[color=#b97703]“You’re more obvious than you think you are,”[/color] Cas chuckled when Iris tried one last attempt to tell him that he was wrong. He knew she hadn’t eaten. If she had, it honestly would have been a shock. In all the time he’d known her, he’d had to be the one to make sure that she was taking care of herself, since she often neglected her own needs. Now that he wasn’t in the same place as her, he had a feeling he was going to be checking in with her about her eating habits every time they talked on the phone. The last thing he wanted was to come back to the resort and find out that she’d dropped a lot of unnecessary weight just because she was too focused on what was happening in his life to feed herself.

Pulling his phone away from his ear again, he finished filling out the order form for the restaurant in the Sunset Veil, selecting a simple pasta and side salad for Iris, since he knew she wasn’t fond of overly complicated dishes. At this point, he didn’t care about encouraging her to try new foods anyway. He just wanted to make sure she got something into her stomach, whether it was gourmet or not. The restaurant didn’t have very many options for the latter, but now that he knew she wasn’t going to fix herself any meals, he could order her lunches and dinners from other restaurants near the resort and have them delivered to her suite. Knowing generally what kinds of foods she fancied, he felt like he could come up with dishes that she would eat at least most of the time.

 Once he’d sent the order to the restaurant, he brought his phone back to his ear to answer her. [color=#b97703]“You won’t be there forever,”[/color] he promised. [color=#b97703]“I’m going to figure something out… I really do want to be with you again, Iris. It’s just taking longer than I wanted to smooth everything over at home, and I have to get this done before I can start working on clearing the road for you to be here with me.”[/color] His coronation party aside, he still had to go through all the paperwork for his inheritance with a lawyer, establish himself with Aspiria’s allies and waive the warrant for her arrest in the capital. As much as he would have liked to wave his hand and magically finish all of it right away, the rational side of him knew it was going to take time to get everything done. He had to be smart about it too, otherwise the Aspirian people could just see him as immature and impulsive, putting a personal relationship before the whole of the kingdom. Even though he didn’t want the job in the first place, it was his now and he had to take responsibility for it.

[color=#b97703]“Don’t be sorry. You have every right to want to know when things will change, and I wish I had an answer for you,”[/color] he sighed, shaking his head to himself. [color=#b97703]“Just… please trust me for now and know that as soon as I can get you out of that hotel, I’m going to do it. This is only temporary until I can bring you here to be with me.”[/color] And once they were together again, everything would be sailing smoothly, he hoped. At the current moment, the other high borns thought she was a criminal, but they always moved on to whatever shiny new thing caught their attention next. Once they forgot about his father’s wanted posters, he was optimistic that he could finally come forward and announce that they were together publicly without causing a scandal. He just hoped that happened sooner rather than later, so he didn’t have to hide her from the rest of the country for much longer.

[color=#b97703]“I love you too,”[/color] he told her, trying not to let his own discouragement seep into his voice. When he’d been waiting for her call, he’d thought that talking to her would improve his mood, but it had only reminded him of all the obstacles that still stood in the way of them being together. Of course, he didn’t regret hearing her voice again in the slightest. The hard part was knowing that this was the best they were going to get until he could get around to bringing her to the palace, and he had no idea how long it would be before that could happen.

[color=#b97703]“I know you will,”[/color] he managed something of a smile when she told him she would be waiting for him. [color=#b97703]“Call me again tomorrow. I should be available after ten again… Have a good night, Iris, and be sure to eat the food I sent up for you. It should be there in about twenty minutes.”[/color]