His Royal Highness(13)

I hurried off the phone, both worried that I was late for my meeting with Derek and too upset to effectively articulate how disappointed I was that they weren’t coming down to Georgia. There was no mention of Christmas plans, but my gut knew the odds weren’t in my favor there either.

After a steadying breath, I tucked my phone into my bag and rushed into the coffee shop just as Heather was leaving. We nodded to one another, but I didn’t meet her eyes. I barely had a hold on my emotions. I was already sitting down in the chair across from Derek before he even looked up. My hair shielded one side of my face as I busied myself with getting a book out of my backpack to give back to him.

“Hey Whitney.”

His voice, though husky and masculine, had such a polite edge to it, an edge that easily pierced my defenseless heart.

I didn’t speak—couldn’t speak, not with my throat so tight.

“What’s wrong?”

I immediately tried to rearrange my features to better conceal my mood. “What? Oh. It’s nothing.” I slid the book across the table and maintained eye contact with its spine. “Thank you for letting me borrow this,” I said, trying to push the conversation into neutral territory.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. Fine. It’s a silly family thing. Nothing worth sharing. I really liked that book, by the way.”

I wiped viciously at my cheeks, angry with the few tears for giving me away. There was already such a distinct age difference between us, and crying would undo all the weeks of work I’d done to present myself in a mature light.

“I have silly family stuff too. You’re not alone in that respect.”

He was trying to lighten my load, but I didn’t need him doing that. Nothing good would come from me crying on his shoulder.

“I bet it might even be sillier than yours,” he goaded. I could hear the teasing smile in his words, but I knew better than to look up. His face was still altogether too much to handle at times, especially in that moment.

“It’s not a competition,” I chided.

“Says the person who might lose.”

I couldn’t believe we were joking about something this serious. I was upset about my family. Wounded. I didn’t want him making light of it. I wanted to feel sorry for myself.

He began anyway, ignoring my plans to mope. “My mom passed away when I was young and last year, my father remarried for the fourth time. I haven’t met his new wife, though I hear she’s lovely. About my age. She’s French and doesn’t speak a lick of English. Of course, my father doesn’t speak a word of French, so you can imagine how well they get on at dinner.”

I bit down on a smile trying to creep up.

“He wants nothing to do with the Knightley Company, though he’s happy to cash in on my grandfather’s hard work. He and my new stepmom”—he shuddered when he said the word—“live in the Bahamas. I haven’t seen him in a few years. The last time we spoke, he told me he was taking a spiritual journey to cut ties with earthly constructs and distance himself from harmful energy.”

“That’s…” I failed to come up with the right thing to say. Then it hit me. I cracked a smile. “Silly.”

He smiled then, a full, megawatt, steal-your-heart-and-keep-it-forever smile.

I had to look away.

“My parents don’t live here either,” I volunteered. “They moved away right when I started school.”

“That must have been difficult. A lot of change all at once.”

I nodded, wondering if he remembered how quiet I had been the first time we met. With Carrie by my side, I didn’t feel so alone anymore, but I still found it hard to come out of my shell at times.

“They’re in New York City.”

“For work?”

“For my sister, Avery.” I was playing with my nail, picking at invisible polish to avoid meeting his eyes. “It’s not the first time they’ve moved for her.”

“When was the first time?”

I couldn’t believe he cared, couldn’t believe he wanted to know more about me. In the minutes that followed inside that coffee shop, I shared with Derek the defining pieces of my childhood. Avery’s illness. The way my parents uprooted us and dashed off to Georgia for her. The unintentional imbalance of our family dynamic. My role as her donor. I even told him about the few times I’d wanted to be the sick child instead of the healthy one, the raw shame that went along with that. Then, finally, I capped it off with the phone call I’d gotten right before meeting with him, the news that none of them were coming down for Thanksgiving, though compared to everything that came before it, that issue seemed miniscule.

I don’t remember exactly how Derek responded, if he was taken aback or not by the amount of personal information I’d dumped onto his lap, but I do remember his attention never wavered as I spoke. Once, he glanced over my shoulder—presumably at Heather—and held up a finger. A signal that he and I weren’t quite done. I know I threw his entire schedule off that day. We talked for two hours. Or rather, I did.

I don’t know why I felt comfortable enough with Derek to open up to him about my most private demons when I hadn’t even discussed them with Carrie yet. Maybe it’s because he was my mentor, someone I already looked to as an adviser and confidant. Or maybe it’s because even then, my heart loved him in ways my head hadn’t caught on to.