Royally Crushed (40 page)

“Don’t you think you’re getting carried away, Valerie?” Georg sounds odd, like he’s ticked off at me for talking about Anna as if she has ulterior motives for being nice to me, but now that the thought has entered my mind that she might want
kids
with my Dad—because the fact is, she doesn’t have any that I know of and her biological clock’s gotta be ticking fast—it makes total sense.

Oh, shit. Dad and Anna with
babies
. . .

I stop in the hallway near the door to my room and lean my head against the wall. The image of Dad changing a poopy diaper . . . or playing with a toddler who looks up at
him and calls him Daddy . . . I just can’t handle it.

“Georg, I know you’re trying to be supportive of me, but telling me I’m getting carried away isn’t the way to do that. I don’t think you get how it feels to see my Dad with another woman. How awful this is for me.”

I hate the way I sound. I hate the direction my thoughts are going. But careful to keep my voice down, since we’re in a semi-public place, I spew out what’s on my mind anyway, committing what I know is going to be a horrible act of Emotional Vomit.

I can’t stop myself.

“Georg, your parents are perfect. They never argue. They’re totally happy with each other and with their life. They aren’t going to get divorced and hook up with other people and possibly have children with those other people. Especially people named
Putzkammer
.”

I swipe a hand over my face, trying to calm down, but it doesn’t work. I look into his confused eyes and say, “Look, Georg, this is nothing against you and nothing against your parents. But you just don’t get it. You’ve never had to deal with the kind of stuff I’ve dealt with over the last few months, so you don’t know how you’d feel or how you’d act if you saw your parents with someone else. Nothing is stopping my Dad from getting married again or from having kids with someone else. So don’t tell me
I’m getting carried away, because
you just don’t know
.”

I glance back toward the staircase to make sure no one else is heading this way—I really don’t want Fräulein Predator to hear us—and add, “Plus, if he decides to stay here with Fräulein Putzkammer, it means I might never get to move home to Virginia and be with all my friends. To graduate high school with them or to hang out at our favorite places, except maybe on a vacation here and there, which isn’t the same. And I’m trying to adjust to that fact. It’s a lot to wrap my brain around, okay?”

He’s quiet. Staring at me like I’ve grown horns.

I push off the wall and step toward him, ’cause I know from his expression that I’ve gone too far. None of this is his fault at all. “I’m sorry, Georg, it’s just—”

“Stop, Val.” He holds up a hand to keep me from touching him. “You adjust to whatever facts you want to. Me, I’m trying to adjust to the fact you won’t even consider the possibility of staying in Schwerinborg. If you find it
so
awful living here, and you find it
so
awful seeing your father happy—”

“That’s not what I meant at all!”

“It sure sounds like it. It sounds like you’d much rather be with your friends in Virginia than here with me. And I don’t know what that means for us. Or if you really meant it when you said you loved me this morning.”

“I did mean it. I
do
mean it.” And I wish I knew the magic words to make it all better.

We both look at each other, unwilling to say much more. Partially because each of us seems to be scared of the path this conversation is taking, and partially because we’re in an open hallway where the owner of the guesthouse or his wife could overhear us and tell who-knows-who.

Georg puts his hands on his hips and hooks his index fingers through the belt loops of his jeans. “In that case, I think the smartest thing we can do right now is go to our own rooms and go to bed early. We have to be up before seven for breakfast if we want to get to the slope when the lifts open, and it’s a long drive back to Schwerinborg after dinner tomorrow night.”

There’s no way I can sleep with so much on my mind. But before I can explain that, he nudges my foot with his. “Maybe we’ll both see everything more clearly after we get some sleep. Okay?”

I glance down at his foot, then look back into his eyes. They’re so blue against his pale skin and dark hair—the way he looks right now, at this very moment, reminds me of the day I first met him in the palace library. When I didn’t even know he was a prince, and all I saw was a friendly, ultra-polite guy I was dying to sketch. Just so I could see if
I’d be able to capture his cheekbones and all the shading of his features on paper.

