Page 54 of Princess Bride Swap

“Good?” Zia pressed. “You...got along with Lyon?”

Beau nodded. “I wasn’t lying to you during all those calls. I...”Love him. “He was very kind. He has the most beautiful library, and he likes to read. He even read a book I liked to get to know me. It was actually... I was very happy for a bit. Maybe if I’d been pregnant, it would have gone differently.”

Which was not a productive thought. She’d just be sitting in his castle being miserable. Not allowed to go to things like parliamentary dinners. Even though she’d proven she could handle it. A baby wouldn’t have changed anything, except she would have had someone to hold in her isolation.

“So you two... You...” Zia cleared her throat. “There was...achanceyou were...pregnant?”

Beau looked up at her sister, then realized Zia had clearly not considered that just because the marriage had been arranged to save Zia, that there might not be the making of heirs involved.

“We had sex, Zia. Wearemarried.”

Cristhian made a dismayed sort of noise and stood. “Perhaps I will go...doanythingelse.”

Zia rolled her eyes and waved him off. “We can handle the babies. Go do something manly.”

He smiled at Zia, the kind of smile that spoke of many things. Affection, amusement, intimacy. Zia watched her husband leave, the love so evident in her eyes that Beau had to look away. But she could only look at the child in her lap and feel a terrible, terrible yearning.

“I wanted to be pregnant,” she heard herself say, without really meaning to.

“Oh, Beau.” Zia’s free arm came around Beau’s shoulders.

She shook her head. It was the wrong thing to say. She blinked back the tears. “Best this way.”

“Tell me what happened. All of it. Beginning to end, and then we will figure out what to do.”

Beau didn’t really want to rehash it yet, but she might as well. She didn’t know where to start, really. At the wedding? The chalet? Even though she spoke to Zia almost every day, she had mostly kept her sister in the dark about the Lyon Beau had come to know. She hadn’t known how to talk about falling in love with the man she’d married to save Zia. She hadn’t known how to talk about sex, because it hadn’t felt right to talk about Lyon’s reaction to things. And maybe she didn’t want Zia flying into protective mode when Zia had been carrying so much on her plate. So Beau had been vague about everything.

Now? She told her sister everything. From Lyon’s “steps” to the chalet to the horrible fight with the countess. To Lyon discovering her. In the midst of a panic attack.

“This dinner has been everyone’s focus for weeks,” Beau said. She’d managed to hold back tears, but it was getting harder. “Talked about how important it is for the guests to see a united monarchy. To be fed and wooed and complimented as if that will wash away the poor deeds of the past princes. And maybe it would. Men in power are so very simple. But the moment Lyon saw me... The moment he realized what was happening... He saw what’s wrong with me and then because of that he said I didn’t have to go.”

“He sounds like Father,” Zia said with disgust.

Beau so wished she could agree. “But he’s not. Not in the least.” Maybe that’s why she felt bruised straight through. Maybe that’s why running away didn’t feel right or righteous, just depressing.

She didn’t want to punish Lyon, didn’t want to hurt him. Which added to the depression. “If anything, I’ve fallen into being our mother.”

“Impossible,” Zia said, but it was knee-jerk, she didn’tknow.

“I pretzeled myself to make him happy. I... I made myselfmiserableto make him happy.”

“That’s not quite the same as Mother, Beau,” Zia said gently.

Beau stared at Zia in utter shock. “How can you even try to claim that?”

“Mother...isn’t miserable. I’m not saying she’s happy, but she’s not...trying to make Fatherhappy.”

“She certainly wasn’t attempting to make us or herself happy.”

“No. I think she’s afraid of Father. Of what he’ll do. How he’ll react. She never stood up for us, not because shelovedhim more than us—though I admittedly thought that for a time. But... I’m in love now. Both with my husband, and I have these children whom I love. Mother is all...fear. All that talk of bending and not breaking. She just wants things to be easy and smooth. Love is neither of those things. For good or for ill. It takes...work, compromise. It means losing pieces of your heart to be out of your own control. It’s why it was so easy for her to just...let us be married and then wash her hands of us. It’s easier that way, than to maintain a relationship.”

Beau frowned a little at that. She hadn’t expected love to be easy. No book had ever claimed it would be such. So maybe it’s why it never occurred to her that her mother’s motivation was the path of least resistance, not some passionate love that only extended to her husband and not her children.

“There is a certain give-and-take to love.” Zia looked at her children. “Perhaps it helps that I had them, growing inside of me, long before I consideredlove. If I’d only felt my love for Cristhian, perhaps it would have terrified me to turn into Mother too. But them? Oh, Beau. I’d give them anything. I’d give up anything to make them safe and healthy and happy. And that extends to my husband. So, I can’t believe it’s...wrong to want to make someone happy. There’s something right about that. Somethinglovingabout that.”

“So you think I should go back and be miserable and hide away and—”

Zia put her free hand on Beau’s shoulder. “Not at all. I said giveandtake. Not you giving and him taking. If he thinks because of one little panic attack you’re somehow not worthy of going to dinner, he can sod off forever. That’s onhim. Not you. And it’s nothing at all to do with love.”

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