Page 34 of Prince She Shouldn't Crave
‘What does Cilla want?’ Gabe muttered. ‘And why issheawake right now?’
Gabe opened the text, and his phone read it aloud to him.
OMG Gabe. Exclamation mark. His Royal Hotness. I told you Lena’s the best. Exclamation mark. Call me when you’re awake.
That was strange. Why would he want his phone to read out a message?
Gabe took a deep breath in. Let a slow breath out.
‘Did they really call me His Royal Hotness?’ he asked, incredulous.
‘Yes,’ Lena said, sitting up. Looking down at him. Something niggling at her.
Gabriel began to chuckle, then laugh. ‘None of this is real. It’s ridiculous.’
‘Your phone. It read that text message to you,’ she said. ‘Is that what you do when you don’t have your glasses? Is your sight that bad?’
She found it hard to believe. He did most things without issue. Kicked a ball into the back of a net just fine. Maybe it was just a problem with reading and not long distance… Except Gabe had suddenly stopped laughing, as if the sound had been cut off. He sat up himself. Scrubbed his hands over his face. His palms scratching over his morning stubble. He put down his own phone. Took her hands in his. Looked at her. His face serious.
‘My phone reads my messages because I have trouble reading them. I have dyslexia.’
Gabe didn’t know why he revealed it at this point, only that he wanted honesty, because she’d been honest with him the night before. She’d told him about her virginity when she hadn’t needed to say anything at all. And this morning she’d asked. He wouldn’t lie. Not to her.
‘Who knows?’ Lena asked.
‘My family. Pieter. My private secretary…’
She dropped her head, looked at where their hands were joined.
‘So, the glasses?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. Meaning it. ‘Not real. They have plain glass, not prescription lenses. They’re a ruse. A deflection.’
‘And your earbuds. Do you listen to music?’
‘Occasionally. Mainly they’re for listening to documents. I have a screen reader too.’
His heart rate kicked up a notch. What did she think of him on learning this? That he’d kept it hidden from her. He remembered when the word was first mentioned to his parents. Their thin-lipped, stony expressions. Yet he didn’t see that with her…
Lena frowned. ‘Do you have any ability to…?’
‘Yes. But it takes time. When I’m stressed, or trying to do things in a hurry, it’s not as easy for me. I use aids to simplify things.’
She pulled her hands away from his. Put her phone on the bedside table. He felt as though there was a distance growing between them and he craved the closeness again. Lena fixed him with her assessing gaze. Cocked her head.
‘Why haven’t you told anyone?’
Wasn’t that the question? His parents had been the ones who thought it should be kept quiet. That people might wonder about his ability to rule, given he was still quite young with no track record. They had claimed it might cause unnecessary concern to the Halrovian people. Even though the doctor said there were numerous scions of business with the condition. Then his ex-girlfriend had happened, and the secrecy over his diagnosis had seemed to increase.
He’d wondered, much later, whether one of the real reasons was it would ruin the illusion of their family’s perfection…
‘I was diagnosed quite late. In my teens. People thought I was lazy at school. It turns out that wasn’t the issue at all. Back then it was the decision of my parents and their advisors.’
Lena reached out and placed her hand on his forearm. Squeezed. He relished that small touch. ‘This is exactly the kind of authenticity people want to see from you. Why did your parents hide it? Were they ashamed?’
He shook his head in vehement denial, even though a kind of uncertainty pricked inside him.
‘No. Not ashamed…’ Though they’d never really said anything much. Were they embarrassed? It was a reasonable explanation for why they didn’t want him studying. Then there was the question of why they’d wanted his diagnosis buried so deeply. Deeply enough to give a manipulative, untrustworthy man a position of advisor of state, to keep his daughter quiet. ‘They believed I should establish myself in my role, show I could “do the job”, so to speak. Then it became something we never really talked about.’
