by Maisey Yates
“Do I have to worry about you gnawing on chicken bones?”
He grinned, his expression wicked, and she was forced to admit she might have been imagining the strangeness in his earlier statement. “Possibly. You never can tell.”
They walked down the hall together, staff members bustling to get out of their way as they made their way through the corridors, down to the ballroom. The entire entry to the castle had been transformed. Great boughs of holly and evergreen were draped over banisters, hung over doorways. White lights twinkled on every surface, peeking out from the dark green trees and decorations, giving everything a special glow.
Zara couldn’t remember the last time she had celebrated Christmas like this. Couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a Christmas tree until this week. They did not celebrate in the same fashion in the clan. It wasn’t part of the traditions. They had celebrated at the palace, and all of this was like a vague, foggy fantasy come to brilliant, glittering life before her eyes.
“It’s magical.”
She looked back at Andres, who looked as though he was suppressing laughter. “I’m very glad you like it.”
“It’s my first Christmas party in...ever. My parents used to throw them at the palace in Tirimia. But I wasn’t invited because I was too young.”
“Well, you aren’t too young now.”
“No.”
“Let’s go inside. Wait until you see the ballroom.”
He led her inside, and she couldn’t help responding to his enthusiasm. As if she needed any encouragement. The ballroom was stunning, trees stationed every few feet, in a circle around the dance floor, tables situated between. White lights were strung between them, casting a net of stars over the partygoers. It was as if a little snow globe had been captured, enclosed by the ballroom rather than glass and water.
“It’s beautiful. Really beautiful.” She turned and smiled at him. “I think that sounds silly. Like not enough. I’m being obvious, I know. But I don’t know what else to say.”
“That’s how I feel when I try to compliment you.” His dark eyes were serious, and it made her stomach tighten. Made her heart beat faster.
Made her wonder if maybe, just maybe, he loved her too.
Andres moved easily through the crowd, greeting everyone they encountered. They were congratulated by countless people, because while they had not made a formal announcement of the engagement, it was being treated as common knowledge. People of course didn’t know the circumstances surrounding their engagement, but Zara imagined it didn’t really matter now. Not now that their relationship was real.
“Shall we take our seats?” he asked.
Zara nodded, and let him lead her to a table at the far end of the ballroom that allowed those sitting at it to get a view of the entire proceedings. Kairos, Tabitha and a few people Zara had never seen before were already seated there.
Andres leaned in. “Diplomats. Politicians. It will be a very dry table.”
“I think we’ll manage.”
“This will be your life. These kinds of parties. This sort of company.”
She tried to make sense of his words. Tried to figure out if any of it mattered. If she cared one way or the other. “Well, it will have you too. So the rest doesn’t really matter.”
He drew back, frowning. “I wouldn’t count on me being one of the perks, Princess.”
“I’ve spent quite a bit of time with you over the past week. There are a great many perks to you.”
“Perhaps to my body. To what I can do to yours. As a human being I tend to fall short.”
She frowned, matching his. “I’ve yet to see evidence of that.”
He said nothing, rather he continued over to the table, so she followed him. She was irritated with him. It had been a while since he was irritating. Or perhaps, she had simply been insulated by the good things he made her feel. That was entirely possible. He did make her feel some very good things.
She took a seat beside Andres, with Tabitha on her other side. The queen was very quiet, and very purposefully not looking at her husband. Zara had to wonder again if this was her fate, inescapably. It was this relationship, so clearly strained, that had made her nervous at the last meal they’d shared. She had been so convinced recently that she and Andres had something entirely different, but then, there were these moments when he would shut down on her completely, and she wasn’t entirely sure after that.
As with everything else at the party, the meal was lovely. Zara mainly listened to people talk about topics she wasn’t very informed on. Andres seemed to be doing the same. Zara turned to Tabitha. “Did you enjoy dinner?” Probably a silly question to ask the queen, who very likely had planned the menu. But she was hopeless at talking to women. She had not had very many friends in her life, Andres was the closest thing, and he wasn’t a woman. Far from it.
Zara found that she very much wanted to make Tabitha a friend. Another thing that was within her reach, thanks to this arrangement.
“Yes,” Tabitha said, seemingly unruffled by Zara’s clumsy attempt at conversation.
“Everything is lovely.” She knew she sounded stilted, but she was trying. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve celebrated Christmas. Since I’ve seen Christmas decorations, and never anything like this. I love Christmas.” She hadn’t let herself remember how much, because it was only painful. Something else to add to the sad, empty ache. Another thing she missed that she couldn’t have back.
“Do you?” Tabitha tilted her head to the side, the words brittle.
“Yes. Doesn’t everyone?”
“I find it quite stressful, I confess.”
Zara noticed Tabitha sneak a quick glance at Kairos.
“A lot of planning. A lot of smiling.”
Tabitha wasn’t doing a very good job of smiling at the moment.
“I can see how it might be. I’m used to... Well, people don’t usually pay so much attention to me.”
“You don’t find it daunting?”
“Not when I’m with him,” Zara said, a blush rising in her cheeks.
Tabitha arched her eyebrows. “Andres?”
