The Royal Treatment: A Billionaire Prince Romance Read online

  Doing that forced me to grow up.

  Funny how that never would have happened if Ferdie and I had gotten married. Once the dust had settled from us getting married in an unconventional manner, I would have been one of the princesses of Dubreva, with a coterie of servants and chefs at my disposal. It makes me wonder if Ferdie ever had to learn that part of living himself.

  "Here we are!" Sachiko exclaims as we turn a corner, and I spot the red entrance gate to a temple, with the red Tokyo Tower standing proudly behind it.

  "Wow," I murmur, impressed. "This is...?"

  "This is Zojoji Temple," she says, nodding. "The gate you see was built in 1393."

  She sounds so proud, and I glance over at her. She has a small, secretive smile on her face.

  "That's amazing," I breathe. Europe has many, many historical buildings, but seeing something so ancient within the snarl of a modern metropolis like Tokyo makes me truly appreciate the blend of the past and the present here. And, with Sachiko getting married here, the future, I suppose.

  She hooks her arm through mine. "We should have about a half-hour here before they close," she says. "I want to show you the temple. After all," she says, and her voice takes on the monotone of a tour guide, "no trip to Japan is complete without touring a temple."

  She and I approach the entrance together, and I can't help but stare at the structure, at the brushed calligraphy on the pillars and the stone adorning the facade. It looks like I'm stepping back through time as I take the two steps to the front of the temple. For it being toward the end of the day, there are still quite a few people on the grounds of the temple, with a mixture of locals and tourists. Many are taking photos of the landscape and architecture, while others are reading placards in front of areas of interest.

  Sachiko explains to me how the temple was moved to this current location in the year 1598, and how many of the buildings have been built and rebuilt over the years, whether because of fire or because of earthquakes or whatnot. Even still, I get a sense of age about this place, including its history. I walk around, following her, kept in a state of wonder as I look over the various pieces of her history.

  "This is beautiful," I tell her. "And you'll make a beautiful bride here."

  She blushes and nods. "Yes," she says. "I'm so very excited for it. You should come, though, Alexandra-chan. And bring your James with you so he can see what a true wedding would be like." She chuckles at her own joke, and I find myself smiling.

  I look around, to the right of the main temple building, following a tourist family, when I spy little rows of gray and red. I furrow my brow, trying to make sense of it. "What are those?"

  Sachiko follows my gaze, and when her face falls, I realize that I may have found a sensitive thing. She bites her bottom lip, before letting out a breath. "Those," she says at length, "are Jizo statues."

  "Jizo statues?"

  She nods. "Come, I'll show you."

  We walk over to the rows of statues, where I see that they are, indeed, little statues that appear to be children with chubby little cheeks and their eyes closed. Some of the statues look very old and weather-beaten while some look very new. They're all wearing little red knit hats and scarves, although these, too, are widely varied in their upkeep.

  I kneel before one to get a better look at it. There’s something inherently sad about them that I can’t quite place.

  "In Japan," Sachiko says, her voice soft and reverent, "we believe that if children die before their parents, they are sent to Sai no Kawara where they must build stone towers to ease the pain they caused their parents for dying so soon."

  It suddenly feels as though the wind has been knocked out of me and I can't breathe. Everything tunnels around me at the very thought of that.

  "Jizo," she continues, stepping closer to the statues, "is the guardian of children. It is said that Jizo helps these children cross the river by hiding them in his red robes. In the Mizuko kuyo, it is a ceremony for parents who have lost their babies as stillborn or a miscarriage." She nods to the rows of the little statues. "This is to honor and help those babies."

  Wetness falls on my hands, and I dimly feel it. All I can think about is one thing.

  The baby that Ferdie and I lost.

  “Maybe it’s a sign,” I had told Ferdie that long time ago. “Maybe it’s punishment for being so damn foolish.”

  I just never thought I'd be confronted with my punishment like this.

  "Alexandra-chan?" I can barely hear Sachiko's voice. "Why are you crying?"

  I turn to her, and I can barely see her through my tears. Understanding dawns on her face, and even though this is the first time we've seen each other in years, she clutches at her shirt. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

  I can't stop crying, though, and I turn back to the statues.

  And so Sachiko kneels next to me and holds me. And lets me cry.

  9

  Ferdinand

  “Is everything all right?”

  Lex and I are lying bed together, our noses inches from each other as I pull the white sheet over the both of us, giving us the illusion that we’re in our own little space, separated from the rest of the world. The early morning light coming in from the window feels like it’s too much. Especially after I spent most of the night worshipping Lex’s body with a bottle of wine.

  My fiancée.

  My love.

  My soulmate.

  What a wondrous thing love is. We’ve been back in Dubreva for a few weeks now, after spending a month in Japan, yet it feels like our love keeps going to greater heights. I love her. More than I could have ever imagined it was possible to love someone else.

  Strange how life has come back to relative normalcy since coming back. Lex and I haven’t told our families yet about the engagement—it seems like the whole country is more enamored with political entanglements with the war in the Middle East. My mother has even asked me to join the Dubrevian Air Force, to show a unified, committed front for the country to follow.

