Page 52 of Princess Bride Swap

Again, Zia was silent for a few seconds. “All right. Then we’ll get you out. All you have to do is get out of the palace. Find somewhere to hide. No need to call. Cristhian will find you. It’s what he does.”

“But the babies...”

“I am hardly alone, Beau. I have help. Cristhian will find you. And we’ll have you back here before the day is out. Here and safe. I promise. Just get out of the palace.”

Beau looked around the room that had begun to feel like hers. The life that held both misery and joy. Complicated feelings she’d never expected. A life she wanted...and couldn’t have.

At least that was familiar.

Then she hung up the phone.

And planned her escape.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LYONHADAstaff member tell his mother there’d be no lunch. Then he had meetings to attend. He brooded, the whole afternoon, trying to determine what the hell to do with all this.

Andhe approved all the last-minute changes and hiccups on the parliamentary dinner. He dealt with problems, questions. He was distracted,yes, but he was not incapable of doing what needed to be done because of it.

Because, it turned out, the women who’d raised him were wrong. He could do both. Love and grieve and hurt and make good choices for his country. It turnedout, that when he gave himself a chance to do everything without the fear of taking a wrong step, he did what he’d always done.

The right damn thing. Soft spots or no.

Perhaps a time would come when that would not be the case, but even if he held himself to some impossible standard of isolation—upsets would still come along. Natural disasters or worldly problems challenging all Divio was. Loss or illness or who knew what else when it came to his family, to himself.

He could do the right thing—avoid scandal, meet his responsibilities—but he could not control the world around him by doing such things.

It was a strange, out-of-body moment, all in all. To be both distracted and capable of dealing with—or delegating—everything that needed to be done. To watch as nothing crumbled around him simply because his role wasn’t the only thing he took into account.

To consider that maybe, just maybe, there could be a life where he balanced both. Not the expectations his grandmother had set for him, but meeting the needs of his citizens. While at the same time meeting the needs of his family, without letting selfish desires ruin everything. Without worrying that...every private decision would ruin his public persona.

Beau was his family. His wife. He hated the idea that she suffered so. It tore him up inside and made him want to go talk to her and beg forgiveness. He would protect her and defend her fromanyonewho dared say a negative word about her.

But she hadlied. She had kept this from him from the very beginning. She had been in the wrong as well. Whether it was his fault or not that she hadn’t trusted him with this, had hidden it from him, she had not given him the opportunity to be right or wrong.

They both needed to find a way to do that. Give each other chances, instead of being too afraid and making everything worse. Making everything get to the point of falling apart.

Maybe balance wasn’t so much about everyone being one hundred percent happy or everything getting his full attention. No, it was finding what needed him the most in the moment and responding to it.

Because his grandmother’s will to one-up her brother had no bearing anymore. Both were dead and gone. He was here. Beau was here.

Right now, everything was set for the dinner tomorrow, he’d responded to every pressing item on his agenda. So what needed him was Beau, and working through what had happened today.

If he owed her an apology, which he did, he should offer it. And if she did not offer one of her own, then he would deal with that in the moment. They would talk through it. Have those conversations that had been sorely missing in her book until the very end.

But when those conversations had come—the couple in the book had worked things out. So that is what he would do. Make it all work out.

He left his office and went in search of her. It was late, but she wasn’t in their suite of rooms or in bed, so he went to the library next. And when she wasn’t there, he began to...worry. He searched everywhere he could think of, and then finally he had to page her assistant.

The woman was wide-eyed and nervy when she came into his office. She had clearly been asleep. Her curtsey was awkward at best. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, it seems no one has seen her since this morning.”

“Thismorning.” Lyon’s body felt as though it emptied fully out, then inch by inch filled back with rage.

All the ways she’d pushed him. All the ways she’d claimed to want him. All the ways she had understood him, and she hadn’t given him the damn opportunity to understandher.

She had run away.

Where—but Lyon immediately knew where she would have gone. The only place she would run away to. She talked to her sister almost every day. The only thing she ever spoke of with any positivity was Zia and her babies.

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