Once Upon A Crowned Heart

Twenty

Kavya

Kavya woke up on an empty bed. She saw no one was around and a sudden sense of dread gripped her. Did something happen? Did someone kidnap her? And where is Charles? Where is he?

She heard a door open and then footsteps coming towards her. She clutched the sheets tightly. "Open your eyes darling, it is only me." She opened her eyes to see Charles scantly clad in only a towel and she looked away blushing.

"Your Highness, aren't you going to get dressed? And where are we?" She asked. "We are in Nashville Tennessee, America. And right now, you are inside the Presidential Suite of The Hermitage Hotel, which I made Reginald book under pseudo names. So, no one can know who I am and who you are. For the hotel staff, we are newly married and on a honeymoon."

She felt a cold drop of water over her neck and that made her realize how close he was to her. "And for the other query, I am not going to get dressed instead I will get some shut eyes. Unless you have some other plans with me."

"Other plans! What other plans? I never said about any other plans your highness." Charles chuckled and deliberately dropped his towel making her shriek and shield her eyes. "No! No! No! I am not seeing you in this state." She refused to open her eyes. "It is too dark to see anything, Kavya. But I can always turn on the light" He joked reaching for the robe and covering him.

"You can open your eyes now, but I know you have seen me getting dressed, princess." Kavya shook her head. "So, this is why you have bought me here? To torment me? How cruel of you" He pulled her closer and she gasped at the closeness. "Sire, let me go." "No" He exclaimed holding her tighter. "I have missed you by my side, missed sleeping next to you. Missed your warm body and how it always makes me feel"

"How does it make you feel your highness?" She asked timidly. "Mad with desire for you, my love. I am always mad with desire when you come close and touch me." Kavya noticed now that the light is on a small scar over his chest the part which has left a little exposed. She traced it. "It was not here before." Then gathering courage, she pushed the robe away from his body exposing it to her.

And there were so many more.

"Kavya, I am not perfect anymore." She touched the scars on his chest, over his arms, and back. An angry red one that is always kept hidden by his collar. "How? Who did this to you?" her voice broken, sad. "I don't know, my love. All I know is I was relieved it was me, it was not you. I was relieved it happened after you left Heathrow Airport."

"You survived." She whispered as Charles sat on the bed and pulled her closer. So now she was sitting over his lap. "I was not supposed to. I was in a coma for fifteen days and in between those fifteen days two times I had almost given up. I flatlined, but they managed to bring me back. I guess, I wanted to meet you again, so badly. Finish what I started that night, feel how it will feel to make you mine."

Her eyes watered "I am so sorry, I accused you without knowing. I should have known, that something might happened. Something so bad. I have sent you so many texts, emails but..." he wiped her eyes. "Do not blame yourself this way, Kavya. It was no one's fault. But a test, in which we did pass."

"Reginald..." "he got it worse than me. He had lost all the sensation in his legs and now, we are all trying our best to get him back to normal." Kavya gasped. "And to think of it, the last time I ever talked to Reginald we were angry at each other. He defended you and told me, how..."

She paused and she realized how he was right. Charles cannot run. He has royal duties to follow. "How?" he asked feeling her hands tracing those scars still. "You cannot run and cannot end all of it if you like to. Oh, Charles, I am so sorry for making all this mess, for dragging you in this circus." She apologized.