Page 51 of Royal Reluctance

“None of those are for you. What doyoureally want, Hettie?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. You’re just scared to admit it.” She looks at me pointedly. “You left because you thought it would be easier on Bo. I know you never wanted to.”

“I didn’t,” I admit in a low voice.

“You have to stop making decisions based on what other people think. We want you to be happy, but you have to figure out what you want first.”

Is she right?

“And Tema will be fine, regardless of what you decide—Timothy or Bo? Or—neither.”

“I don’t think there’s a Timothy or Bo decision to be made,” I protest.

Abigail cocks her head and stares at me. “C’mon, Het. It’sBo. Are you trying to tell me you’re not falling for him again?”

I think long and hard about her question, trying to do what she said, and think about what I want.

What I’ve always wanted.

“I don’t know if I ever stopped,” I finally confess.

18

Bo

Ihead straight toHettie’s room after I talk to my father because I know she’ll be waiting to hear from me. Nervously waiting, just like I was.

Now I’m filled with a giddy sense of relief. I didn’t really know what my father was going to say, but I thought it would be much worse than this.

It wasn’t all that bad, really. He didn’t understand why I made him promise not to leave the castle today, but he seemed to understand everything else. At least he accepted that I was married and the father of a seven-year-old girl.

He took it better than I did, telling me to go get Tema and Hettie so he could meet them.

Tema—

Dad told me he remembers meeting Hettie at Mom’s funeral. I knew she had been there but had blanked most of the day. The week. The month.

We were together for almost four years, and I never once introduced her to my parents. I tried, so many times, but Hettie sidestepped every invitation or outright refused my suggestions.

She broke up with me when I pushed too hard.

I could tell that while she loved her family, she hated them too. They were never a problem for me, but Hettie couldn’t believe that. I would have been happy to have remained married to her, to see what I could do about getting her grandmother off the street. To help her brothers in some way.

But she wouldn’t let me. And then I let her go.

I knock on the door to her room and Hettie answers almost immediately, like she’d been lurking by the door.

“Bo.” My heart gives a thump when I see her. “How did it go?”

“He wants to meet Tema,” I say without any preamble. “He wants to meet both of you.”

She pushes me back and shuts the door behind her so we’re out in the hall. “So you told him?” she whispers.

She’s standing very close to me, close enough for me to smell the coconut of her shampoo. At least I think it’s her shampoo.

She could have been drinking piña coladas all morning for all I know.

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