Page 52 of Royal Bosshole

I knew my day of reckoning would come, but I still hadn’t prepared for all this. I still wasn’t ready for the twin looks of betrayal they gave me.

“Yes to both.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry for not telling you. I just couldn’t.”

“But why did Stevie know and not me?” April asked true hurt in her eyes. “About the music, I mean. Your songs are incredible. I’m obsessed with you.” She started laughing then, even though tears fell down her cheeks.

I blushed. “Thank you. I’m so glad. I was just so embarrassed, you know, about how pitiful my life had become. I couldn’t bear for you guys to know about all that. And then, when I found out about the princess thing, I just—I don’t know.”

“Okay, why don’t you start from the beginning?” Stevie said kindly.

She’d come around the side of the counter and give me a half hug. After a few deep breaths, I told them the whole story and about what James had asked me to do. I talked about my grandmother and how she’d only wanted me to know after I turned twenty-six. At the end of it, I noticed that Stevie had pushed a glass of wine into my hand.

“Fuck,” April said. “That’s a whole lot of shit.”

“Yep,” I said. “It is.”

“So,” Stevie answered, tapping her fingers on the table. “Just one thing. Are you in love with him?”

What was the point of hiding any longer?

“Yep,” I said and then burst into tears.

* * *

JAMES

“How were the meetings today, son?” my father asked when I came into his sick room.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You were supposed to be sleeping. I was just coming in to check on you.”

The beeping sound of the heart monitor filled his bedroom; it was a sound I’d gotten used to over the past two months. My father’s condition was worsening, but it seemed like he was holding on for me. Waiting for something to happen. Even though that something was going to be the annexation of our country. I’d been in meetings for weeks discussing all the logistics. The timer was still ticking down, as my father and Gerald kept reminding me. As in there was still time to marry the lost princess.

But I kept telling them every time that it wasn’t going to happen. That Lily didn’t love me, and I hadn’t heard from her since. I was not going to try and force her into the marriage.

“I’ll be getting plenty of sleep soon. Come and sit by me.” He weakly motioned to the chair next to him, and I sunk into it, pulling at my tie.

“You look tired,” he croaked.

“Yes, I am. Very tired. Very busy. But that’s a good thing. Busy means…”

Busy means I don’t think about her or dream about her or wish she was here beside me.

“Busy means you don’t have to deal with what you left behind in the US, James. How’s Lily?”

I looked down at my hands, annoyed that he knew me so well. The man was on the brink of death, and yet he still could remind me of the woman I loved, who I’d left.

“She’s great, it seems. Doing well. And her music is taking off. The coffeeshop is doing well too. She’s a certified competitor of Coffee on the Go, and Peter is now a certified daily customer of Charlotte’s Coffee Shop.”

He laughed, but it was more like a wheezing. My heart flipped, and I reached out for his arm.

“Are you all right?”

“Don’t you worry about me, boy. I worry about you. I don’t know why you don’t just call her. See how things are. She probably has cooled off by now. I knew that if I just gave your mother some space after she’d been angry with me, then we could talk again. Talk it all out.”

“I know, Father.” I had heard this over and over. “But we’re not you and Mom. She doesn’t love me; I told you.”

“Did you tell her you loved her?”

I paused. This was a question he’d not asked yet in all the two months I’d been home. I was afraid of the day he would because I knew what he’d say back. He would call me a fool and try to convince me to go back.

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