The Frog Prince (36 page)

Roman seems taken aback by my tone. “Is this about Isabella? Is that why you’re leaving? I can’t really believe you’d be that childish.”

“Look,” I say, “I didn’t say a word when you invited Isabella to your first speech, or when she was special guest at the oath-taking. When every newspaper in the country ran pictures of you dancing with Isabella after the King’s Ball, I bit my tongue. And I’m not comfortable doing that anymore. Isabella needs to leave.”

I toss the remote aside and walk through the towering archway into the secluded kitchen. I look around to see Roman following me. “It looks weird to have your ex-girlfriend living in the palace with your current girlfriend. It makes me look stupid.”

“She’s not living here, she’s just a guest,” Roman protests. “And I’m sure you’re aware that she and Jason have a little thing going on. I think she’s sticking around to be with him.” He sees my unconvinced expression and continues. “Look, Isabella’s allowed me to use her name to launch the SFR Initiative. And she’s been an important advisor during the transition to the monarchy.”

I wheel around. “Yeah, she’s been such a great
advisor
, giving such great
advice
. In fact, when I overheard her
advising
you not to marry me because I was such a goddam commoner, I thought to myself, ‘Wow! That’s really good advice!’ Because you know what? I don’t want to get married anyway!”

He blinks hard in surprise, his head jerking backwards on his shoulders. “How did you–” he begins, but I’ve already walked away.

Suddenly Roman’s hand is on my arm. “Leigh, let’s just talk about this.”

I rip my arm from his grasp. “Talk about it?
Now
you want to talk about it? I’ve had to look at pictures of you and Isabella cozying up together all over Austria for the last two months. The tabloids have had you proposing to her half a dozen times. Eighty-two percent of Austrians want you to marry her!” I jab my finger at him. “Have I said a word about any of this to you? No! Because I remembered what you told me on the phone in Stockholm: ‘Don’t believe anything you hear unless you hear it from me.’ But I guess that kind of trust is just a one-way street for you, isn’t it? I have a few working dinners with one of
your
friends and do a little project with him and all of a sudden you’re the one believing what you read!”

“I was just trying to warn you–”

“Warn me? You weren’t trying to warn me, you were just trying to make some bad press go away.”

“It’s just that it was so obvious that Mikhail was attracted to you. Everyone could see it.”

“And you don’t think everyone sees Isabella slobbering all over you everywhere you go?” I grab my purse from the coffee table and open the door into the hallway. My new twenty-four hour security detail stands just outside the door, completely expressionless. I turn back to Roman. “The only difference between you and Isabella and me and Mikhail is that I never screwed Mikhail.” I’m not even sure what I mean by this.

I slam the door in his face and walk away. Behind me the door opens.

“Where are you going?” Roman calls after me.

“I’m going home.” As soon as I say the words I feel relief flood through me. I’m no longer torn; I’m just going back to where I belong. My eyes fill up with tears and I can barely see the elevator buttons well enough to stab the call button. I hear the elevator grind its way up through the shaft, not nearly fast enough. I consider taking the stairs.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see Roman slowly walking towards me. “Why are you doing this? I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

I let the tears flow freely; there’s no stopping them now. “Because of Disney World!”

He shakes his head, unsure of my meaning.

“Do you remember what I told you I wanted to see most at Disney World?” I say.

“Cinderella’s castle.”

“I
begged
my parents to take me. I’d seen the movie about a million times and I knew exactly how it was going to look: the ballroom, the horse and carriage, the prince. But you know what Cinderella’s castle is? It’s just a façade with a tunnel through the middle for tourists to walk through. It’s totally hollow!”

Roman keeps opening his mouth like he’s trying to say something, but I don’t plan to give him a chance to wedge a word in. “There are no rooms, or carriages or princes,” I say. “It’s just one big disappointment.”

The elevator bell sounds, and the doors slide open. I step in and press the button for the ground floor. Roman sticks his hand between the doors just as they start to close. “Leigh, you can’t just walk out the door.”

