Page 22 of Desperately Yours

Rationally, I knew he needed wisdom, experience, anything to keep him moving forward, and yet, emotionally, I knew those words didn’t exist. There was nothing that could make this right in the moment.

“The doctor is with him now. He asked me to leave while he runs tests. I know he’s hoping Father will pull out of it again, but he’s basically catatonic at this point.” He looked away from me. “It won’t be long now.”

Hope flashed like sequins under a spotlight. “He’s still alive?”

“The doctor says he will pass by morning.” Frustration tightened his grip on my hand. “Strange the way they don’t knowanythingwith surety, except for that. This is the one time they are certain they’re right.” As if someone had severed the string that kept him upright, he collapsed into me, head against my shoulder. “I can’t do this, Coco. It’s too much.”

Fitz freed his hand, but only so that he could wrap his arms around my center and pull closer. His momentum pushed me back, but I tightened my core and took his weight, determined to be his strength for once. My glove slipped easily over his back, up and down, comforting him like my mother had comfortedme the night I was dumped by my boyfriend my senior year. I thought it was going to kill me, but what Fitz was facing? That was real pain.

“You smell amazing.” His face turned into the crook of my neck. Hot breath flashed against my skin. Nerves prickled and danced under the attention. “Like strawberries and roses.”

My breath rushed in and out with increasing intensity. He needed me to be his friend, but the way my heart raced, I didn’t feel like Coco, his friend. I was Michaela, the woman who’d fallen for him somewhere along the way.

The weight of his body pushed away from me. Fitz took my shoulders with his hands. “Run away with me?”

“What?” The crazed look in his eyes had me nervous. “You can’t be serious, Fitz. Where would we go?”

“Anywhere.” He dropped his grip and rose to his feet. “I have more money than any human could ever need. We could go anywhere,” Fitz whirled back to face me, “beanyonewe wanted. We could disappear.” He sank onto the couch again, taking my hands in his. “Run away with me, Coco? Please?”

“Fitz, you’re just scared. You’re not thinking rationally.”

“Of course, I’m scared! As soon as my father dies, I am meant to be king. I have to choose a bride and the only one I want to spend my life with is not an option!” Tears clouded his eyes again as the bitter reality took hold. “I thought I had time. I thought I had days to convince him, to show him that you’re worthy, but now… Now they will force me to be someone I don’t want to be, so if you ever cared about me, Michaela, please,” his voice shook through the strain, “run away with me.”

It felt like a flash flood of information. He’d thought about this? He wantedme? Was that what I wanted? Could I be a queen?

“Do you know what it’s like?” His face twisted with the agony of a world he couldn’t bear alone. “Do you know how it feels notto be able to trust your parents?” He shook his head. “Of course you don’t. Your mother is practically a saint, and your father is…” He looked away. “I’m sorry, I spoke without thinking.”

My father was dead. It was my reality for most of my life, but it still cut deeply when I thought about it. Like a knife released the bands on my grief before it stabbed me in the gut. But it wasn’t time for me to feel any of it, not when Fitz needed me.

“Bishop thought there was an emergency in the kingdom.” I pressed my lips together before I added, “He even baited your mother with it.”

That earned me a short snort of derision. “If it was the kingdom, they would have told her first. The king and queen rule together. She’s not an ornament. But this was about my father. The doctor needed my opinion.”

“Why wouldn’t he get your mother for that?”

“I fear Dr. Casco doesn’t trust her any longer. He wanted a second opinion on my father’s care.”

My mind latched onto that fact. Was Fitz admitting that the doctor suspected her of foul play?

“He’s slipped out of consciousness. Unresponsive.” Fitz clenched his jaw as he fought to control his emotions. “He didn’t know I was there. The doctor wants to let him pass and, considering everything else, I agreed this time.” The muscles in his lips flinched rapidly, angry but devastated. “What do you want to bet she’s in there, trying to show that in his last moments he changed the law?” His volume dropped. “Let her. Let her have the lot of it, if she wants it that badly.”

My heart clenched at the way it looked from my side. No, we hadn’t ever found evidence to convict her, but what if Bishop’s intuition was right? What if the queen had killed her husband? And if not that, what if she was merely going to capitalize on his death?

“Please,” Fitz brought my knuckles to his lips and set a kiss across them, “free me from this doomed future. Run away with me?”

“Fitz, you don’t mean that. You would never forgive yourself if you weren’t here when he…” I couldn’t say it out loud. “And you just said that they’ve been wrong in the past, so who’s to say they’re going to be right this time? I mean, maybe someone will think of something that will—”

The warmth of his hand captured mine. “While it’s noble you would say it, it’s simply not possible.” As sadness flooded his features, my helplessness tripled. “There’s nothing left. They’ve tried every remedy the modern medical world has available.”

Like a bur in my socks in late summer, something he said caught my mind, prickling the outskirts of my subconscious.

“But you…” Fitz brought my palm to his face and pressed it over his jaw. “We could go away from here, figure this out, you and me.” His gaze searched my face, bouncing all over as if he wouldn’t stop until he found the acceptance he was looking for. “We haven’t had a chance to even speak to each other. You don’t know the agony I went through not knowing whether you were…”

Every remedy.My mind still worked on the words I’d flagged.Every remedy.

“I can’t lose you.” He pulled closer. “I came up with nothing but that wire from the dirt, and I knew it in my heart, you were all I wanted in the world, Coco.” His head dipped closer to mine. “Michaela.MyMichaela.”

My heart was his, fully and completely. But to run away? To leave and never look back? My rational mind fought it, but my heart surged like I’d already said yes.

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