“I have Huntington’s.”
The revelation just falls out of my mouth. I hadn’t even intended on telling her tonight. I knew I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t know it would happen like this.
Ivy stares at me blankly. “What?”
I turn my head to meet her gaze, swallowing thickly. I nod. “Yeah.”
“Since when?”
“Well, I’m guessing since I was born. It is genetic, after all.”
“Don’t be a dick,” Ivy grunts. “When did you find out? We both got tested. It was negative!”
I shake my head. “Yours was negative.”
“You’ve been positive for six months? Since before…”
“I found out the day I slept with Beckett. The day he made me overdose.” I sigh, shaking my head. “Worst day of my life.”
Ivy’s bottom lip trembles and her eyes fill with tears. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice is barely above a whisper.
I heave myself off the sofa, moving to sit beside her. Wrapping my arms around my sister, I hold her close.
“I was scared,” I answer simply. “Then, I found out about the baby…”
“Is the baby okay?”
I give her a tight smile. “I decided not to get the test.”
“But…”
“I know. I just couldn’t face the decision I’d have to make if it was positive.” I smile sadly. “I never said I was brave. I just said I have Huntington’s.”
Ivy nods, wiping a tear from her cheek. I smile at my sister, squeezing her closer. She cries into my chest, and I pat her head and rock her back and forth.
I don’t feel sad.
I feel free.
I said the words out loud, and I didn’t get hit by a bolt of lightning. Nothing bad happened, apart from Ivy’s tears.
The truth is out there now.
I have Huntington’s disease. Over the next fifteen or twenty years, I’ll develop twitches and jerks. I’ll lose control over my movements. I might have trouble walking, talking, swallowing. My personality will likely change and I’ll have trouble reasoning.
I’ll die young.
All those things are true, and I’ve said it out loud. Now, Ivy knows the truth, too.
I’m no longer afraid.
31
DANTE
I THOUGHT things would get easier when Beckett was found.
They haven’t.
Theo looks like he’s aged ten years in the last ten days. I’ve isolated myself again, hiding from cameras and people like I used to.
All the while, I think of Margot.
After Ivy and Luca leave for Farcliff, I feel Margot’s absence even more.
Still, I can’t get over her betrayal. The fact that she jumped from Luca, to Beckett, and finally to me is just too much to cope with. I told her I loved her. She thought she got what she wanted out of me. I was just the poor idiot that would take care of her unwanted kid.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
Late at night, though, when I stare up at the ceiling and I miss the sound of her breathing, I wonder if it might just be my pride talking.
The day after Luca and Ivy leave, I make my way to the Argyle prison. Beckett is being held in a special holding cell, kept under close custody.
Taking a deep breath as the guards lead me to his cell, I clench my fists and grind my teeth. I’m not sure I’m ready for this.
My brother looks up from his cot when the guard opens the door. A cruel smile stretches his lips.
“Dante,” he croons, spreading his arms wide. “So nice of you to come visit, brother.”
“Good to see you’ve finally showered. You were looking pretty awful last time we spoke.”
Beckett bares his teeth.
The guard closes the door behind me. I pull a chair over and take a seat, clasping my hands in front of me and staring at my brother.
“What brings you to my neck of the woods?” Beckett asks, leaning back against the concrete wall as if any of this is normal.
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Try to hurt Luca? All he’s ever done is try to keep our family together after Mother betrayed Father.”
Beckett scoffs. “Yeah, right. Luca, the perfect son. The cripple turned miracle. Give me a fucking break.”
“What’s your problem, Beckett?”
“My problem?” Beckett swings his eyes to me. His gaze is dark and unreadable. “My problem is that my whole life, I’ve never been good enough for this fucking family. Mother treated me like I was a lost puppy that she saved, and the King did nothing but belittle me and make me feel like an outsider.”
Beckett’s chest heaves. I gulp, not knowing how to answer. The last thing I want to do is agitate him.
He scoffs, straightening his prison uniform and combing his fingers through his hair. “Luca was the worst of them all. Daddy’s favorite. The athlete. The jokester. How any of you guys stand him is beyond me. After Mother ran off, he took up the role of my chief torturer.”
“Luca? He loved you. He always thought of you as a brother.”
“Is that what you call it? Parading Cara in front of me when he knew I was in love with her? Making fun of me every time I tagged along, making me feel like I was never welcome? Yeah, right. He deserved to jump off that cliff and break his back.”
Clasping my hands together, I try my best to hide the swell of anger in my heart. No one deserves to break their back.
I don’t even know why I’m here. I have nothing to say to Beckett, but I thought maybe I could get some answers from him. Maybe, talking to him, I could understand what happened between him and Margot.
Now that I see him, though, I know I won’t get anything from him. I push myself off the chair and move toward the cell door.
“You’re just as bad as he is,” Beckett says to my back.
I turn to face him, grinding my teeth. “Yeah? How do you figure?”
“You never saw me as a brother.”
“I always saw you as a brother, Beckett. Just as much as Theo or Luca. You were the one who stood in my corner when I wanted to stay out of the public eye. You always defended my right to privacy to Mother and Father. I loved you.”
