where in Australia are you from?’
‘Ah, well done. Americans often mistake my accent for English somehow. The Hunter River Valley. It’s in New South Wales.’ The longing in her voice prompted his next question.
‘You miss it?’
She looked up at him with a smile that was both wondrous and a little sad.
‘Yes.’ She shrugged her slim shoulders in the overly large winter coat. ‘This is...strange, and... unfamiliar—but oddly familiar if you know what I mean? Too many TV shows, I suppose.’
She scrunched her nose up as she chose her words. He liked it. It was cute. Though he couldn’t remember liking cute before.
‘New South Wales is beautiful. And open. Not like...’ She gestured with her hands towards the tall buildings around them in explanation.
‘It takes a while to get used to.’
‘Different to where you’re from?’ she asked, cocking her head to the side, as if trying to work something out about him.
‘Yes, very different to Ter’harn,’ he replied, putting stress on the name of his country.
‘And Ter’harn is...?’
‘On the African continent. But it has the benefit of being a coastal country, so has deserts, mountains and a seafront.’
‘What more could you want?’ she asked, smiling, stirring the pit in his stomach.
I could want not to go back. I could want not to take the throne.
But he didn’t say those things. He never said those things.
‘So why are you here in New York?’ he asked instead of voicing his secret thoughts. Because he was genuinely concerned that she’d somehow be able to pull them from the vault he kept them in.
‘To study, train and learn. I’m going to be a jockey,’ she said with pride. Genuine pride, not embarrassment or shame, not coy. ‘My father trained some of the best riders in the world.’
‘And he trained you?’
‘Oh, God, no,’ she said, laughing easily again. ‘He wanted me as far from professional riding as possible. But I had the bug. I have the bug. He...gave up a lot for me. And though he might not have wanted me to ride, I see how proud he is when I win. It’s a legacy and I want to live up to it.’
For a moment he wondered if someone in the palace might have put her up to this. But there was nothing in those eyes apart from truth. And suddenly, he was just a little jealous. He’d give almost anything to feel that way about being a future ruler. To want it, to want to be good at it. He wondered if he ever would.
They rounded the corner and found themselves at Washington Square Park, still open even at this time of night. It was littered only with the die-hards, freezing their backsides off in the middle of winter. He was about to ask about her mother when she spun around to face him.
‘So what do I call you?’ she asked, rubbing the bite of the cold winter air from her hands. ‘My liege? Your Highness? O Great One?’ she asked, turning back to cross the road, leaving him standing in a stream of her gentle mockery.
‘Danyl’s fine,’ he said with a laugh as he caught up with her. ‘And you?’
‘Mason,’ she tossed over her shoulder as she walked through the iron fencing around the park. She’d been marching ahead at such a pace, he almost walked into her as she pulled up short to look at the figures playing chess.
‘Chess!’ she exclaimed wholly unnecessarily, though he enjoyed the sheer delight in her voice. ‘I’ve always wanted to play but I never had time to learn. Not with all that was needed doing on the farm.’
‘Lucky,’ Danyl replied. ‘My father made me play almost every night. He would spend hours preaching the importance of each piece, valuing the Knight above all others and how it could teach me to be a better ruler.’ She’d turned to look at him and narrowed her eyes at his tone. Could she sense the slight bitterness he tried to hold back from his words?
She turned back to the players—old men sitting at the small tables, chessboards etched into the surfaces, wrapped in layers clutching steaming cups—and Danyl felt oddly nostalgic.
‘My father gave me a set when I left to come here for university.’
‘That’s lovely,’ she said with a gentle appreciation.
‘He kept back the Black Knight,’ Danyl amended drily.
She laughed a little and stepped back towards him. ‘I think that’s sweet,’ she decreed.
‘I think it’s silly,’ he responded, taking a step closer to her, bringing him into the warmth she emanated, that slight trace of lime and bay he’d caught earlier.
* * *
Mason looked up at the Prince before her, wondering at the ease that had descended between them. The laughter he drew from her, the memories. Usually she was much more self-contained, ‘closed off’ as Francesca had complained once. But walking with him, talking to him...it felt as if she were a different person, as if she were being her true self, but better. It was a strange feeling.
From the streets and out of the surrounding buildings, voices began to cry out. The countdown to the New Year had begun. The cries rose up around them, breaking into the moment of silence Mason might have held for ever. They were standing so close she could feel the heat from his body.
Ten, nine, eight...
He was so much taller than her, she had to angle her head back to look up at him. Rather than making her feel small, as her diminutive height usually did, it made her feel protected, surrounded by him.
‘Would it be inappropriate for me to kiss you at midnight?’ he asked. His voice, lower and huskier than it had been before. She felt, rather than saw, his palms flatten out against his legs, as if he were preventing himself from reaching for her. Until she gave him permission. Until she allowed it.
She shrugged her shoulder as the subtle tension that had hummed between them since leaving the Langsford built to fever pitch. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The way it had been as she’d led them further away from the hotel. It increased as the time to midnight decreased. Was she really going to let a prince kiss her?
Seven, six, five...
‘I suppose it’s not as if you’re spoilt for choice,’ she replied, looking around them briefly at the few groups that had spilled onto the roads around the park, before being pulled back to his gaze—the one that had not left her.
‘There’s always a choice, Mason.’
Four, three two...
He was giving her an out. He knew it, she knew it. But, looking into his deep smoked-whisky-coloured eyes, she thought she might drown, thought she might not be able to breathe if she didn’t take the chance...the chance to act on the heady desire sparkling between them.
