The light moment helped. Tristan needed the levity. He was locked up tighter than the moment before the World Championship Cup kickoff. He knew Rowan sensed it, knew it was the reason his stoic friend had unexpectedly shown up to get ready tonight. Claiming he had business not far from Tristan’s flat, Rowan announced he would ride with Tristan to the meeting place to catch the bus to the palace. Tristan would never admit his appreciation, mostly because Rowan would hate the sentimentally of it. So, he’d played it off.
“Good one,” Rowan said on the end of his chuckling. He shook his head, throwing off the smile. “We’d better hurry. Still need to fetch Alicia.”
Tristan’s brow crept up his forehead. “She forgive you?”
Rowan’s girlfriend was no one’s favorite. Tristan had hoped the Juliana fiasco would force Alicia to dump Rowan. No such luck.
Rowan spared one measly nod and disappeared into Tristan’s extra room to get ready. It was amazing Tristan considered Rowan one of his closest friends. They hardly swapped details. But, like today, Rowan seemed to know when he was needed even if he didn’t want to know the why.
Tris grabbed his clothes and slid into his room. He picked his phone up from the dressing table and shot a quick text to Sheena, his date for tonight. He’d thought carefully about going to the palace alone, but he needed the backup, and Sheena always had his six. Unfortunately, she had probed for details and feelings. He’d painfully borne her interrogation while giving away as little as possible. Because quite frankly, he couldn’t get a handle on his wants.
Big, fat lie.
Tristan knew exactly what he wanted, but he also knew the impossibility of it. There were a million reasons Tristan Davenport could not have Princess Eleanor Ann-Juliet Josephine—he’d had to look up her full name. When he started to list them, he got overwhelmed by the obstacles. And there were probably things he hadn’t thought about because he didn’t really know much about political machinations. He was as apolitical as they came. He just wanted to play football, and since politics had little sway over the national pastime, Tristan had never bothered. Just the obvious things were enough to be daunting. But damn if it didn’t stop him from wanting her.
When he’d arrived home, he’d thought he might struggle with the separation. She’d gotten under his skin, burrowed into his heart. He relied on the press-shy princess to retreat behind the palace walls, continuing to hide behind her brother’s charm and her sister’s beauty. And he’d been grateful for her antisocial proclivities. Unfortunately, the Ice Princess, as she had been so fondly thought of in the press, had thawed.
Bloody headlines.
In the time since the Cup, Princess Ele had been busy. And popular. It was like t
here was a princess tracker on her, some drone following her to every appearance and capturing her smile and sincere expression. She’d even been photographed with the damn philatelic society. Who cared about stamp collectors? Another thing he had to look up. No one had cared until Princess Ele graced them with her damn radiant presence.
He couldn’t escape her image. And at night, he couldn’t escape his dreams of her.
He replayed every interaction, every touch, every kiss. At night, he was plagued by the Ele the papers couldn’t capture. The woman who had charmed his heart out of his chest, who unknowingly held it in her hands.
It was pretty damn simple. Stripped down to the most basic truth, Tristan was in love with Ele.
Of course, there was another side of the truth. He wondered if his feelings were rooted in the knowledge that he couldn’t actually have her. Or if given the opportunity to be with her, he might find he couldn’t handle the weight of her need. He loved drawing her out, challenging her to allow herself to want more, to be more. He loved how she responded, how she opened up in front of him. Like he was the key to a mysterious lock or the boy who had pulled the sword from the stone. He loved how powerful he felt when she came alive under him or around him. How her raw sexuality seemed to continually surprise her.
He needed time with her. For the first time since his social media persona had exploded on the wires, he wished for anonymity. He wished Ele were merely a girl he’d met somewhere inconspicuous, so he could explore these crazy, unexpected feelings.
It was his mission for the night. He needed to get her alone for a time, so he could speak to her frankly. He thought they could pull it off, especially with Robert’s approval. There were ways they could fly under the radar. Of course, they couldn’t go anywhere public. In America, they could blend. But home, there was no way to be invisible.
There was another reason he needed to get her alone. He had to talk to her before she saw the new ad campaign he’d filmed the day before. If he’d known before he showed up, he would have insisted on a different script. But his laissez-faire approach to publicity had burned him. It had felt sacrilegious, cashing in on a heartfelt moment. Even without seeing or talking to Ele for the last month, he knew she would be hurt. It was the absolute surety of her reaction that weighed on Tristan. There was a connection between them that hadn’t been severed when she left him in the anteroom in Chicago. It was a live, sentient being. Of course, without the nutrients of togetherness, it would wither and die. But he knew, he was forever branded by it.
Tristan slipped into his jacket. After a quick perusal in the mirror, he grabbed his phone, taking a picture.
Ready for the royal treatment.
Not his most original, but it would do. He thought of Ele seeing it, and he hesitated for a split second. But he posted it anyway. People would expect it, and he wasn’t one to disappoint his fans. It tasted like defiance, but it was more about self-preservation. His nerves strung tight, he knew he was going to put his heart on the line tonight, and the anticipation was starting to wear.
“Tris, mate, we need to go.”
Tristan grabbed his keys, his ID. “On it.”
“I’ll drive,” Rowan announced, which only made Tristan roll his eyes.
“Control freak,” he proclaimed.
Rowan grunted.
The next couple of hours passed in a blur. Between the stops to get Alicia and Sheena, the transfer to the bus, the security check at the palace, Tristan allowed himself to get caught up in the magic. Seeing his teammates again, ribbing Caleb, introducing everyone to Sheena, he was in his element. Loose, gregarious, carefree.
He offered Sheena his arm, and they swept up the palatial front steps of Shuffington Palace. As Sheena’s heels clicked along the ivory marble floor, Tristan took in the lavish entryway, the imposing staircase, and the painted ceiling. His eyes bulged at the opulent surroundings. He immediately tried to picture Ele cavorting up and down the stairs as a kid or gracing the hallowed halls now. It was an uneasy reconciliation. He knew it was her home, knew she’d grown up here, but all he could picture was Ele as she loomed over him, straddling him. He shook off the wildly inappropriate image. His head was fucking with him because it was so much easier to imagine her with him than living in this damn castle.
Sheena squeezed his arm. “You okay?”