Page 76 of Thrones We Steal

“I’m not sure you can stop me.” This comes out much weaker than I intend.

“You’re the one who taught me to get back up when someone knocks you down.” I know she’s thinking of Stacey Evans in primary school. “Are you seriously going to quit that easily?”

“This isn’t a mean girl fight, Bea.”

“I don’t care what it is. No man has the ability to destroy you. You’re about to become the queen of the nation, for god’s sake.”

I’ve never seen her so dead set on anything. In fifth grade, she won a ticket to see Selena Gomez in concert for getting the highest score on a math test, then proceeded to give it to another classmate who threw a nasty fit because she came in second.

No man has the ability to destroy you. “I think this one might.”

She shakes her head and her hair flows over her shoulders like a golden cape. “I won’t allow it. You’ve always protected me. Now it’s my turn to do the same for you.”

A lump the size of Spain slips loose from my stomach and takes up residence in my throat. Little sisters aren’t supposed to be the ones doing the protecting. “I don’t know how to get through this. It hurts too bad.”

“I know, baby, I know.” She pulls me against her chest, and the scent of jasmine floats around me. “I’m here for you, I promise. Whatever you need. You’ll come out stronger on the other side.”

A sliver of suspicion threads through me. “You’re not just saying that to get Henry for yourself, are you?”

“Why would I want anything to do with a guy who can break my sister’s heart and then flee the country? You were right. He doesn’t deserve either one of us.”

* * *

I stay.

And it’s bloody awful.

Over the next few weeks, the gossip rags are full of Henry’s exploits. They feature articles with his picture front and center, always with a woman draped over him, always smiling in that way that suggests their plans for the evening are far from over. The only difference is the locale: Austria, Greece, France, Portugal, Belgium, even the United States—thank god I didn’t go—with a supermodel, actress, or celebrity in hand.

Playboy Henry is living large, and I’m a fucking idiot.

I pour over each article, desperate for news of him and dying to see who he rejected me for. It’s a futile mission, but I have to know. That’s the thing about an addiction. It never makes any sense, but reason is the furthest thing from your mind. In the same morbid way traffic slows to a crawl as people rubberneck an accident, I’m drawn to this. I analyze each woman’s hair, body, fashion style, lip shape, eye color, makeup, and curves. I question everything about them, then scrutinize myself.

It never helps. Seeing his face grinning at another woman makes me want to hurl. Their long nails and tanned skin all over his body breaks my heart all over again, splitting the fissure even wider, if that’s even possible.

Why did I ever think for one second it would be different for me? I warned Bea against the danger but didn’t see it coming myself. If I could, I’d take it all back, even back to the day we sat in that room with the prime minister and he told us about the decision we needed to make. This time I’d tell them I would have to be dead before I’d even consider marrying Henry.

But I hadn’t agreed to marry Henry because I was in love with him. I’d done it for Wesbourne, and—loathe as I was to admit it—I’d do it again to save her. Some things are just bigger than us, bigger than our problems, our love lives. Some things require sacrifice.

Loving him will always be my biggest mistake. I want to tear his incredibly handsome head right off his shoulders, to scratch him with my nails until he bleeds, to hurt him as badly as he hurt me. But at the same time I also desperately want to give him a chance to explain. Maybe the pictures are Photoshopped. Maybe I misunderstood him that night. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

I’m delusional and refusing to see reason. An addict.

I miss him the way you miss your heart when it’s no longer in your body.

And that’s the most dangerous thing of all.

23

“The Heart Wants What It Wants” - Selena Gomez

How to get over someone. There are more than 8 billion results for this simple search query. I estimate it would take me roughly six months to get through them all, and by then I should be sufficiently over this heartbreak.

But I can think of better things to do with my time and after reading how self love can help heal the heart for the fourth time, I’m ready for some different advice.

Adelaide is in the kitchen when I arrive at Englewood Manor, wearing a red and white striped apron and swaying her hips to Nina Simone.

“What are we cooking?” I say and give her a peck on the cheek.

---