“You pack your own clothes?” I asked in wonder, hoping a change of subject would bring back Callum’s cheery side.
“I insisted. Mother never let me do anything for myself,” Callum told me. “It’s fun.”
I shook my head in bewilderment. Packing and unpacking were some of my least favorite things to do, so I was glad to let Gloria take care of it for me. “If you say so.” I stood there for a second, feeling like a spare part. “Well, I guess I’d better go see how my own packing is getting along. You’re sure you don’t need any help?”
“Nope,” Callum said.
“Okay then. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Juli, wait.” Callum looked me in the eye. “I shouldn’t even be asking this, but I have to know now or I’ll always wonder—is there something going on between you and Agent Mayhew?”
“Why would you even ask me that?” I demanded, tensing.
“I don’t know,” Callum said, shamefaced. He ran his fingers through his hair, rumpling his curls to hide his embarrassment. “It’s just that, when I see the two of you together … there’s a connection there.”
“You’re imagining things,” I told him.
“Am I? I mean, it’d be okay if … well, not okay. It’s just that I’d understand if …”
“Thomas is my bodyguard,” I said firmly. “Nothing else. Ask him yourself, if you don’t believe me.”
“No, I believe you,” Callum insisted.
“Forget Thomas. You’re the one I’m marrying,” I reminded him.
He gave me a tight smile. “Yeah, but that wasn’t your choice, was it?”
“It wasn’t your choice, either, but you care about me. Why can’t I care about you just as much?” I knew I didn’t, but Callum had no idea who it was he cared about. If he knew I wasn’t Juliana, he wouldn’t give a damn about me, so I didn’t exactly feel guilty.
“Do you?” Callum asked. “Look, I know it’s weird, that I show up here and act like I’m all in love with you after one day. Believe me, I can see myself doing it, and even I think it’s weird. But for the first time in my life, I’m finally getting to make my own choices.”
“That’s a little ironic, considering that you’re here because of a choice you didn’t make.”
Callum conceded the point. “I can see my future with you, Juli, and it makes me happy. We’re going to have this amazing life together, I just know it. That’s what I’m choosing. To not stand in the way of our future. To let myself fall in love with you.”
“I’m not there yet,” I told him. But that wasn’t what was so bothersome about this. My worry was that the real Juliana, the one who Callum would actually be married to, would never get there. I didn’t want Callum to be miserable for the rest of his life because I had led him on.
“You don’t have to be.” He smiled a bit sadly. “I just wanted to know if it’s possible.”
“It’s definitely possible.” Anything’s possible, I thought.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Callum’s face brightened immediately upon the sight of the water. “So that’s the ocean.”
“It is indeed.” We were standing at the border of Asthall’s sprawling lawn, which was separated from the beach by nothing but a stone retaining wall. I curled my toes in the grass. It felt so good to be away from the Castle, to be barefoot and wild-haired at the edge of the sea. A strong breeze pressed Callum’s linen shirt flat against his chest, making it cling to him, a sight I had a hard time looking away from. We’d been forced to send an attendant to buy Callum some clothes in town, once Gloria realized he’d done a terrible job packing for himself.
“It’s so … big.” He laughed at himself. “That sounded dumb.”
Sometimes I forget how big everything is. I couldn’t help but hear Thomas’s voice in my head. I hadn’t seen him since we’d arrived at Asthall; he was keeping his distance, though I had no doubt he was watching me very carefully after last night’s attack. I was glad not to have to deal with him and Callum at once, but I had to admit to myself that I missed him. Not him, but the comforting familiarity of his presence, the way it had been before.
“It’s not dumb at all,” I told Callum. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go for it.”
Callum grinned at me and took off. He plunged feetfirst into the waves, then immediately hopped out. “It’s cold!” he cried. “Why didn’t you warn me it would be so cold?”
“Because it’s more fun this way!” I called back. I ran down the beach to join him, stopping just short of the water.
“Get in here!” he coaxed. I dipped a single toe in just to test it. It was freezing.
He kicked at the water, splashing me, and I shrank from the spray with a laugh. “Hey, stop! I’m getting married in a few days, I can’t risk hypothermia.”
Callum went back in. “It’s warming up.” He shivered, his teeth chattering.
“Yes, I can see that.” His enthusiasm was catching. Eventually, we got used to the temperature, and we played around in the ocean like children until we were exhausted. Then we trudged up the beach and flopped down on our backs.
“Ugh,” Callum said, fidgeting. “I think I’ve got sand down my shorts.”
“You were the one who wanted to come to the beach.” There was no point in mentioning the circumstances that had brought us both to Asthall. Neither of us could forget if we tried.
Callum sighed contentedly. “I want to spend every minute of every day here. Let’s not go back, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But who’s going to tell the queen?”
“Not me! She already hates me.”
I stared up at the sky, where a parade of clouds rolled along like tumbleweeds made of cotton balls. “It’s a shame you were never allowed to do things like this back in Farnham. I hear the California coast is amazing.”
“Yeah, well.” Callum buried his fingers in the sand up to his knuckles. “Mother was trying to protect me.”
“From what? Jellyfish?”
“I don’t know. She never really said.” Callum turned his head to look at me. “But you can’t really protect people from anything, can you?”
“Says the boy who showed up at my door with an armed escort.”
“Not like that. You know what I mean. Experience. You can’t keep people from getting their hearts broken.”
“You think your mother wouldn’t let you see the ocean because it might break your heart?”
“No.” Callum sighed. “If there’s anything I learned from my mother, it’s that power makes you just as vulnerable as it makes you strong. People want to use you for it, or take it from you, all the time. She doesn’t want that to happen to us. She doesn’t want my brothers and me to trust people, only to have them turn on us.”
“I can understand that,” I said. The real Juliana knew the feeling quite well, if Thomas and Gloria were to be believed. Was that what was happening between Callum and me? Was I fooling him into trusting me, only to leave him in the end? Maybe so, but what choice did I have?
We were quiet for a while, the breaking of the waves upon the beach the only sound.
“Tell me a secret,” Callum requested.
“You tell me a secret.”
“I asked first.”
“I will if you will,” I said. I was stalling. I couldn’t think of a single secret I was at liberty to tell him.
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s my secret: I actually fell in love with you back when I was ten.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“I saw your picture on one of the press boards. It was of you and your father, I think, at some state dinner. You were wearing a blue dress and your hair was all curled.”