“No,” she said at last.
The word fell like a stone into the silence.
The king’s head angled toward her. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean that I don’t accept this. You might believe in this law, might think that it somehow protects the Crown, but I refuse to be bound by it. I’m not like you or Aunt Margaret.” A new stubbornness glinted in her eyes, and she stood up.
Her father grimaced. “Beatrice, please don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?” Her words gained momentum, avalanching faster and faster in the white-hot heat of her anger. “I have spent my whole life chasing this idea of perfection—trying to be the perfect princess, perfect daughter, perfect future queen. And for what?”
The king’s eyes were glassy, the blood drained from his face. “For America,” he said, and coughed again.
“Is America going to love me the way Connor does? Listen to my secrets and kiss me good morning and tell me my dreams are worth chasing? All I’ve ever done for America is give and give and give, and still America wants more! When will it ever be enough?”
Beatrice had never in her life spoken like this. The words unlocked some astonishing new part of her—as if she’d opened the door to her suite and found that it contained more rooms than she’d ever imagined, all shimmering with possibilities, just waiting to be explored.
“Maybe things would be easier if I did walk away!” she said hotly. “Let the law strip me of my titles and remove me from the succession—I don’t care. Let Samantha be the first queen instead!”
Beatrice knew she was lashing out like a cornered animal, that she didn’t mean what she said. Or … did she?
She thought of Samantha, blazing through the ballroom as confident as an empress.
What if Beatrice wasn’t queen?
Her father stared at her, his features twisted into a grotesque mask of horror. “Please, Beatrice …”
That was all he got out before he lifted a hand to his chest, seized in a fit of coughing.
And kept coughing.
The flash of Beatrice’s anger rapidly dissipated as she watched her father double over, his hands braced on his knees. His face was reddening, his eyes squeezed shut, his coughs louder and more ragged. A chill of foreboding chased its way down her spine.
“Dad!” She grabbed a bottle of water from the side table, trying to pour some into his mouth, but it didn’t work; the water just dribbled uselessly over his chin.
The king slumped down, to fall on his hands and knees.
“Help! Someone help! It’s the king!” Beatrice sank onto the carpet next to him. She realized dimly that her gown was splattered with bright red blood—her father’s blood, which he was coughing up, and she could do nothing at all to help him.
It was only a matter of seconds before his security stormed through the doorway, but those few seconds were the longest of Beatrice’s life. Everything seemed to dissolve into a panicked, multicolored haze. All Beatrice could hear was the ragged, uneven sound of her father’s breath. The prongs of her tiara dug mercilessly into her skull.
“Dad—it’s going to be okay, I promise. I’m right here,” she said brokenly, her hands on his shoulders, until one of the security team gently pushed them away. She kept talking as the EMTs arrived to load him onto a stretcher.
This was all happening too fast. Beatrice felt a scream building inside her but forced herself to bite it back; or maybe she was biting her tongue, because she felt blood in her mouth, edged with the metallic taste of fear.
“I’m so sorry,” she kept saying over and over, as if it were a prayer. “Stay with me, Dad. Please.”
DAPHNE
Daphne blinked, slowly waking. Through her windows the sky was a leaden gray, streaked with the first dim lights of dawn.
Next to her, his breaths soft and even, lay Ethan Beckett.
She sat up abruptly, hugging her creamy satin sheets to her chest as her room—her mistake—snapped into dizzying focus. Her dress lay in a disheveled mound of tulle on the floor, alongside the shoes she’d kicked off, and scattered pieces of Ethan’s tux: a reproachful trail of evidence, reminding her what they had done. Again.
Ethan stirred next to her, but stayed asleep. For a moment Daphne let her eyes drag over his form: his long torso, his muscled shoulders, the shadow of his lashes on his cheekbones. His hair curled at the nape of his neck. She remembered how, just hours ago, her hands had been tangled in that hair, her head tipped back as she swallowed a moan. Daphne winced at the memory.
If only she could rewind it all like an old-fashioned cassette tape, or better yet, yank the tape out altogether and punch a series of holes through it.
She didn’t understand the current of desire that pulsed between her and Ethan, in spite of what happened last time, or maybe because of it. Maybe what she and Ethan did together had forged some dark bond between them, as if they were heroes—or rather, antiheroes—who’d ventured together to the underworld, and now their fates were forever intertwined.
No. Whatever this was, Daphne had to break it off, now.
Ethan must have felt her eyes on him, because he blinked slowly awake. “Hey,” he murmured, with a yawning smile, and reached to pull Daphne back down toward him. She ducked from under his arm and scooted back.