Page 86 of The Midnight Princess
“We have to be officially engaged for a few more months while Sondmark and Himmelstein wrap up trade negotiations with Vorburg. Everything is in a delicate position, and there are a million ways to cause offense or be caught up in a news cycle.” I reach for his hand, willing him to understand. “Even the smallest things can put the negotiations in jeopardy.”
“Smallest things?” The line of his mouth is grim, and he gives our handclasp a light swing.
Does he imagine that I think this is small? Admitting to myself that I want this man is a rebellion. Admitting it to him is a revolution. There isn’t anything small about it, but he steps away, bracing himself against the stair railing.
“Where does that leave us?”
I shiver again, feeling all the frustration of running on a treadmill, flying over ground but never going anywhere. I look around the landing—at the ‘No exit’ sign over our heads, glowing green. “I’m right where I want to be.”
He looks up. “In a dimly lit hall where we have to worry about someone coming through the door or up the stairs?”
This spot of ground has been heaven. “For now.”
Jacob takes a deep breath. He touches my face with a gentle hand, and I sway toward his arms.
“No.” The word is firm, unequivocal.
I drop to my heels with a thud. “Pardon?”
“You can let everyone think you’re engaged. That’s your choice. You have your reasons, maybe, but I’m not fifteen.” His eyes are sad but he speaks too clearly to be misunderstood. “I don’t sneak.”
I flinch at the word. What does he expect of me? “This isn’t sneaking. This is discretion.”
I hear a scrape, and he turns his head quickly. I pull myself together, and run a thumb across my lips, hoping the kisses don’t show, reaching for an excuse.I needed air. It’s cooler here. We’re discussing the state visit.Anything to ward off suspicion.
Jacob exhales—abrupt, jagged—and looks down. He swings his shoe, and I hear the source of the sound. When he looks at me, his smile is apologetic, but there is heartbreak in his eyes. He reaches for me, touches a spot on my neck, and my pulse jumps raggedly under his thumb. His hand slips down my arm, catching mine. “This is sneaking.”
“My sister,” I say, tipping my chin toward the flat, “ran off to get married. I’m happy for her, but her right to the succession is being debated within government circles already.” If he can’t understand, it’s because he’s new at being royal. He’s never had every action devoured by the public and picked clean. I have to make him see.
“My other sister has embarked on the unprecedented action of taking a member of the press to court because her private life was treated like clickbait. My family has sacrificed and bled for Sondmark for eight hundred years, Jacob. I can’t just—”
“I know.” He grips my hand like he’ll never let it go. “I know. I don’t have an eight-hundred-year-old reason.”
“Then why?” I’m afraid of the answer, and I feel like I did when I was a child, crushing a rocking horse under my careless step. Like I should have known better. My voice is raw, vulnerable in a way I don’t let anyone see. “Did I misread this? Is it nothing to you?”
He gathers my hands together, holding them between his, the answer as soft as midnight. “I spent my life being someone my father had to hide.” He’s not fighting. I almost wish he was. “I want this—all of it—but I can’t be your secret.”
I register the words and my eyes sting.I don’t tell myself fairy tales. The responsibilities I feel for my family and my country are in direct conflict with his needs. No number of suspicious beans, magical godmothers, or anthropomorphic mice are going to make them disappear.
The chill off the window makes my teeth clench.
“We have to get back to the party,” he says, voice gentle.
I blink. I’m supposed to have the right answers for every problem, but I don’t know what to do now except follow his lead.
We return to the flat and meet Freja pacing the hall. Jacob gives her a brisk nod as he passes, but she catches my arm.
Her brows are drawn in worry. “I’m so sorry. You have to forgive me. You’re together all the time, and I saw how friendly you were with each other. I thought he was someone you trusted.”
I look into my sweet sister’s face and hate her just a little bit. I hate her for not seeing that he’s more to me than that. I hate that I’m hiding it so well. I hate that she managed to carry off a wholeflamenwedding without telling the people who love her best. I know she knows how to keep her mouth shut. “You should get back to your guests,” I say. “It’s nothing.”
But I stand on the edge of the party, watching Noah in a game of “Spicy Pepper” with some of Oskar’s cousins, Ella in deep conversation with a man introduced as Uncle Timo, Max and Clara leaning against the bookshelves whispering, Freja and Oskar ignoring everyone as they sway to the music, and my parents presenting a polite face to the world. These are my people, but for the first time in my life, I want to scooch my chair over and add one more seat to this tight circle.
What I feel for Jacob is not nothing.
25
Performance Review
