I turn to leave before I look back at him. “Hey, Fred? Do you want to just hang out? You and me? I was going to head to the gardens.” I gesture over my shoulder with my thumb.
“The gardens are the other way,” he corrects.
Becauseof coursehe does.
“What can I say? I’m geographically challenged,” I say with a shrug. “You may have noticed.”
That earns an actual smile from him, small though it may be. “Be sure to wear sun lotion. The sun in Ledonia is much stronger than in Elkevik.”
Sun lotion. Right. I guess that means he’s not coming with me.
With my shoulders drooping in defeat, I make my way out into the garden, the warm sun soaking into my skin. I walk down a long path past perfectly trimmed hedges and find a pretty rose garden, where I sit in the grass and pluck a daisy.
“He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not,” I repeat until the final petal lands in my lap. “He loves me not,” I whisper. “Yeah, I could’ve told you that, Daisy.”
I let out a sigh. What am Idoinghere?
I might have glimpsed something that felt real in him last night, but it might just have been a passing moment, never to be repeated again.
I’m optimistic by nature. I’ve not once been defeated. But perhaps Frederic is my Waterloo?
And instantly the ABBA song leaps into my mind.
I lift my chin, resolved. Tomorrow, I’ll try again. I’ll try to be the kind of woman he wants me to be. I’ll keep myself in check. I’ll go through all the details he wants about our wedding and our honeymoon and everything else. Who knows? I might even find something positive to say about the roading system in Switzerland.
I sigh again and stand, brushing the wrinkles from my skirt.
Who am I kidding? I can’t be anyone but myself. I don’twantto be anyone but myself.
And if Frederic doesn’t want that? If he doesn’t wantme?
Well, that’s his problem.
Actually, no. It’s both of our problems.
Chapter Eight
Frederic
“If you don’t mind,sir, perhaps you could relax a little?” the photographer, Josef Benedetti, says, and not for the first time this morning,
“What do you mean relax? I’m perfectly relaxed,” I reply, feeling anything but. Then again, I imagine most people would feel a little uptight when they’re having engagement photos taken with a woman they have conflicted feelings about.
I feel her magnetism. Her radiance. Herbeauty. Her free spirit is intoxicating, and when she looks at me with those big questioning eyes, something new happens in my chest. Something warm. Expanding.
But as charming as Astrid is, she represents the biggest risk of my life.
In a word, she’s dangerous.
How could I possibly be relaxed around that potent emotional cocktail?
“Move a little closer to your fiancée, if you could, sir,” Josef Benedetti instructs.
I move approximately three centimeters closer and risk looking at Astrid. She’s stunningly beautiful today in a navy skirt suit and demure blouse. Her pretty blonde hair falls in soft curls over her shoulders. The navy suit brings out the blue of her eyes, and when she looks up at me, they sparkle like precious sapphires.
Lady Letizia’s words ring in my ears.You’ll be in love before the month is done.But then Lady Letizia went on to confess to falling in love with her husband in twenty-two seconds. Whodoesthat?
I’mnotfalling in love with Astrid. I’m just… admiring her. Like a fine work of art.