“Georg, I—”

He leans over and kisses me on the cheek, lightning-fast, his hands still at the waistband of his jeans, then leans his forehead against mine. “We’ll figure it all out tomorrow. We have all day to ski together, out where we can be alone. So relax, get some sleep, and be nice to your dad.”

I want to kiss him again, but he pulls away, giving me a wink I think is meant to reassure me. Then he walks past me and keys into his room.

I just stand there, leaning against the wall, playing with my room key. I’m not ready to let go yet. I want him to wrap his arms around me and tell me that everything with Dad will be okay. That everything with
us
will be okay—and to know that he’s on my side.

I want him to kiss me the way he usually kisses me good night. The way that lets me know his thoughts are going to be with me until morning even if we can’t physically be in the same room.

I close my eyes and breathe in through my nose, then out through my mouth, the way one of Mom’s self-help books said to do when you feel overwhelmed (not that I think her books are helpful enough to justify what she
spends on them, but they do have the occasional useful tip, like reminding you to breathe).

How the hell did I screw things up with Georg—again—so fast?

I try to tell myself that it’s not that bad—a temporary emotional tic that’s making me hyper—and that Georg is right. We’ll figure everything out tomorrow, when we have time alone and we’re not so tired.

Though once I deal with today’s disaster, I still need to find a way to tell Georg about David. But first things first.

I open my eyes and walk the last few steps to the door of the room I’m sharing with Dad. As I get ready to stick the key in the door, I hear laughter coming from the stairs.

I can’t help it. I walk back to the staircase and peek over the railing. Sure enough, it’s Dad and The Fräulein. They’re standing at the base of the stairs, totally oblivious to the fact that I’m up here. She’s laughing about something Dad said, but they’re not all touchy-feely with each other or anything.

They’re talking like normal people do. Normal friends.

And then I tell myself that it shouldn’t matter if they’re normal friends or normal whatever-else.

Feeling like a voyeur, I back away from the staircase and
go into the room. I kick off my shoes, take the elastic out of my hair and fling it toward my suitcase, then wander to the window to wait for Dad.

It’s snowing again. Just a light snow, so I can barely make out the flakes against the lights of the restaurants, ski shops, and other guesthouses scattered along the street. I crack the window and lean out. It’s so beautiful and romantic—the smell of smoke from guesthouse fireplaces mixing in with the odors of restaurant kitchens and the fresh snow—that it seems fake. Like what my senses are taking in can’t possibly be my reality.

It feels a million miles away from Virginia—from Mom, from my girlfriends, from John and everyone else—but I have to wonder: Is Georg right? Do I dislike Europe so much that staying here is unthinkable?

I hear Dad in the hallway telling The Fräulein good night, then the sound of his key in the door lock.

“Hey, sweetie,” Dad says.

“Hey, Dad.” I don’t bother turning around. I’m fixated on the snowflakes and the way the metal signs hanging over the shop doors swing in the breeze if you watch them long enough.

He comes to stand beside me, leaning his elbows on the windowsill so the backs of his arms are grazing right up
against mine. I can feel his triceps through the thin fabric of his shirt and decide he spends way too much time in the gym in the mornings.

I wonder if The Fräulein has noticed his arms. Probably. Guess she can’t miss ’em.

“I expected Georg to be in here,” he says. “Or for you to be over in his room.”

Me too. “I think he wanted to get some sleep. You know, since we have to be up so early tomorrow.”

“Smart guy.” Dad stretches out a hand to catch snowflakes as they flitter down from the sky. They’re so small, they melt the instant they hit his open palm.

“I’m not sure I can sleep yet,” I admit.

“Me either.”

I look sideways at him. The goofy grin on his face has me responding with one of my own. He asks if I want to watch a movie, assuming we can find something in English. When I tell him sure, we reach out at the same time to close the window and bump into each other, like Moe and Larry in the middle of a Three Stooges skit. I step back and let him shut it, since I’m bound to miss getting the latch tightened the right way. When he turns around and tosses the remote to me, giving me the choice of what to watch, I know there’s an unspoken peace treaty between us. Like no matter what happens with The Fräulein, or
with Georg, the two of us will always be solid.

And wouldn’t you know, one of his favorite flicks is on TV. So of course that’s what I choose.

