Page 39 of Prince Cheating Charming

“Yes, if you want to keep your job!” Alexander shot back at him.

Sighing, Roger dunked him in the lake again. And then again. And again.

Then longer each time, as my husband demanded it.

I began to feel the panic rising in my body.

This unhinged moron was going to get himself killed.

Finally, I could bear it no longer, each second that he was under seeming like it clawed on my nerves until I was afraid they would snap and I’d go stark raving mad.

“Stop!” I ordered.

“King Alexander said I’d get fired if I stopped,” Roger protested, looking slightly flustered.

“I am your Queen,” I said, raising my voice. “And I order you to stop. You will not be fired.”

Roger pulled my aggravating husband up and out, the King coughing and choking on the lake water.

I strode up and my fingers began to fumble at the knots and straps tying him to the ducking stool.

“This show is over!” I yelled, waving at the assembled group on the lawn. They were certainly getting their money’s worth out of a hereditary aristocracy today, but I was over it. Roger I ordered to go chase them out, and he hurried over, the big, gentle man much more comfortable politely escorting guests off of the grounds than participating in the King’s unhinged behavior.

“Why are you doing this?” I hissed impatiently, yanking the ropes off to free him.

Alexander rubbed a hand over his face, pulling the slimy duckweeds from the pond off and shaking them onto the ground. His blonde hair was slicked back and malodorous.

“There’s a duck dropping in your suit pocket,” I added.

“I’m doing it to show you I’m sorry. I want what we had again,” he said. “I’ll do anything for that. I’ll get in the ducking stool every morning if that’s what it takes.”

I gritted my teeth, thinking about being forced to watch Roger dunk Alexander every single day until I left.

“What we had wasn’t real, Alexander.”

My estranged husband looked like he’d been punched in the face.

“It wasn’t real. I was straightening my hair to impress you, dressing like I don’t normally. When I got married I was shy and insecure, and I sure as fuck didn’t enjoy blowing you with a mouth full of ice cubes.”

“First of all, you definitely don’t have to do that,” Alexander said, and I saw the ghost of a smile cross his face, one of the first since I’d told him we were done.

“It was real,” he insisted. “I wasn’t planning on marrying anybody that weekend. I let the palace send out invitations to the most eligible ladies in the region, but I wasn’t planning on getting married. Until I saw you, Delilah Levesque. You made me want to marry you. I don’t care what your hair looks like, what clothes you wear. You pulled me to you then and you pull me to you now.”

“That’s not the real me,” I insisted.

“Well, then, show me the real you,” he begged, his voice low and urgent. “I want to know everything about you. I refuse to believe none of it was real. When we were laying in bed, your head in the crook of my neck, my arm around you as your whole body shook with your adorable little giggle at our favorite show, that was real. You can’t tell me that wasn’t real, Delilah.”

“It wasn’t real,” I whispered, but I felt the lie all over my body.

It was real. It had been real. But he didn’t need to know that.

Flickers of pain flashed in his eyes. He smelled like sour pond water and stagnant reeds and probably duck droppings and he scrubbed one hand over his face. For a moment, Alexander’s eyes fell and I noticed his arm was shaking a bit. That pond must be colder than I thought.

“it was real to me, then,” he said in a low tone, raising his eyes again to mine. “Even if it wasn’t real to you.”

“If it was so real, why did you feel the need to fuck other women?” I shot at him, crossing my arms tightly over my chest.

He flinched but held my gaze. “Because you were right about me. I was spoiled and selfish and used to getting my way with everything. The fact that my dad did the same thing to my mother is no excuse either. It was wrong and I knew it was wrong. Because I would never have been ok with you doing it. So it was never ok that I did it. One more chance, Delilah. That’s all I ask for. One more chance.”

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