Page 72 of American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy 2)
Maybe he never opened my box because he knew deep down that I’d say no.
But it wasn’t the ring that made me order up an entire bottle of Hendricks to my room, it really wasn’t even the proposal itself.
No, it was the look on his face.
Open and happy. Adoring. He loved Jenny—like, genuinely loved her. He wanted to marry her. Not to spite me or to please Merlin, but because she made him happy in her own uncomplicated, straightforward way.
I used to tell myself that Colchester was an extraordinary man with extraordinary needs. That the karmic balance of him saving lives and winning wars was his dark hours with me. That I gave him something no one else could, that the things I let him do to me under the cover of night enabled him to wake up the next morning and be a hero for everyone else.
But now I knew that was a lie. He was still a hero. He was still a hero having straight vanilla sex with a lawyer. He was still a hero in a relationship where a blowjob was a birthday present, not something he could take by force whenever he damn well pleased.
So where did that leave me?
What did that make me?
Extraneous? Damaged? Sick?
And couldn’t he have at least acted like it hurt a little? To propose to Jenny?
Because it hurt me a lot. And maybe that was the point. Maybe Ash couldn’t deny himself just a little taste of that old sadism to make me watch this, make me see how happy he was with someone else.
But I told him I’d stay with him, I thought bitterly as I got in the shower. My mouth still tasted like limes. I told him I still wanted to fuck even though I couldn’t marry him.
I remembered his face when I’d said that, as he’d slowly gotten to his feet at the top of my favorite valley, the ring box still in his hand.
“But I don’t want to just fuck you,” he’d said in a hollow voice. “I want to love you.”
“I’ll give you everything of myself,” I’d said, pleading. “Just don’t ask me to give that. Please.”
And I’d seen it in his face. The rupture. The hurt. The fury.
“Would you rather have it be all or nothing? Really?” I’d demanded. “Isn’t it better to have something?”
He hadn’t answered, and so I’d answered for myself, out of my own ruptured fury and hurt. “Fine,” I’d said. “I thought you meant you’d take me any way you could have me, but apparently that’s changed. So maybe it’s better if we don’t have each other at all.” And I’d left him there clutching the unopened ring box.
It was a testament to his faithful nature that he’d still sought my friendship afterwards, that he still trusted me with his life in combat, that he still kept me close. A lesser man than him would have pushed me away, but he didn’t, and I was grateful for it because I still craved him. I still craved the smell of his skin when he accidentally got too close, hungered at the way sweat slid down the cords of his neck during the hot summer days. I was starved for him and willing to chase after scraps.
But that had to stop now. It had been two years since that day in the valley and he was engaged now. I had to move on; as my Aunt Nimue told her son Lyr often enough when he got in trouble, “This is your dishwater, now you have to soak in it.” I’d made the choice to put Ash’s future before any future we had as a couple, and now I had to live with that choice.
I had a text from Ash when I finished my shower. I’m doing lunch with Merlin—want to come?
I manifestly did not. It still hurt too much to be around Ash for one thing, and for another, I resented Merlin almost more than any human on earth. Even though this had all been my decision, my choice, and I owned it as such, a juvenile part of me still blamed it all on Merlin. On that day in the train car and all his talk of sacrifice.
Besides, I had to go to his birthday party that night and that would be more than enough of him for me.
I spent the rest of the day napping and fussing and finishing off the Hendricks, and when it came time to go to Merlin’s party, I was tipsy and resigned. I’d see Ash and Jenny, Merlin would see me seeing them, and it would all be terrible, but there would probably be an open bar and I wasn
’t above prostituting my emotions if there’d be alcohol present. But I never made it to the party.
Life had other plans.
“Fuck,” the girl who’d just run into me muttered.
“My favorite word,” I said automatically, but also amusedly. But my amusement faded as she looked up and I saw her face. Her fucking gorgeous face.
Waves upon waves of waist-length hair in hues of gold and platinum. Soft, pretty lips. An arresting beauty mark on her cheek. A small cleft in her chin. Huge silver eyes limned with lashes longer and darker than Ash’s and that were now pooling with tears.
She was someone who didn’t cry often, I saw that immediately. People who cry often are good at hiding it or at least betray a certain amount of comfort with it, but she was neither hiding it nor was she comfortable. She was miserable with it, her shoulders hunched up defensively under her leather jacket, her chest juddering with jerky, unhappy breaths.
