Royally Screwed

09

I heard a creak, the noise of the door opening and closing and then the silhouette of someone sneaking into my room. I pulled the blankets up, watching the figure. I had a guard outside my door every night, never mind that the palace was already an impenetrable fortress on its own. I used to think the guard outside my door was to keep me in.

I held my breath.

"Alana?" I recognised that accent and voice anywhere, the tension slipped out of my body and I rested back on the bed that was a little too soft.

"Philip."

He took it as a sign to come sit on my bed. "I couldn't sleep," he whispered.

I made space on my bed, "if the guards are letting you in, I'm sure your mum won't mind."

"Your mum," he repeated, staring at me.

"Yes, the woman who birthed you, the Queen or am I always meant to refer to her as the Queen?" I wasn't quiet in the mood to be disturbed, I wanted to mope around in my room tonight after the mornings paper.

Philip was looking at me, that much I could tell in the dark but it wasn't enough for me to decipher the expression on his face. I waited for him to speak. "They never call her my mother," he said before sliding in the duvet with me. He turned around so I knew he was facing me. "Oh Alana, I'm sorry about yesterday."

"Me too, I messed things up." Inside I was thinking about what he said before he switched the topic. Inside, my mind was spinning.

"I dragged you into the water getting you wet, not my finest moment if I'm honest."

I snickered, "It's not the first time you got me wet."

A smile formed on his face and he chuckled. I felt the warmness, he felt more like Philip instead of Prince Philip in that moment. The tourist whom I slept with multiple times, no strings attached till that disastrous date. "I'm sorry Alana, I should have been more careful with our time together."

"We both made the mistake of being careless," I told him.

His hand crossed the distance between us. His fingers gently rested on my cheek, they started moving slowly up and down my skin. I closed my eyes finding comfort in his touch. I remembered a time when I desperately wanted him to open up to me since he knew so much about my life. Now, he was but it was merely because he didn't have a choice.

I was the mother of his child, and that paved the way for information.

I moved closer, closing the distance between us so I could rest my head on his chest. I heard his heartbeat, the sound consistent and reassuring. His fingers locked into my hair, combing it and making me drowsy.

"Alana," he whispered.

"Philip."

"Thank you for letting me stay here tonight," he whispered. "I can't stop thinking of the child."

"Neither can I."

"Do you still want it gone?" 

"I do," I held on to him tighter noticing that his fingers stopped playing with my hair, "but I can't live with myself knowing I killed the child."

He let go a breath I didn't realise he held, and continued playing with my hair. "Part of me wants the child gone too," Philip admitted. "But I understand it's my mistake and now, it's a gift but sometimes it doesn't feel like it."

"Bad timing?"

"Very, we just had our first date when we found out." Philip's hand stopped playing with my hair, "Alana, are you crying?"

And he held me then, trying to put assurance, understanding and himself into that hug as I openly cried into his warm chest, blankets pooled around us. He whispered words of sweet nothings as he tried to comfort me and I latched on to his voice as he did.

I wasn't in love with the prince, but I could feel the beginnings of an infatuation forming as we both drifted off to sleep much later that night.