Page 119 of Reign
Daphne closed her eyes, wincing. “More than once. I’m so sorry, Jefferson—I never meant to hurt you,” she added. The words felt paper-thin against the crushing weight of her betrayal.
Jefferson circled the room once, then sank back onto the love seat and rested his head in his hands. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t upset. I trusted you, and Ethan.” He sighed. “But I guess we’ve both made mistakes.”
“You and Nina?” she said softly, knowing the answer.
Jeff reddened. “Nothing happened last night, I swear.”
She hadn’t realized that he and Nina were even together last night.
There was something almost funny in the knowledge she and Jefferson had both been with other people the night before their wedding—amusing in a dark, twisted way. What a piece of work they were.
Ignoring her strict instructions not to sit once she was in her gown, Daphne collapsed onto the love seat next to him. Her lace skirts frothed up around her like an enchanted cloud.
“Do you love Ethan?”
Whatever Daphne had expected Jefferson to ask, it wasn’t that.
“Ethan and I…We understand each other,” she said carefully.
He nodded slowly. “I’ve always known he had a thing for you. I saw the way he looked at you when he thought no one was watching. I figured it was just attraction, because how could anyonenotbe attracted to you?” Jefferson sighed. “Until he wrote that rehearsal-dinner toast, which was far better than what I would’ve come up with.”
Somehow, Daphne couldn’t bear for this to be the note they ended on. “I do love you, Jefferson. It’s just not the type of love that you deserve.”
“Did you ever love me that way? For myself, I mean,” he explained. “Or were you always in love with theideaof me?”
To Daphne’s surprise, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him how much of their relationship had been a lie—an ingenious and flawless lie, because lying was an art and she was its greatest performer. She had never loved Jefferson in the passionate, tumultuous way he’d assumed she did. The way Nina had once loved him.
Yet therewaslove between them, wasn’t there? The sort of love that comes from knowing someone’s whole heart, from years of history. Daphne looked at Jefferson and felt theirshared youth shimmering between them like a fragment of sunlight. Like a ghost.
“You were my first love,” she told him, and for once, she wasn’t lying.
There were many kinds of love. Jefferson would always be her first, even if he wasn’t meant to be her last.
“And you were mine.” He looked at her with a half smile. “By the way, Daph, you look beautiful today. I hope you know that.”
She ran a hand over the exquisite lace of her gown. “I’m keeping this, in case I everdoget married,” she said, testing ajoke.
“I figured that was a given. The clothes come with the wedding, even if it’s canceled.”
With some regret, she reached for the ring on her left hand and twisted it off. “This, though, I think I have to give back. It came from the Crown Jewels vault.”
It was beautiful, yet it already felt like a ring that had been chosen for someone else: a misguided and mistrustful girl who wore pantyhose and wrote thank-you notes in perfect cursive and tried to please everyone.
If she did get engaged again someday, it wouldn’t be with a traditional diamond solitaire. Her next ring would be something wild and unexpected—something that fit the person she was becoming, a person she was still figuring out.
She and Jefferson sat there for a moment, adjusting to the strange new honesty between them. Then he walked over to the buffet table, to the silver platter arranged with wedding cake—the pastry chef always made a few sheet cakes of the same recipe, along with the enormous decorative one that was on display in the ballroom. The extras would be given to the staff to take home for their families.
“We might as well try this, right?”
Jefferson speared a piece of cake and held out the fork forDaphne, as if they were actually at the reception and posing for the photos. She wasn’t sure whether it made her want to laugh or cry.
She leaned forward to eat the cake from the outstretched fork. It was light and fluffy, with a faint hint of almond and vanilla. When she took the fork from Jefferson and offered him a bite, he got a smear of buttercream icing on his lip. Daphne had half a mind to call the photographer in here:Look, the most celebrated couple in the world, eating their wedding cake picnic-style before they cancel the whole thing!
“I know it wasn’t always easy, dating me,” Jefferson said ruefully. “For the record, you would have been a fantastic princess.”
“Of course I would.” Daphne gave a wistful half smile. “Jefferson, dating you—becoming a princess—isa job, no matter how much you probably wish otherwise. But the fact that I’m a great candidate for the job was never a good reason for us to get married.”
She thought of Nina, who probably still loved Jefferson on some level, but hated the demands that came with dating him. “You deserve someone who can handle the princess side of thingsandwho belongs with you. You deserve to love someone so much that you propose for real—someplace romantic and quiet, just the two of you, instead of being pressured into it. I’m sorry about that,” she added, knowing her apology was wholly inadequate.