“Yes. He’s at ease in every situation. I can’t help being at ease too.”
“So things are...going well between the two of you?”
If Zara wasn’t mistaken, there was a slight edge to Tabitha’s voice now.
“Yes.” Zara shifted uncomfortably. “He’s been very good to me. He cares for me—”
“I see,” Tabitha said, clipped.
Andres chose that moment to lean over and whisper in her ear, “Zara, it looks like the dance floor is beginning to fill. Would you like to join me for a dance?”
“Yes,” she said, grateful for the chance to escape. She had done something wrong. She supposed she shouldn’t be too surprised. She had no experience with any of this. She was moving through it all blindly, having faith that it would work out because she was enjoying herself. Because she was happy. But of course Tabitha had friends. She was secure in her place. Just because Zara desperately wanted the connection didn’t mean that Tabitha did.
Oh, all of this was so complicated.
She accepted Andres’s hand and led the charge to the dance floor, eager to escape her embarrassment.
Once they were out in the center, she buried her head in his chest as he wrapped his arm around her waist and took hold of her hand, holding her close to his body. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Oh, I think I made a mess of things with Tabitha.”
“Tabitha is difficult to connect with sometimes. She’s quite controlled.”
“She wasn’t so much in this instance. I think it upset her that our relationship is going so well.”
He frowned, and her stomach twisted. She felt as though she’d said something wrong again. What if he didn’t think their relationship was going well?
There were so many uncertainties in all this. Insecurity had never been something she’d had to contend with before.
She had been lonely back with the clan, but she had known exactly where she stood. Everyone had positive feelings about her; it was just that a protocol dictated they keep their distance. There was no wondering. People said what they meant; they didn’t play guessing games. With their mouths saying one thing and their eyes clearly communicating another.
“I think she is in a difficult position with Kairos at the moment.”
Zara was relieved to hear that, and she realized that a knot of tension had formed in her stomach that she had scarcely been aware of until it began to loosen. She hadn’t imagined that Andres had anything going on with Tabitha, not really, but she had been worried about it somewhere in the back of her mind until he’d said that. Love was making her slightly crazy. Especially with all the things that were unsaid. That was just how people seemed to do things here. That was how this family seems to do things.
She didn’t understand it.
She would have to, though. She would have to figure all this out somehow. Because she might need only Andres, but he came with a host of issues she would have to negotiate. Loving him meant navigating all this, and so she would. She had not survived a siege on her palace, loss and loneliness, to come out the other side weak and frightened. She had strengths. And she would use them here.
When necessary. Right at this moment, she didn’t need them. Being in his arms didn’t require strength. When she was in his arms, she was able to lean on him. A beautiful thing, since she had never been able to do that growing up. There had been no one for her to lean on. There had been only herself. The two of them would be much stronger. When the winds blew they could stand strong together.
That truth, that belief, was suddenly so strong inside her, burning with so much conviction that she could not hold it in any longer.
“Andres...I need to tell you something.”
“You didn’t stash your dinner in a potted plant, did you?” he asked, his voice full of humor.
“No,” she said, pressing her forehead to his shoulder. “Nothing like that. I just need to tell you...I’m looking forward to becoming your wife tomorrow.”
She felt him stiffen in her arms. “Well, this is a good thing,” he said, “as no matter your feelings on the subject, you will become my wife tomorrow.”
“I know. But I think that you should know that I want to be your wife. I’m happy here with you. I want to be a part of this, part of this family. I want to have your children. I want to be with you.”
He stiffened further, pulling away from her slightly. “What brought this on?” His voice was guarded, his expression shuddered.
“Our time together,” she said, feeling confused. “Things have changed between us. Surely you must see that.”
“We are sleeping together, if that’s what you mean.”
“It’s more than that.”
“Is it? It might be for you, agape, but I can guarantee you that it isn’t for me. I’m a man who has had many lovers, and this is all very run-of-the-mill as far as I’m concerned.”
There was something off about his tone. It didn’t sound like him. It didn’t feel like him. These words didn’t feel real. She knew Andres. Knew the glitter he got in his eye when he was enjoying himself, knew when his smiles were genuine and when they were forced. This was forced. As forced as any one of his fake shows of happiness and ease. He was trying to upset her, and she couldn’t fathom why.
“It’s different. What’s between us,” she insisted, “I know it is. It isn’t just sex.”
His lips curved upward, his expression unkind. “The virgin thinks she knows whether or not this is just sex?”
“As you said, I’m not even almost a virgin anymore.”
He chuckled, the sound flat, bitter. Sharp enough to cut straight through her skin. To pierce her chest. “Yes, I may have said that, but emotionally, you are much closer to a virgin than you are to a siren.”
“Why are you being like this?”
“I’m not being like anything. This is who I am. This is what I am. I was honest with you from the beginning. You know what manner of man I am. The kind of man who would sleep with his brother’s fiancée close enough to his brother’s wedding that it created a need for that brother to marry a woman he barely knew, much less loved.”
“Oh.”
