Living Royal

Chapter Twenty One

Living Royal

Chapter Twenty One

Sunshine woke Bella and Edward up the next morning. They had spent the whole night outside in the gardens together with little to no sleep. They had more interesting things to do.

Bella moaned as she stretched her hands upwards, trying to relax the kinks in her neck from lying on the ground all night. It was still worth it, though.

"If you keep on moaning like that, I'm going to have to do something about it and then we'll miss our flight." Edward whispered, his voice laced with sleep.

Bella leaned her head on her hand facing him, "Heaven forbid that you do something you don't want to do." She smirked.

Edward pounced on her in retaliation and they spent another hour outside, forcing them to rush later so they could get ready before their flight back to Scotland. They ran up to their rooms trying not to giggle too loudly in order not to draw attention to their haphazard state of dress.

Bella quickly discarded her clothes and jumped in the shower. Edward, of course, felt compelled to join her saying he wanted to 'save water'.

Yeah, right.

After they were clean enough they got out and dried each other off. They got dressed quickly, packed the few things they had brought with them. Bella was careful to turn the engagement ring backwards so that it looked like a regular ring before they went to say goodbye to Rosalie and Emmett who were sad to see them go.

As they walked down the Grand stairs Bella was suddenly assaulted with a coughing fit.

"Bella, are you okay?" Edward frowned in concern.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. It's probably some air that went down the wrong pipe." She assured him.

The King and Queen met them downstairs. Esme, as motherly as ever, hugged both Bella and Edward goodbye, squeezing Bella's hand or rather her ring finger as she did so, Bella blushed knowing Esme knew about the engagement and only now realizing that she would be her mother-in-law. She smiled at the thought, she really liked Esme. Carlisle shook hands with Edward and then turned awkwardly to Bella. She shifted from side to side; nervous about what he would do next.

Esme cleared her throat delicately as though to prompt him to speak.

It seemed to work as he said, "Bella, I would like to apologize for the way that I have acted towards you in the past. You should know that I have only done that because I needed to protect my family. But I realize now that I was wrong."

Wow, talk about a one eighty. He really changed his mind?

"No need to apologize, Your Majesty. I understand completely." Bella offered him a small smile.

Maybe she had lied a little bit. She didn't exactly understand. But at this point she'd do anything just to get this whole ordeal over with.

"Good, then I insist that you call me Carlisle." He smiled back.

Bella was speechless.

"Uh, yes, of course. Sure, um…Carlisle." She forced out.

It felt insanely weird calling the King by his first name, but he had asked so who was she to object?

They bid them farewell and walked out of the Palace doors. Alice and Jasper were already in the car waiting for them.

"So, how did last night go?" Alice asked as soon as they were near.