Page 63 of Royally Arranged

Nova was fun. She had a drive for adventure, always taking me to some new location in the country that Ihadto see. Or so she said. She was usually right. Today it had been an old staircase cut into the cliff east of the city. There were some giant statues there, their faces eroded by years of salt and surf.

It had been a quick drive, and we’d probably spent more time kissing than looking at the stone figures. Either way, I’d worked up an appetite and was looking forward to dinner with her.

Walking hand in hand through a part of the city I hadn’t explored yet, our goal was to find a restaurant with a name I couldn’t pronounce. My French was getting better—or Nova had gotten better at not laughing at me when I tried my hand at it.

Her purse buzzed loudly. She reached in, checking her cell phone. “What’s wrong?” I asked, reading her face as it fell.

“Nothing. Just my mom.” She typed something back. We both waited for whatever the response was. When it came, Nova sighed. “She wants me to come back. There’s some meeting she wants me to be there for, some dignitary Dad arranged to get together with.”

“And I wasn’t invited? Their brand-new son-in-law that they positively adore?” I feigned offense.

She bit her lip, holding her phone between us. “Dad never stops moving forward. Thorne ... I can’t go to dinner with you.”

“Sure you can. Blow your mom off.”

“I seriously can’t.”

Running my fingers through my hair, I groaned. “I’m pretty sure that being king and queen means we can do whatever we want. I swear I saw that in the contract.”

Her lips didn’t twitch upward, not even a bit. “I’m sorry. Really, I just ... have to go.”

“Why do you do what they tell you?” I asked, losing some of my cool. “I’ve seen how you are around them. Half the time you look ready to spit in your dad’s face.”

“They’re family,” she said, gauging me.

“That shouldn’t excuse anything.”

“I figured you would understand.”

“Sorry, but have you paid attention to me at all?” I asked, laughing bitterly. “All Idois complain about my father and all the ways they’ve hurt me.” The words came out in a long string, and when I grabbed for them, they kept unspooling.

Nova stared at me with too much interest. “How did they hurt you?”

“He. My father.”

“You said they.”

“I know what I said, it wasn’t what I meant.” The pulsing in my eye sockets was severe, like tiny fists were punching the backs of my eyeballs. I rubbed at them in a desperate attempt to relieve the discomfort.

Nova placed her hands on mine. Her presence was soothing. “Talk to me, I want to understand.”

“There’s not much to talk about.” That was false. I could have given a daylong speech about all the tiny wounds my father had left on my psyche. She kept staring at me; I took a breath. “It’s not important. Every kid thinks his dad is an asshole, right?”

“Thorne ...”

“Don’t look at me like you think I’m some sob story. I’m not, my older brother gets that trophy.” I tried to chuckle and it hurt my throat. There was so much tension in my body that every part of me felt like it was straining ... working at capacity to hold me together. “Costello’s the angsty tragedy, my older sister’s the wunderkind. And Kain and Francesca—who can compete with twins? Even when they grew up, they were still the spoiled stars. All of them were so perfect ... so much more promise than me.”

Standing inches from my chest, she held still, as if moving would make me realize what the hell I was saying and I’d cut off before I was finished. What she didn’t know was that Icouldn’tstop. Not after going this far.

“I guess when I said ‘they’ hurt me, I did mean it.” My voice was a wry whisper. “Nova, I never had a chance.”

She’d wrapped her fingers around my wrists. “At what?”

“Being more than the forgotten middle child.” Fuck, why was my mouth so dry? Was it because I was spilling everything I had, all of my essence, out onto the ground? Lifting my head, I looked down on her. “All I was ever good at was being the funny one. I’m definitely a damn joke.”

“You’re not. Not to me.” Her fingertips braced on my cheek. “Hawthorne—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag this out of you and cause you pain.”

“I’m not in pain,” I said, trying to make myself smile.

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