Page 108 of The Dandelion Princess
Père smiles. “That sounds promising. Would you like me to take the boy aside and have a talk?”
I wish somebody would. “It wasn’t like that.”
Père, having disappeared behind the newspaper again, flips a corner down. “Adana, I am not a child to listen to fairy tales.”
“We’re friends. We decided to be friends.”
“A good tactic.”
My mouth is firm. “It’s not a tactic. I admit it. We had kind of a thing…”
Père snorts.
“...but he’s Noah’s best friend. He would never take me seriously.” I shake my head. “It’s over now, and he’s not acting like he’s desperate to have me back.”
“Counterpoint; I saw his hands.” I blush hotly, and he retreats to his paper. “I know a good deal about loving someone you don’t know how to say it to.”
My fingers curl over on the table. Through a crack in a door, I saw how much my father still loves my mother. It was there in the easy way his arm held her around the waist, his whole frame absorbing her fury. I don’t know if they will ever get back to the marriage they once had, but it is as clear as day that my father never left.
I shake my head. “Marc and I— Our lives are complicated.”
“Adana, space is complicated. International diplomacy is complicated. What you were doing—” He slaps his hands together in a glancing blow. The case has been made. It’s finished.
No. What Père witnessed was two friends and an old habit. If Marc wanted me forever, wouldn’t I know?
I’ve been running myself ragged, trying to keep these feelings at bay, and I am tired. When this is all over, I’ll ask Uncle Georg for his private island. I’ll march over the whole of it, wearing a straw hat the size of a small yacht, and curse the day I fell in love with Marc van Heyden. I’ll scrub out the intractable feelings with copious amounts of salt water and beachy cocktails, returning every year until those feelings are so small it would take an electron microscope to see them.
In the meantime, I force a laugh. “Be serious, Père. You know me. Sailing off into the sunset with Marc would make all the wrong people happy.”
Père arches a brow. “You don’t want him because he’s a name on a dreaded marriage list?”
“That’s it.” My cheeks burn with the lie. My mother screamed at her prime minister about my preciousness and I can’t unknow that she loves me, whether I make her happy or not. Still, I try to herd my father away from the truth—that I want Marc too much to accept a chummy, friendly kind of love. “You were caught in an arranged marriage, Père, wedded to a woman you hardly knew and packed off to a country you’d never seen. You would choose differently, I’m sure.”
Père slaps the paper down in a sudden storm of irritation. “I would never have chosen another woman to be my wife. I knew it the moment I stepped off the plane and every day since.”
The details of this meeting have faded into family myth. The grieving young queen, bound by a marriage contract signed by her parents, and an embattled young prince, fleeing his homeland with only his life. My curiosity is piqued. He knew it the moment he arrived?
I lean forward, but Caroline appears in the doorway and dips a curtsey. “Your Royal Highness,” she says, speaking to Père. “Her Majesty requests your presence.”
“What about?”
Caroline flicks a glance at me.
Père waves her off. He brushes my cheek with the back of his hand before he goes. “No matter what happens today,adana, your parents will fight for you.”
Webtoon billionaire shenanigans, even of the always entertaining “oh no, we have to keep each other warm in this narrow bed of dry leaves all night even though I hate you and your impressively sculpted abs” variety, can’t keep my attention. As soon as my father leaves, I open another tab to mySquadRunFriction server, and begin to type.
“Re: Death of a Trash Panda Princess
Dear Squaddies, we’ve had an amazing run but it’s time to hang up my leather flack jacket. Please know that marauding with this rag-tag group of scoundrels and turtle-dads was the best part of my week when I needed it most. Love, TPP.”
Send.
These were only digital connections. I don’t know these people. Not really. Aside from Alix and Linus, I never met them in real life and wouldn’t recognize them if we passed in the street. But they’re the reason I’ve lasted the better part of a decade in the royal fish bowl without going completely insane, and I feel tearful as the connection is cut.
A distant grandfather clock chimes the hour and I take a sharp breath. There is no time to waste. I dive into my email cache, scrolling through Edward’s text messages to find that they contain reminders about interviews, appointments at the spa, and meetings with Girl Trackers groups. I look for patterns and keep every name on a list.
A message pops up on my phone. Marc. “Sent Werner to check hotel logs and restaurant reservations in the Frederickplatz vicinity every Tuesday. There are some names that keep popping up. You might want to crosscheck.”
