Her and Ethan, facing the world, together. It was what Daphne had always wanted, if only she’d let herself realize it.

“I know you, Daphne, in a way that Jeff could never know you—and if he did know, he would leave you in an instant. Whereas I loved every last part of you: your ambition and your inner fire and your utter brilliance. We could have been so happy together, if you’d ever given us half a chance.”

“We can be happy now,” Daphne protested, but Ethan hardly seemed to hear.

“At the museum, when you suggested this ridiculous bargain, I agreed to it. It was never really about the title—not that I don’t want one,” he said helplessly. “But, Daphne, I put my heart out there and you flat-out rejected it. Then, to add insult to injury, you asked me to date someone else. You made me a pawn in your master plan, just like always.

“So I decided that I would punish you by doing what you thought you wanted.” He gave a wry, bitter smile. “I guess I hoped that once you heard that I’d been spending so much time with Nina—because I knew you’d find out; you always know everything that happens in this town—you’d start to feel jealous, and realize that it wasn’t what you wanted at all.”

“But, Ethan, I have realized!” Daphne cried out. “I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to see. I was just…blinded by things that don’t matter.”

“Yeah. You were.”

Light slanted through the flags of knighthood, making his profile stand out as clearly as on the head of an ancient coin: handsome and prideful and resolute.

He wasn’t making this easy on her, but she deserved it, after everything she’d put him through. If he wanted her to beg, then Daphne would do it, and gladly.

“I’m so sorry, but I’ll make it all up to you,” she swore. “Don’t you see—Ethan, look at me!—things will be different, now that we finally know how we feel!”

“Felt,” Ethan corrected. “You had my heart for years, and you kept on treating it thoughtlessly.”

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s too late for sorry.”

Daphne’s hands darted up to grab Ethan by the shoulders. “I love you, okay?” She tightened her grip, her voice hard and furious. “And you just said that you loved me!”

“I did love you, for a long time. But even I couldn’t sit around waiting for you forever.”

He spoke impersonally, as if that love were an emotion that someone else had felt, a very long time ago.

No. Daphne refused to accept that his love for her had just…faded away. That it had guttered and burned itself out like one of these forgotten candles. No, if he had loved her that much then there must be something left, some ember of feeling that she could coax back to life. Unless…

“You fell for her, didn’t you.” She couldn’t bear to actually say Nina’s name.

“I did.”

Daphne’s hands fell to her sides as she stepped back, fighting the urge to stamp her foot like a child. How had the only two men in her life both ended up with the same mousy, unexceptional commoner? “That girl is painfully boring, has no sense of style—and has nothing at all to say for herself—”

“She has plenty to say; you’ve just never bothered to listen—”

“If you loved me the way you say you did, for as long as you say you did, how can you possibly care about Nina?” she hissed.

Ethan didn’t blink. “If you wanted Jeff for as long as you claimed to, how can you possibly care about me?”

A strained silence fell between them. Daphne’s pulse echoed dully through her veins. She almost wished that Ethan resented her, hated her, even. Anything would be better than this smooth, cool indifference.

And yet she loved him in spite of everything: all her flaws, his betrayal, both of their stubborn prides.

Ethan was right; he was the only person who’d ever truly known her, aside from Himari. And now that he’d pushed her away, it was the real Daphne he was rejecting.

To think that she’d come to the wedding in triumph, on Jefferson’s arm, only to realize in a panicked flash that Ethan was the one she’d wanted all along. And now, somehow, he no longer cared.

She felt that she had gained and lost the world in a single morning.

“Well then, it seems like we’re done here.” Daphne pivoted on one heel and stormed off, blinking back her stupid, traitorous tears.

She’d always thought there was such power in knowing other people’s secrets. At court, secrets were even better than money: you could hoard them and guard them and barter them away. But for what?

What did any of it matter when the entire time, she’d been keeping the greatest secret of all from herself—only to discover the truth when it was too late.

Beatrice’s skirts frothed up around her like lace-stitched clouds, probably creasing in countless places, but it didn’t stop her from pounding at the door.

“Beatrice, don’t,” Connor pleaded.

She ignored him, though she knew she looked utterly absurd: standing here in her wedding gown, slamming her fists against the reinforced steel. But that alarm had sent her careening past all rational thought. All she wanted was to get out.

Connor stepped forward and caught her hands in his, circling her wrists as he gently lowered them. “It won’t do any good, Bee. That door can’t open until a full sweep of the palace has confirmed that it’s safe.”

Beatrice tugged at her hands. Chastened, Connor let go of them, but he didn’t step away.

His face was much too close. She could see each individual freckle and eyelash, could hear each shallow breath as it escaped his lungs. He was so familiar, yet at the same time he felt oddly like a stranger, like a shadowy figure from her dreams.

Except that he wasn’t a dream at all. He was here, real and flesh and immediate. Alone with her in a sealed room.

Beatrice backed away a few steps, and the panic flooding through her stilled a little. Without it she felt curiously uncertain, as if that frantic terror had been holding her aloft, and now that it had ebbed she had no clue what to do. The blaring of the alarm had stopped, but Beatrice imagined she could still hear it, echoing beneath the silence.

“Can you find out what happened?” she asked.

Connor’s hands drifted to his waist, then hooked uselessly in his pockets. “I don’t have my ERD anymore,” he said, naming the encrypted radio used by palace security. “But don’t worry; I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Beatrice nodded slowly. Her fear had thrown all her senses into confusion; she had no idea how long it had been since the alarm went off.

“You didn’t wear your Guards’ uniform,” she observed softly.

“I wasn’t sure I was allowed to wear it, now that I’ve left.”

Beatrice heard the lie in his voice. Connor knew perfectly well that he could wear the dress uniform at state occasions for the rest of his life.

Her eyes traveled again to his tuxedo. It fit perfectly—he’d clearly had it tailored—but the fabric was stiff in the way that new clothes always are, when they haven’t yet molded to your body. Beatrice wondered with a pang if Connor had bought the tux specifically for this wedding—if he’d decided against wearing his Guards’ uniform because he didn’t want to look like a member of security, but instead like a young aristocrat.

Like all the young men her parents had included in her folder of options, the night they’d asked her to consider getting married, what felt like a lifetime ago.

“Connor—where have you been? I mean, what did you do, after…”

“I went to Houston. I’m chief of security for the Ramirez family.”

“Chief of security for the Duke and Duchess of Texas? That’s impressive.”

“They know I used to personally Guard the queen.”

Beatrice looked away, at the folding makeup table with its brushes and lipsticks laid out on a white hand towel. “I’m glad you’re doing so well. Congratulations.”

“Damn it, Bee, don’t use your cocktail-party voice with me.”

Beatrice’s mind knew that he was no longer hers, but her body seemed to have reverted to an instinctive muscle memory and couldn’t keep up. She fought back an urge to step forward and hold him, the way she used to.

Instead she hugged her arms around her torso. Her dress felt so heavy: all that stiff boning, all the layers upon layers of weighty embroidered silk.

Connor was next to her in a few steps. “Bee, listen—”

She looked up sharply, her vision blurring. “I can’t do this right now—”

“But right now is the only time we’ve got!” His gray eyes burned into hers. “When I came here today, all I wanted was to see you one last time, to make sure you’re happy. I never meant to say any of this. But here we are, and I’ll probably never get another chance to be alone with you. Maybe I’m selfish, but I can’t not tell you that I love you. Which you already know.”

Connor leaned closer. There was an instant when Beatrice knew what was coming yet felt powerless to pull away, as if her mind hadn’t yet regained control of her bewildered limbs.