Page 21 of Desperately Yours

I wanted to fight. I wanted to argue and rage and tell them that it was them who had no right to be here. My life had been intertwined with Fitz’s since we were teenagers. My knowledge of all things Leonidas went deeper than any hole I’d sunk into, but I wasn’t allowed to tell them. If I thought the queen was mad before, I could only imagine if I let her most shameful secret out. Instead, I gripped my skirts and started to climb the staircase.

“That’s it, Michaela!” Esmerey’s voice followed me in my escape. “Run away. Run away and never come back!”

Michaela

My pace quickened at the top of the stairs. By the time I hit the corner and knew I would be out of sight, I broke into a run. Layers of fabric tangled in my legs, threatening to trip me, but I forced myself to stay upright. If I fell, I doubted my drive to get up again.

I’d experienced brutal evaluations before. I had taken criticism for years. On my appearance, my beauty, my personality, and the dresses that I designed. My experience told me not to internalize. I knew it wouldn’t help to dwell on the words that were spoken and yet my mind clung to every negative phrase.

I burst into my room and slammed the door behind me, onlypausing long enough to flip the latch. How could they be so vicious? How could they lash out so ferociously? Was Esmerey right? Should I leave? Was I not welcome?

I ached to talk to someone who loved me. I’d talked to my mother shortly after I’d been freed from the sinkhole, but she told me to stay. She said something great was waiting for me in Nolcovia, and at the time I believed her.

At the time, I thought it was Fitz.

But he’d left me there at the table. He’d deserted me to the wolves with no one but Bishop to protect me.

If this was what it would be like to be at his side, then maybe I wasn’t cut out to be with him after all. If he couldn’t put me above the needs of the kingdom, and if I was going to have a problem with it, maybe we needed to stop before we ever started.

I reached for my zipper and swore under my breath. It was impossible to reach on my own. What moron designed a dress she couldn’t get out of without help? I groaned and kicked off my shoes. They thudded hard against the wall and flopped to the side, defeated like my spirit.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was. Not the dress. Not the dinner. And certainly not the fact that my heart belonged to someone as potentially emotionally unavailable as Leonidas Fitzborough.

Frustration tipped me over the edge of rational decisions. In five long strides, I stood at the bookcase and gripped the bronze frog. With a jerk of my hand, I pushed it aside. The latch gave way and I pulled it back. I deserved an answer at least. Fitz owed me his reason for deserting me in that den of hyenas. Was there some fire? A massive explosion? An earthquake we’d managed to miss?

My anger propelled me through the passageway without a lantern to lead my way. The whole thing had become too familiar with all the times I’d snuck over to his side of the palace. My pace landed me at his doorway in record time. One hand on the latch,the other gripping layers of fabric, I stopped for the first time and considered my choice.

Was this a mistake? The banquet had left me raw and vulnerable. I was looking for a fight and would likely find one with him. My fingers pushed back the latch and the painting-turned-secret-door popped open. Whatever had blocked my entrance before was no longer in place. The flickering light of his fire illuminated his neatly undisturbed bed.

Maybe he was still dealing with the crisis? If I wanted to be with him, if it was ever going to be a possibility, I couldn’t be jealous of his royal responsibilities. It was near ten and he still hadn’t returned, so who was I to—

A deep sigh came from his sitting area. A sigh I knew too well.

Fitz was watching the fire.

While I was roasting over the bed of coals his mother had stoked for me, the dear prince had the nerve to sneak off to his room and pout?

Anger rekindled, I stepped out of the passageway and covered the ground to the sitting area, ready to give him a piece of my mind.

“Leonidas Ignatius Fitzborough III, where do you get off leaving me like that?”

In the dim light cast by the fire, hardly the raging blaze it was last night, I barely made out his shape. Fitz sat on the edge of the couch, body hunched forward, shoulders sunken as if his body were caving in on itself. All of his weight rested where his elbows met his thighs. His face had been swallowed by his cupped palms.

This wasn’t what I thought it was. When I’d launched my accusation, I had wrongly assumed that he was biding his time, watching the fire burn as he escaped the torment he’d ditched me in. His head came up at the sound of my voice. A sniffle cut over the silence between us. With lethargic movements, hepulled his hands away from his face and rested his forearms on his legs. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to…” Every word fell clumsily from his mouth as though he had to push them out by force.

I shifted forward, skirts rustling as I moved. He still wore his tux, but the bowtie hung limp around his neck and at least four buttons had been unfastened. Behind the couch, I noticed the jacket he wore at dinner, strewn across the floor if he’d shed it like skin, discarded and forgotten all in the same breath.

“Fitz?” I held my breath, too scared to voice the question. Something had happened. It wasn’t the kingdom like Bishop claimed. In an emergency, Fitz became reactive and agile, a picture of action and determination. This was… a husk of the person I knew. Something had carved out his soul, littered it with holes, and crammed it back in the shell as only a fraction of the person he was. In truth, there was only one option that could leave him this broken.

I slipped in beside him. His eyes remained focused on the floor, distant and unconnected to reality. He barely flinched as my fingers slipped over his hand. Tightening my grip on him, I tried to gain his attention. “Fitz? What happened?”

He didn’t look up, but a breathy combination of a laugh and a sob shook his core for no more than two seconds. “You look beautiful. It was all I could think about tonight. The vision at the far end of the table.” His hand twisted and linked our grip. “I had plans for after the banquet. A walk in the garden so we could talk, then we’d come back here to warm up a bit, then try to understand what this is and what we’re to do to keep it alive.” His voice cracked on the last word as though it took him by surprise. Voice shaking, he tried to continue. “But the news came and I… I couldn’t think. I couldn’t make sense of… How can he—What do I do without—” The first shuddering sob wracked his frame. In a vain attempt to cover it, the back of his free handsmashed over his mouth, but the shuddering gasp ripped from his lungs without warning.

I wrapped my other hand around his. “Fitz, I’m here, okay? I’m here and we’re going to make it through this.”

His father had died. That was the only explanation I had for this heartache and only because I knew it firsthand, the pain that came with losing the person you’d loved since the first day you’d met them.

“I knew it was coming.” His chest bounced silently as he exhaled. “I’ve been preparing myself since the diagnosis, but to see it raw like this? It’s beyond my limits, Coco.” Fitz looked up, eyes frantically searching my face for the answers he couldn’t find. “How do I do this? How do I survive in his wake?”

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