Being with these guys… it had changed her. Not in a bad way, though. If anything, she felt sure they made her better. Like, she was the best person she could be with them at her side. But the world they’d brought her into, it was where she was at her weakest.
Her most vulnerable.
And the dichotomy was tiring.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Edward murmured softly, seeming to discern how sensitive she was at that moment. He nestled deeper into the armchair like he was settling in for the night, and that helped her breathe a little easier.
“There is. You don’t need me to be a big baby.”
Xavier snorted. “Perry, do you know what you did today?”
“Managed not to trip up in front of the world?”
He rolled his eyes. “You became a queen. Now, you’re the Queen. If anyone’s allowed to feel a little shaky, it’s you. And Edward. George and I didn’t have to do what you did today, and we’re feeling the aftermath.
“You’re entitled to be overwhelmed and scared and tired, even.”
She bit her lip. “I do feel tired.”
“Of course. I do too.”
She peered up at her husband. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“I have to learn a lot, Perry,” Edward admitted. “I don’t know how… It’s going to take me a long time to fill my father’s shoes.”
“You don’t have to fill them. You have to make your own place for yourself. Make it yours.”
He touched his thumb to the scowl puckering her brow. “And I will, once I know what I’m doing.”
Jesus, if he didn’t know what he was doing, and he’d been preparing for this all his life, was it any wonder she was feeling like a tub of cookie dough ice cream without the cookie dough?
Pointless.
“Guess that means I need to get used to you not being around for a while, huh?”
He sighed. “Maybe.” She felt his nose nuzzle her hair before he murmured, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”
“Fault can’t be attributed to anyone here,” Xavier pointed out gently. “But it doesn’t mean it’s not crazy scary.”
She stared at him, took him in in all his perfection, then whispered, “You really feel that, too?”
“Of course. Things are going to change now, Perry. Things have to change. We’re… we can’t be the kids anymore. We’re the grown-ups.”
Her eyes widened. Jesus. That. “Yes.”
His lips twitched. “You feel the same way, huh?”
“I do. Like, with Marianne and Philippe around, we could still make mistakes. Now, I feel like we have to be perfect.”
“Well, that’s never going to happen. We’re always going to make mistakes,” he assured her.
“But some of us more than others,” she said wryly, surprising herself with the ability to joke about a future that was so uncertain and, therefore, all the more terrifying.
“We’ll be fine,” Edward said, to Xavier too, not just her. “We’ll live and learn, and if we make mistakes, then Mother and Father aren’t around to reprimand us for it. And if the courtiers complain, they can go fuck themselves.”
“Off with their heads?” she teased, doing her best Queen of Hearts’ impression.
George slipped into the room with a snort. “I’m out of the conversation for five minutes, and when I come back you’re ready to decapitate someone?”
“Only if they deserve it,” she teased.
He grinned at her. “What merits you going all Queen Redd on someone’s butt?”
“I haven’t been Queen long enough to make a list. I’ll come up with appropriate punishments for certain misdemeanors.”
“She’s hardcore,” Xavier told George with a laugh, and they all joined in.
“Pizza will be ready in twenty,” George informed the room at large.
“Want to watch a movie?”
She scowled up at her husband. “Where can we watch a movie? Does this place even have a TV?”
He blinked at her. “We’re the richest people in Veronia, Perry, and you think we don’t have a TV?”
“I feel like I’ve only seen one in the castle. In George’s room.”
“Mine’s hidden in a cupboard,” Edward informed her. “In my old quarters, I mean. There are televisions, they’re just not on show.”
“Okay then, movie night it is. But where is it?”
“In the cinema room.”
She gaped at Xavier. “This place has a cinema room?” Her lips formed a pout. “Now I really wish we were going to live here.”
Beneath her, Edward tensed. His hand came up to cup the back of her neck. “I’m sorry we’re not going to,” he told her quietly.
“Me too, but we’ll make Masonbrook work.” The smile she shone his way was tight but earnest.
“It’s not all bad,” George pointed out. “There are great stables, Perry. We need to get you riding.”
“Because I’m not dangerous enough on two legs, you want to shove me on four?”
“I swear, you’re terrified of falling over and I haven’t seen you fall once.”
“Why does that sound like a complaint, Xavier?” she demanded drily.
“Trust me, she doesn’t do it often, but when she does, it’s spectacular.”
She rolled her eyes at George. “My public misery is there for your private consumption.”
He snickered. “I know. One time, we were in downtown Boston. We were just about to head into this great little bar called White Hart.”
His words struck a chord with her.
God, how long had it been since they’d gone there?
Would they ever be able to go again?
Not likely.
“We were walking in and this car, out of nowhere, drives past and through this shit-deep puddle.”
“His Highness over there didn’t get a mark on him, of course,” she grumbled. “I got piss wet through.”
“She means it, guys,” George said, his tone gleeful at the memory.
“Why do I love you again?” she demanded.
“Because I rock?”
“Oh yeah, it could be that.”
