Page 45 of Princess Bride Swap

After all these weeks of shutting all her emotions away, she wanted to feeleverything.

“I happen to think that perhapsdistractionwould be the best damn thing for a man who thinks the entire country’s fate rests on every single step he takes.”

Anger was power, but it was also emotion. And she felt it take over. The way her legs started to feel a little numb. Her vision started tunneling and for a terrifying moment she couldn’t catch her breath.

She would not have a panic attack here in front of the countess. So she acted quickly. She walked right past her mother-in-law, ignoring the woman’s sputtering protests. She didn’trunto her rooms, but she hurried. Up the stairs. Trying to keep count in her head. Trying to breathe.

She reached the hallway to their rooms and nearly sobbed when Lyon stepped out of the door and into the hallway.

Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

He said something, but she didn’t hear it. She walked past him, not making any eye contact.

“Beau. What is the matter?”

She could hear him follow her, but she did not look back, she did not stop walking. But she forced herself to speak, as clearly as she could manage.

“I h-had a p-public fight with your mother. She said I’ve d-distracted you, so I told her I thought she had p-put unreasonable expectations on you and that is why you are s-so afraid of making a mistake that n-nothing else matters.” The tears were starting, a sob threatening to escape, so she moved into the bedroom, and slammed the door behind her.

She locked the door as she sank to the floor, as the shakes took over. It felt like that moment back at Cristhian’s house weeks ago, after listening to her father berate her for all her failures.

Because he had been right.

The only thing she could do was fail.

Lyon stared at the slammed door for countless seconds trying to make sense of what had just happened. He had never seen Beau even remotely that worked up. She’d been stuttering. Struggling to breathe. It almost reminded him of...

Then he heard footsteps and turned to see his mother charging into his sitting room where he stood. But it wouldn’t do to talk here. If there’d already been a public fight, everything needed to be nipped in the budnow.

He stopped her then took her by the arm and led her across the hall into a little-used office.

He closed the door behind him, then surveyed his mother. Her color was high, her eyes were flashing with anger. For a moment, he was reminded of his grandmother. A woman who he’d idolized.

I told her I thought she had put unreasonable expectations on you and that is why you are so afraid of making a mistake that nothing else matters.

Unreasonable wasn’t fair. They’d placed expectations upon him because no one else could be trusted. No one else had been able to handle it. They had given him strength and belief in himself by thinking he could.

For a strange moment, he remembered that moment at the chalet. When Beau had apologized to him. A real apology. The kind his grandmother had claimed didn’t exist. It had been the first time he’d ever considered the woman he’d idolized might be wrong.

But even before that, Beau hadn’t understood him being a payment for a debt. No matter how he’d explained it, she hadn’t been able to absorb it.

Because she simply didn’t understand. Not because it was wrong... Right?

Any more it seemed like a cascade of wrong was happening all around him.

“What has happened?” he asked. He had to focus on the task at hand. The public fight his mother and wife had just engaged in, and how he would...fix it.

“Your wife just made a scene, Lyon. First, she tried to show me up. Then she made wild accusations. Andthenshe stormed away. This is why she was the hidden Rendall. She is a spoiled—”

“You will not speak of Beau in such a way to me,” he said firmly.

“Did youhearme?” his mother all but screeched.

Lyon took his time responding to her. A wall of calm to his mother’s upset. “You two had a little spat. Unfortunate.”

Mother’s eyes were wild, but she didn’t yell anymore. She sucked in a careful breath. Venom throbbed in every word she spoke, but she spoke calmly and quietly. Mother and Grandmother had always done that so well. Tied up all their fury into cold, calm,sharpice.

“In public, Lyon. Where any staff member could see. That she isnotwhat you or this country needs.”

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