“Past tense? You don’t love me anymore?”
We stare at each other, and I shake my head. “I can’t forgive what you did to Luca.”
Beckett arches an eyebrow. “Only Luca? What about Margot?”
My brother laughs when he sees the tension ratchet up in my body. I clench my fists at the sound of her name, betraying why I’m really here.
“Well, you can have her,” Beckett spits, laying down in bed and turning his back to me. “She was a mediocre fuck, anyway. Once was enough for me. Turns out, Luca didn’t even care about her, and she looked just as bored as I was. She didn’t even have the decency to die like she was supposed to.” He pulls his thin blanket up to his chin without another word, and I know the conversation is over.
I rap my knuckles on the door and the guard opens it a second later. As I walk back down the prison hallways, my mind whirls, and I realize I was wrong.
Margot didn’t have a master plan. She wasn’t trying to use me. Beckett was using her.
He left her, pregnant and alone, confused as to how she ended up overdosing while he moved on to other ways to hurt Luca.
And me?
I’m no better. I broke down her defenses one by one and convinced her to trust me. I wormed my way into her heart and then I left her behind.
I’m just the same as Beckett, if not worse.
WHEN I GET BACK to Argyle Palace, I feel empty. Alone.
I feel like an ass.
Throwing a few things into a bag, I ask for the jet to be prepared. Then, I find Theo and Cara and say a quick goodbye. Theo nods to me, his face somber. I don’t have to tell him why I’m leaving—he understands. Ever since he started dating Cara, he’s understood matters of the heart better than any of the rest of us.
So, I sling my bag over my shoulder and stride to the waiting royal vehicle.
I’m going to Farcliff.
The plane takes off, and my heart starts pumping harder. My knee bounces up and down, and I chew on my nails as we make the three-hour flight up to Farcliff. I wave the flight attendants away and stare out the window at the setting sun, taking deep, cleansing breaths.
When we land, it’s far colder than I ever expected. It’s the week before Christmas, and the air in Farcliff is full of holiday fervor.
I jump in a car and give Margot’s address, tugging at my collar as I start to sweat.
Suddenly, it seems too impulsive to be here. I should have called Margot. I should have tried to text her or warn her in some way that I was coming.
But what could I say? I need to see her face when I tell her that I was wrong. I need to hold her in my arms and smell her skin before dropping to my knees and asking for her forgiveness.
I don’t know how I’ll prove to her that I’m worthy of her love, but I’ll find a way.
Hope blooms in my heart as my love for Margot flares. All the emotion that I’ve kept at bay comes back with a vengeance, and all I can think about is how much I care about her.
I was a fool to push her away. An idiot to doubt her. An ass to let her leave.
That changes right now.
The car pulls through the gates, and a few stray photographers snap pictures of my car. I wince, and then brace myself against the cameras. They can’t see me through the tinted windows.
In any case, this is what I need to get used to. If I’m going to prove myself to Margot, I need to show her that I can handle the public scrutiny and her life as a celebrity. I can live my life in the open and I can change my ways, because I love her.
I love her more than anything in the world, and I need her in my life.
Those words play on repeat in my mind as the driver opens my door for me. I nod to him, my eyes trained on the front door.
My hands tremble as I raise a fist to knock. With a deep breath, I rap on the door, and I wait.
32
MARGOT
IVY IS STILL CRYING in my arms when a knock comes on the door. We both stiffen, my sister wiping the tears from her eyes and glancing over her shoulder.
“Who is it?”
“I’m not sure,” I answer.
“Tell them to go away.”
I laugh. “I will.”
Giving her shoulders one last squeeze, I extricate myself from my sister’s hold. Brushing my hands over my thighs, I try to straighten up my crumpled clothing as I walk to the front door.
Maybe Luca ordered pizza, or some reporter got through security somehow. Maybe Felicity came by with some last-minute plans for my upcoming week of public appearances.
I run through every single possibility, except one.
Shock registers on my face as I swing the door open. Dante stands on the porch, arms hanging at his sides, face betraying no tension. He inhales sharply when he sees me, but otherwise says nothing.
He looks gorgeous.
Rugged, haunted, and exactly like the man who has been plaguing my dreams. His eyes stare into me, begging me to let him in. I fight it with every ounce of my strength. I brace myself against the assault that his gaze wages on me, bolstering the defenses around my heart.
He kicked me out. He turned his back on me. He left me out in the cold.
Now, without a word, I’m ready to let him back in?
My heart stutters as a soft breeze carries his scent toward me. I close my eyes for a brief moment.
I thought I was strong. I thought I was free, and ready to live honestly. I thought I wanted to proclaim my illness from the rooftops with pride, ready to conquer whatever the world had to throw at me. I thought I could raise my baby on my own and stand on my own two feet.
The Prince makes me crumble with one look. He hasn’t even said a single word, and I’m ready to open myself back up to him.
“Dante,” I finally manage to croak, clearing my throat and patting my hair.
“Margot.” His voice is husky, barely a breath.
