Page 19 of Guarding the Princess
“Really? You tell me you won’t go back and you think I’m not going to keep an eye on all the ways in and out of your apartment building for when you run away? You had no trouble keeping your identity from your best friend for almost three years. I’m sure you could do it all over again in another city. Now I ask again, what do you think you’re doing?”
Fire sparks in her eyes, the shock of being caught draining away as the seconds tick by. “What does it look like?”
I grit my teeth so hard I fear I’ll break something. “Looks to me like you’re running away from responsibility again.”
Her face twists, the serene expression she normally wears turning fierce. “You have no idea the responsibilities I’ve taken on in my life. If I want to choose to go in a different direction, I should have the right to do so. It’s my life.” She stabs a finger into her own chest, driving home her point.
“Oh, I’m sorry. That’s so rough, expected to be a queen with staff waiting on you hand and foot. What was I thinking?” My anger finds a new home in sarcasm.
Charlotte pulls herself up to her full height in her chair, her nose lifted, and eyes sparkling like diamond-cut glass. “You have no idea what you speak of. My brother lost his life because of it and yet you sit here and mock me.”
I’m about to respond, still fueled by anger over her recklessness—and yes, because she tried to leave me by running away—when her words hit me.
“Your brother?”
Her chest is rising and falling rapidly now, the tears back in her eyes. This time she refuses to hide them, staring me down as if daring me to attack her.
“Yes, my brother. My older brother. Born three years before me. Rightful heir to the throne.”
“What’s his name?” I don’t recall seeing anything on the internet about a brother.
“His namewasRasmus.”
And just like that, all the anger and fear leaves my body. There are more secrets to this girl than locks at Fort Knox.
“Tell me about him?” I ask gently.
She swipes a solitary tear from her cheek and focuses on something in the distance. “He was supposed to be King. We both knew our place, having been taught to be royalty from before we can remember. He begged my parents to let him have a few years abroad to ‘sow his wild oats’ before he became King. They said absolutely not, which created arguments I still remember to this day. I used to go to sleep at night listening to them arguing about it. One day I woke up and the whole place was overrun by the palace guards. Come to find out, he’d run away. We didn’t hear from him until he got to America, that’s how good he was. He’d obviously planned it all out for a very long time.”
We enter a tunnel and the harsh yellow lights that flood the bus highlight the lines under her eyes. The obvious fatigue from her night and from retelling this story is written on her face.
“My parents were furious. They had to announce he’d taken a sabbatical, like the whole plan had their blessing. I heard them talking to him on the phone one night after he’d been gone a month and begged them to let me talk to him. I missed my brother, you see. He told me over and over how much he loved me, which I thought was weird at the time. Lovely, but odd. We were affectionate as children, but never taught to wear our emotions on our sleeves so his repeated declaration made me a little uncomfortable.”
Her chin wobbles and my heart sinks. This isn’t one of those stories that has a happy ending. I can feel it.
“He killed himself the next day.” Her face crumples, her hands coming up to attempt to cover her obvious devastation.
Just like last night, I can’t help myself. She needs comfort and I’m all too happy to be the one to give it to her. I pull her into my arms, letting her hide her face in my chest. Sobs wrack her body for several miles of road out of Los Angeles. She sniffles into my shirt and I don’t even care that she’s ruining it, her mascara surely staining it. A thought pops into my head and I bat it aside, needing to focus on the more important matter at hand.
“I’m so sorry, Charlotte,” I whisper into the wispy hairs on top of her head. “How long ago was this?”
She hiccups. “Almost four years ago. Mom and Dad were devastated, or at least that’s what they told me.” She sits up, but I don’t take my hands off her, needing to touch her more than she needs my hug. “They told the public he had a successful new life abroad and abdicated the throne to me. Anyone who knew the truth was sworn to secrecy. Like they were ashamed of him.” She shakes her head. “I’ll never forgive them for that.”
“So, all that responsibility is now on your head. You’re the only heir left.”
I’m beginning to see why she doesn’t want to return. It’s not as simple as becoming Queen and everything is dandy. She’d be returning to parents she’s not happy with and facing the memories she has of her brother. She’d be leaving one lie and returning to another.
She shrugs, a faint smile gracing her lips, in direct opposition to the tear-stained cheeks. “I have a cousin, Magnus, who could take the throne. He’s a jerk face, but it could work.”
My lips twitch. “Jerk face?”
Her smile grows. “I have worse names I call him in Swedish.”
I would do anything to see that smile. So much so I divulge my own secret. “You know my brother plays baseball, right?”
She tilts her head, that long blonde hair lying across my bicep. “Yes. Max Duke, right?”
“That’s right.” I’m inordinately pleased she remembers. “We were best of friends growing up. I looked up to my big brother like he controlled the universe. And then we started to grow up and he was good at sports. Like crazy good. Trophies everywhere, he won a scholarship to college, got signed to the major leagues before he graduated. He became so big I had no choice but to live in his shadow. I began to resent him. I pulled away to figure myself out and I know that hurt him.”