When he winked at her, she grumbled, then huffed out a sigh when he carried on. “So, it was scorching hot but we’d just had this storm, and she’s covered in this gray water. Ms. Braveheart over here runs into the street and starts waving her arms at the driver who totally didn’t notice her as he was driving off.
“She’s so busy trying to get the guy—who’s on the other block by now—to see her, she forgets other cars are allowed in the road too. Huge SUV comes up behind her, toots its horn and…”
“Where are you when this is going down?” Edward demanded, scowling at his brother. “This doesn’t sound very gentlemanly, George.”
She preened at Edward’s courteous words. “I know you wouldn’t have let me do that, Edward.”
“George shouldn’t have either!”
The man under fire held up his hands in surrender. “She’d dashed into the road before I could stop her, then, when the SUV made its appearance, I nearly got thrown under a damn bus trying to get her out of the way.”
She wrinkled her nose. “He did do that.”
“Thank you,” George retorted wryly. “She managed to dash off faster than I did. Anyway, as I get out of the way of the bus, she’s on the other side of the road at this point. I have to rush across too, and then, lo and behold, the bus takes off, and boom.”
Perry burst out laughing. “He got covered in shitty water, too.”
George grinned at her. “I think we need to be grateful those things don’t happen too often. We’re the ones in danger from her clumsiness. Not her.”
Edward snorted, but Xavier murmured, “We’ll keep her safe from herself.”
“Just throw her in a padded room.” George winked at her. “That should do it.”
She shot him a wide grin as the happy memory floo
ded through her. She’d been wicked pissed at getting wet, angrier still when the jerk driver hadn’t stopped to apologize. Then, watching George almost get run over, while terrifying, had ended up hilarious because he’d been drenched too.
“I’m glad the memory makes you smile, Ms. Grumpy.”
“I’m not grumpy,” she argued. “Not now that there’s pizza coming.”
George rolled his eyes. “Are we watching a movie or what?”
She bit her lip. “Shouldn’t we be doing something more…”
“More what?”
At Xavier’s question, she shrugged. “Royal?”
“Royal?” Edward laughed. “No. Royals are allowed to eat pizza and watch movies, too.”
“But you’re too busy,” she said sadly. “I’m sure there are other things you need to be doing tonight.”
He grabbed a firm hold of her chin, tilted her face to his and pressed a gentle kiss to her mouth. “There’s nothing more important than you tonight, Perry. Than making sure you’re okay and that we’re okay.”
She gnawed at her bottom lip. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.” He stared deeply into her eyes. “These moments might be rare, but they will be precious.”
His words had her frowning—it was indicative of the upcoming weeks, she supposed. He was warning her: he wouldn’t be around much.
The notion shouldn’t have left a deep ache in her soul, but it did.
It really did.
Maybe it should have scared her how much she needed these men. She’d never needed anyone before George. Having left home at eighteen, she’d barely gone back to her parents’ farm through college, and after… she’d been independent, was used to that. Then, she’d met George and she’d grown to depend on him in different ways.
But that was nothing compared to now.
She needed each man, needed them in a way she couldn’t understand how other women didn’t.
How did they cope with just one man?
Edward was her silent strength. The man at her back, who always would shelter her and protect her. Xavier was the light at the end of the tunnel. He would speak for her when she was wordless. When she couldn’t make sense of things, he made them right for her. And George? He was her joker. He managed to make the darkest situations the lightest.
All three of them were her strength.
She could do this—be queen and their lover and all the other things she’d need to be over the upcoming months. She knew that. Perry wasn’t a total no-hope, after all. But this was their world. This was a universe of courtiers and royal visits. Of waving at millions of strangers who knew the most intimate of details about her and her husband’s world. It involved smiling when she was sad, of being polite when she felt she was drowning.
It meant wearing a crown and being regal when all she felt like wearing was yoga pants and a smile—one not loaded with lipstick.
This world was not her own.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t make it hers.
Even if she’d have to start with Edward not being as close as she needed.
She reached for him, pressed her mouth to his. “You need to do what you need to do. I recognize that.”
She felt the tension release from him like an ill wind. “Thank you for understanding.”
“Of course.”
“I won’t be far away,” he promised her.
Somehow, she knew that was a lie. He could be just down the hallway in Masonbrook, and it would feel like he was in another damn town.
“I know,” she assured him, cupping his chin and stroking her thumb over his jaw. “Just don’t…”
“Don’t what?”
She shook her head. She’d been about to ask him not to forget her, but he wasn’t going anywhere.
It just felt like he was.
Xavier cleared his throat, and she was grateful that he seemed to sense her uncertainty. “Come on. Let’s go to the movie room.”
Edward scowled at her, then flashed his cousin a glance. But whatever he saw on Xavier’s face had him nodding.
Perry leaped off his lap, then held out her hand as he, too, got to his feet.
“Who’s picking the movie?” she asked, forcing a smile.
Tonight was tonight, and tomorrow was another day.
