Page 36 of Prince Cheating Charming

“I never lied to you, Delilah! I swear!”

“What do you call our wedding vows, then?” she shot at me.

“I never lied about loving you,” I said in a low voice. “Never.”

“Why did you marry me?” Delilah asked angrily, her arms crossed over her chest. “Because I was the boring option you thought would make a proper Queen who wouldn’t give you any trouble?”

I gaped at her. “No! God, no! How could you think that, Delilah? I married you because I love you! Because no one else has ever made me feel like you do. I’ve never wanted anyone as badly as I want you. Because I never got bored of you. Because you’re the cleverest, sweetest, most beautiful, funniest woman I’ve ever—"

“Adulterer says what?” Magnus broke in.

“You’re not even trying to reconcile us,” I gritted out at him.

“Why should I try to reconcile you?” he snorted, bringing out his bag of knitting and beginning to work on a soft blue sweater. “Delilah is better off without you. Now, what does everyone think about this color for Roger? It seems to me it will enhance his baby blue eyes to perfection.”

My heart sunk and I looked anxiously at Delilah. Did my wife think she was better off without me, too?

Delilah was looking at me with a frown on her face.

“Why can’t you let this go?” she asked abruptly. “Why can’t you accept that it’s over?”

I felt my voice break out into a sob, struggling not to let the tears fall in front of my uninterested wife and her extremely hostile friends.

“Maybe there are other men who would be better for you, but I swear no one could ever love you as much as I do. I feel like I’ve lived a fucking century in the weeks since you told me it was over. I have all the material things I could possibly want in the world, and I don’t care about it because I don’t have you.”

Taking advantage of her silence, I got up and walked over to her, taking advantage of how her legs were tucked primly under her chair. Bending swiftly down, I hugged her legs tight to my chest.

“Do you want me to beg on my knees, Delilah? I’m doing it. Please, baby. Please, sweetheart. I swear I’m not that man anymore.”

Her bare legs were warm and silky and I could have cried just from the memory that I used to be able to touch them every day before I threw my happy marriage away like a total shithead.

“Even if I forgave you,” Delilah said, raising one dark eyebrow at me. “I couldn’t ever trust you again.”

“What can I do to make you trust me?” I begged, clutching at her tighter. Now that I was holding her, my emotions felt even more out of control, the sobs building in my chest over and over.

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do,” my wife replied, shrugging her slim shoulders.

For a moment there was silence in the room, broken only by the clicking of Magnus’ knitting needles, Roger’s diligent note-taking, and Libby’s spoon as she stirred sugar in her tea.

I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know how to fix it.

Burying my head in her lap, I breathed in her scent. Sweet, sun-touched skin, a light floral scent, a touch of cream on her leg. Maurice adored her, so she got special treats and elaborate pastries, and homemade cream for her coffee.

“I can’t live without you,” I said, willing my voice to be strong. But it wasn’t. It was broken and weak, like me.

“Back in the day,” Magnus said, “Adulterers got proper punishments.”

“They knew how to do it in those days,” Delilah agreed, laughing.

A bit of her little teeth flashed at me as I raised my head to look at her. She took her bottom lip between her teeth, making the spot where she held her lip blush a brighter shade of red.

I wanted to kiss those lips so badly, bite them too, pull at them so gently, suck on her skin until I couldn’t taste anything but her on my tongue.

“What do you mean?” I asked numbly.

“I believe one traditional punishment was putting the adulterer in a stock in the town square,” Roger said.

“Wonder if we have a stock somewhere in storage,” Libby added innocently.

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