“All that Kairos and Tabitha are going through now? All that strain you see? That pain? That’s on me. They never should have been together. It was never supposed to be the two of them. But I ruined things between Kairos and Francesca. So here we are. Here you are. Because of me.”
“But I... I’m happy to be here. I love you, Andres.”
Given the direction of the conversation, she didn’t know what possessed her to make that admission. And yet she hadn’t been able to keep it inside, not for another moment. She did love him, and she needed him to know it.
Did Andres believe that anyone loved him? She didn’t think he did. More than that, he didn’t love himself. She realized then, with blinding certainty, that he hated himself. That was why he was always telling her how bad he was, why he was always trying to reinforce the fact that he was no good.
He couldn’t love himself, so she would do it for him.
This went beyond destiny. Beyond being a princess. Beyond simply being intended for palace life and a marriage to a prince. This was about being a woman. A woman who loved a man more than anything else.
This wasn’t about running from loneliness or using him to fill a void. This was more than that.
He was more than that.
Had her life been full of love, had she been raised in the palace with her mother and father, she still would have needed him.
He would still have been a missing piece. It wasn’t the palace, the position that was her destiny. It was him.
“I love you,” she repeated.
The second use of the phrase seemed to jar him out of whatever trance he was in. “No.”
“What?”
“There you go again, questioning everything I say. You heard me the first time. No, you cannot love me.”
“Yes, I can. Because I do. That is not your decision to make.”
“It’s impossible. Maybe you have Stockholm syndrome. Or Overly Attached Fruit Basket syndrome, I don’t know. But there’s no way you can possibly love me. You were forced into being here with me. Forced into this arrangement.”
“I certainly wasn’t forced into your bed.”
“Again, Princess, that is sex. It has nothing to do with love. Nothing to do with emotional connections.”
“It does for me.”
“Why?” he asked, his voice broken, fierce. “Why would you love me?”
She sensed that this was important. This was essential. That her answer carried with it the power to heal or the power to destroy.
She closed her eyes, shutting out the people around them, shutting out the Christmas trees, the glitter, the Christmas carols that were being played by the string quartet. She shut out all the beauty. All the trappings that came with Andres, so all that was left was him. Them.
And she wasn’t alone. Not anymore. She wasn’t afraid.
“You remember how my childhood was. I lost my parents. My brother. I was so isolated. And I feared sometimes that I would die from it. That the hole inside my chest would one day expand so great that it would swallow me up. That there would be nothing left of me. People were all around me, but none of them touched me. None of them loved me. I have been starving for years. I have been starving for you. It has nothing to do with sex, though I enjoy what we have together. It’s more. It has everything to do with the fact that we are the same. My soul recognizes yours, Andres. And when I met you, I met the other part of myself.”
He made a derisive, dismissive sound. “We are not the same. Little one, you are an innocent from an enchanted wood. I am the most hardened man whore you could ever hope to run across. I am the man who mothers warn their daughters about. I am the one who makes husbands fear for their weddi
ng vows. I am jaded and cynical. I have indulged in every manner of vice imaginable. Tell me, how is it you think we’re the same?”
“Because we were alone.”
He stopped moving then. The music played on, but she and Andres were frozen in the middle of the floor.
“I have never been alone in my life. I was born in a palace staffed by hundreds of people. I had nannies, more than one, from the beginning. I was never without friends at school. I never go to bed alone unless I choose to. I go to more parties in a year than most people will attend in their entire lives. Even when I was left in my room while my parents went to dinner parties, I was surrounded by people waiting to cater to my every whim.”
“That is survival, Andres. Not love. Not truly being with people. You were the one who told me that.”
“No, you mistake me, Princess. I have never once been alone, not like you.”
“Why do you punish yourself with isolation? Why did you run from me when we made love against the wall? Because you know, as I do, that being alone is the most powerfully frightening thing. You know, because you have been.” Her voice was muted, but her conviction remained. She was certain what she was saying was right. That it was true. “You’re lonely. As lonely as I have been. But instead of going into the woods to scream about your isolation, you buried yourself in the nearest available vice. You tried to make yourself believe you weren’t alone because there were people around to help you do it. I didn’t have that option, so I had to accept my loneliness. Learn to understand it. You’ve been lying to yourself. You’re hurting. And nobody really knows you. Nobody else realizes.”
“Countless women know me, in the biblical sense, which I imagine is a much stronger sense than a great many other versions of knowing someone.”
“Stop it. You put on this air of cynicism, you act like no one can touch you. Like nothing matters. But it’s a lie. I know it is. Because I’ve seen you. I have never gone and read about your past. Everything I know about what a terrible person you are has come from you. It’s come from your own lips. But I don’t believe it. I never have. I’ve never gone looking for anyone else’s opinion on who you might be. I have formed my own. You are a good man. You love your brother. You love this country. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be trying to atone for your mistakes now. You are loyal. Stubborn. A little bit mean when you’re angry, but only because you’re protecting yourself. You have been generous with me. As a lover, as a friend. You have stayed with me, shown me things, treated me with exceeding care. You washed my hair. Andres, you are a good man. So many people have written stories about you, but who are they? Why do they matter? Let my opinion be enough. Believe that. If nothing else, believe me.”