Page 114 of Fake Fae-Ancée

"Oh," I said, the papers loose in my hand.

"So we're not divorced," I added after a long while during which my tired brain had tried to connect the information into one coherent whole.

"Unless you want us to be." Yuri let go of my hand, scratching his neck again. His eyes darted here and there. Suddenly he looked very nervous.

Another long moment passed.

"Do you want us to?"

"What, be divorced?" I asked. My own voice sounded foreign to my ears.

He nodded.

"You?" I asked.

"McKenn, you should know me better than that," he snorted. "I would have given up my damn throne even if the papers had already ended up with the lawyer. That's not my point. There's no one I want to be with but you. It's always been you. The only thing I want to do with those damn papers is shred them. So no, I don’t want us to be divorced."

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but faltered and bit his lip.

I sighed. "I don't want that either."

He blinked at me. He blinked again.

"Is that a no?"

I nodded.

"You don't want to file the papers?"

I shook my head.

"Huh? Sorry, this is too confusing." Yuri scrunched up his face, waving his hands through the air. "What do you want?"

I frowned.

And then I tore up the papers. I tore them once through the middle, then twice, once more, and more and more. I threw the snippets in the air, because fuck it, dramatic effects have to be created sometimes.

Yuri stared at me while white paper snippets snowed down on us.

"I've never been so happy to get a no from you."

He pulled me close and I rushed toward him and we crashed into each other, bruising our lips in a laughing kiss.

And just as we sank into each other, the endorphins in my brain taking over and the bed crunching dramatically beneath us, so fierce we fell into the pillows, there was a knock at the door.

"Hey!" boomed Claudio from outside. "It's none of my business what you're doing in there, so just FYI: Pasta's ready. End of announcement."

Shuffling footsteps moved away from the door.

Breathless, I broke away from Yuri.

"What the hell is Claudio doing here?"

"Oh, he let me in." Yuri shifted me in his embrace and grinned. "Has a spare key, you know. He wasn't thrilled to see me. But he basically roots for us, so he listened to reason and supported my cause when I showed up."

I gulped, red-hot mortification shooting to my face.

"He was here the entire time??"

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