He turned away from her, and began to climb the tree. “Well, don’t break your royal neck,” she said.
“I’m not the king here,” he said. “At least so I’ve been told. And my lady wife wants those.”
“Your lady wife has behaved appallingly, and is sorry.”
She didn’t think she had really behaved appallingly, but she did feel bad for not really considering the reality of his life. The weight of what he carried. It didn’t excuse the way he treated her, but it did excuse certain things about him. And even really acknowledging what it all meant for her child to be born into royalty was something.
No wonder he’d wanted a queen who understood.
Circe was likely ready to train a child in the ways of being royal. She was ready to submit a child to that. And Birdie didn’t even know where she fit into all of this.
Maybe his feelings about her were more than snobbery.
But her thoughts were cut off from that when he grabbed the first piece of fruit, and continued on up the tree. He moved with lithe agility, his graceful athleticism a sight to behold. At least that’s what she was telling herself. And not that he was an actual snack, one that she wanted badly to take a bite of. How could she still be aroused by him? It was one thing to respond to his touch. After all, they’d been intimate, and even though she was angry at him it was difficult for her to forget the pleasure that they’d shared together.
But just looking at him made her feel that way.
She was so weak. Weak and exceedingly basic. But what did it matter? She was stuck on this island with him anyway. What did her pride have to do with any of this?
So she watched him. Those thick, muscular thighs, his washboard abs and incredibly powerful biceps.
“You go to the gym every day?”
He looked down from the tree, giving her a strange look while he gathered more fruit. “Often.”
“You’re very athletic.”
“I try to keep myself strong. Like I said, I’m trying to outlast my father. But life is cruel and brutal, and no amount of doing sit-ups every day is going to alleviate that.”
“I know,” she said.
“You do, I suppose. How old were you when your mother died?”
“Seven. She was lovely. At least as far as I remember. I was happy when I was with her. She loved me. You know, we aren’t the same, but I relate to you in this way. For the first seven years of my life, I was allowed to be Birdie. Simply as I am. But ever since my mother died, I’ve had to be something else. I’ve had to dedicate myself to being useful for people who despise me. I had to keep my head down and be invisible in the palace. I don’t really know what it’s like to simply live either.”
“And you won’t now. Because now you’re a queen.” He began to climb down the tree, a bushel of guava cradled in his arm. “And you are required to present a front, as I am.”
“I understand that.”
“I know you do.”
“But perhaps here we don’t. I think that you and I need to find some common ground.”
“We are on it,” he said, looking down between the two of them. Where they stood, barefoot on this rocky soil.
“You know what I mean. I don’t know you. Not really. There were things that I thought I knew about you because I worked for you. I will be very honest with you, I elevated you to a position that no man can live up to. I fashioned you into my perfect fantasy because it gave me something to do. And then I was shocked when you didn’t live up to that.”
“Well, you understand now. Why I reacted to you the way that I did.”
“No,” she said, laughing. “I don’t. You were cruel by any metric. I can’t say that I understand. But I can honestly say now that I shouldn’t have been surprised. I fashioned you into a fantasy, and my fantasy man was going to understand everything that I did. He was going to see my heart. But you aren’t that man. You are hard and—”
“Ignorant and arrogant. Envious, as well, so I have heard.”
“Yes,” she said. “And so now I’ve been very angry at you. But perhaps I need to get to know the man you really are. And you need to get to know the woman that I am. Especially since we’re going to live together.”
“I never got to know Circe.”
She frowned. “Not at all?”
