Page 102 of American Royals II: Majesty
“It’s too late for sorry.”
Daphne’s hands darted up to grab Ethan by the shoulders. “I love you, okay?” She tightened her grip, her voice hard and furious. “And you just said that you loved me!”
“Ididlove you, for a long time. But even I couldn’t sit around waiting for you forever.”
He spoke impersonally, as if that love were an emotion that someone else had felt, a very long time ago.
No.Daphne refused to accept that his love for her had just…faded away. That it had guttered and burned itself out like one of these forgotten candles. No, if he had loved her that much then there must besomethingleft, some ember of feeling that she could coax back to life. Unless…
“You fell for her, didn’t you.” She couldn’t bear to actually say Nina’s name.
“I did.”
Daphne’s hands fell to her sides as she stepped back, fighting the urge to stamp her foot like a child. How had the only two men in her life both ended up with the same mousy, unexceptional commoner? “That girl is painfully boring, has no sense of style—and has nothing at all to say for herself—”
“She has plenty to say; you’ve just never bothered to listen—”
“If you loved me the way you say you did, for as long as you say you did, how can you possibly care aboutNina?” she hissed.
Ethan didn’t blink. “If you wanted Jeff for as long as you claimed to, how can you possibly care about me?”
A strained silence fell between them. Daphne’s pulse echoed dully through her veins. She almost wished that Ethan resented her,hatedher, even. Anything would be better than this smooth, cool indifference.
And yet she loved him in spite of everything: all her flaws, his betrayal, both of their stubborn prides.
Ethan was right; he was the only person who’d ever truly known her, aside from Himari. And now that he’d pushed her away, it was therealDaphne he was rejecting.
To think that she’d come to the wedding in triumph, on Jefferson’s arm, only to realize in a panicked flash thatEthanwas the one she’d wanted all along. And now, somehow, he no longer cared.
She felt that she had gained and lost the world in a single morning.
“Well then, it seems like we’re done here.” Daphne pivoted on one heel and stormed off, blinking back her stupid, traitorous tears.
She’d always thought there was such power in knowing other people’s secrets. At court, secrets were even better than money: you could hoard them and guard them and barter them away. But for what?
What did any of it matter when the entire time, she’d been keeping the greatest secret of all from herself—only to discover the truth when it was too late.
Beatrice’s skirts frothed up around her like lace-stitched clouds, probably creasing in countless places, but it didn’t stop her from pounding at the door.
“Beatrice, don’t,” Connor pleaded.
She ignored him, though she knew she looked utterly absurd: standing here in her wedding gown, slamming her fists against the reinforced steel. But that alarm had sent her careening past all rational thought. All she wanted was to getout.
Connor stepped forward and caught her hands in his, circling her wrists as he gently lowered them. “It won’t do any good, Bee. That door can’t open until a full sweep of the palace has confirmed that it’s safe.”
Beatrice tugged at her hands. Chastened, Connor let go of them, but he didn’t step away.
His face was much too close. She could see each individual freckle and eyelash, could hear each shallow breath as it escaped his lungs. He was so familiar, yet at the same time he felt oddly like a stranger, like a shadowy figure from her dreams.
Except that he wasn’t a dream at all. He washere,real and flesh and immediate. Alone with her in a sealed room.
Beatrice backed away a few steps, and the panic flooding through her stilled a little. Without it she felt curiously uncertain, as if that frantic terror had been holding her aloft, and now that it had ebbed she had no clue what to do. The blaring of the alarm had stopped, but Beatrice imagined she could still hear it, echoing beneath the silence.
“Can you find out what happened?” she asked.
Connor’s hands drifted to his waist, then hooked uselessly in his pockets. “I don’t have my ERD anymore,” he said, naming the encrypted radio used by palace security. “But don’t worry; I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Beatrice nodded slowly. Her fear had thrown all her senses into confusion; she had no idea how long it had been since the alarm went off.
