I feel so much more than friendship for Elizabeth Rochat. I think about her every moment I’m awake and dream about her all night. She makes me happy and curious and excited about the future in a way I’ve never been before. Never. Not even when I was a kid, dreaming about growing up to fly planes or run secret spy missions with my brothers. She’s a mystery I want to keep solving for the rest of my life. I want to make love and memories and a family with her.
Meanwhile, she clearly sees me as a friend with benefits.
And yes, I love the benefits—I’m hard again just thinking about her in there taking her clothes off to jump into the shower—but I want more than that. I want her heart, but I have no clue how to reach it. She’s still holding me at a distance, and maybe she always will.
She still thinks she’s going to die in a few months, the voice of reason pipes up as I cross the room to fetch my coffee. Once she knows she’s safe, everything could change.
It could. She could decide to run back to Rafe, beg him to leave his wife and baby and pick up where they left off.
The thought fills my head with thunderclouds, even though I know Lizzy wouldn’t do something like that. She wouldn’t try to break up a family, even if she wanted to.
But the fact that she might want to, the possibility that she’s never gotten over Rafe, the man she gave up to spare him the pain of loving a cursed princess, makes my pastry taste like soap in my mouth. I’m sure it’s a very good pastry—all the food here has been incredible—but nothing tastes right.
Nothing feels right.
I should be excited that we might be on the verge of putting Elizabeth’s mind at ease, but an hour later, as I load our bags, groceries from the market, and the camping supplies into the car, my mood is still as gray as the skies overhead.
We pull out of Rue headed north, and Elizabeth leans forward, gazing up at the ominous sky. “What does a person who’s camping do if it rains?” she asks, her brow furrowed.
“Hope they set up the tarp over the tent correctly and that everything stays dry inside,” I say. “Or sleep in the car.”
She hums low in her throat. “And this is an activity you truly enjoy?”
“Not as much when it rains, no. But camping is fun. It’s nice to get away from all the noise and the hustle and constant connectedness. It’s one of the few times I can get Nick and Andrew off their phones to spend an entire day in real life.”
Lizzy sits back and collects her tea from the cupholder, pressing the lid down at the edges as she asks, “You know your brothers pretty well, right?”
“Very well.”
“So…you think you would know if one of them was keeping a big secret.”
I shoot a glance her way, but she’s still focused on her cup. “Why?”
She shrugs. “Just curious. I didn’t think it would be easy to fool Sabrina, but it was. She didn’t doubt me for a second.”
“Well, you haven’t made a habit of lying to her in the past, have you?”
She shakes her head. “No. Concealing things, sometimes, but not lying.”
“So, you’d built trust. She had no reason to suspect you weren’t telling the truth.”
“And you have that same kind of trust with Andrew and Nick?”
“I do. We’ve spent almost every minute together since we were children.” My chest tightens as suspicion flickers at back of my mind. “That’s probably why we’ve all been out of sorts lately. Andrew getting married and moving into the king’s wing is a big change.”
“At least he’ll still be living in the same house,” Lizzy says. “But I know it’s not the same. Change is hard. Especially when it involves losing pieces of someone you love.” She takes a sip of her tea before adding softly, “Sabrina’s already pulling away from me, I can feel it.”
“I bet she would say the same about you. Every time I ran into her at the castle, she was trying, and failing, to get in touch with you.”
“I was giving her space to fall in love.” Lizzy sighs. “But you could be right. I should set alarms on my phone to remind me to check in with the people I care about. Maybe I’ll do that…”
If I live past my twenty-sixth birthday. She doesn’t say it, but I hear it all the same.
I want to reassure her, again, that she’s going to be fine, but that’s not my role in this quest. I’m here to offer support. I don’t have answers, only questions.
Questions that churn inside me as we wind farther north and Lizzy nods off in the passenger’s seat, falling prey to the anti-nausea pills she took a half hour before we set off. I wonder if she gets as sick on planes or helicopters. If not, we’ll have to fly the next time we go on holiday.