Summary: Liam finds comfort being near the water. A few glimpses at him throughout his life.
Note: Not canon.
i.
When he’s four, Liam’s mother passes away. He has few memories of her, but he’s looked at and memorized the photos he has of her so much that they feel like memories. His favorite is one of them on the beach at sunset, just as the sun is sinking behind the cliffs, the orange sky giving way to deep blue twilight. Their backs are to the camera, hands clasped together, as she points out at the water. He knows he’s imagining it, but if he focuses hard enough, he can almost remember the feel of her soft hand grasping his small one, can almost smell the salty air, can almost hear the waves crashing into the sand.
ii.
When he’s ten, Liam gets angry at his father and Regina for something he can no longer recall, and runs away from home. Of course, a security guard follows him, so he isn’t really running off on his own, but he feels a small sense of satisfaction in making it the beach and ruining a nice outfit by sitting in the damp sand. Liam spends the day digging in the sand, searching the tide pools, and trying to catch sand crabs. But no matter how quiet he is, they always scuttle away from him. Finally, when the sun goes down and the air gets cold, Liam reluctantly starts heading back to the palace, the security guard walking next to him. The security guard tells him a story about how he’d once hid in a neighbor’s barn all day when he was 11, angry that his parents wouldn’t let him go to summer camp with his friends. Liam laughs and feels a little better.
“Thanks, Bastien,” he says, waving to him as he slowly heads into the palace.
iii.
When he’s 16, Liam meets the girl that he swears to Leo he’s going to marry. Leo laughs and tells him he’ll meet many girls, but Liam is convinced this girl is the one. She’s the daughter of a duke, tall and pretty with long strawberry blond hair. She laughs at Liam’s jokes and joins him in mocking the stuffy nobility at royal events. His father and Regina warn him to watch his words and actions. Leo warns him that teenage girls aren’t always in it for the long haul, and she might just be using him for his title. Liam ignores them.
Then one afternoon during the regatta, Liam sees her sneak off with a man he doesn’t recognize. He is confused and furious. How could she do this to him? He later learns that she’s run off with this man and told her parents she doesn’t want this life.
“There will be no more shenanigans,” his father and Regina tell him firmly. “Once Leo is wed, you’ll marry Olivia.”
Liam cares for Olivia, but he doesn’t want to marry her. He wanders down to the beach and wonders, briefly, what would happen if he stole a sailboat and took off. Drake finds him there just as the daylight is starting to fade, the beachgoers packing up for the evening.
“You’d make it about 100 yards out and capsize,” Drake announces.
Liam scoffs. “I’d at least make it 150.”
Drake laughs and shakes his head. “No way. Liam, that girl was a bitch. Yeah, she was pretty, but so are a lot of girls.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” Liam jokes.
Drake shrugs. “You’ll meet one someday who doesn’t care about royalty and titles, and just likes you. Now, come on. There’s a pool table calling our name at the palace.”
Liam still feels the sting of heartbreak, but as he watches the twilight creep in over the ocean, he’s hopeful that someday, he’ll meet someone who doesn’t intentionally break his heart.
iv.
When Liam is 27, Leo abdicates the throne and tells his parents he intends to marry a woman he met on a cruise. There is an uproar in the palace. His father and Regina are furious. Everyone is ordered not to breathe a word of this to the press. In all the rush, it suddenly dawns on Liam that he is now the crown prince. He is nervous but determined. He has always been eager to prove that just because he’s younger than Leo, doesn’t mean he is less capable.
He can rule Cordonia, and he will. Leo writes him a letter of apology later, which Liam brushes off. Yes, he realizes, his life will forever be different than what he anticipated, but he likes change. He actually enjoys discussing policies and laws with his father, learning which nobility are manipulative and which ones will be supportive from Regina.
He doesn’t start feeling apprehensive about the soon to be upheaval of his life until Regina reminds him he’ll be choosing a future Queen, a wife, at the end of this social season. Liam has met many girls since he’d had his heart broken, but none he could imagine marrying. When he learns that Madeleine will be a suitor and Regina sings her praises, he feels ill. Madeleine was supposed to marry his brother, and he can’t fathom being with her.
He’s granted permission to travel to New York for a bachelor party. The night before they leave, Liam finds himself on the beach, contemplating how he’s expected to select a woman he’ll spend the rest of his life within just a few months. He knows this is what he’s expected to do, and he’s always felt a strong sense of loyalty to his county and his duties, but he’d never truly considered the relationship aspect of it before this. He sinks into the sand, letting the grains slide through his fingers. He stays there until it is nearly dark, watching the sun disappear beyond the horizon, then sighs and heads home.
v.
The night before the coronation, Liam asks Allie to meet him on the beach. It’s risky, he knows, as tradition dictates he shouldn’t speak to or see any of the suitors after the final council meeting before the coronation. But with everything that’s happened in the past few days with Tariq, and accusations of her having an affair with Drake, and Madeleine and Bertrand being caught blatantly plotting how best to destroy her chances and her reputation, Liam feels her owes her this much.
The sun is dipping below the sea, the vibrant orange sky giving way to the blue of evening, and he feels a sense of relief that this social season is nearly over. He hears Allie approach behind him and smiles.
“You know, I had to sneak past Bertrand, and Maxwell, and Olivia, who by the way is now asking the other suitors to be her bridesmaids, just to get out here. I feel like I could be an international spy.”
Liam laughs as he turns around, breath catching in his throat as he locks eyes with her. He doesn’t know how it happened so fast, but he’s fallen in love with her, this woman from New York who, up until a few months ago, had been a total stranger. He feels his heart start to pound, and all the passionate, heartfelt words he wants to say leave him.
He tells her he has to tell her something and pulls her into a tight hug as her face begins to crumble. It’s good news, he reassures her. She pulls back and he cradles her face in his hands, brushing her tears away with his thumbs. He tells her he’s not supposed to do this, but she’s had him doing things he shouldn’t since the day he met her, so why stop now?
She laughs and he takes her hands in his. He wants to propose to her tomorrow, he whispers, if she’ll have him.
She slides her hands into his hair and then down to his face, tracing his lower lip with her thumb.
“Of course I want you. I want all of it, whatever this life brings us,” she tells him through a smile and her tears.
He lifts her and spins her as she shrieks. When he sets her down, his eyes are shining. She’s never looked more beautiful than right now, the orange glow of the sun and deep blue of the ocean behind her, the salty air blowing through her long dark hair. It’s fitting, he thinks, that he’s here with her now, with how many moments of his life seem to culminate with him being on this beach.
“I love you,” he whispers in her ear.
She rises on her tiptoes to kiss him sweetly. “I love you too,” she whispers back.
He sees Bastien emerge out of the corner of his eye and knows they both need to return to the palace before he starts a panic. He presses one last lingering kiss to her lips as he whispers, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“You will. And the day after that, and the day after that, and probably even the day after that,” she teases.
He can’t wait.