Unexpected

Chapter 23

A/N: This (final!) chapter is dedicated to  @SangeethaGowda -- thank you so much for all your support! You should all check out her fab story, When Mr. Popular Meets Abby Hart!!

A couple of weeks later, Maggie yelled at me from the living room when I was making dinner and asked me to come out when I had a minute. I finished up and left the food on the stove to cool.

When I got into the living room, she waved at me to sit down and bit her lip before she began to speak, “I’m sorry to be springing this on you, but I didn’t know how to bring it up before. Alex is doing an interview tonight, they’ve been advertising it like crazy. It’s on BBC, I think, and they’re broadcasting it simultaneously on BBC America. Would you want to watch it with me?

I stood there silently for a moment, thinking it through. Should I just avoid it, so as to not torture myself? But the pull of seeing him, almost in person, was too much for me to resist. “It seems like a bad idea, but yeah, I do want to watch. I’m surprised he’s doing one, he kind of hates the media. Must be something pretty important that his family is making him do.”

“It starts in 15 minutes or so, do you want to eat first?”

“No, you go ahead. I know it’s stupid, but my stomach’s too tied in knots to be hungry any more. Plus, per usual, I may have been snacking as I was cooking.”

“I’m going to go grab a plate, be right back.”

Maggie came back in with a plate of the pasta I had made, waving it under my nose to tempt me. I scrunched my nose and shook my head at her, nervously sitting on my hands and rocking slightly back and forth.

In no time at all, the show was starting. On the screen was a female reporter introducing her interview with Alex, she was British but not someone I recognized, not that that was surprising. And before I could fully brace myself, or really listen to what she was saying, there he was on the screen, looking as gorgeous as ever. I longed for the day when I no longer felt a squeeze around my heart when I saw him.

“Hello, Prince Alexander, welcome,” she began.

“Thanks for having me.”

“As I was telling our viewers at the start of the program, this was a first for me -- an unsolicited interview request from a member of the royal family, regarding an unspecified topic,” the reporter laughed.

“Sorry for the mystery, I just didn’t want the subject of our interview to get out before I was ready for it to.”  If Alex was attempting to pique the world’s curiosity, it was certainly working, on me at least. I looked over at Maggie but her eyes were glued to the screen.

“Well, we’re here now. Can you tell me what you’d like to talk about?”

“It’s not a what, it’s a who. Charlotte Maxwell.” I gasped.

“I thought that might be it. And what do you want to talk about in regards to Ms. Maxwell?” she asked, clearly curious.

“I just felt the need to set the record straight on a number of unkind things I’ve been reading about her in the press, particularly the British press, things that could really damage her personal and professional life. I think an important thing for everyone to remember about Charlie is that she’s a normal person, not a celebrity that knew what she was getting when she chose the career path she did. All Charlie ever did wrong was hang about the wrong chap that she met on holiday.”

“And by ‘wrong chap,’ you’re referring to yourself?”

“Yes I am. I realize that most of the harsh things people are saying about her are really more about me. By following this story, I know a lot of our citizens are offended that I would fall in love with an American, that by doing so I’m saying that no one in the whole of the United Kingdom is good enough for me. But I think everyone that’s ever been in love before,” my heart skipped a beat, I couldn’t believe he was acknowledging to the entire world that he loved me, and I felt Maggie’s hand slip into mine for support, “knows that isn’t how it works -- you don’t get to choose who you fall in love with, certainly not by nationality. Would it have been more convenient to fall in love with an English girl? Perhaps. But I didn’t. I fell in love with Charlie, who happens to be an American. Did it make it easier that she didn’t know every single thing about me -- that she hadn’t watched me take my first steps on tv, even if only in reruns of old video like most women my age did, or know what my nickname in primary school was, or in which classes I sat for A levels in? Well, yes it probably did. It’s difficult to find things to talk about when someone knows your entire life story story before you open your mouth. Frankly, I‘m not all that interesting so if you take away all that stuff, I really don’t have much to say.”