  As such, I haven’t had the heart to tell her that I don’t want to leave Lex behind.

  What a selfish asshole I am.

  And yet, at this moment, I don’t care.

  “Hmm?” Lex looks at me, her gaze soft. She’s seemed distant for a few days now, and I’m starting to worry about her. That something is wrong or that her father has found out. Whatever it is, I know we can work through it.

  She just has to let me know. And the fact that she hasn’t, has, frankly, terrified me over these past few days.

  I boop her nose with my finger, and she smiles at me. The smile of someone who isn’t bothered, which is completely different from this recent version of Lex. “You just seem like your thoughts are elsewhere. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” I lean farther into her. “Can you let me in so I can help?”

  And there it is. The conflict in her gaze as she looks away, refuses to meet my eyes.

  “Hey.” I tilt her chin up with the crook of my finger. “What is it, Lex? You can tell me.”

  She regards me for a long moment, and it’s that long, intense look that she gives, the one where I feel like my soul is bared to her. It’s this same look that she gives anyone when she’s thinking deeply.

  Then she bites her lip, which is completely uncharacteristic of her. “I’m still trying to think about how to phrase it. Or talk about it.”

  “You can tell me,” I repeat, although, admittedly, a little bit of panic shivers down my spine.

  “You won’t be angry?”

  “Never.” I cup her cheek. “What is it?”

  She hesitates another beat before she speaks. “I...missed my period. I think...from our time in Japan and…”

  I suddenly understand what she’s saying, and I pull back the sheet and prop myself up on my elbow. “What? You may be… I…” I’m at a loss for words, and her expression is unreadable as she looks up at me. “Do you want to take a test? Or…”

  Hell, I don’t even know about any of tha
t stuff. We’re both eighteen years old. The topic of children is something that we haven’t planned for or even really discussed yet.

  She worries her lip. “And if I were pregnant? Would you be angry? Would you even want to have a…” she swallows thickly, “child right now?”

  I grasp her upper arm and shake my head, and as the initial shock wears off, I can’t keep the smile away from my face. “I do. Whatever happens, so long as I’m with you, Lex, we can raise our baby together if we have one. I love you.” Every word I speak is true. Every word is a promise to her.

  She gives me a tiny smile, and this is another one of those that I can’t quite read. And then she starts nodding as tears fill her eyes. Tears.

  Because she’s happy.

  And again, it takes me a moment to catch up to her. “You already took a test,” I say dumbly. “And you’re…”

  She nods even faster. “Uh-huh.”

  Pride and excitement swell in my chest, and I kiss her. “You’re pregnant?” I repeat. “With my baby. With our baby?”

  “Yes.”

  I can’t stop kissing her. I don’t want to. I can’t contain my excitement or my exuberance. Things are happening quickly between us, but this is just how it is. Our fates have been entwined since we were children.

  And I view this as yet another thread of fate tying us together.

  “I love you so much, Lex,” I whisper to her, placing my hand over her flat stomach where our baby is growing. “I love you more with every moment.”

  And in the moments that follow, I show her just how much.

  “Well, that was a rougher landing than usual,” I mutter as the plane finally comes to a halt. “Eric would kill me if he saw that.”

  So good thing he didn’t see it.

  I let out a long breath as I sit back and taxi to the private terminal. When I finally stop, I have to force my hands to let go of the yoke.

  Okay, maybe that was too rough of a landing. I’m out of flight practice, and the three legs it takes to get me to Tokyo probably didn’t help either.

  “Keep yourself together,” I tell myself as the officials welcome me and hurry me through customs and immigration. Apparently, I can’t slip into Japan like I did last time. And I can’t do it like Eric did with Cara a couple years ago when they sneaked into New Zealand undetected.

  It’s not until I get into a limousine and head to my hotel in Roppongi that I get a moment to breathe. And it’s in that moment that my cell phone rings. I glance at it and debate for a long moment as to whether or not I should answer.

  Finally, I do and slide the button to pick up the call. “Hello, Henry.”

  “Why did you leave?” Henry’s Australian-accented voice comes through the speaker, loud and clear. “I went to Hanover to see you, and Mrs. Armen said that you went on holiday to Japan? And then Eric told me that you took his jet? Why?”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. I should have just ignored the call. “I did go on a much-needed holiday. For...private reasons.” And he knows none of the reasons why I’m gone. “Sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “But…Elizabeth is barely two weeks old, and we just had her first public appearance...without you...”

  I grimace at the hurt in his voice. Things have been tense between us, ever since I joined the Dubrevian Air Force and stayed away from our home, even when our mother was ill. I let him down, and I’m sure that he views my trip to Japan as a violation of our fragile trust all over again.

  “I know,” I tell him through gritted teeth. “I know, and I’m sorry. I just had some things to do, and—”

  “We needed you, Ferdinand,” Henry says. He doesn’t sound angry. Not exactly. More just tired, like I’ve failed the last test. “I want to trust you to be here, but—”

  “I’m sorry,” I say honestly. “I’m so sorry, Henry.” For leaving unexpectedly. For leaving him for eight years. For failing him as a big brother. For not letting him in.

