Page 98 of The Dandelion Princess
“Freja and the baby?” I hazard.
She nods.
I finish tucking in my shirt as I absorb the information. “You won’t resent the choice to stay?”
“Once a month, at least.” She talks as she potters. “It will take some time to settle into the idea. In the meantime, I’m going to make sure Freja and her family are secure,” she says.
I slip my arms around her waist and gather her back to me. We don’t have to break things off. I inhale, arms banding her waist, the scent of her working deeper and deeper into my lungs.“So you’re signing up for the whole royal program? Dress codes, comportment lessons, arranged marriage…”
She breaks the ring of my arms and goes to straighten a stack of books that don’t need straightening. “Yep.”
I lean back on the console, bracing my hands on the smooth wood surface. This is the deal I laid out for us. When we ended things, she’d take it with cool detachment, more secure in her own ability to fulfill the role she was born to play. This has happened exactly as I described it, the runes tumbling from a cup on a lucky roll.
For myself, I wanted peace out of this arrangement. I would finally stop thinking of Ella at wildly inappropriate times and in extremely inappropriate ways. I would get so much of her I’d be sick.
I follow the curve of her cheek, the sprinkle of freckles over the ridge, and the slight pulling around her mouth. I will never be sick of her.
There’s a trace of irritation in my voice. “You’re just going to do everything your mother tells you to?” I ask, frustrated that she’s so calm about this when, for the love of Erasmus’s cap, my frozen bones are screaming.
She answers, a tuck in her brow. “You taught me how to make deals.”
She’s blaming this on me? Suddenly I want her to suffer. I want her to fall to pieces. I want her to be up at 3 AM, wanting me as much as I want her.
She turns, plucking at her lip with her teeth. I kissed her there, too. I’d lean down to kiss her now if her expression wasn’t so earnest. She’s obviously preparing for a monologue.
“I was headed for a disaster,” she says, “after Freja eloped. I was furious and heartbroken and ready to smash the monarchy. I wasn’t talking to anybody. Not really. If you hadn’t come home—” Her chin dips and her glance slides away before she recovers. “I don’t know how you knew I needed this kind of distraction.”
This.Her hands move back and forth between us like we bartered a basket of potatoes for a pound of butter. I’ll never forgive her.
Her hands still. “It was a crazy idea but I needed it. I hate it when you’re right.”
I swallow hard. “I’ll get that admission framed. You can sign it.”
“Deal. Now, are you ready to make this break official?” she asks, raising her hand between us, pinky extended. She straightens her shoulders so there’s no mistake that this is anything casual. “Marc van Heyden, will you be my completely platonic friend?”
It’s not a bad deal. She’ll still come to me with her problems. We’ll text. We’ll talk. Because Ella keeps her promises, I know it will last forever.
It’s not enough. Before all this, I was stuck in the narrow channels of duty—always choosing the right but slowly suffocating. Does she even know what it feels like to pull her into my arms and experience all that heaviness falling away?Dominanstid, I answered emails from her closet. I broke her out of the palace. I’ve been sneaking up the Grand Staircase and lying to my best friend’s face and having more fun than I’ve ever had in my life.
“Marc,” she prods, poking my hand with her pinky.
She isn’t running away from Sondmark. There’s got to be a way to work with that. I wrap my finger around hers, and seal it with the press of our thumbs. Friends forever. Promise.
“Okay,” she says, brushing her hands against each other now that the oath is made. I don’t know how to say goodbye anymore without a tangle of hands, a tug on my tie, and one last kiss, butshe walks to her door and turns the handle. “I guess I’ll be seeing you?”
Do we have to learn how to do this again, reversing our way out of weeks of intimacy and easy affection? Mechanically I pass through the door and down the staircase like I’m on my way to be hanged for crimes against the Crown. The pavement is slick with a spring shower, and I’m halfway to the car park before I come to myself. No. Hell no. Hell. No. I double back, but my pace is arrested at the sound of my name.
“Marc—”
I smother a curse and turn to see Noah emerging from one of the trails ringing the royal estate, hands stuffed into his pockets.
I grip my keys and close my eyes briefly. I jog over and his well-trained dog—a biscuit-colored hound of indeterminate breed—waits for me to greet him before nuzzling my hand with a wet nose.
“What brings you to the palace?” he asks.
“I saw the interview. I thought—”
He drops a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry you didn’t make it in. I gave orders toVrouwTiele to keep everyone away from the admin wing. It’s been a firestorm.” I follow Noah to the west lawn. “We worry that the government will use this incident as an excuse to wrestle more power from the Crown, but the upside is that we don’t have to figure out how to integrate Oskar as a working royal. And there’ll be a baby. I love babies.”
