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“It was,” he agreed, but as the door closed and the shower started up, the worries seeped back into his mind.
The spontaneous sex, the way their schedules made him feel like they were two ships passing in the night—it was what they’d agreed to. It was more than he’d thought he’d be able to get, back when he’d proposed to her, never thinking she’d end up in his bed again. She’d agreed to marry him, to raise their daughter to be queen, and he hadn’t thought he had the right to ask for anything more. Rebuilding their intimate relationship had been an unexpected gift. But…it wasn’t enough. With every day that passed, Rafael felt Felicity slipping further into her future role as queen and away from the Felicity who could belong to him rather than to his people.
Not that he could argue with that—not entirely. It was only that he wanted, now more than ever, an emotional connection with her. And as physical as things had been, there was a cold fear gathering in the pit of his gut.
Maybe the business arrangement version of marriage wasn’t what he wanted, in the end.
He stood up from the bed and pulled on his clothes. His own shower would have to wait until his meeting ended.
Rafael only hoped that standing under the water for a few minutes, alone, would give him some idea of what to do.
13
The week rushed by, pulling Felicity along in its current, and waking up on Friday morning was like coming to the surface of the water after a long, deep dive.
It was a little nerve-racking in a way. Amy had pulled her straight into all the lead-up to the meetings. Most of it had been planned before Felicity had come back to Stolvenia, but there were plenty of final details to iron out. The roundtables and meetings had put Felicity right in the thick of it. Rafael had acted like nobody associated with the royal family thought of women’s issues at all, but that wasn’t quite true—it was only that Rafael himself wasn’t ready to take a public stance.
Felicity had hardly had time to think about that once she dove in. She’d been concentrating so hard on listening during the roundtables that her own frustration with Rafael had taken a backseat.
She peeked out into the living area. Hope was running in circles, a little toy airplane in her hand, and Sara sat nearby on the floor, narrating the plane’s flight. Everything was in hand.
Felicity shut the door to her room as softly as she could and stretched her arms over her head. She’d been relying on Rafael and Sara to handle Hope’s care since Monday.
It wasn’t that she was ungrateful, she thought as she headed toward the bathroom. Ah, there it was—that familiar stab of guilt. She should be the one waking up early with her daughter. But this was the first opportunity she’d had to do something beyond a photo shoot. It was a real introduction to the women of Stolvenia, and it was going to have a real impact.
She laughed as she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Felicity had pinned her hair back in a demure bun the previous day. It was one of the hairstyles that Lydia had strongly recommended, and at every possible event, Felicity found herself referring back to that advice. The bun had been mostly destroyed while she slept, though, and her hair stuck out at odd angles. She should have taken it out, but she’d been exhausted.
Well, there it was. Felicity might feel guilty, but the scrambling mom life she was used to in the United States simply wasn’t going to be an option here in Stolvenia. Not when she finally had so much to do in her official role. Felicity pulled the hair elastic out of her hair and turned on the shower full blast.
This was the weekend, she thought as she shampooed and conditioned her hair, then scrubbed herself down. The next set of events for International Women’s Day—at this point, it should have been called International Women’s Week—didn’t start until Monday, so Felicity would relax. She and Hope could spend a little more time together. The thought of Hope had her on the alert for the sound of her daughter running into the bathroom, but of course that didn’t happen. Sara had things well in hand.
There were no meetings planned for Friday, so the weekend technically began…now. She went back into her room in a towel, wearing nothing else but a big smile on her face.
Felicity wasn’t expecting Rafael.
The sight of him perched on her bed surprised her, but the surprise quickly melted into something more complicated. “Hi,” she said, putting a hand to her towel to hold it on.
He gave her an impish grin. “Good morning. I see you’re feeling a bit shy.”
She suppressed the urge to stick her tongue out at him. “I wasn’t expecting company,” Felicity said primly, then went over and kissed his cheek. She bent forward enough that the front of the towel brushed against his arm. Just like that, she pulled herself back, going for the closet.
Rafael groaned. “All right. Enough teasing.”
“There will never be enough teasing,” Felicity called from the closet. She slipped on underwear, then a comfortable but well-made pair of pants, and a boatneck shirt. Lydia loved boatneck shirts, so she knew she couldn’t go wrong with one, even if today was going to be about spending time with Hope. She went back out into the bedroom. “What brings you here so early?”
Rafael laughed at the joke. He was always up early. “To get a head start on our plans.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Our plans?” As far as Felicity knew, there were no plans for the weekend. And she’d liked it that way. But Rafael looked so pleased with himself.
“Yes,” he said, standing and coming close. Rafael took her hand in his, then raised it to his lips to brush a kiss over her knuckles. “We’re going to get away.”
That was a different tune than he normally sang. “You mean with Hope?”
“No,” murmured Rafael. “Just the two of us. I want to take you away to the countryside.” He looked up at her, and his gaze heated her up from the inside out. “A little vacation, if you will.”
Felicity hesitated. She’d finally been getting into the swing of things, now that Amy had made it so easy. It would be just as easy to get back out of the habit. And what about Hope? She’d been looking forward to spending time with her daughter.
But this was one busy week out of the whole year, and Rafael…he looked so hopeful that it nearly broke her heart.
