he had an excuse not to look directly at her. “Yeah, that was a brilliant contribution. Hitting some numbers on my phone.”
“Stop being such a goof.” Hands on her hips, she stepped into his space, refusing to let his attention linger elsewhere. “You’re a great person. I’m allowed to think so and don’t you dare tell me I can’t.”
That pulled a smile from him. “Yes, Your Highness.”
“Anyway,” she drawled with an exaggerated American accent, which only widened his smile, as she’d probably intended. “When I was cleaning the fireplace, I realized I really need to call my father. We can’t ignore the press release about my engagement to Will much longer.”
Though she kept up her light tone, he could tell some stress had worked its way into her body. Her shoulders were stiff and a shadow clouded her normally clear eyes.
“Maybe we can wait,” he suggested, and laced his fingers with hers to rub her knuckles. “Tomorrow’s soon enough.”
“I kind of want to get it over with.” She bit her lip, clearly torn. “But I also really like the idea of procrastinating.”
“Why?” he asked, surprising himself. He’d meant to say they should wait. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?
He, of all people, understood avoiding conflict, especially when it involved an overbearing father. But the distress evident in the foreign lines around her eyes had to go and he would do whatever it took to solve the problem.
Maybe it wasn’t a good thing for him to encourage her to wait. Maybe she needed to get the confrontation over with. But how would he know if he didn’t ask?
“My father really wants me to fall in line, like Gabriel did. When Rafe abdicated, it was kind of a big deal.” She sighed. “I get that. I really don’t want to cause problems because of my own selfishness.”
“But you’re not,” he countered. “How is it a problem that you want to choose the bloke you marry?”
“Because my father says it is.” Her mouth flattened into a grim line. “That’s why I want to put off dealing with all of this. I’m just not ready for all of the expectations that go along with restoring the monarchy. I mean, I always knew our family had come from a royal line, but that was so long ago. Why is it so important to my father all of a sudden?”
She seemed a little fragile in that moment so he pulled her into his arms, shushing her protests over the state of her cleanliness.
“I wish I could tell you why things are important to fathers,” he murmured. “Mine has yet to explain why it’s so horrifying to him that I don’t want a job at Rowling Energy. Becoming a world-class football player might make some dads proud.”
“Not yours?” she whispered, her head deep in his shoulder.
Her arms tightened around him, which was oddly comforting. What had started as an embrace he’d thought she needed swiftly became more precious to him than oxygen.
“Nah. Will’s his golden boy.”
“Why don’t you want to work at Rowling?”
It was the first time anyone had ever asked him that.
Most people assumed he wanted to play football and there was little room for another career at his dad’s company. But even now, when he had few choices in continuing his sports career, he’d never consider Rowling an alternative.
His father wasn’t the listening type; he just bulldozed through their conversations with the mindset that James would continue to defy him and never bothered to wonder why James showed no interest in the family business.
“It’s because he built that company on my mother’s grave,” he said fiercely. “If she hadn’t died, he wouldn’t have moved to Alma and tapped in to the offshore drilling that was just starting up. I can’t ever forget that.”
“Is someone asking you to forget?” she probed quietly. “Maybe there’s room to take a longer view of this. If your father hadn’t moved to Alma, you wouldn’t have discovered that you loved football, right?”
“That doesn’t make it okay.” The admission reverberated in the still house and she lifted her head to look at him, eyebrows raised in question. “I love football but only because it saved me. It got me out of Alma at an early age and gave me the opportunity to be oceans away. I can’t be on the same small island as my father. Not for long.”
When had this turned into confession time? He’d never said that out loud before. Bella had somehow pulled it out of him.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly and snuggled back into his arms, exactly where he wanted her.
“I’m sorry you’ve got the same issues with your father. But there’s always gossip in a small town. We’re going to be dealing with a scandal over the press release once someone catches on to us shacking up in this love nest. But I support whatever decision you make as far as the timing,” he told her sincerely, though he’d be heavily in favor of waiting.
He wasn’t royalty though. She had a slew of obligations he knew nothing about; he could hardly envision a worse life than one where you had to think about duty to crown and country.
“I think that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.” Her voice cracked on the last word.
Puzzled, he tipped her chin up, and a tear tracked down her cheek. “Which part? When I called this jumble of a house a love nest or described our relationship as shacking up?”
She laughed through another couple of tears, thoroughly confounding him. Just when he thought he finally got her, she did something he couldn’t fathom.
“Neither. The part where you said you support me, no matter what. It makes me warm, right here.” She patted her stomach.
He almost rolled his eyes. That was laying it on a bit thick, wasn’t it? “I do support you, but that’s what peop—lovers...people in a rela—” God, he couldn’t even get his tongue to find the right word to explain the status of what they were doing here.
Maybe because he didn’t know what they were doing here.
“Yeah,” she said happily, though what she was agreeing to, he had no idea. “That’s what you do. I get that. You’ve always done exactly the right thing, from the very beginning. ”
He scowled. “I don’t do that.”
He didn’t. He was the guy who buckled when it mattered most. The guy whose team had been counting on him and he’d let them down. The guy who ran from conflict instead of dealing with it. Hadn’t she been listening to anything he’d said about why he played football?
His character had been tarnished further with the hooker incident. James Rowling was the last person anyone should count on. Especially when it came to support. Or “being there” for someone emotionally.
“You do.” Her clear blue eyes locked with his and she wouldn’t let him look away. “You look in the mirror and see the mistakes your father has insisted you’ve made. I look at you and see an amazing man. You did hard physical