“No,” I correct him. “
You
can’t just walk out the door. You’re stuck here in your pretend castle, with your pretend crown and kingdom. I have a real life that I put on hold to be with you, and I’m going back to it.” I push the ground floor button again, but Roman keeps his arm between the doors.

“I’m
not
going to let you leave. All I have to do is make a phone call.”

I can practically feel my eyes bugging out with disbelief. “Have you lost your mind!” I scream. “You think your guards can keep me trapped here? I’ll call the American consulate! I’ll call every newspaper I can think of!”

He blinks twice in quick succession, and staggers backward a step. “That’s not what I meant!” he says, holding his hands out in front of him. “I meant it’s not
safe
for you to leave. Let me at least arrange for Jason to go with you. I’ll call for a car.”

“Good luck with your happily ever after, Roman,” I say as the doors finally close.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Denver, Colorado

“Her new place is
incredible
,” says Kat as we step out of the Wynkoop Brewery.

It’s April but some sort of global warming El Niño blizzard has hit Denver and I blink against the onslaught of fat, wet snowflakes. Kat looks both ways and pulls me across Wynkoop Street towards a Romanesque building, arched red neon-lit letters erected above it reading
UNION STATION-TRAVEL by TRAIN
.

“The entire front wall in her condo is glass,” she adds.

“I wonder why they call it the Glass House,” I mumble.

Kat ignores my sarcasm. “It’s, like, the ultimate girl pad. She painted one wall red and hung black and white prints of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe on either side. Then she put up about fifteen of these short, clear shelves all over the wall in between the pictures. Guess what’s on each shelf?”

I shrug just as we get to the doors of Union Station. Kat opens the door for me and I trudge into the warmth of the building.

“You know how she has all those fancy high heel shoes? She put the best ones on display… it’s
incredible
.”

Kat glances at me as we gradually descend through a wide hallway transecting the station. I know she’s waiting for some sort of response, but I just don’t have it in me. Instead, I pretend to study the historical photographs on the wall as we pass them.

“You know what a fabulous hostess she is,” she continues to prattle as we pass a photograph showing World War Two draftees waiting for their trains in the main terminal. “It’s going to be such a fun party.”

A door on the opposite side of the station takes us out into the cold night air again. I hear the familiar
ding-ding-ding!
of an approaching RTD train. Cold revelers fresh from the bars stand on the platform, stomping their feet and rubbing their hands together against the chill.

Kat’s cell phone rings, and I am mercifully spared from having to provide any half-hearted responses to her chatter. Across the tracks I see the Millennium Bridge, a pedestrian bridge that connects Lower Downtown with Riverfront Park. Its cable-anchored, two-hundred foot spire at the top of the bridge gives the appearance that a ship has pulled right up into the middle of Denver, giving it the local nickname of “The Ship.” At night it is lit up from every angle, the white cables and spire practically glowing in the dark. The snow swirling in the air through the lights around the spire is breathtaking.

The view aside, there will be a lot of climbing and walking involved–up the icy stairs on one side, across the platform, and down more stairs to Riverfront Park.

Suddenly I am just dead tired. I stop walking, right on the now-empty train tracks. “Kat, I can’t,” I say, ignoring the fact that she’s on the phone. “I can’t do anymore tonight.”

Kat holds the phone away from her mouth. “We’ll just stay for a few minutes, Leigh,” she pleads in a low voice. When I don’t move she grabs the fabric of my coat and pulls me off the tracks onto the snow-covered sidewalk. “We’re almost there,” she says into her phone before disconnecting and pushing it into her coat pocket.

“Kat, I just want to go home,” I say. “I had fun tonight, but I just want to go to bed…I’m tired.”

“Nope, nope, nope,” she says, still pulling me by the coat. “You’re going!”

“Kat!” I stop again, pulling my coat out of her hands. She looks exasperated and I am getting really pissed. “I don’t want to go anywhere else, okay? I’ve just had enough tonight.”

She turns back to me and sighs. “Leigh, I know you’ve been going through a hard time. I’m trying to be a friend. I just don’t want you moping around at home!”

“Mission accomplished! I have officially
not
moped around for the last six hours.”

