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‘I have never been in love. I’ve never even really witnessed it. My parents were at each other constantly. I’ve avoided relationships of any meaning. But you are everywhere I look, including deep down in my soul, always in my thoughts. You are in my dreams, and everything I see and do seems a little worse when you’re not there to share it with. Is this love, Amelia? Is it love to crave a person to the point you would do anything to see them, just one more time? Is it love that makes me know I would give my life to save yours? Is it love to know that I could spend every minute with you for the rest of our lives and it would still never be enough? Is it love to want to protect you from any force in your life that might do you harm even when knowing you are strong enough to protect yourself? You are the best person I have ever known,’ he said gruffly, cupping her face then, staring down into her eyes. ‘I don’t want to fight this anymore.’
She closed her eyes, inhaled him deeply, her heart exploding.
‘I hate that I hurt you. I hate that it took me so long to wake up to what I was feeling. I hate that I had to hurt us both before I could see that the only future I want is one with you in the very centre of it. Most of all, I hate that when you told me how you felt, I didn’t understand my own feelings enough to shout from the rooftops that I love you too.’
She pressed a hand to his chest, struggling for breath, let alone words. ‘Oh, Ben,’ she whispered, tears on her lashes. ‘It’s okay.’
‘No.’ He was adamant. ‘It’s not. I’ve been such a stupid, selfish bastard, and I cannot forgive myself for that. But if you are generous enough to let me back into your life, to tell me you still love and want me, then I will never give you any reason to doubt my feelings again.’
And she knew he wouldn’t. ‘Even that night, I didn’t really doubt them,’ she said. ‘I knew that loving someone like I did you wasn’t, couldn’t be, one-sided. Every memory I have on the boat is about us falling in love, not just me. This is a partnership.’ She reached for his hand, linked their fingers together. ‘We always will be.’
‘Yes,’ he said with such a sound of relief that she couldn’t help but smile. ‘We always will be.’ And in the middle of the deck, surrounded by so many rose petals she half wondered if a whole country had been denuded of flowers, Benedetto di Vassi broke the promise he’d made himself as a young boy to always be alone, and instead begged Princess Amelia Moretti to be his other half, always and for ever.
And she agreed, in an instant.
It was much later that day, when the sun was almost gone and the stars had come out, that Benedetto explained the process that had finally brought him to heel. He told Amelia about the news alerts, about how desperately he’d sought out even the smallest hint of information about her, but that there’d been nothing—because I was hiding out in the palace—until the day she went to lunch, and then it had hit him like a meteor, right between the eyes.
He loved her.
He had to be with her. There was no question of choice or free will, it was simply as inevitable as breathing.
He explained to her that he’d known their relationship and happiness had to be secured but that he’d known that happiness would always be slightly lessened if it came at the cost of Anton’s happiness, of their friendship. Benedetto relayed the conversation with Anton, in which he’d very succinctly explained that he’d fallen in love with Amelia and intended to propose to her, that he knew Amelia too well to ask anyone’s permission for her hand in marriage—‘I’m my own person and I’m glad you understand that!’—but that he nonetheless felt the courtesy of a heads-up was appropriate, given their friendship.
‘And what did he say?’
‘There were some threats,’ Benedetto drawled.
Amelia laughed softly.
‘But then he told me that I deserved to be happy, and so do you, and that if we can make each other happy, there would be no greater supporter of our relationship than him, except perhaps Vanessa. Apparently she suspected something was going on between us.’
‘I’m not surprised. She’s very observant.’
‘I didn’t want to ask anyone for permission but once he’d accepted how things were between us, it was like the last piece fell into place. I knew I had to do this. I just hoped, with all my heart, that I hadn’t ruined things between us completely. I was so worried you would have stopped loving me. That you’d have realised you couldn’t love anyone who’d put you through this.’
‘I was upset,’ she agreed softly. ‘But I don’t think love is quite so transient as that. Certainly not the love I feel for you.’
‘Nor I for you,’ he promised, leaning closer, pressing a kiss to her lips. She sighed happily and snuggled into his arms.
Royal tradition dictated that Amelia should have a full, elaborate wedding, and so she did, but twenty-four hours before the ceremony the world was invited to attend via the news cameras positioned throughout the abbey, Amelia and Benedetto said their own vows privately on the deck of his boat, surrounded only by her family, and Cassidy and Christopher. It was an intimate ceremony imbued with all the love they felt for one another, and each and every guest in attendance felt that heavy in the air—it was an evening of magic, of love, and of happily ever after, just as the bride and groom deserved.
EPILOGUE
Six years later
‘THEY’RE GOING TO get someone killed.’ Vanessa groaned, pressing a hand to her forehead, and earning a laugh from Amelia.
‘Nonsense. Teeth might go missing though,’ she said, as their two oldest children—a pair of boys born only a year apart and so alike they were sometimes mistaken for twins—tore through the palace garden, a tangle of legs and arms and high-pitched laughter as they raced for the big oak tree, to see who could touch it first.
‘I can’t bear to watch,’ Vanessa said, reaching for her tea and taking a sip.
‘Then don’t watch. The less we see, the better.’
‘I don’t know how you can be so sanguine about it.’
‘I had two brothers,’ Amelia pointed out.
‘Hmm, that’s true. I can’t imagine Anton ever running around like this, though.’
