Page 24 of Prince She Shouldn't Crave
‘Was it what you wanted?’
Gabe checked the time. They needed to move to the next meeting, yet he didn’t want to go. Not feeling like this. He wanted to relish the moment for a while, yet he still started walking because what was left for him but the duty to hiscountry, which now felt like chains? He’d never been freer than on the field. It was what his sports master at school had realised after Gabe had struggled with reading and numbers and had been angry with the world because no one had worked out earlier why that was.
Then, when they had, hiding it from everyone as if it were an irrelevance when it waseverythingto him. He was tired of the dread he’d felt on entering a library. Of not being able to share the simple pleasure of sitting down and reading a book he held in his hands without feeling as though he was somehow lacking.
‘What I wanted didn’t matter.’
There’d not been a second’s thought from his family. The utter dismissal still rankled, late at night when he lay awake, thinking of Halrovia’s future and how he might shape it for the good of his people.
‘Itdoesmatter.’
His feet crunched on the gravel beneath them, his footfalls faster and faster as if to escape the feelings swirling round him. Yet all he heard in Lena’s sentence was,You matter.He didn’t know why it hit him like a blade through the heart. An aching, needy thing that had no place in his life, and yet, he still held on to it tight, no matter the stabbing pain it unleashed.
‘It’s going to be years before you’re King. Would it have mattered so much if you’d had an international football career?’
It had to his parents. So much about him mattered to them, but never his wants or needs. His dyslexia, his desire to play football professionally, to see what he could achieve. All meaningless.‘It’s common!’his mother had said about his request to at least try out for an international football career before his world had completely imploded with threats of betrayal.
‘My parents and their private secretary felt a career in football was beneath my role as heir, and how it would be seen by Halrovia.’
A crease bisected Lena’s brow as they walked past a formal garden. Clipped, restrained. Why did it remind him of himself, when all he wanted right now was colour and chaos?
Why did he want to shout out the real reason that he had to give up everything? The guilt he carried for it?
‘With respect, sir, your parents’ private secretary has done such a sensational job to date, I’m of the view he doesn’t have a single clue about how you’d be seen by Halrovia. I mean, look at how well it’s gone so far.’
The sarcasm poured hot and thick from her, though somewhat discordant with her attempt at formality. He couldn’t help himself. He laughed. Around Lena, he seemed to want to laugh much of the time. What would his parents’ private secretary think of this slip of a woman who had no tertiary education making that comment? Gabriel desperately wanted to see it, and see her cut him down to size. He’d bet the Halrovian kingdom that Lena would rival his mother in that skill if she really put her mind to it.
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’
He suspected that she’d meant more than just his parents’ private secretary too, that the criticism of his parents was implied as well.
Gabriel didn’t much care.
‘There’s no need to apologise. I applaud honesty, and you’re right,’ he said. ‘Your employment is incontrovertible evidence.’
She cocked her head, pierced him with her vivid gaze. ‘Do you trust me?’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t have to think about that answer and a sense of relief swept over him. Whilst most people around him deferred to him because of duty, she didn’t. He liked thechallenge of her. The way she tried to find who he was, not accept what she’d been told or shown. And, in many ways, he knew that she had his back.
‘That, there?’ She waved her hand behind her. ‘That’s who people want to see…sir.’
Something seemed to have shifted. A kind of knowing. This formality between them, it feltwrong.
‘Gabriel. In private, call me Gabriel.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Okay…’
‘So long as you’re comfortable with the invitation.’ In her role she’d likely be witness to some of his most intimate and vulnerable private moments, and it felt wrong to maintain this false formality between them.
‘I am… Gabriel.’
It was like being thrown in a blast furnace. The sound of his name slipping from her lips as she tried it out. Did she like saying it? He couldn’t understand why he wanted to know so badly. He shrugged the strange sensation off. It was nothing. He’d offered the same to his private secretary, who’d politely refused because he didn’t feel it was right. However, Lena wasn’t from Halrovia. He wasn’t going to be her king, so it mattered less.
Or that was what he was trying to convince himself…
‘Excellent.’
He wasn’t a man who dwelled too much on his decisions, but he was likely to ruminate over this one and, for that, he needed time.