“You didn’t go to sleep right away, did you?” Georg asks as the chairlift comes around behind us.

I can’t answer him right away because I’m yawning. Worse, I tangle my poles in front of me at the very moment the chair sweeps under us, so I barely manage to sit without tripping forward over them and face-planting in front of the attendant.

“You all set?”

I can hear the laughter in his voice as he waits for me to straighten out my gear so he can bring down the safety bar.

“Your Highness?” I put a saccharine-fake flirtiness in my voice. “I kindly beg you to shut up.”

He cracks up, since I don’t think I’ve ever called him Your Highness. Probably because I’m not even one hundred percent sure he is a highness. (Maybe he has some other title? I’m going to have to ask Dad sometime.)

“Okay, so you didn’t go to bed right away.” He swings his skis beneath him as he talks, letting them wave back and forth in the air. “But you seem like you’re in a better mood today.”

“I attribute that to the coffee.”

“At breakfast you started joking around with your dad before the coffee even came.”

I elbow Georg, though it’s hard to have any impact with our pouffy ski jackets on. “You’re way too observant.”

“I’m not observant at all. It’s just that I can’t help watching you. I try not to, but . . .” He lifts his shoulder, then lets it drop. “Like I said, I can’t help it. I’m just too aware of you and everything you do when we’re in the same room.”

Omigosh. I think my heart is going to physically up and quit right now. I mean, I watch him all the time. Even if I didn’t like him, I’d study him simply because he has this interesting, unique look that appeals to the artist in me. But what really grabs me is that he has this aura about him that reaches out and demands my attention anytime he’s within a hundred yards of me. It’s something I noticed before I even knew he was a prince. But I never thought he would feel one iota of that same awareness about me.

I mean, do people ever admit it when they’re that obsessed? I know I couldn’t have told him I felt that way without coming off as a goofy, lovesick dork.

In an attempt to play it cool, especially given the way Georg and I left things last night, I say, “I talked to Dad after you went into your room. Okay, correction—Dad and I actually didn’t talk all that much. But we stayed up and watched a movie together and it went really well.”

We get to the halfway point of the lift, and Georg looks over the side, taking note of the snow conditions on the run we plan to take, then looks back at me. “What’d you watch?”

“
The Matrix
was on. The original. It was in German, but since we both know the lines by heart, we made fun of the dubbing. The guy sounded nothing like Keanu Reeves.” I want to reach over and grab Georg’s hand, even though we’re technically in public and I probably shouldn’t anyway, given my performance in the hallway last night. “Thanks for telling me to be nice to him. Even if I am still cranky about the whole girlfriend thing.”

I resist the urge to make a Putzkammer joke, since I can tell Georg really likes her.

“I’m glad you and your dad aren’t fighting anymore. And I’m glad I went to bed early, even if you didn’t. I think we’re both in better moods this morning.”

I grimace. “Yeah, I think that conversation would’ve gone downhill quickly. Thanks for suggesting we call it a night even though I didn’t want to.”

He leans back in the chair, which makes his thigh bump up against mine. I’m not sure if he’s aware of the contact, but I’m hyperaware—and wondering what it means. Is he okay with me? Is he going to forgive me for my ranting last night?

After a long yawn, he meets my gaze. “You were right
yesterday, you know. My parents have a good marriage, so it’s hard for me to see things the way you do. I can’t imagine seeing anything that makes them happy as being a bad thing, the way you see Anna. But I can’t picture them being happy with anyone besides each other, either.”

“You were trying your best to understand,” I say, since I know he was. I scoot a little closer to him in the chair, trying to work that thigh-contact thing to make sure he knows we’re touching. To see if he stays put or shifts away. “I’m sorry I flipped out on you. I really don’t want any of this stuff with my Dad to mess up the two of us.”

“It won’t if we don’t let it.” His voice drops lower as he adds, “But I still wonder if you’d rather be in Virginia than with me.”

“It’s not that simple,” I tell him. “I want everything to be the way it was a few months ago, when I went to a high school I loved and saw my friends all the time and when my parents were together and happy. But I’d want you there too. I want it all.”