Once Upon a Prince Read Free

directions and kept in step with her. “Try to make yourself feel better by roping me into your wild decision.”
    Not the right girl
… His words reverberated through her, to her very core.
    “You know I’m right.”
    His words, his tone, a clarion bell to her heart. Oh mercy, how could it be? Yes, he was right, he was right. And it galled her. “I don’t know what to say to you right now.” Susanna maintained her march toward the Rib Shack’s beachside deck. How had she not seen it? Was she so stuck and stubborn?
    “Susanna, the last time I was home, we only saw each other six times. You never came up to Washington.”
    “I was working. I have a job.” She lengthened her stride. “I didn’t see
you
hightailing it home.”
    “You were working at the Rib Shack.” He made a wild one-arm gesture toward the restaurant. “You could’ve taken off anytime you wanted.”
    She exhaled and stopped midstride. “If you want to break up with me, then do it. But don’t you dump your guilt on me.”
    “No guilt dumping here. Just making observations. Suz, you know I’m right. We aren’t each other’s true loves. We were a high school romance that somehow got away from us.”
    “Got away from us? Who plans marriage like that?” Susanna pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead and turned for the edge of the Atlantic where the evening tide was rolling in. With each swoosh of the foam against the sand, realization washed over her. How had she not seen it? Truth awakened in her thoughts, her heart, and the edges of her senses.
    “We were both comfortable. Our relationship was good. Safe. We do like each other, Suz. A lot.”
    She peered at him. “I’m twenty-nine, Adam. I want to get married. You’re the only man I’ve dated since I fast-danced withBobby Conway at the seventh-grade fall dance.” She flung her arms wide. “Now what? You’re done with tours, ready to settle down, make a life for yourself in the States, and suddenly I’m not the right one?”
    She rehashed what her heart already knew because it was how she processed. She fought because her dignity demanded it. But the fire of her vehemence never truly flared.
    “What? You want me to marry you just
because
?” He looked incredulous, sounding half terrified.
    “Yes, Adam, yes. I do.” Her inner fight tumbled over the ravine of her resolve. She wasn’t going to just walk away from twelve years with an, “Okay, sure, I’m jiving with you. Glad we cleared this up. Have a nice life.”
    “You don’t mean it.”
    “We’ve said ‘I love you.’ We’ve planned a future together.” She poked his chest with her forefinger to the rumble of sudden, low-passing thunder. Grit rose in her soul. “We. Had. A. Deal.”
    Adam gripped her finger. “I love Sheree. Reconnecting with her was when I really knew you and I didn’t love each other in a husband-wife kind of way. If you’d met the right guy and I came home to propose, you’d be the one standing here telling me the ring was right but I was all wrong. You’d know you don’t love me as a woman should love the man she’s going to marry.”
    “Stop telling me how I feel.” She gripped her hands into fists. He was such a commander—of men, of her feelings. This habit of his had spiked many of their arguments.
    “Then look at me.” He motioned to her with two fingers, then swung them around to his sharp unwavering gaze. “Look here. Tell me you love me like a woman should love a man she’s going to marry.”
    “I don’t even know what that means. Love is love.”
    “I could break into song over Sheree.”
    “Ha, song. Has she heard you sing?”
    “Yes, and she lets me sing anyway.”
    Susanna folded her arms with a sigh. Any defense she might muster weakened in her heart. “But you don’t want to break into song over me.”
    “I don’t. I’m sorry.” His gaze spoke of his regret.
    “Yeah, well, me too.” She started up the dunes toward the Rib Shack. Mama, her baby