She slept most of the way to Frankfurt, and then looked out the window in silence. She was thinking of Fiona … then Parker … she called him in Boston the moment she got off the flight in Frankfurt, and told him everything that had happened, to Fiona, the border skirmishes, and the beginning of another war. He was stunned, as she sobbed.
“My God, Cricky, are you all right?” He couldn't believe what she'd told him about Fiona. She had described how they found her, and as she told him she cried all over again. She sounded completely overwrought.
“I love you,” she said over and over again, unable to stop crying. “I love you so much.” She hadn't seen him in nearly two months. It felt like centuries after everything that had happened.
“Cricky, I love you, too. I want you to go home and calm down. Rest. And as soon as you can get away, I'll meet you in Paris.”
“All right,” she said weakly, feeling as though she couldn't live another day without him. It had already been too long, and far too many terrible things had happened. He sounded as badly shaken as she was.
“Just go home, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Everything will be all right,” he reassured her, wishing he could put his arms around her. She sounded as though she were in shock.
“No, it won't,” she sobbed. “Fiona's dead, Parker. It won't ever be all right for her.”
“I know,” he said, trying to soothe her, unable to believe what had happened. It seemed impossible to believe that lively, fiery, wonderful, loving Fiona was gone. “I know. But everything will be all right for us. I'll see you in Paris very soon.” But she just cried harder knowing that it would probably be for the last time. She couldn't stand any more goodbyes or losses. She had to leave him then to catch her next flight, to Zurich. And he was worried about her. She sounded awful, and badly shaken, but who wouldn't have been, after everything she'd been through. “Can I call you at home?” he asked cautiously. She had given him the numbers before he left, but told him not to use them unless he had to. She didn't want to arouse suspicions. But this time Parker wanted to check on her. He was seriously worried about her, with good reason. She had never been so upset in her life.
“No, don't. I'll call you,” she said, sounding nervous. Everything in her mind was a jumble. Fiona was dead. Parker was in Boston forever. Her friends in Senafe were going to be in a war zone. And now she had to face her father, when she didn't even feel ready to go home. In the space of seventeen hours, she had gone from one side of the world to another, she felt like a plant that had been ripped out of the rich African soil and had been suddenly uprooted. Liechtenstein no longer felt like home to her. She felt as though she belonged in Senafe. And her heart was in Boston with Parker. She was utterly confused, and as she and Parker hung up, she couldn't stop crying. She looked at Sam and Max, and they looked nearly as unhappy as she did. They had loved it there, too, but there had been no question in their minds that morning, and they had a single-minded goal. They had to get her out.
“I'm sorry we left like that, Your Highness. We had to do our jobs this time. It was time to leave.”
“I know,” she said sadly. “It went so wrong in the end, with Fiona and the breaking of the truce, and the border skirmishes. What will happen to all those people if they have to live through another war?” It made her heart ache to think about it, they were such kind, loving people. And she missed all her friends in the camp as though they were her brothers and sisters.
“It will be very hard for them if this war really takes hold,” Max said honestly. He and Sam had talked about it at length on the flight. The UN was trying to step in, but they hadn't been able to stop it last time.
“I worry about the people in the camp, too,” Christianna added.
“They'll know when to get out. They've been through this before.” But there had been no question that she needed to get out sooner than they did. Max and Sam were both well aware that if something happened to her, it would have been disastrous. The prince would never have forgiven them, nor would they ever have forgiven themselves.
She was quiet on the last leg of the flight, from Frankfurt to Zurich. She had nothing left to say. She was so grief-stricken she was numb. The loss of her friend, the absence of the man she loved, how hopeless their situation was, no matter how much they loved each other, and being torn from the place she had come to love for the past nine months—all of it together was almost more than she could bear. And now, in spite of the joy of seeing her father again, she felt as though she were going home to prison, to be trapped in Vaduz for eternity, doing her duty to her father and their country, sacrificing herself more than ever before. She felt as though she were being punished for having been born royal. It had become, and had always been for her, an intolerable burden. She felt torn between what she had been taught she owed her ancestors, her country, and her family, and what her heart longed for, Parker, the only man she had ever loved.
The plane landed in Zurich, and her father was waiting for her at the airport. He put his arms around her, and there were tears in his eyes. He had been so desperately worried about her in those final hours. He couldn't have borne it if he had lost her. He looked gratefully at Max and Sam for getting her out before something terrible had happened. The news reports he had been following closely had gotten worse since she left Asmara.
She looked up at him, and smiled, and he could see instantly that a different person had come home. She was a woman, and not a girl anymore. She had loved and lived and worked and grown. And as it had done to others before her, the beauty of Africa and all she had learned and discovered there had crept into her very soul.
They waved her through customs in Zurich as they always did. They never even glanced at her passport. They didn't need to. They knew who she was and smiled at her. This time she looked at them and didn't smile back. She couldn't.
She got into the Rolls beside her father, with his familiar driver, and the bodyguard in the passenger seat. Sam and Max were following in another car, with two other bodyguards who were happy to see them. They weren't as devastated as Christianna was. It had been a job to them, although they had come to love it, too. And they were also sad to be back. Their old familiar world suddenly looked so different to them, just as it did to Cricky.
Cricky said little on the drive to Liechtenstein. She held her father's hand in silence and looked out the window. It was autumn and the weather was beautiful. But she missed Senafe. He knew everything that had happened, or thought he did. He knew about Fiona, and of Christianna finding her. He thought what he was seeing was her deep shock over that. He had no idea that what he was seeing was her sense of desolation over losing Parker too. Even if she hadn't completely lost him yet, she knew she would. And even if they met in Paris, there was no way they could continue doing so, without creating a scandal, like one of Freddy's, and she wouldn't do that to her father. She couldn't. She owed him more than that.
“I missed you, Papa,” she said, as she turned to look at him. He was looking at her so tenderly that she knew yet again that she couldn't break his heart by betraying everything she'd been born to. So she was offering her own heart as a sacrifice instead, and Parker's. Two hearts for one. It seemed a terrible price to pay for duty.
“I missed you, too,” her father said quietly. She held his hand, and once they reached Vaduz, she saw the familiar palace where she had grown up. But it no longer felt like coming home to her. Parker was home. Senafe was home. The people she had loved there had been home. The people in the life she had been born to had all become strangers to her in the last nine months. She had come home a different woman. And even her father knew it.