“I… What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
“Dante!” Ivy says behind my shoulder. “I thought you were still in Argyle.”
“I flew back,” he says, moving his gaze from me to my sister and back to me again.
I know he’s waiting for me to open the door wider. He’s expecting me to let him in.
But how could I?
The man who broke my heart is standing there like nothing at all is wrong. His face is open, and although his eyes betray a bit of pain, it’s nothing compared with the suffering in my heart.
I gulp, frozen in place. My feet grow roots and I can’t move from my spot on the floor.
“Can I…come in?” Dante arches his eyebrows.
I nod, pulling the door wider, but instead of waiting around to see what he has to say, I mumble something incoherent and escape up the stairs.
Only when I’m safe in my room do I let a breath out and sink onto the floor. Dropping my head in my hands, I finally let a sob rack through my body. All the tears I’ve held inside come rushing out and I curse my miserable life. I cry for my mother, for my childhood, for all my failed relationships and the weaknesses that have plagued my entire existence.
If I were stronger, I wouldn’t have fallen prey to celebrity and all its curses. If I were stronger, I would have been honest with Dante about the baby.
If I were stronger, I wouldn’t be so fucking terrified of dying.
Huddling on the floor, I cry into the carpet and clutch my growing belly.
“Margie?” Ivy knocks softly on my door, barely whispering my name.
“What?”
She tries to open the door, but my body blocks her from opening it more than an inch or two.
“Margot,” she says softly, “will you let me in?”
Crawling to my hands and knees, I scoot out of the way. I lean against the wall and watch as my sister walks in and slides down the wall beside me. We sit there, knees up, pregnant stomachs protruding, staring straight ahead.
“He’s here for you,” Ivy finally whispers.
“So?”
“So, don’t you want to talk to him?”
“Not particularly, no.” I try to laugh, but it turns into an awful snort. Wiping my cheeks with my palms, I take a deep, shaking breath. “I don’t have anything to say to him.”
“You still love him.”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
Ivy snorts, shaking her head. “Don’t you?”
“Look, Ivy, we don’t all get happily ever afters like you, okay? Maybe this is exactly what I deserve. I’ve lived my life hiding from everything bad, taking the easy way out every time I could. Even with Dante, I hid my pregnancy and the fact that Beckett is the father from him, and it blew up in my face.” My breath shakes, and I squeeze my eyes shut. “Today, I decided I wasn’t going to live like that anymore. I told you about my disease because I wanted to be honest and strong and open.”
“And hiding from the man who loves you is being honest, and strong, and open?”
“No,” I laugh bitterly. My eyes are still leaking tears, and I wipe them away with frustration. I don’t want to cry! I don’t want to hide!
But what else can I do?
“If I go down there, I’ll end up kissing him. He’ll say he’s sorry and I’ll say I’m sorry and that will be the end of it, but that’s not good enough.”
Ivy’s silent for a while, and she finally takes a deep breath. “Why not?”
I stare at my sister. “What do you mean?”
“Why isn’t sorry good enough?”
“Because it’s not, Ivy. There’s too much between us. We’ve only known each other a couple of months, and there are too many things stacked up against our re
lationship. If we break so easily, so early on, what hope do we have in the long run? I don’t want to prolong my pain. I just want to stand on my own two feet and give my child the stability it deserves.”
Ivy sighs, leaning her head against my shoulder. “That makes sense, I guess. It just seems like a shame to throw it all away.”
“I’m not throwing anything away,” I say, mostly to convince myself. “I don’t have anything to throw away to begin with. I’m trying to be a better person. What kind of person would I be if I just ran back into the arms of someone who basically threw me out when he found out who the father of my kid is?”
“You want me to ask him to leave?”
“Yes. No. Maybe.”
Ivy laughs, and I chuckle, shaking my head.
“I’ll go talk to him,” I say, pushing myself up to my feet. I help my sister up, and we both take a moment to catch our breath.
“I don’t think sitting on the floor will be a part of my life for the next few months,” Ivy says, grinning at me. “That was far too difficult.”
“Agreed.”
Ivy wraps her arm around my waist and leans her cheek against my shoulder. “It’ll work out,” she says. “It always does.”
Forcing a smile, I just nod. I don’t want to tell her that things always seem to work out for her. Me, on the other hand? Things only seem to fall apart.
With a sigh, I open my bedroom door and head downstairs to find Dante.
33
DANTE
I DON’T KNOW what kind of welcome I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. When Ivy disappears to go chase after Margot, I wander to the back of the house and stare out the sliding glass doors to the backyard beyond.
A heavy hand lands on my shoulder, and Luca wraps me in a quick hug.
“Didn’t think I’d see you here.”
“It had to be done,” I say, forcing a smile.
Inside, I’m barely holding it together. The hope that flared inside me is slowly dying, taking my heart with it. If Margot doesn’t talk to me soon, I might suffocate from my own stress.
Luca lets out a deep sigh, walking away and leaving me to stare out the window by myself.
Wicked Prince: A Secret Baby Romance (Royally Unexpected Book 5) Page 17