Kat studies me for a second, then turns around and looks at the bridge. “I love this spot. Let’s just go to the top of The Ship, okay? Take in the view, talk for a few minutes. Then we’ll go home.”

“No Glass House?” I ask, suspicious that she is laying a party trap for me.

She smiles. “No Glass House.”

I look up at the bridge and sigh. “Okay, just for a few minutes.” I tuck my hands back into my coat pockets. “I’m freezing my butt off.”

Two guys in long coats mill around at the base of the bridge where the spire anchors are bolted to the concrete. They are too sharply dressed to be homeless, and they don’t seem to be talking to each other or doing anything in particular. I speed up as we walk past them, relieved that they don’t give us a second glance. I look back at them as I put my hand on the stair rail, just to be sure they aren’t following us, but they’re staring down the tracks as if they’re waiting for a train.

“C’mon,” I say over my shoulder to Kat, and start sprinting up the stairs. It’s not until I get to the first platform that I realize that there are no footsteps behind me. I turn around and see Kat still standing at the bottom. My heart jumps into my throat until I realize that her face has a funny expression, but it is definitely not one of fear. Neither she nor the men in the coats are looking at each other or even at me—their attention is fixed on something at the top of the bridge.

I turn around slowly and look up.

Roman stands at the top of The Ship in a swirl of lights and falling snow. I freeze, blink, and stare again, not sure if I’m really seeing him. I look back. Kat and the two men–presumably Roman’s bodyguards–are walking back in the direction of Union Station.

“Leigh, don’t leave,” calls Roman from the top of the stairs. “Please.”

I close my eyes, considering. Finally, I turn around and slowly climb to the top of The Ship. Roman looks as fantastic as ever in a full-length navy blue wool coat. The snow in his hair is in various stages of melting. In his right hand he’s clutching an oversized leather briefcase.

The breeze blows the scent of his woodsy cologne in my direction, and more than anything it is this–the smell of him–that rips a fresh piece out of my heart.

“Hi,” I say after a second’s awkward silence. “Did you get deposed or something?”

Oh lord, that smile of his. I look down at the fresh snow, willing myself not to fall to pieces until after he leaves.

“You wouldn’t take my phone calls,” he says, taking a hesitant step towards me. “Or answer my emails. Or letters.”

I look up him, regretting it immediately. His blue eyes are intense and uncertain, studying my face, my every reaction.

“How did you get here?” I say. I don’t recall any mention of his impending arrival on the news in the last twenty-four hours.

He smiles. “I’m playing regal hooky. I hijacked one of the royal jets and snuck out with a security detail without telling anyone except the President. It’s a covert operation.”

After three months in Austria under constant scrutiny from security and the press, I can appreciate the deviousness involved here. Of course it helped that he was not only a member of the Austrian military, but actually able to fly the plane right out of the country.

“Oh, well I–”

“Isabella went back to Denmark,” he says.

“Well, that’s–”

“Leigh, do you still love me?” He moves the briefcase to his left hand before stepping forward to take my gloved hand in his.

The sad look on his face pushes any control I might have had right over the edge. “God, Roman, please don’t do this.” I choke on the last word, my tears overflowing onto my face.

His face turns stony, resigned. “I just want to hear it from you and not the tabloids.”

“It’s not—I just don’t…” I pull my hand out of his. “I’m not good at…you know…
talking
when I’m upset.”

“I don’t want poetry,” he says, his voice hollow. “Just tell me the truth.”

I take a deep breath. “Of course I love you, you know I do. But I’m not–”

I cut myself short when Roman kneels on one knee on the ground in front of me.
Oh god no please don’t do this I can’t I can’t oh please oh please
, I think, grabbing the hand rail for support. I am very quickly relieved when he places the briefcase on the snow in front of him and leans over it to pop the latches. An engagement ring certainly wouldn’t require a case the size of a four-loaf breadbox.

The locks click free and Roman lifts the lid. I can’t see whatever it is from where I’m standing. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I take a step towards him just as he reaches in to lift it out of the case.