Page 34 of The Bodyguard

I will remain unmarried but every night that I am queen, I will offer my body to Kayne Langley and let him take whatever part of me he wants. Until the night he takes my virginity. That would be the night he accepts I belong to him.

He owns me.

Every part of me whether he wants to or not. Nothing will change for me.

~~~***~~~

Sophia

I’m back at looking at myself in the mirror. It’s early morning now. After taking a shower and crawling into bed, I had partly a deep sleep and partly a restless one. I kept feeling him touching me, only to wake up alone.

But this morning I’m fresh-faced. Dressed in a pale blue skirt and jacket suit. My hair is pulled back into a neat bun, my makeup just the right amount.

I am fully dressed by the time Cadelyn comes in with my coffee and a croissant.

I don’t have the appetite to eat but I drink half a cup of coffee before I first visit Lia and then go in search of my father.

He’ll be sipping his coffee in the sunroom, reading the news on an electronic device although he prefers the old-fashioned newspapers which are still delivered at the first sight of light despite the stack being smaller now.

He rises from his chair when he sees me. I smile. My mother gave him that paisley gown. He hates it, says it’s too slippery against his skin but since she died he wears it every day and his valet makes sure it's freshly laundered each day too.

He looks older. But then so do I.

“Sophia.” He hugs me tightly, too long, and my suspicion that something else is bothering him ripens.

“What’s wrong dad?” I ask seriously. I want him to talk to me, to confide in me. If it’s about Neil Johnsen; I will never refer to him as uncle ever again, then I’m here to listen to him. Or there isn’t a matter of state I won’t be able to understand or help with by offering suggestions. But something tells me it’s beyond Neil Johnsen. It concerns our country. My tummy does a flip. The coffee seems to slosh through my veins making me nauseous.

“Tell me, dad,” I say forcefully.

“Sit,” he says warily. My legs are shaking as I take a seat next to him on the sofa.

He takes my hand and starts talking. With every word he speaks I sink deeper in a pit of despair, the bottom filled with tar.

Tears roll down my eyes because it’s not as straightforward as I thought it was going to be. My father can’t just rewrite history and make me queen. He hasn’t done so not because he was the traditionalist he steadfastly claimed to be; that was just a cover-up for the truth.

My tears are nothing compared to my father’s. He’s begging me to save the Alexsen name from disgrace and ruin.

There is no way out of this for me. No choice to be had. I have to sacrifice myself for my country.

I’ll have to marry Roger Thompson.

The finality of that thought drains me completely.

An echo in my head softly murmurs Kayne’s name.

---