It was past three in the afternoon. Although the sun had sailed across the horizon and was hanging behind the crown prince like a single eyeball staring into the suite, it was not at all hot. The sunrays did penetrate the glass, but a special shutter filtered the heat and diffused the light so that it was neither dark nor too bright. It was a comfortable brightness for Luke, very conducive for work. 

More than an hour had passed since the princess elect had fallen into the clutches of sleep rather unwillingly. If she had the chance, he thought, she would take an energy drink just so she could stay on her feet and count the possible ways she could make him mad. Therefore, it surprised him when she admitted that she was holding back her appetite to save them both from the misery of her having indigestion. It surprised him not because she had the self-control to hold back on a delicacy that she confessed was rarely available in the place where she grew up, but because despite her outward efforts to go against his will, she did consider him in her decision-making process. Maybe she thought that a miserable Luke was a more unbearably arrogant Luke, and she sought to save herself from that monster.

The crown prince paused from the text that he was reading. His eyes lifted from the screen and wandered on the figure in denim jacket lying on his bed. He deliberately left her to sleep on the sheets, without taking an effort to throw a blanket over her shoulder in case she was feeling cold. It was a gesture that could be misinterpreted by the farmer girl, and he would not have it. Their relationship was purely political. The prince was a little glad that she was not the princess elect he had been imagining, that her purpose was not to win his love, but to secure a fortune for her family. The fortune he could grant her, but his heart he could never give. After everything was said and done, Rhiane Black was a peasant girl who would sooner than later disappear from his life through an ‘accident’ much like what happened to his father. Whether he liked it or not, that was how his world operated. It would be easier if he did not have to be entangled with anybody outside his social class, because the reality was that to the people in power, those beneath them were dispensable. 

Something she said as she was falling asleep bothered him. That it should have been her and not Edwin. It was then made clear that Edwin was a lost brother and not a lover. Pity that he too lost his blackmail material. Anyway, he wondered if her joining the contest and ultimately winning the title had something to do with a death wish due to a loss that until that moment she could not bring herself to accept. “He will never come back no matter how hard you torture yourself,” he had whispered to her with certainty as she was falling asleep and before he left the bed. It was the same with his father. The pain was present until that day. It never went away, he just learned to live with it.

Luke rested his head on his left palm, massaging his left temple. The review of the draft was finished, but he missed a meeting with the committee secretly formed by the queen to oversee the rebellion problem. There was an email containing the minutes, but he felt like he was going around in circles in his mind. He kept on trying to form a straight thought, but a part of his brain would circle back to the events that happened that morning and how he ended up with a farmer girl on his bed. Her presence was an unanticipated distraction for him that afternoon. 

But perhaps what he needed was to relax a little, clear his mind, and get away from the capital. He knew of such a place, or places, where he would usually go alone when the royal life was getting the best of him and just be himself. The cool breeze of the coming winter would be welcome to touch his face and ruffle his hair. He could already hear the waves and taste the salt in the air. Luke turned the keyboard projected on the desk off and put the computer on stand-by again. While the queen was mad at him and his freedom was limited, he would have to bear with bringing somebody along with him to his special place. Normally, he wouldn’t even consider doing so, but there was no other option.  Thus, he got to his feet and found his way to the bed.

Luke sat on the bed behind her and touched his hand on her shoulder. Sleeping time was over. “Ms. Black,” he said, gently shaking her. “Wake up we’re going somewhere.”