Royal 2 (Book two in my Selection series)

Chapter 21

That night after we'd eaten dinner and now waited for the plane to come and take us back to the palace we sat by the water on the beach.

"Tell me about your mother before she was sick." Will says quietly. I smile as I think back to her.

"She was energetic. She was already preparing for the next meal too. If I had just eaten breakfast she'd be thinking about either a snack or lunch. Meals were always on her mind." I laugh and run my hand through the sand.

"That sounds pleasant." Will chuckles quietly and I nod.

"Yeah She was great. You know, and I'm a pretty terrible cook so I feel sorry for Colton all these years. He's sure to be enjoying Kathy's cooking." I laugh and pick at the shells mixed with the sand.

"You can't be that bad." He joins me in my laughter.

"Oh I am." I shake my head. We sit there in silence against the warm sand as the sky becomes darker.

"Are you scared to fall in love?" Will asks suddenly. I raise my gaze quickly wide eyed.

"I always said I never would be but it's a little different when it happens." I look away so that I didn't have to watch his reaction. There. It was out of the box.

"Autumn." Will mutters and I feel his hand on mine. I turn my head just for a second, only a second and his lips meet mine. I couldn't help but not pull away. Instead, I felt like a sort of magnet.

It was my first kiss, but I didn't think all of them was like this one. It was sweet and gentle and though I wasn't, he seemed so Sure. I was the one who pulled away.

"Why did you do that?" I ask quietly. I held his gaze this time and so did he.

"I think I'm falling in love with you." He whispers and pushes a piece of my hair from my face and behind my ear.

"You can't just say you love every girl you kiss." I shake my head just a little and try and sound sure of myself like he always did.

"What do you mean?" He seemed confused but I knew it was only because he didn't expect me to know.

"Girls talk, Will." I say simply. Even though I felt extremely vulnerable and now all I could think of was his other relationships. I'd heard of multiple girls saying he's kissed them and some said that he's said things very close to 'I love you'.

"That's different." Will says almost pleadingly.

"How come? Because I don't know the difference between our kiss and theirs." I sit up and pull myself away from his gentle hands. But, I did for me. I couldn't imagine every girl feeling that way after he kissed them, but maybe they did.

"Because I don't feel the same way when I'm with them." Will says moving closer to me once more.

"But What If you Tell the other girls that too? The thing is that I'm not scared to love someone but I'm scared of them not loving me the same way. There are plenty of girls who think you are head over heels for them." I say and sit up straighter.

"You've just got to trust me." He takes hold of my hands and this time I wasn't able to push him away.  "Please."

"I've trusted people before and then they left. What if you get bored and do the same?" I say almost accusingly.

"Because this." He says and kisses me again. It was short and sweet and he pulled back seconds later. "It doesn't always feel like that. At least not for me. It's never felt like that."

I sit there and stare at him for a few seconds and trace shapes into the sand. He didn't look away. 

"Look Autumn," He forced my attention onto him with a softer voice this time. "I'm not your dad. I'm not even like your dad. I'm not going to just leave like that. I wasn't raised like that, Autumn. Just trust me. You've got to open up."

"I—" I didn't know whether I was going to start defending myself or what, but it didn't happen. Instead I started crying quietly. Warms tears fall down my face and now I break his gaze. I turn away and look at the ocean.

"I'm sorry." Will says quietly.

"It's not you though." I say through a forced laugh. I lean back and his chest meets my head. "It's just everything. I haven't seen my family in weeks, Tina just died, and I can't keep myself from falling in love."

"Just let yourself fall in love. It's not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you. And maybe I can't help with Tina's death, but I will help with your family. Just give me time and I will." I don't ask what he means but instead I just lay against him and wipe my wet cheeks.

"It's weird cause I don't know basic things about you." I say quietly after a while.

"Well what's your favorite color." Today I seemed to be having extreme emotions on each side of the scale because I burst out laughing.

I bring my finger up and point it to the sky. It was a navy color with splatters of stars mixed in and swirls of purple and black.

"That one." I smile. "Because it's not like bright pink or orange but it is its own type of bright."

"I get that. Mine is grey. And not just dull kinds but shiny silver too. Depending on the occasion." I can feel him shrug and laugh again.

"Depending on the occasion." I snort mockingly. "Cause you know dark grey only works for dinner dates but you can wear light gray for a ballroom dance right?" I turn to face him and laugh.

"No, actually silver works best for ballroom occasions." Will says matter of factly. I roll my eyes and laugh.

"What did you mean when you said you were going to help me with my family?" I ask after a while.

"You'll see."

The day after we arrived home Will sent home eight girls and we were down to the final ten.

The Elite.

A/N
Well this is moving pretty quickly isn't it? Don't worry. Much more things to come that'll make this book differ quite a bit from my last book.