Page 102 of The Dandelion Princess
She aims a nearly identical look at me when he goes. “Sorry,” she says, pouring out a glass of wine and handing it to me. She pours a small measure for herself and settles into the cornerof the sofa, one bare foot tucked under her, the other swinging to the ground. “I don’t think he has any real friends,” she continues, describing one of the revered founding members of our squad. Dragonslayer2 is a legend.
“He won’t tell anyone you were here,” she assures me. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Caroline is no one’s idea of a soulmate, but I don’t have a better option. I close my eyes. “I did a deal with Marc van Heyden but I cut it off and now I’m dead inside and sure I’ll be alone until I die.”
“Deal?” She zeroes in on the most important word and a shudder rolls across my shoulders. Caroline can be terrifyingly like my mother.
“It was like a…a friends-with-benefits thing.” Ugh. Putting it into words is a nightmare. “Just kissing. Anyway, if my future is here in Sondmark, I have to start building it in healthy ways. I can’t do that with a man who isn’t going to choose me.”
“Here’s to wise choices,” she says, tipping her glass against mine with a clink. “You’re celebrating by getting drunk at my flat?”
I scowl. “I fell in love with him—”
“Again?”
“How much do you know?” I shake my head. “Yes, again. It’s the whole wheel of cheese this time, but the second his lips aren’t on mine, he’s like, ‘You’re the best. You’re such a great friend. Let’s play catch.’” I sock Caroline in the arm and she takes it pretty well. “I don’t feel friendly.”
“Maybe you’re just caught in an old habit,” she ventures. “Have you tried dating anyone else?”
“Every time I do date some guy I find myself really irritated because I have to explain my ramen order and carry around Vestfyn because he doesn’t keep a dedicated fridge in his office for me, even though he hates it.” I faceplant into a downy pillow,my words muffled. “How long am I going to be mad that no one else kisses me like he does?”
“He’s a good kisser?” Caroline asks.
I lift my head. “When I tell you how good,” I say, touching the tips of my fingers in the same Pavian gesture Noah uses.
Caroline glances away and my gesture dissolves. “The future Mister Duchess of Sorstorm, if such a man exists, will just be some guy on a list—some low-rent, spreadsheet version of what I really want—and I hate him.” I take a too-large swallow from my glass. I don’t have any more tears.
Caroline watches me for a long time, and finally she takes a breath. “People always call it a spreadsheet,” she murmurs, “when it’s more of a series of alphabetized summaries, arranged by rank. I could get them for you. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
The side-eye I give her could shift the earth off its axis, but she laughs.
I was expecting homespun advice and a call to rectitude. Instead, we talk. I leaf through her paperback collection, heavy on romance, and recommend a few Seongan dramas. I fish for information and discover that her whole family lives upstairs. I reveal just how long this thing with Marc has gone on, and she admits that her social life is limited to a Vorburgian diplomat who looks her up now and then.
“When he’s in town?” My brow cocks. “What is this? Are you a side piece?”
Her hand tips in a seesaw motion. “I think he’s trying to sort out whether or not a Sondish royal secretary is a benefit to his career or not.”
“He sounds like a drip.”
For a moment the ladylike, professional facade drops away and a laugh lights up her face. In the next heartbeat sheremembers herself and twitches the neat net curtains of her soul back into place.
At midnight, she drives me back to the palace, completely sober in contrast to my slight tipsiness. There’s too much time stretching ahead of me and I’m thinking very seriously of crying myself to sleep or perishing from a broken heart like a character stuck inside a 19th century book.
Well, the ones turned into graphic novels, anyway.
“You can come again,” Caroline says, standing in the doorway of my suite, watching as I fumble my way out of shoes and hoodie. “Anytime you need to hit the sauce.”
I grin. “You saved me from public humiliation, Caro.” A night in a bar wouldn’t have stopped at two glasses of wine and a sip ofhjemmebrændt. “It’s good to know one of us has some sense when it comes to love. Thanks.”
She leaves me to a night of dead ends and spiralling reflections, the beginning of a mourning period for my love of Marc van Heyden. I wake to the pounding of the door.Vede, thehjemmebrændthas a kick. I flail blindly, finding a button under my bedside table, and press it before I think. I sink into the pillow and wait for death.
“Good morning,elskede.” Marc bends over me, sun shafting across his hair, kissing his dewy skin.
I scowl against his easy endearment—and then yelp. Our deal is over, and Marc is in my bedroom. I bolt upright, gathering a down coverlet up to my chin.
“How did you get here?”
He leans forward, and I scoot back, winding the wild hair away from my face. The sleeves of my oversizedMermaid in Moonlightt-shirt fall back, and I feel his gaze warm my skin.
