While we are alone in this space, getting smaller and smaller by the hour, my mother paces relentlessly, and I continue to stare out the window. I don’t know why I bother. Our rooms are at the back of the resort, so I can't exactly see anything happening out the front anyway. But my imagination is more than sufficient in filling in the blanks.
If I’m honest, I’m a little disappointed in the anticlimactic-ness of it all. There hasn’t been any shouting, not that I expected such really. My father is too refined for all that. He’d been raised to behave a certain way from birth, and he is scariest in his silence. And that is probably why my mother paces. But she breaks the silence finally, not stopping her movements to look at me.
“I was young,” she begins quietly. And I knew where this was going.
“Stop,” I burst out, damning my active imagination.
“You don’t want to know the rest?” Her brows rise. She has obviously been working out how to continue and what to say for quite some time.
I shake my head. “All that matters is you know exactly how I feel, and yet you won’t do anything about it; you’re simply going to subject me to the same fate.”
She stops pacing finally, and comes over to sit on the other side of the window seat. She stares at me, appraising me, and I fight the urge to fidget and shift under that judgmental gaze.
“You’re in love with him?” She reaches for my hand, and instead of pulling away, I let her take it. “You think you can’t live without him? You think there’s no one in the world who could ever fill the void his absence will leave in your heart?”
I stare at her. She does know.
“Yes. All that and more,” I admit meekly.
She shakes her head sadly. “You’re wrong.”
I study her, hoping she is going to say that eventually my father did that, that her heart had grown to love him, and it wasn’t all an act for the public, and for me. I want to hear she is finally happy and that everything I thought I knew about my parents isn’t a lie. That I wasn’t played, just like everyone else. She smiles sweetly, and my heart plummets.
“You. You filled that void.” No, please…
“When you have a family of your own, you’ll understand. Your father is a good man, a wonderful father. I couldn’t have asked for more than that.” Oh but she should have. “He’s been a great King, though all this current business isn’t solely his fault. My actions caused all of this.” I groan. This is worse than I thought.
“And you want me to suffer the same fate? Do you want me in a loveless marriage? Thanks. That’s a great way to treat your only daughter and the reason for your existence.” I glare at her. “You disappoint me, Mother. After everything you’ve been through and experienced, I’d expect more. I’d expect you to be compassionate to my feelings and not just empty words.”
That is probably the meanest, most disobedient thing I’ve ever said to her. And I refuse to take it back. She could help me. She could fix this for me, but she wouldn’t mess with the system. And now I am trapped in this hell of a life.
The door opens before I or my mother can say any more, and my father walks in with his guards in tow. I glance around, waiting for Gavin to enter, wondering what’s keeping him when the door closes, and my heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach.
“He’s gone. They’re both gone.” He stares at me and my mother with disgust. “And you’re getting married Raina, as soon as possible, to the prince of our choosing. Clearly, it’s necessary. If anyone will still have you.”
“Gavin would have me,” I mutter.
“Gavin is not, nor will he ever,, be an option, do you hear me?” my father snaps.
“Then fine! You pick. I am beyond caring.” I feel hollowed out, completely empty inside.
“Good. Now pack your things. We are leaving as soon as possible.” He pulls out his cell phone, dismissing me without any more to say, and dials a number. “Thomas? Yes, ready the jet; we will be there shortly.”
Everything that I am slowly starting to shut down, turn off, and lock itself away deep in my belly, where all thoughts and memories of Gavin will now live. I become a robot, the perfectly passive, controllable daughter they’ve always wanted.
I pack up the few things I have, and we leave, without a word spoken between all three of us. We fly home on the private jet my parents used to get here so quickly. As the white world flies past in a blur of clouds, we rush home to my empty future and the palace that’ll forever be my prison cell, my life sentence, cursed with royal blood.
