Amara Meadows has always placed her job first, but with her journalism career slowly failing, she seems lost.
Although when she ends up spending a month in the palace covering the coronation of White Bridge's prince, she finds more than herself.
F...
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"You're hiding." I hear his voice before I see him. The room is basically dark and little raindrops fall outside the window, creating a subtle breeze. Xavier walks calmly as rhythmic steps hit the wooden floors.
"I am doing no such thing." He breathes next to me and I turn my head just slightly to see him. His tie lays loose over his white shirt and my lips react towards the scene with a small smile. It's almost midnight and he's still dressed to perfection, making me feel like a slob for being dressed in my jeans and long sleeve, grey tunic. Not to mention the addictive essence of his existence. The thing anyone would notice first about Xavier is his scent, his cologne is strong and husky, a lot like his accent.
"Happy birthday Amara."
There's a hint of mischief in the way he avoids my gaze by looking out of the window and I want so badly to be upset, but it's utterly impossible to be angry with him. I knew tonight was all his doing, I never tell anyone about my birthday, Xavier being the exception. This is why I woke up to my room overflowing with flowers and cards from everyone in the palace. I sigh, the sound being inaudible because of the ongoing party in the main hall. Another result of Xavier being the sweetest person ever.
"I should've sworn you to secrecy." He laughs carelessly and he slightly bumps into my shoulder while doing so.
"This morning while I was ordering your flowers it occurred to me that I don't know you as well as I would hope." With a nonchalant smile, he points at the bouquets of roses, daisies, and peonies scattered all over the room, further proving his point. A natural conclusion taking into account that I know almost everything about him, from his first birthday to his first DUI.
"What do you plan to do about that, Xavier?" He doesn't reply as per usual, but instead takes the small blanket from my bed, he also reaches for my hand and with a rash decision, I follow his lead to the door. He stops abruptly and looks down at my feet, which is uncomfortably forced into a pair of pumps that I only threw on when Marie escorted me to the party.
"You might want to take those off."
After sneaking past the party I shiver when the cold air stings against my skin as we climb the last steps to the roof, an action that would've received a lot of objection if the rain hadn't stopped. Luckily I'm not really attached to my jeans, because to my disapproval it is still very much wet. With a tight grasp on my hand Xavier slowly leads me forward, the blanket rests under his arm and his other hand holds the bottle of Champagne we stole from the kitchen.
The city lights are like little fallen stars that shine through the ominous darkness. As expected the roof isn't anything fancy, just cold stones that stretch downwards, causing the fear of heights to stir inside my stomach. Refocusing on Xavier's back, I unwillingly hold his hand tighter and to my surprise, he doesn't react to the change.
We sit down on a little ledge-like surface that almost lifts from the roof. Xavier covers our legs with the blanket and sets his blazer around my shoulders, probably confusing my shiver for getting cold instead of the utter fear of falling. He opens the bottle of Champagne and shrugs when he realizes we don't have glasses. I take the bottle as he hands it to me and he smiles.
"So miss Meadows, where do we start? "
And we talked about everything. From how Wendy and I met. My first fan-fiction. My family. Everything and more. I didn't even pay attention to the heights after a while. In fact the whole time the only thing on my mind was Xavier. Xavier and the way his whole face smiled with him when he laughed at one of my stories.
"So we're getting ready to run away, our hands are grasping onto the empty vodka bottle, and the longer we wait the larger the fire grows, but just as we step back, the door opens. There he stands, buck-naked with a cigar between his lips. He looks at the burning trash can and then at Wendy and I..." Xavier leans closer, his eyes wide and mouth clenched and I pause for a second, simmering in my slight revenge for spilling the tea about my birthday.
"Amara." He groans, dragging out the end of my name creating the sexiest sound of irritation known to man.
"He sighed, shook his head, and walked back into the house. And we ran like hell in the other direction."
"So you and your friend broke into the estate and set Channing Tatum's trash can on fire and he didn't even care ?" Xavier's words are broken vocals through his laugh and I can't help but laugh as well. "I must say you did not look like the type to do something so-"
"Batshit crazy." Once again I'm left in total bliss as he smiles over at me. A genuine feeling of happiness oozing from the air. Attempting to draw attention away from myself I reach out to grab the bottle from his hand only to find that it is completely empty. With furrowed eyes I look away from the bottle only to find Xavier staring at me, the previous smile lost in a serious expression
Noticing my awareness of his gaze he looks away quickly and pulls a hand through his dark hair. A simple yet familiar movement. "I would like to thank you, Amara. You have somehow made this whole ordeal easy to go through." He looks up to the stars and fiddles with his folded hands. "I have not once thought of what happens at the end of this month."
The coronation, a topic that had barely been discussed in detail or even at all. He kept it very vague and it drove me insane, until I realized that it wasn't out of spite, but instead uncertainty. Even though my original intention was to drill into the deeper things, I never wanted to make him uncomfortable and he was on the verge of pulling his own hair out every time I brought it up.
In the end, my irritation was replaced with sympathy. He wasn't ready to be a king, even though I was certain he would be the best at the job. How could he be though? A twenty-five-year-old living purely towards the good of Whitebridge, for the good of his family. Being the heir to the throne can't be an easy task. The struggles he would face, it couldn't be easy, especially if he had to do it on his own.
"Xavier, can I ask you something? Off the record, just you and I, in our tipsy state on this downward spiral of a rooftop." An unsure and tilted expression folds into his features as he nods. "Do you want this?" His face fills with confusion and somehow I can tell it's not because of the question, but instead because of the truth of the answer behind it. I draw his blazer tighter around me and I can already feel my heart sinking, hating myself for asking a question that would change everything about the way I look at him.
"I don't think it matters. But if it did, if I could choose. I would want more. I would want to sit here with the stars every night with the person I love, the woman I chose for myself without the state of the people to think about. I'd like to live my life just for a while before having to give it up for the throne. But in the end, I have a duty. My own will is not an option for me. Neither is love."
And I breathed.
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What exactly does Xavier mean with his little speech? Why is Xavier so nervous about becoming king? What's going to happen next?
