Alexandra is bitter about it. Today, she and I are sitting outside on teak lounge chairs in the middle of the gardens, a sprawling labyrinth of flowers and fountains that spreads out across the lawn behind the house. Belle is at the hospital, reading stories to the children on the pediatric cancer ward.
Belle has been going to the hospital every week for the past month, despite the PR team’s opinion that it was “beneath her” as a princess. She should do charity work, they said, just not volunteer work. Belle rolled her eyes and told the PR team that it was up to them to figure out how best to spin her regular volunteer work, because she was going to continue what she was doing. Whether they liked it or not.
“Albie,” Alexandra says, as she scrolls through social media on her phone. She's slouched in the chair, her feet kicked over the edge. “You know we could just ditch out on the wedding.”
I give her a look. “I don’t think Sofia is that bad,” I say. “Dad really loves her, and we're not going to skip the wedding. That would be terrible, and would hurt our father, and I don’t think you’re that hateful of a person.”
Alex rolls her eyes. “Sofia is stuffy,” she says. “And she’s too interested in politics. Mom was never interested in politics.”
“Don’t you want him to be happy?”
Alex gives me a scathing look. “You mean instead of disappointed with us?”
“Maybe he’s not disappointed.” Belle’s voice cuts through the air. She stands behind us, silhouetted by the sun and looking radiant in a light yellow cotton dress. The dress is perfectly appropriate, chaste-looking even, reaching down below her knees.
And it has the effect of making me totally hard.
Alex laughs. “Yeah, well, no offense, but you’ve only been around this place for like a minute.”
Belle shrugs as she sits down on the edge of one of the teak chairs opposite me, crossing her legs at the ankles. I try to look at her casually, like a disinterested, friendly soon-to-be-sibling, but I'm afraid I'm staring. What I really want to do is pick her up and carry her to my bedroom. Or kick Alex out of here and have my way with Belle right here and now. “And that is why I’m saying something,” she says. “As an outsider. Maybe he just worries about you guys.”
“He hates all of my friends.”
“You mean, like Finn Asher?” I ask. “No offense, but that guy is an idiot.”
“Well, maybe I like him,” Alex huffs.
“We both know that’s not true,” I say, looking at her meaningfully. Her face turns beet red, and she stands up, her expression contorted in anger.
“Whatever, Albie,” she says, picking up her phone and huffing off, without another word.
“What was that about?” Belle asks.
“You haven’t noticed her and Max?” I ask.
“The bodyguard?”
“She totally has a crush on him,” I tell her. “I’m pretty sure it’s mutual.”
“Oh,” Belle says, her eyes going wide. “That’s why he was so upset when she went running off with Finn, the day we came up in the helicopter.”
“Exactly.”
“And she likes him?”
“For a while now.”
“And she can’t date the bodyguard because…” Belle’s voice trails off, and I give her a look.
“For obvious reasons.”
“It’s 2015,” Belle says.
“Says the girl who’s sneaking around with –“
She cuts me off, her hand in the air. “I get what you’re saying.”
A look passes over her face, and something shifts between us, an unspoken truth that hangs heavy in the air.
This will be over soon, and there’s no changing it. We both know we’re playing with fire. I still haven’t gotten the marriage annulled, afraid that if I do, whatever’s happening between us will suddenly change and that everything will end. This time at the summerhouse is a reprieve, an escape from the reality of the outside world and all of its obligations and expectations.
What’s happening between us has an expiration date. We have to stop before our parents' wedding. We both know it – it’s a fact that hangs over both of us.
It’s an unspoken, immutable fact.
Even if neither one of us want to admit it.
"I need you." I blurt out the words without thinking. The words sound merely sexual, but I think I mean them in more than a superficial way.
That fact should terrify me, but for some reason, it doesn't.
Belle blushes. "Not here," she whispers.
"Why not?"
Belle cocks her head to the side and looks at me with a sly smile. "You're getting too bold for your own good.”