***
The date is set, locked and loaded. I am to marry in a measly six weeks. Six freaking weeks. My father wasted no time, mere minutes, after stepping foot off the jet and on to our small tarmac. He was making phone calls to whom and for what I still don’t know. But within a week of being home from Switzerland it was all arranged. Without my input or acknowledgment whatsoever. I am told point blank I am to marry Jasper Van Hutton, third prince of the Netherlands, heir to nothing and no one, six weeks from now, whether I like it or not. No is not an option or an opinion to have.
But through all of this, I say nothing and complain to no one. I’ve all but given up caring, given up as much as possible really. It is no use anyway. Anything I had to say in regards to, well, anything, will fall on deaf ears. I am completely and utterly alone. And will be for the rest of my days. Surrounded by everyone, comforted by no one.
I wonder if little girls who dream of being princesses, if they knew of all the nitty-gritty, if they’d still wish to be of royal blood. But then, I think it’s more the marrying of the handsome prince that turns them into a princess that really appeals. If Hollywood movies are anything to go by.
My days blur and bleed together. And endless number of fittings and parties and photo ops, flower arrangements and food tastings, but my opinion means little, if anything at all. I’m barely required to be part of any of it. If it wasn’t for appearance's sake, I am sure I wouldn’t be if some had their way.
So I plaster on my best polyester smile, to match my fake fur outfit, and do my duty. Smile for all the cameras, for the nameless faces congratulating me endlessly for my impending nuptials.
“Princess, Princess?” Snap, snap, snap. “Are you excited about your upcoming wedding?” Click, click, click.
“Yes.”
“Princess Raina, Princess?” Snap, snap, snap. “You’re looking radiant. Is it love?” Click, click, click.
“Thank you…”
I say very little these days. Mainly two phrases: yes and thank you. It’s all that’s required of me. No, it’s all that is demanded of me. I do it with a grin and a royal wave.
To my corner of the world as I know it, I look regal, princely, happy even. But in the mirror, to the only one looking close enough, beyond the mask and the pretty outfits, I see the truth. I look broken, hollow, and devoid of any true emotion. Just like my shattered heart. Beyond repair and beyond care. Except for the occasional tick I can’t shake. The beat with a name that haunts me.
Tick…
Gavin…
Tick…
Gavin…
Tick…
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Gavin
“Gavin!” my new lead guard yells breathlessly, having run after me. “Gavin, hold up a minute. You’re required at the stables immediately.”
“The stables?” I ask befuddled. From his hurried steps after me, I thought it was something more serious. I try not to acknowledge that my mind instantly went to Raina and the thought of something wrong with her. Old habits die hard and all that, I guess.
He shrugs. “Orders. I don’t question them, just follow them. You should know that by now; hell, you should do the same. Anyway, I think there’s some important person who needs security or something.” He rolls his eyes at this. “Just get your butt there asap, man.”
“Okay, okay. On my way.”
This is now what my day consists of, and has done so for these past few weeks. Guarding some Duk
e or Lord around the palace or into town as they explore and go about their day to day business. Once upon a time I used to train the new guards, showing them around and the way we do things here in the palace. Then I was put on guarding the King himself, and next was the future queen, the princess of the kingdom. The two most important jobs in the palace. The next thing I know I’m following around the high and mighty, like the important guests they think they are, like a freaking puppy, but with guns, being put anywhere and everywhere that Raina isn’t. That last detail was very clear from the get-go. Especially when I came back to the palace after Switzerland to find my few belongings had been relocated to a completely different part of the palace. Literally as far away from the princess as possible.
I’d been permanently reassigned to be a lackey, the go-between, the guard with no job, the lowest of the low. I haven’t seen Raina in the flesh since we were in bed together and the King and Queen found us. Like the rest of the world, I’m stuck watching the events of her very public engagement play out on the television, all over the Internet and social media, as she prepares for the ‘biggest wedding the country has ever seen in fifty years’. The royal nuptials are getting plenty of screen time. It’s become impossible to avoid, and with each passing moment, a little piece of me dies inside.
