thought I could have a family." He paused again looking into the vast stretch ahead of him.

 "But no, I didn't, my grandmother said I could never uphold the Northwood name, she didn't even look at me once. I was heartbroken. Then I became like this bitter as the time passed. Only person who ever tried to connect with me was Grace, the one I call mother now. And then it was my little sister. Saving her was all I can think about." Avni looked at him thinking how hard his life may had been, no wonder he had became like that strong so that nothing can harm him. But then again, he broke down in front of her.

 And not just once. She doubts that inside that cold armour that he wears all the time lies a vulnerable heart. "sorry, I must be boring you with my sad life story." She shook her head. "Not at all my Not so charming Prince" She said. "I am happy that you shared it with me. Your secret that you were keeping for so long inside, the feelings that you have been hiding inside. I am happy that am the one you thought close enough to share this secret with." 

"we are a team you and I and now that you know that maybe you and I are much more similar than you thought initially, maybe this will help that I am too not from here, this was made my home when I didn't wanted it to, but then if I never came here, I might never had found you" He said. "Do I make you this happy?" She asked in almost feeble voice.