I didn’t like that he feared me, hated that he looked away, despised that I could feel him pulling away.
“I’m sure you do, but with Prince Julian’s and the king’s help, I’m sure this will all be put to bed soon.” Mark grinned and went back to his roast beef.
“Yeah.” Wynn’s voice was low, and he was only picking at his food.
“Mark and I were going to go walk in the garden outside, if that’s all right?” Hannah regarded me.
“Of course.”
“Wynn, wanna come with us?”
I interrupted before he could answer. “The attorneys will be here very soon and will need to speak with him.”
Hannah made a face. “Poo, okay, we’ll hang later then.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Don’t worry, everything is going to work out.”
Wynn didn’t say anything and a few minutes later, it was just the two of us again.
“I scared you.”
His brown eyes darted to mine. “You know you did.”
“I apologize. I have a tendency to come on strong sometimes.”
He snorted. “Julian, you’re telling me I’m going to marry you, that I have to move my whole life here, and I have no say in anything. That goes way beyond ‘coming on strong.’”
“There’s no way I can live in the States.” Surely, he understood that.
“Uh, I figured. Okay, for some reason you’re not getting how off-putting you’re making all of this. I’m sure you’re used to getting whatever you want as a prince, but you can’t own people. You’re turning an amazing time into a nightmare right now. I know I didn’t kill the governor, and the truth will come out. I don’t need you to jump in and lock me in a tower and make it sound like the greatest thing ever.”
“I don’t want to lock you away. Wynn, I want to show you off to everyone.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry, Julian, I can’t.”
“Two days.”
He cocked his head. “Huh?”
“Give me two days to prove to you that I am worthy of you. That you could love me, and that marrying me isn’t the nightmare you think it is.”
“Julian, I?—”
“Please.”
“Two days?”
I stood and moved to the seat closer to him—he’d chosen to sit away from me and while I hated that, I understood that his fear was dictating his actions.
“I want to keep you, and maybe after those two days, you’ll want to keep me too.”
Wynn’s brow crinkled. “The first thing you need to do is stop taking away my choices. If I agree to two days and decide to leave once the time is up, you have to let me.”
There was no way I could allow that to happen, but he would definitely run if I said that. “Okay.”
He glanced out the window, no doubt wondering if the choice he was about to make was the right one.
“Two days.”
I lifted his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. “Thank you.”
