Page 51 of Twelve Nights In The Prince's Bed

Poppy’s face drained of colour. ‘I’m very sorry if you thought there was any potential for that. This job is important to me. Adrastos always knew I’d be leaving after the holidays.’ She offered a tight smile. ‘We would have preferred to keep our relationship private, but once those photos were printed—’

‘Yes.’ Clementine winced. ‘Pesky invasive shutterbugs.’

‘The important thing to understand,’ Poppy continued with the lines she’d rehearsed, ‘is that Adrastos and I have the deepest respect for one another. We’re...friends, and always will be. But that’s all.’

Poppy left the room a moment later, eyes closed, lungs hurting with the force of her breathing, but Clementine was right behind her.

‘Poppy, my darling girl, just wait a moment.’

Poppy stopped walking, forced a smile, then turned.

‘I just need to know one thing before you leave.’

Poppy nodded, thinking longingly of the limousine that would spirit her away from the palace.

‘If you love Adrastos as I think you do, then why can’t you find a way to make this work?’

Poppy stared at the Queen, pain lancing her. ‘Your Majesty...’ she murmured, shaking her head.

Clementine waited with the appearance of kindly patience.

‘I care for Adrastos deeply, but we’re not in love.’ She spoke truthfully. After all, that was a mutual state, and her love was entirely one-sided.

The Queen’s voice was soft. ‘I’ve seen the two of you together. I’ve seen the changes in him, in just these few days. You’re good for him, and I think he’s good for you, too. Why on earth would you both let that go?’

‘My job—’

‘Is a vocation, and I understand, with you, it is also a calling, but this is yourlife,my darling. I swore at your mother’s funeral that I would stand in her stead, that I would love and advise you as I would my own daughter, and I hope I’ve always done so. I hope you know how I feel about you. But this is a mistake, and I cannot let you go without expressing that.’

Poppy’s tummy squeezed. ‘With respect, you’re mistaken. Adrastos and I are not as well suited as you think.’ She reached out and squeezed Clementine’s hand. ‘Please, don’t worry about either of us. I’m looking forward to the challenges of my job,’ she murmured, truthfully, ‘and Adrastos will probably have forgotten all about me by nightfall,’ she added, lifting her eyes heavenward in an attempt at humour that she was very far from feeling.

Adrastos was so deep into the woods, another man might have feared he’d never get out, but not Adrastos. He had every faith in his abilities, but, failing that, he wasn’t sure he particularly cared. He stood in the centre of the woods and stared up at the leaden sky, at the snow that was falling around him, and pushed himself not to think, not to listen. He didn’t want to hear the car pull out from the palace, he didn’t want to think about Poppy ensconced in the back seat, being driven—where, exactly? To her apartment to pack more things? Or straight on to the airport? He didn’t want to think about her flight taking off, about her physically being in another country. He didn’t want to think about all the things he’d so blithely rolled off to her that morning—her life post Adrastos. His hopes for her future.

They were all genuine, but this morning, they’d also been somewhat academic. Easier to discuss because the reality of that life had been at least five days away, five days Adrastos had intended to spend buried inside Poppy, holding her, making her laugh and burrowing deep into her secrets to understand every single part of her. He’d thought they hadtime, five days. It might not have seemed like much, but when you spent your time as intensely as they did, five days had seemed like almost enough.

Almost?

He ground his teeth, pushed on, deeper into the forest, through trees that grew thick and gnarled with age.

It had to have been enough. It would have been enough. But instead, she’d thrown her departure at him like a bomb and simply...left. Disappeared.

He would also leave tonight. He didn’t want to be here without her. He didn’t particularly want to face his parents or sister, or the void Poppy would leave—another absence in their lives, like Nicholas’s. He ground his teeth, walked faster, harder, uncaring for the snow that began to fall heavier, his footsteps that became buried. He had waypoints to navigate this forest and knew he’d be safe. Safer here, he suspected, than out there, where he had to deal with the fallout of their pretence—without Poppy by his side. She’d never be there again.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BUTITWASno use. She was here too, in his home in the capital, in the kitchen, palms curved around a teacup as she begged him to go along with her ill-conceived ruse. She was in the air, in his mind, her fragrance lingering in some of his clothes, her touch like a phantom against his skin, so if he closed his eyes and imagined hard enough maybe, just maybe she would appear?

She didn’t. He went to bed that night and woke reaching for her, his mind not cooperating with reality, making him forget, so he woke with the happiness of a man who got to reach out and grab hold of a woman with the power to make the world shimmer gold.

Reality though banged into him at the moment his fingertips scraped empty, cold sheets, an unrumpled side of the bed, Poppy’s absence.

The fib had given Poppy some breathing space. She would leave the country on the sixth, as planned, and until then she could hide away in her apartment, licking her wounds, bracing herself for the magnitude of work required of her, for the post-Adrastos life she had to step into.

There was a lot to do, in any event. She had found someone to lease her apartment, so she busied herself with packing up personal items, boxing some for storage and others to ship to her new home. She didn’t like to think about that. Beyond Adrastos, there was a lot in Stomland she would miss like crazy, chiefly, Ellie, and the King and Queen.

When she’d been put forward for this promotion, Poppy had consoled herself that she would come back often to see the family, that she’d take all her vacations here, so it would almost be as though she hadn’t left. But the palace was tainted now, a poisoned chalice. How could she go there? She’d half be hoping to see Adrastos and half desperately hoping he was anywhere else.

Poppy squeezed her eyes shut as another wave of tears crashed down her cheeks. It had been like this for the three days since leaving the palace. She would be busily doing something, like an automaton, working away, and then a memory or feeling would spark and she’d be crying, paralysed and unable to do anything until the grief began to recede. Sometimes that took ten minutes, other times, hours. Poppy was not in control, she just had to let the feelings wash over her.

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