Page 71 of My Queendom for a Horse

“You’re protesting too much,” he says.

“No, in this day and age, protesting a lot literally means get the hell out.”

He pauses for a second, and the first note of uncertainty I’ve seen enters his tone. “You want to kiss me.”

I’m getting nowhere lying about that. “I do.”

His grin is back.

“But no matter what kind of reaction my body may have around you, my brain makes the decisions for my life, and you’re not part of my future.”

He freezes at that, and then he blinks.

“Sean wants to—”

He swears under his breath. “Not that guy, again.”

“Yes,” I say. “That guy. Again. He and I were in love before and—”

“You don’t love him now,” he practically roars. “And if you so much as—”

“As what? If I so much as do what? Kiss him? Fall for him? Marry him?” I ball my hand into a fist and punch Aleks as hard as I can in the midsection.

Which is a big mistake.

My hand feels like I just hit a brick wall.

“Ow.”

“Why did you do that?” He sighs. “Kristiana, Sean isn’t right for you. He’s—”

“Oh, I know. You’ve said.”

“It’s not just that he’s small and weak and lets you push him around. He’s going to let you sell your family land.”

“I told him to let me,” I say. “It’s my decision.”

“You can’t sell it.” Aleks says that like he knows anything about my life or this modern world.

“You know who says things like that? Dramatic things? Absolutes, like, ‘you can’t sell it’?” I point. “Nobility. Entitled, rich brats. People who have never lived in the real world. Because people like me? People who understand how things work and what life is about?” I shrug.

“You think I don’t know how the world works?” His eyes flash.

“Maybe you did, but your world and my world aren’t the same.” It hits me then, what might get through to him. “You’re the one who convinced me to sell it.”

“I did no such thing,” he says.

“You said that we have to sacrifice what we want for what we need, sometimes. You said you couldn’t help save all those people because if you did, you might lose your ability to protect your people.”

A muscle in Aleks’ jaw pops. “My dad helped those two families, you know. He stepped in and helped them when they asked, when I was just a boy. And then, when he was weakened from helping with their favor, one of Russia’s enemies killed him.”

There’s true pain in his face, and I realize that I’m throwing his words back at him, but it’s not the win I wanted. It just reminded him of an old pain.

“The difference between your situation and mine? You have friends who want to help you not make the sacrifice. You have other options. You’re just doing this to protect your pride, and if I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that pride serves no one. It just ruins lives and leads us to make bad decisions.”

Fury rises inside of me. “You don’t know anything about my life. I’m sorry about your dad—but do you think I wanted my mother to die? Did I want my dad to fall into a bottle and start gambling all the time, just to feel alive? I didn’t want any of it, but that’s what I got. My brother might have held things here together, but he hated our life even more than I did, so he left. Ran away to America and never looked back.”

“They may have failed you, but you have options,” Aleksandr says. “You should let other people help you.”

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