Page 21 of Royal Reluctance

But just like Bo, I didn’t show him what I was really feeling because deep down, I agreed with him. I loved Bo more than anyone, but I couldn’t see how we would work. And if he didn’t believe in us…

I knew I needed to leave because it hurt too much to be around Bo. I picked the furthest spot to get away from him, following my grandfather to the west coast of Canada. Abigail came with me—my best friend since birth. We moved to Victoria, British Columbia, found an apartment, jobs, and I tried to move on from Bo.

And then I found out I was carrying his baby.

That was a very bad six months.

I wanted to tell Bo every single day, but I hadn’t heard a word from him. Radio silence. Not even a text, or a DM, or a phone call. It was as if he had totally blanked out my existence.

The hurt was almost unbearable but it strengthened me—if Bo didn’t want me, then he wouldn’t want our child.

There was a bad moment when I was in labour, crying because I wanted Bo there, and Abigail held out my phone to call him but then the baby was coming and the phone was forgotten.

Holding Tema in my arms made everything better.

It was difficult, being a twenty-one-year-old single mother, but with Abigail’s help, I managed. I had my grandfather as well, and Abigail’s parents came to visit as often as they could. Mabel came twice, my brother Tommy stopped in once when he was in Vancouver, and that was my family. That was my daughter’s family.

I told myself that was enough.

I have a wonderful little girl who I love more than anyone in the world, and I have kept her from knowing her father becausehe broke my heart. I convinced myself it was best for her, but the silence thickens as Bo drives us from the airport to the Lockes’ house, and the guilt of keeping him from her almost makes me vomit. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway.

Watching Bo’s face, watching the emotions pass over it—the clench of his jaw, the flutter of his eyes when tears threaten—I have never felt like such a horrible person.

How could I have never told Bo that he had a child?

How can I ever make this up to him?

8

Bo

The accident that killedmy mother, Queen Selene of Laandia, happened two days after I secretly married Hettie.

After I confessed to what Hettie and I had done, my mother went to pick up Lyra.

I can’t blame Lyra for this; we all hated when a castle driver came to get us from an activity or friend’s house, Lyra most of all. She was having friend issues back then and didn’t want any more unwanted attention.

Mom’s death did damage to all of us, but none more than Lyra.

But the fact was I told Mom I was married; she got in a car and drove to Eliza Liu’s house to get my sister, after which she got into an accident and she died.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the accident was my fault. She was upset when she left, probably distracted. If I hadn’t told her, she would still be alive today.

If I hadn’t married Hettie, she’d be fine.

If I hadn’t married Hettie, I wouldn’t be finding out that I have a daughter, years after she was born.

I have a daughter.

Those words swirl around my brain like a tornado, touching down every so often to give me such a severe jolt that I tighten my hands on the steering wheel of my old truck.

I have a daughter. I’m going to meet her.

Hettie has been quiet but I feel her watching me. I’m not sure yet what to say to her about all this. What I want to say could very well involve shouting and anger and saying things I don’t mean and might not even intend to say. So many of my emotions are connected to Hettie Crow and I’ve let them tangle too long so that the knot is too tight to be unraveled.

I don’t want to untangle them because what do I do then? Figure out how I feel about her, only for her to leave again? What good would that do?

“What did you tell her about me?” I don’t think to ask until we’re in the car on the way to Abigail’s parents’ place. I hate the thought of Hettie leaving our daughter to come and talk to me. I wish she had told me she was in town and I would have flown home and met her.

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