The Royal Heir - The Valtoria Diaries 2

An unexpected development

"Wake up little blossom... I know I'm not actually with you, but... I thought you could still do with a wake-up call from your amazing hubby..."

Jen woke up to the phone alarm, very disorientated. She wasn't in her own bed. She was in a clean, white bed in a clean, white room. She stretched out her arm and turned to reach for Maxwell. But he wasn't there. No matter, he often got up first, but generally came back to bed at some point.

But wait, that was his voice...

"Wake up little blossom... I know I'm not actually with you, but..."

Oh yeah. He recorded a voice alarm for me. He thought he was so clever.

And then she remembered he was on the other side of the world, and her heart sank.

"Wake up little blossom...."

She grabbed her phone to silence it, from where it was charging on the bedside cabinet. As she did so, she caught her arm against the bedsheets. Yowch. She looked at it, where the hot stones had been placed on her arm yesterday. It looked angry, far angrier than it had yesterday.

Shrugging, she silenced the alarm (hey, she was going to award Maxwell 10 out of 10 for this idea, despite her initial confusion) and tried to remember how the time difference would work. She and Hana were due to fly back to Texas very early this morning, and so by the time they got back this evening, it would be mid-morning in Texas. It would be late at night over there now; Bertrand's bachelor party would be in full swing no doubt.

She picked up her phone to see the message thread. She'd fallen asleep straight away after their facetime (which had been an unexpected pleasure in more ways than one) but her eyes now lingered on one further message that had come through. "I LOVE YOU LITTLE BLOSSOM. STAY SAFE. SEE YOU TOMORROW. MISS YOU MORE." Followed by the obligatory emojis. This was tough. For a solid year, they'd seen each other on a daily basis, leaving each other's side reassuringly rarely. Now she'd already gone longer than 24 hours without him. It was the longest they'd ever been apart.

She sent a message. "THANKS FOR THE WAKE-UP CALL."

No reply after a few minutes, and the message wasn't read. She sighed. No doubt he had no signal, or his phone battery was flat.

She sent one more message. "I MISS YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUU."

Sighing, she got out of bed. Time for a quick shower. She couldn't wait to get on that plane.

There was a knock on her door. She quickly threw on a robe, and answered it, expecting to see Hana.

"Might have known you'd be the last one up."

"Olivia, hey. What are you doing here?"

"Making sure you don't miss your flight. And just mentioning that I'm heading back to Cordonia."

"Aw, but the wedding?"

"I'll be back for the wedding, Jen. Just got some.." She looked a little distant. "Stuff to sort first."

"Stuff you can tell your bestie about?"

"No. Come on. Get yourself up and dressed. You can eat on the plane. Anyway, you must be desperate to get back to your peculiar husband."

She giggled. She knew Olivia's contempt for Maxwell was fabricated these days. "Yep. This is true."

"Alright. Well, I'll see you at the wedding. Until then, just... watch your back, okay?"

She reached to hug her, amused at her horrorstruck expression. "Aw, thanks Olivia. And thanks for last night. We really appreciated having you around."