  There are so many ways I’ve been failing, I can’t even begin to make it up to him.

  “I understand,” Henry says. Even though he doesn’t understand one bit. No, what he’s basing his assumptions on are the past and his own hurt.

  And I don’t do or say anything to help the situation. Instead, I take a steadying breath. “I’ll call when I’m back in Dubreva.”

  “Not that it matters,” Henry snarls, and the line goes dead before I can say anything else.

  I sigh and sit back, tossing the phone onto the seat next to me. I put my head in my hands and groan loudly.

  Such a failure. Such a fuck-up. And I don’t know if I can ever fix it.

  10

  Alexandra

  “I miscarried at five months,” I tell Sachiko later at a restaurant in Marunouchi. I pour myself another cup of sake from the tokurri flask, unable to meet her eyes as I finally say the words that have been burning in my throat for years now. I’ve told her the whole story. From growing up close with Ferdie. Falling in love with him. Coming to Japan and getting engaged. My pregnancy.

  And now my tragedy.

  It’s something that I’ve kept hidden from my father. From my friends. From James.

  Everyone who has ever mattered to me.

  The only other person who knew that was close to me was Ferdie, and he’s been half a world away from me ever since. Not that I’ve ever attempted to reach out to him. There are too many feelings, too many broken paths between us.

  And it’s all still as raw as the day it happened.

  I’m such a basket case.

  Sachiko leans forward and puts her hand over mine and gives it a squeeze. “I am so, so sorry,” she whispers. “I had no idea.”

  “No one did,” I admit as I toss back the cup of sake. I grimace and shake my head. “It was our little secret. Ferdinand and I were waiting for the right moment to tell our parents and finally elope. We didn’t want to take any attention away because of the war. I was starting to show, so we’d have had to tell them soon. I even felt the baby kick and…” My throat closes up, and I can’t speak anymore. Teardrops fall onto the table in big splashes.

  “That must have been terrible.” Sachiko’s voice is both soft and rough with emotion. “So very hard.”

  I close my eyes and nod. “Yes. It was. I left Ferdinand after that, because...because I couldn’t face him. It was just too much.”

  “There is no shame in what happened,” Sachiko tells me. “No shame.”

  I give her a rueful smile. “It certainly feels that way. After hiding it from our parents and the world, it felt like it was payback from the universe.”

  Sachiko shakes her head. She knows my superstitions. “No. No, it wasn’t that. It’s just...a part of living.”

  “I feel so guilty,” I whisper. I comb a hand through my hair. “There are those who have been through terrible, terrible things, and they haven’t been crippled by their despair like I have.”

  She gives me an empathetic smile. “Everyone has something that’s more important to them. Something that they hold dearest to their hearts. And this is what matters to you, Alexandra. This is important to you. And you must move past this. It’s haunted you for too long.”

  “Yes, it has.” I sigh and sit back. “And I feel…awful because James doesn’t even know.”

  Sachiko considers my words before pouring herself another cup of sake. “If I had known that about your past, I would have never taken you to the temple, and—”

  “No,” I said, putting my hand over hers. “I’m glad you did. It feels so good to finally get that off my chest. And it is a beautiful place for you to get married.”

  “What does off your chest mean?” Sachiko asks, and I chuckle to myself, because I’ve been speaking and thinking so much in English, that I’ve forgotten that idioms don’t translate very well. With my native language being Swedish, I should have remembered how weird it was to hear, “Cool as a cucumber,” for the first time.

  “It means that it feels good to talk about
it,” I amend. “I haven’t really talked to my friends about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…” I think about it for a moment. “Because I’m afraid.”

  Sachiko scoots closer. “Why?”

  And now I falter more. “Because they may not understand why I broke it off with a prince. Why I still mourn the baby that I lost.”

  She nods sympathetically. “If they are your friends, they will understand. Losing a child so early is not something that women talk about a whole lot.”

  “Thank you so much for listening.” I close my eyes and allow myself to feel relieved. And it feels so damn good. I let out a breath, and the tightness in my chest loosens just a bit more. Healing. That’s what this is.

  I didn’t recognize it, because I’ve been broken for so long.

  “This is what friends do,” Sachiko says, interrupting my thoughts. “We are here for each other. And,” she adds, holding up the carafe of sake, “I need some of this as well.” She pours herself a cup and refills mine. “We both need some sake.” She picks it up and gestures for me to do the same. I gladly clink my cup with hers, and she says something in Japanese before throwing it back. I follow just behind her.

  “Do you know what you should do?” she says after a beat.

  I tuck my hair behind my ears. “What?”

  “I think, to fully move on from this, you must have your own Jizo statue. For the baby you lost.” I blanch, but she continues. “Perhaps the reason why you have been so unhappy is because your child is in the afterlife and has been unable to build their bridge to heaven.” As she says this, she nods in agreement with herself. “Jizo will be good for you and your baby.”

  I swallow thickly. “But I’m not Japanese. And it was fifteen years ago. And—”

  “And?” She shrugs. “It may or may not work. But I can tell you this. It has helped many, many mothers to cope with losing a baby. It helped my sister to move past hers.”