A Royal Love Story

Chapter 10 - Promises

The next morning I woke up with a splitting headache. I reached next to me to wake Harry up. He wasn’t there. All of his things had gone. Where was he? I decided to phone him. No answer. What had I done to deserve this? Once I had finally decided to do something about my headache, I got up. I made my way to the bathroom and found some headache tablets. Then, I decided to make myself some coffee and breakfast. As I got closer to the worktop, I saw a letter. It read, ‘Soph, I can’t do this. I can’t hurt you the way I know I will. I think it’s better for the both of us if we just stayed friends. I will always love you, but I can’t put you through anything bad, you’re too good for that. I’m really sorry. Please forgive me in time. Harry xxxx.’ I burst into tears. I knew I had to fight for this. But, first I had to sort myself out.

After an hour of getting ready and trying to get rid of my hangover, I decided to go to Clarence House and speak to Harry. He had to be there, and he was. He invited me in, I knew that I had to try to understand what he did and why he thought it was a good idea. He led me up to his apartment and we sat down on the sofa.

“Did you get the message?” he asked me and smiled a little.

“Yes, but why? Why can’t you do this Harry? What has changed since last night?”

“I did this so that I wouldn’t hurt you, so the press can’t hurt you,” He took my hands in his and stared into my eyes, “You are too good for me Sophia, I can’t see you get hurt like my mother did. I can’t see you get demoralised by the press, and you to feel crap every day of your life because of what they say in their bloody papers. I have already had questions from them asking who you are and I will NEVER tell them. You are so special, Soph, but I can’t do this to you, I can’t let you put up with this.”

Tears were filling my eyes. I knew that he meant every word of what he was saying, but I was not going to let go of him that easily. “Harry, if we try, just try to lead a normal life for even a little time and see how we feel after that, then it may be better. I meant what I said when I said I love you, because I do. I have never felt like this about anyone in my entire life before, I don’t give a flying monkeys if you are a prince or not. If the press come after us, then let them. Is any of this about what happened with Chelsy last night?”

“Soph, Chelsy and I are over, she’s a bitch, and I can’t believe I didn’t see that when we were dating. You are worth 500 of her! I supposed I got scared. I am scared, Soph. I’m scared of what they, the paps can do to a person. We can’t be normal. I have never been normal. The only time I have ever felt like a normal person was when I went to Afghanistan, and even then I was only out there for 10 weeks, because of stupid paps. I want to be normal. I want you to have a normal relationship, and I can’t give that to you.”

“Harry, listen to me, please. With a bit of discretion, you and I can be normal. We can go for walks into the city. We can go to the park. We can go shopping. We CAN do all of these things. We just need to go about it the right way. I’m not going to lose you without a fight. I love you to Mars and back, and that’s not going to change any time soon. I promise.”

Harry took my face in his hands. “I love you too, and if I had my way, I would never let you go. I promise you that.”

I crushed my lips onto his. It was weird that we had only known each other a few weeks, but I was already in love with him. I knew he was the one for me. There was just something about him that whenever I looked at him, I had to catch a breath. The kiss became more and more passionate. Before I knew it, Harry had carried me to the bed and was making sweet love to me. After all that, I lay my head on his chest, and listened to his rhythmic heartbeat. After about 20 minutes of him playing with my hair and me just lying there, I was getting hungry, and Harry definitely was as well.

“Baby boy,”

“Hmm,” He was more engrossed with my hair than with me.

“I know you are hungry. Do you want to go out for breakfast?”

“Darling, you may as well call it lunch. It’s 11 already!”

“So, is that a yes or a no? I know the best little café in St James’s Park we can have breakfast or lunch or whatever in.”

“Inn the park café? Oh, I love that one too! Right, give me 10 minutes then we can take a stroll.”

The stroll was great, and lunch was even better, we were there, just enjoying the sunshine, laughing, and getting to know more and more about each other. He told me a lot about his mother. He was asking me a lot about my family too. There’s a lot I have never told anyone before. Things like when I was 3 years old, my real parents died in a car crash coming back from my grandparents on Christmas Day. The guy who pulled me out of the car then adopted me, because all four of my grandparents weren’t able to look after me and my parents had no brothers or sisters. Do you remember the locket my mother gave me before I moved to London? That locket had a picture of both of my birth parents in it and that is why I never took it off.

Harry understood what it was like to lose one of your parents. I knew what it was like for him too. We understood each other. He listened to me, and that’s what I love about him. We could have talked for hours in that little café, but then the inevitable happened, some paps saw us. We left the café, but didn’t rush home. We decided to embrace what time we had together, and went for a short stroll around the park, sometimes stopping, to hug or kiss. Harry didn’t let go of me the whole time. Whenever he saw a man with a big camera, he would either hold my hand tighter, or put his arms around me. I never realised how protective he was. Since he had told me this morning, I had really started to realise it. He did love me. He wanted to protect me all the time, but I knew that he couldn’t, not all the time.

When we got back to my flat, Harry made us a cup of tea, and we settled down to watch the late kick-off football match on T.V. I didn’t really watch the match, I just watched Harry the whole time. Things were looking up for the future, Harry was packing up the remainder of his stuff that was in Watti0sham, and he was coming back to London. It dawned upon me, though, he may be going back to the front line soon, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it. Today had been a whirlwind of a day. I knew harry was worth fighting for, and luckily enough I did persuade him to keep me. No matter how long it would take, I would try to make his life with me as normal as humanly possible. This was something he needed more than anything, and I would do anything to make him happy. I promised him that.