A small part of me is hoping it will all be canceled. Well, not so little on the cancellation—
that part is big. But the small part is I secretly hoped that they couldn’t go through with the wedding because maybe I’d gotten her pregnant. Even though we were careful our one and only time together, it happens. I’d just hoped it happened to us, that the groom-to-be would find out and not want her anymore. Not that I could ever imagine anyone not wanting Raina. But knowing my luck, it’d get swept under the table, and no one would know about it if it did happen. Especially me. The royal family would make sure of that.
I know it’s wrong for me to wish that shame on her, but she seems to be moving on so quickly, so easily. I don’t want her to forget me, and at least that way she’d always have part of me with her.
Because for me it’s impossible to forget, even for a second. I can’t close my eyes without seeing her in my mind’s eye, feeling her soft hands on me, hearing her sweet voice moaning my name; the very taste of her is embedded on my tongue.
I’ll forever remember how she looked on top of me as she moved, or laying beside me as she slept, but especially how she looked when she came beneath me. One day maybe I’ll be able to enjoy these memories, instead of them twisting me up inside and plaguing my every waking moment. But the reality of my situation is that all I have to look forward to from now on is a lifetime of pain, emptiness, and regret. Regret that it was never meant to be.
Still, I do my job. And I wait for the hammer to drop.
See, I know, if not from past learning, then from Raul’s treatment, it is only a matter of time before I’ll be fired or shipped out to who knows where. The King, no doubt, is punishing me at the moment. And when he can no longer hurt me by ensuring I saw his daughter marry another, I am certain that my job will become null and void, ceasing to exist.
We are only a few days out from the wedding. I know this not from all the media coverage, but because I’d been sent to the stable to accompany a visiting duke on a ride two days before, and it was all he could talk about. I find it ironic, that I’m the only one they can ask to accompany anyone riding, as I’m the only guard on duty who can ride well. Knowing it is the last place the King would want me, as it’s Raina’s most frequented place to habit when she’s not entertaining the public and media, gives me a little kick, and a reason to get out of bed.
But every time my belly flips at the stupid hope of seeing even just a glimpse of her. Yet every time, she’s not anywhere near the stables when I am. I’m sure that’s not a coincidence. Even now, that same silly hope swells inside me as I make my way to the stables, knowing I won’t see her, especially when she’s so close to the wedding. I’m a masochist, through and through.
“Will you keep up, Godfrey, for God’s sake. Your poor horse isn’t getting nearly the exercise she needs.” A loud chuckle follows this bellowed statement. hitting me square in the jaw.
My heart stops, skips a beat, and then gallops to catch up with my racing mind and my quickening feet as the heavy hoof beats in the distance reach my ringing ears. Raina. Oh God, she's here? I clear the outer builds, the stable coming into view, and then I see her. A vision in white skidding to a halt on her favorite mare outside the stable doors, her new guard at least four paces behind her.
What is she doing here? There must be some mistake, or I’m dreaming. That has to be it. I watch dazed as her new guard, Godfrey, pulls up awkwardly beside Raina, white as a sheet.
“Princess, you know you aren’t to run off like that. It isn’t safe.”
“Oh please. I am perfectly safe on my own property, and this old girl”—she slaps Jezzy playfully on her rump, and she rears up—“is perfectly at ease, aren’t you Jezebel?” The mare whinnies her agreement after planting her hooves firmly in the dirt, then kicking dust up to cloud the air.
Tormenting her new guard seems to bring her some pleasure. Shades of how she used to treat me. Oh how I miss even those simple days of fighting my attraction and her pushing me to my breaking point.
Then the world stops spinning and life just, stops. Raina’s head turns sharply in my direction, and her eyes widen to dinner plates as she sees me for the first time in weeks.
I can’t move, I can’t breathe, and I sure as shit can’t think. My heart feels as if it’s stopped beating altogether, but I know this can’t be the case. I can hear the roar of my pulse in my ears and the buzz of my blood hammering in my veins.
