Accidentally on Purpose

Chapter Fifteen

Things with Ben have been so good, I keep waiting for them to go downhill, because there is no way life can be like this all the time with somebody. How does one man have the power to make me feel this way?

Those two weeks in Canada were the best two weeks of my life. I have never wanted to be with a man physically more, and there were multiple occasions where we almost went too far, but no matter how much he didn't want to stop either, he stopped us. I know he said he didn't want to go back to his old ways, but I'm not a fool. He was stopping us because he knows I have to save myself for marriage. He doesn't want to take away something like that.

Time with him has been flying by. Canada was in July, and it's already September. I've been busy lately, traveling to the location for the new palace to see the progress. The walls are all up, and the roof. It's extraordinary. It looks like a fairy tale castle.

Things with the family have returned to normal. Nobody has been assaulted, nobody has come out as evil. It's quiet. Everything is so quiet, and it's making me anxious for the next bad thing. When I told Ben that last night, he told me not to think that way, that things can just be good sometimes. He reminded me that not everything that happens in life is bad, and if I expect things to be bad, they will.

Our relationship has seriously progressed. He spends almost all of his time with me. If we're not out in the city, I'm teaching him how to play piano, or playing for him. He's even gone as far as printing out songs for me to learn. I've played and sung all of them for him.

When we're not at the piano, I'm painting and he's watching. He tried to paint with me at one point and all he got out of it were two stick figures holding hands with a blue ground and a gray triangle in the back. He told me it was us at the lake in Canada.

I tried to reassure him that it was good, but he was laughing about how bad it was.

I framed it and put it on my bedroom wall.

That day was a good day. He was sitting on my balcony in sweatpants and no shirt. Having just showered, his hair was damp, and he was curling his lip into his mouth in concentration. Every time he caught me looking at him, he would start laughing and insist I wait until he's done.

We spent that night doing a lot of kissing and touching, but we never did anything more than that.

Often times, he will sneak into my room after midnight and lie down with me. One night, he stayed the whole night. When I woke up and found him watching me, I playfully told him he was stalking me. He started tickling me.

I smile at the memory and wander down the palace halls. Ben is at a training right now for the guards and I'm extremely bored and lonely.

I find myself not wanting to play piano without him watching me, not wanting to paint without him there to watch every move I make.

Without him, I'm basically nothing. That worries me because if this thing goes south, I don't know what's going to happen to me.

Fear twists in my belly at the thought but I shake it off, reminding myself not to think that way, that things with him are incredible, and I don't have to worry about anything until it happens.

My mother is basically obsessed with Ben. She loves us together. So does my sister, and I think my Dad and Julian like him as well, but they don't know him as well as I do. Nobody does.

I know how he thinks, I know what he's going to make a joke, I know when he's going to get upset about something, and I know what he's going to do before he does it.

That's why I still haven't said I love you. I know without a shadow of a doubt that if he hears those words, he's going to stay.

I know in my heart that he loves me, too. You don't look at somebody the way he looks at me and not have those feelings.

I've been waiting for him to say it, and when he does, I'm sure I will say it back.

But not until then.

And everything with Prince Daniel has been kept strictly between my parents and my siblings. Ben has no idea what's at stake, and if he found out, he would drop everything and stay for me. He wouldn't care about his future and how much of it he couldn't live.

He needs to make himself a priority. He has had such a hard life and being a royal could make it worse. I can't do that to him.

It's that thought that makes me stop walking.

I love him. I love him so much that subjecting him to this life as a royal would be cruel.

He's a free spirit. He's smart and kind. Being royal, you are constantly being criticized by the media. He would have to be trapped within the walls of the palace. Sure, we can travel, but not as much as we want. And he wants a bakery, and I don't want to take that away from him.

And then there's the fact that he doesn't want kids. He watched his Dad die right in front of him. He doesn't want to worry about losing people he loves. He doesn't want to have to take care of anybody.

I lean against the wall, my mind racing.

I can't subject him to this lifestyle. He's happy now, but what about a year from now> Five years from now, when we will undoubtedly have children? Ten? Fifteen? Both of my grandparents died of a heart attack. The stress of this life will take a tole on anybody, especially somebody as amazing as Ben.

I won't allow him to do that. I shouldn't have let things go on this long, and it was foolish of me to think this would be okay with me.

I love him. I love him so much, so now it's time to let him go.