George laughed. “Me!” Then, he took off like the joker he was, and damn her hide, she couldn’t stop herself from rushing after him.
“Not if I get there first.”
“That will be bloody hard considering you don’t know where it is!” he called back to her.
“Well, shit,” she grouched, coming to a swift halt, causing Xavier to bump into her.
He laughed, then scared the shit out of her by hauling her over his shoulder and taking off at swift run. Before she could do more than squeal, he declared, “Game on, George. We’re coming to get you.”
And while she knew he was only teasing, the words fit them all.
If one faltered, the others would approach, en masse, to help him.
Just as they would if Edward dove into his new role and drowned in the quagmire of it. Just as they would if the same happened to her.
They were a foursome, not single units.
And they would never, ever, be alone again.
She needed to remember that.
Chapter Three
Two days later
“When is he going to wake up?”
Xavier ran a hand through his already rumpled hair. George’s exasperation bled through his demand, and it was shared by them all.
Philippe’s grand suite had been overtaken with medical equipment. Amid the richest tapestries in the land, the most ornate of decorations in the old king’s rooms…the modern didn’t marry successfully with the past.
Philippe had been hit twice by a sniper’s bullet. One had caused nothing more than a flesh wound, but he hadn’t been so fortunate with the second… It had pierced his stomach, doing damage to his liver and spleen along the way as it injured his spinal cord.
Upon their return from Dubai, Philippe had already been unconscious. He’d awoken only to abdicate the throne and to consent to the operation that would reduce the swelling on his spinal cord—the endgame to stabilize his spine and avoid paralysis.
Though he was clinging to life, Philippe had yet to wake up from his surgery, and had been in an unresponsive coma ever since.
While Xavier wanted to see his uncle, to speak with him, he was well aware that a healing rest was exactly what Philippe needed. The chaos in the wake of the assassination, the subsequent abdication, then the new coronation, had left Veronia in a state of flux. For a country as large, as rich, and as powerful as theirs was, that was never good thing. It was a time of stress, and with his injuries, the last thing Philippe needed was to be dealing with that.
Still… his wakening didn’t promise much, but he and his cousins longed to speak with Philippe. Xavier knew that was because they were reverting to type. While they were some of the nation’s most powerful men, that did not mean that they themselves did not feel fear or concern or anxiety. In Philippe’s presence, they were small boys again, needing reassurance from their father and uncle. Needing to know they were safe.
But they weren’t safe.
They had proof of that now.
In the face of George’s anger, the doctors were uncomfortable.
The surgeon, a specialist who had been flown in from Switzerland, mumbled, “It is difficult to say, your Highness. His Highness’s injuries are severe. Rest is his saving grace. He will awaken when he is ready, when his body is ready.”
George rubbed his temples. “But he was supposed to be conscious for the coronation. That was two days ago now. Surely it’s a bad sign that he’s still sleeping.”
The surgeon, Dr. Schertz, shrugged his pigeon-like shoulders but he flushed when he caught Perry’s earnest eye. “There is no good nor bad. He needs rest. Sleep. He is healing from grievous wounds, your Highnesses.”
Not that Edward was here.
A fact none of them could argue about. They knew he’d be attending this appointment if he could, but his new station simply didn’t allow it. In fact, that new station barely allowed any time to grieve Marianne’s death or Philippe’s current state, never mind anything else.
Though Edward was aware it wasn’t fair, and that that route only lead to burnout, that was the way of it. It was like a trial by fire. Philippe would be the first to say that the earliest months of a new monarch’s reign were the hardest. A reign, after all, always began with grief, for a new King surfaced only upon the old King’s passing.
In this case, Philippe hadn’t died, but every day his life hung in the balance.
To Dr. Schertz, Perry murmured, “I’m certain Philippe’s in the best care. Thank you for coming to speak to us, Doctor.” She reached for his hand and gently squeezed.
It was quite amusing to witness the surgeon’s preening at her praise—that was, if it hadn’t been so damned irritating. In her new position, Perry had been manicured in a way that they were all getting used to. Slowly.
The wedding had been the first phase in that change. The coronation had been the second.
Her nails were no longer bare, but discreetly buffed and polished. Her brows were perfect, her makeup natural and flawless. Her hair gleamed with good health after a recent cut, and her wardrobe, which had already been revitalized under George’s supervision, had endured a distinct overhaul.
The Perry that had flown into Veronia all those months ago was no more. Xavier supposed, in a way, they were also mourning her loss. Perry was changing, he knew. She had to. Her new role required adaptation.
Patience.
More change.
More flux. It was everywhere.
It was overwhelming.
In his white coat, beneath which was a very smart suit, the surgeon’s posturing had him pushing out his chest as he strutted out of Philippe’s bedroom.
When George spoke, the doors had closed behind the small man, “Another admirer, Perry.”
Long Live Queen Perry: Contemporary Reverse Harem (Kingdom of Veronia Book 3) Page 3