Page 38 of Thrones We Steal

“No one except me.” I don’t realize until the words are out of my mouth how true they are. Can I really hold my head up if I walk away from my country now in her hour of desperate need? It would negate everything I try to do in the future. If I can only contribute to society when I stand to benefit, Henry was right.

I am selfish.

“Isn’t this the kind of thing we decide together? We’re on the verge of getting married, for fuck’s sake,” he says and I flinch. He never curses.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath and brush my hands across my trousers. “What’s your proposition?”

“Tell them you’re not willing to do this, and then marry me like you promised. It’s as simple as that.”

My eyes flit to the enlarged portrait from our engagement photo shoot hanging above the table. We’re standing in front of St. John’s Cathedral, the oldest in Wesbourne. The exquisite architecture creates a gorgeous backdrop. We look happy and in love, because we are. Will this break us forever?

“And if I choose that option, what happens to Wesbourne?” I say it softly, not sure I’m ready for the answer.

“I don’t know, but we can leave, go live somewhere else. America, England, France. We’ll buy a villa in Fiji. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’d be together.”

My tongue is numb and a heavy, dead weight in my mouth. “That’s not all that matters, Beck.”

If you had asked me if Beck felt about Wesbourne the way I do, I would have said yes, without hesitation. It’s becoming apparent his level of devotion to her is vastly different from my own.

“I can’t believe you would do this to me,” he says. “To us.”

“You make it sound as though I’m in this situation by choice.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to get out.”

I gape at him. “How can you say that? Everything about this situation is hard.”

“If I were in your shoes, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

He’s right. I’m a fool to not have seen it before.

Beck wasn’t raised the way I was. He’s had to fight for everything he has. A mother who deserted her family, an alcoholic father who all but left his twelve-year-old son to raise his younger sisters, three jobs to pay his way through university, an ex-wife who divorced him after what he thought were three happy years of marriage—life hasn’t been kind to him, and while he’s risen above the odds, he’s not willing to sacrifice everything for a country that did little to help him when he needed it.

And now I’m considering leaving him as well, cementing his belief that he is unworthy of love.

I can’t do it.

If I love him, I can’t destroy him like this.

There has to be another way.

“What if we found a compromise?”

“A compromise.”

“We wouldn’t be legally married, but …”

He looks at me without blinking, and I know the wheels in that brilliant head of his are spinning fast. Without a word, he tosses his napkin onto the table and pushes his chair away. The action knocks my wine glass over, which is still half full, and the wine oozes into the stark white tablecloth and dribbles onto the hardwood floor.

He doesn’t even notice.

“Beck. Can you please say something?”

He leans against the countertop. Tension ripples through his back. No answer.

I stand and move to the cupboard under the sink where I know I’ll find a bottle of white vinegar and a roll of kitchen paper. He doesn’t even glance in my direction. “Beck?”

After mopping up the spill on the floor, I turn my attention to the purple-red splotch on the tablecloth. “How do I know what you’re thinking if you won’t talk to me?” I say and pour vinegar onto the stain to neutralize the pigments.

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