It all happens so fast that it takes my brain a full minute to respond and kick into gear as simultaneously, I take a tentative step forward, my mouth slowly opening to say, what, I have no idea. The new guard dismounts gingerly off his horse only to land with a loud thud on his ass, and Raina, without a second’s pause or deliberation, kicks poor Jezzy so hard in the side she whinnies as she’s yanked around, before thundering off in the opposite direction to the stables.
“Dammit,” I mutter under my breath.
“Princess!” the Guard yells weakly from the ground.
“Damn it, son, shouldn’t you be going after her?” Some noble I hadn’t seen standing off to the side yells at him.
“I … ah, hell.”
He tries to scramble quickly to his feet, even more color draining from his already bleak-looking face, but he isn’t quick enough. Raina is already miles ahead. I don’t think, my brain still struggling to catch up to the situation, and I react, my body instinctively kicking into gear. I mount the guard’s horse, before he’s even put both feet on the ground, and turn the beast around before he can object.
I click my tongue and dig my heels into her sides, and she bounds off after the crazy, stupid, completely idiotic princess. I’m a few lengths away, but I’m sure I heard the guard yell after me a thank you. He won’t be thanking me when our arses are getting handed to us after. That’s for damn sure.
The icy wind hits my face like a battering ram as the horse canters ahead at full speed. She’s fast, but we’re not making up much distance at all. I’m tempted to yell after her, but with the look on her face before she rode off, I’m not sure that’s really helpful.
This is definitely not how I imagined our first sighting would go. Even with all that’s going on, I thought she’d at least have some resemblance of pleasure at seeing me. Shock and anger were two emotions I was not prepared to witness on her face. Has she really moved on? Does she not care for me at all?
I put that aside for the minute and dig my heels in again, yelling at the mare to please go quicker. She obliges, and we start to make up some of the distance between Raina and me, but it’s not enough. She’s not slowing down at all. I bite the bullet, “Raina,” I scream into the blasting wind, hoping she catches it, and hopin
g the use of her name draws her up short. “Raina, please, stop a minute.”
“No,” she yells back, the sound of that single syllable cracking on the wind.
I’m used to her telling me no, but never with such anguish behind it. I can’t blame the wind; the pain in it was unmistakable and hit me square in the gut. This makes me frown and worry and furious all at the same time. This woman and the things she does to my mental state.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I scream back. “You’ll get yourself killed riding like this.”
She ducks under a low hanging branch, and the coat she has strewn over her lap goes flying behind her and straight into me. I lean forward and catch it mid-air, whipping it out of the way of my mare’s face before she crashes into it. I wedge it hard between the handgrip on the saddle and my legs, praying it stays put.
Raina’s head whips around to face us, the anguish plain as day written all over face and streaming down her cheeks in rivets. But I don’t understand why. I don’t understand anything.
“Just leave, Gavin. You aren’t meant to be anywhere near me.” God, that hurts coming out of her mouth, regardless of the truth in her words. She turns forward, throwing the last of her words at me over her shoulder to be carried on the wind like bullets in a gun. They hit their target instantly, the last nails in my miserable brokenhearted coffin. “I don’t want you anywhere near me! You are the last person I ever want to see, ever again. Leave!”
No sooner than her words leave her mouth and pierce my shattered heart that her horse goes skidding to a halt, its back legs sliding to the side, as it volts Raina straight off her back and flying headfirst for the riverbed a mere meter in front of them.
“Raina!” I scream with everything I am, as if my scream alone can stop the chain reaction of events.
If she screams, I don't hear it. The roar of the ringing in my ears drowns out everything. I watch in horror as she plunges face-first into the ice-riddled water, only to thrash to the surface seconds later. Before I can sigh with any measure of relief, her head goes careening backward, and she smashes it hard enough to leave blood on a rock behind her as she sinks under the unforgiving waters again.
Royal Inheritance Page 14